Hi everybody, i'm back from the beyond. I was wondering what your favorite movie/s were. Today I saw Koyaanisqatsi in an art museum theatre, and was blown away. Do you know what i'm talkin about? If you only see one movie for the rest of your life, this is the one i recommend. It has actually changed people's lives. It is most impressive on a good sound system, as the soundtrack is a key piece of the experience; it has no dialogue, no plot. This movie is really SOMETHING. Epic. I could call it The Movie now; all other movies are likened to dust particles floating in the brilliance of the light which is this movie.

Others would be Box of Moonlight, Breakin', The 13th Warrior, The Professional, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, 2001, all Star Wars, all Jim Carrey movies, most Cheech and Chong, Tron...

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 29, 2000

Answers

Well, well, well, just waltz in a few months later, heheh. Welcome back Stonce, missed your posts, funny, thought there would be a war flick in there...

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), July 29, 2000.

uh-oh, i'm not gonna get the 3rd degree from you now, am i Barb? Glad to hear i was missed; that you care. I'm still on a high from this movie, Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi word for "life out of balance", or literal translation: crazy life (the prominant way of life on this planet right now)): it's monumentally powerful. It gave me a transcendental experience. It's like Fon insofar as it's open for interpretation by the experiencer. Came out in '82, out of print on video, although they're planning to rerelease it in the future. Copies on e-bay go for over $100.

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 29, 2000.

Damn if he's not making me want to see this movie, (that I know I will never remember the name of to find), ok, so who's the director? Oh, BTW did you know that, (polishing nails) Peter Chung came to our site? oh yah, he just like, dropped by, chatted with us all numerous times, and then had to fly off to Korea, and that now the forum is like, how can I explain, I suppose we should all be lighting up cigs or something, puffing in the dark, you know?

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), July 30, 2000.

It made Aeonfluxfan learn how to spell, tells you how monumental an occasion it was right there.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), July 30, 2000.

presented by Francis Ford Coppola, produced and directed by Godfrey Reggio, music by Philip Glass. www.koyaanisqatsi.com. Yeah, i did drop by a few times whilst Peter Chung was here, but had nothing i wanted to ask, oh well.

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 30, 2000.

fyi, it's pronounced koy-yah-nee-skotsee (in case anyone goes looking for it)

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 30, 2000.

Hey, Stonce is back! I tells ya, just when you think the forum is dying down, it springs back to life again. Stonce, I can see you have eclectic tastes in movies... your list makes me want to compile one of my own, once I've refreshed my viewing memories, that is. Until then, may I humbly recommend a little 1992 film called Baraka: I've never seen anything like it, but people say it's similar to Koyaanisqatsi. All I know is, it blew me away! btw, TNT is showing Tron later tonight; I'll set my VCR.

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), July 30, 2000.

Paul, i've just heard of Baraka earlier today through researching Koyaanisqatsi, and learned that the director of Baraka, Ron Fricke, was the director of photography for Koyaanisqatsi. There's also a sequel to Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, which is the second installment in a planned qatsi trilogy. The third installment is in need of funding at present. I'm gonna have to check Baraka out i think.

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 30, 2000.

That movie is drawing my curiousity, I'll have to look it up. Anyway, my favorites are (in no particular order): "The Fifth Element" (more for its audiovisual magnitude than its writing), "The Professional" (wonderful acting and tension, the young Natalie Portman is amazing), "The Birds" (I like Hitchcock on the one hand, and on the other it's very frightening in a goofy and funny sort of way), "The Last Emperor (director's cut)" (The only 3-hour movie I can think of that never loses my short attention span. Every scene is beautiful), "Ghost in the Shell" (some of its scenes combine music and visuals so perfectly that they give me a near-zen experience, plus the ideas on cybernetics are interesting), "The Pillow Book" (has a very unusual style, is delightfully multilingual, and tells a great personal story), anything by David Fincher ("Fight Club", "The Game", "Seven" - His style can range from subtle to flashy, and is always chilling to watch. From a technical aspect, I think his films are perfectly constructed), "Strange Days" (I like the characters, plus it's a decent action movie), "THX-1138" (It really is a "movie from the future", and it shows George Lucas can be more conceptually daring than "Star Wars"), "Edward Scissorhands" (Tim Burton is a great director, he captures that certain something about suburban life and somehow mixes it with a darker, more serious and dramatic undercurrent). Whew. There are plenty more, I'm sure. But those are the ones I can think of now.

