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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Watching a new series on Netflix, "Wild Wild Country", a documentary about the Rajneesh movement in India and later Oregon, the development and later conflicts the cult experiences, it's good, by which I mean it's not a good documentary - aspects of it are simply terrible, but the information, the points of view, well, they're interesting and I didn't know...
"The Cult" might be the wrong words, the members don't seem particularly brainwashed to me, and the "who's right or wrong" here runs into grey water pretty quick, some parts - for example, the showing of the movie about the "the cult" to their new neighbors is particularly hilarious, one can imagine; and the interviews with the locals in Antelope, Oregon are hysterical; what it is is the contrast of 2 very different points of view, the old, established order, and the new generation looking for a little bit more. And it's interesting as well in that whatever methods "the cult" stoops to, you can see how they were radicalized by their environment - the "non-cult" mainstream of white-bread-America, how they took upon themselves the ability to grant themselves the inalienable rights promised to them by the Constitution yet denied to them by their neighbors...
What makes it good is how you can see both sides, sympathize with both points of view, the official, government one that denies "The Cult" rights that really should be theirs, and their own subsequent radicalization and retaliation...
...I'd sum it up as kind of like the "Breaking Bad for Bhagwans"...
I haven't finished this yet, there's still a couple of episodes to go (6 all told), but I'm interested for sure. And then I'll do some Googling and more research...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Continuing the horror bent: Suspiria, good, 70's, high 70's style, Art Nouveau, vivid colors and imagery. The version I found, a little uneven on sound, and the overdubbing of the language is rather unconvincing, artificial, seems a little unsynced, but overall - definitely not the best, but you can see how it influenced later movies.
Trivia: I'd always wondered what became of Jessica Harper - the lead from "Phantom of the Paradise" - well, this was her next big thing. She turned down Annie Hall for this.
Curious.
LINK(Warning, Spoilers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspiria
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Watching Horror films, review all the available top ten lists. Some are pretty bad - as a result of one I watched "The Conjuring". Absolutely terrible. But it introduced me to the lead parapsychological investigators of the late 60's and early 70's, "Ed and Lorraine Warren", who's bio on Wiki was rather amusing.
From this to "Let the right one in" - a better quality film by far, an