-- Matthew Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), July 30, 2000.

i should have included The Fifth Element in my list, also Evil Dead II, Predator, Die Hard, The Hobbit, Transformers the movie. I gave the wrong url for Koyaanisqatsi, it's www.koyaanisqatsi.org/, sorry bout that.

-- stonce anomi (neobe@kscable.com), July 30, 2000.

I finally got to see Tron last night, that movie was visually beautiful, Metropolis with the Georgio Moroder score is a fav of mine, Beauty and the Beast by John Cocteau, La Strada by Fellini, Bell Book and Candle, Compulsion, Cleopatra, The Sandpiper, The World of Susie Wan, and an odd made for tv movie for A&E called Red Wind, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), July 30, 2000.

orlando is the movie I most enjoy watching

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), July 31, 2000.

Barb!!!!! i can spell! i just choose not to! hehe.....Hum some of my faves are Labyrinth, the linguini incident, basquiat?, Drop dead fred, Fith Element, Matrix, End Of Days, Gladiator, The last unicorn, The Hobbit, Tron, Logans Run? hum, Iria, the frog and the toad?...heh and that's all i can think of humm.

-- Lady Morgan (Aeonfluxfan1@aol.com), July 31, 2000.

Orlando! YES! That's gotta be one of my all-time favorites, and I'd recommend it to any Aeon fan, it's very stylized and open to different interpretations. Not familiar with the book, tho... anyway, some of my other faves are Pump Up The Volume, Bottle Rocket, Army of Darkness, Liquid Sky, Motorama, The Delicate Art of the Rifle, Dark Star, Videodrome, Our Man Flint, Paperhouse, Do The Right Thing, Trainspotting and A Taxing Woman's Return! Whew...

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 01, 2000.

Oh yeah, and Blade Runner, Lost Highway, Dune, Princess Mononoke, Thesis, The Untouchables, and most Peter Jackson films. Fave bad movie directors: Albert Pyun and Donald G. Jackson (he of Frogtown fame).

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 02, 2000.

Wanted to add to the list a copy of Peter Chungs list which starts with his filmmaking idols;"Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luis Bonuel, Alan Resnais, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Nagisa Oshima, Kihachi Okamoto, David Memet, Anthony Mann, David Lynch, Jean-Luc-Godard, Akira Kurusawa, Orson Wells, Frederico Fellini, BertrandTavernier, Vincente Minnelli, David Lean. Special Mention to these films; Leave her to Heaven (John Stahl) Branded to kill (Suzuki Seijun) Deaths in Tokimeki (Yoshimitsu Morita) Toeis's Scorpion series of the 70's, (Shunya Ito) Les Enfants Terrible (Jean-Pierre Melville) Umberto D (Vittorio De Sica) L'Argent (Robert Bresson) The thin red line (Terene Malich). Guilty Pleasures: The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis) The opposite sex (David Miller) Casino Royale, Barbarella (Roger Vadim) Esther Williams musicals, the Phantom Menace, George L." I wanted to add these in case anyone wants to see them again without looking all over the forum, and I think it's interesting to see the list of the creator of Aeon, naturally.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), August 02, 2000.

Today I viewed "Barbarella" and "Orlando". I hadn't seen "Barbarella" in a long time and thought I'd take another look. The music was very cool and groovy at times, and a lot of the costume designs were really inventive and progressive for the times, I think. I can see how the designs of this movie might have influenced the designs of Aeon Flux somehow, both seem to exude an almost silly, blatant sexuality. Some of the dialogue was twisty and witty in way not unlike that of Aeon Flux. The modern sex scene was really funny; in retrospect it was a lot like making popcorn (watch it, you'll see what I mean :). As for "Orlando", all this talk about it made me go out and rent it. It's an incredibly interesting movie, and I'm going to watch it a second time soon to try and glean a little more from it. One thing I did like about it was how it dealt with gender. When the lead character was a man, I thought him rather womanly. When it was a woman I sometimes thought of her more as a man. In the end, it represents perfectly, I think, my own ideas about the male and female situations. I think men and women are alike and are differentiated only by their membership in the "male" group or the "female" group, much like the difference between people of one country and the people of another. This film showed that perfectly. I also liked the music, and the Elizabethan-era style was great, one of my favorite eras as far as aesthetics.

-- Matthew Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), August 03, 2000.

I view Orlando more as a critique of fashion through out the centuries, it has so many more layers, but I still smile at the humour.

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), August 04, 2000.

After viewing "Orlando" three times now, I think I can consider among my favorites. Another I forgot to mention is "Being John Malkovich". It's an incredibly inventive comedy, and beyond that it's unusual in any case. The character interaction is interesting and amusing, for example, how all the characters seem to play off of each other to get what they want. The puppetry is an interesting feature as well, it's a medium I never really thought about, but after watching this I was almost motivated to consider it in some way.

-- Matthew Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), August 07, 2000.

Movies I have liked:

Apocalypse Now Alien 3 Doctor Who (1996 TVM) Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Men In Black Babylon 5: A Call To Arms (1999 TVM) The X Files: Fight the Future La Grande Blue Lord of the Flies (Original B&W version) Animal Farm (The George Orwell version NOT the porno version) When the Wind Blows Silent Running RoboCop Species South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Highlander 3 Star Trek: Insurrection V - The Original Movie (parts 1 & 2) Battlestar Galactica - The Movie (aka Saga of a Star World)

-- TK (trivial_keithy@yahoo.com), August 12, 2000.

Has anyone seen dune? that is like my all time favorite movie! You have to watch it like 4 times to even understand what is going on! and the book! jeez that's a whole other story! That book is so detailed and so hard to comprehend, i find myself getting brain cramps! lol...even with an understanding of the movie the book is truly somthing else....i totally recommend seeing the movie!! it is fantastic!!!! :O)

-- Lady Morgan (aeonfluxfan1@aol.com), August 12, 2000.

Did anyone see Dune, uh, hell yeah, it was one of my favorites, remember? Although I like it more for it's psychedelic subtext and consciousness expansion themes than the cheesy plot. My favorite sci-fi flick is probably Blade Runner, if only because it makes me cry at the end.

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 15, 2000.

And it's cool how there are no real bad guys in it. True, the Replicants are a bit on the psychotic side, but wouldn't you be if you were an indentured servant with only 4 years to live?

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 15, 2000.

Speaking of David Mamet (one of Chung's favorites), did anyone see The Spanish Prisoner? Wasn't that confusing? Great spy vs. spy stuff, if they ever make an Aeon film I hope it turns out something like that.

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 27, 2000.

Speaking of Chung's fav movies, I rented Lost Highway, they should have called it 'Lost Audience'. The guy the movie was all about had great taste in women, didn't he? He and the blonde, after barely just meeting, were 'quite involved' and in the middle of a steamy scene, she says "can I call you?" Hmm, maybe you should check on that BEFORE you sleep with him? Then later she says to him, "you come on over,...and crack him over the head!" This regarding her mob- type boyfriend she is cheating on with him. (Isn't she cute, my new girlfriend, so what if she gets me killed, what a figure). If the point of this movie was to be mysterious, it was, as the character evidently reincarnated to another guy, the one who picked the brainy blonde, (who was a double for his first girlfriend) and how he mysteriously fell for this girl is anyones guess,except he missed the first girl, good bodies and low morales are abundant these days, (go to L.A. for references). The funny thing is that it did help me to see Peter Chung's point about the hero in the movie who does terrible things, and we are supposed to accept it as alright, simply because he was just put in the 'hero' role. Not sure this is his opinion though, regarding this movie. Robert Blake was the best part. The story was intriguing, however, and I'm still not sure what the point was, anyone?

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), August 30, 2000.

LH is one strange movie, isn't it? Yeah, it's about karma, but also time: Bill Pullman gets reincarnated ahead of schedule, sends messages to himself, and then you have the "Mystery Man" who can be two places at once, like some freakish albino yogi. Chung says the movie makes no distinction between external events and the character's own internal state of mind. I agree, it's subjective to the max, like a Philip K. Dick novel (not that I'm complaining... I love that kind of stuff)

-- Paul (gilbreathfamily@worldnet.att.net), August 31, 2000.

Another to add to my list: "The Rapture". Don't believe anything you read about this movie, as they seem to be trying to market it as a "sensual thriller" (the box features a scene of passion on the front and a shirtless David Duchovny on the back, as well as a silly description). The movie is really about the puzzles of leading a religious life. It manages to demonstrate how each side of the religious/secular argument feels almost perfectly, tackling almost any question one could think of. And in the end, it shows how each viewpoint is perfectly valid, self-justified, and ideologically impenetrable. The ending is unusual, as well. Some people might consider the movie a little wordy, but the dialogue is very mysterious and witty, and never feels excessive, in my opinion. Anyone who enjoyed "The Demiurge", or any Flux fan, really, should see this movie. I've recently decided that this, and "Orlando", are my two favorite films for the time being.

-- Matthew Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), October 29, 2000.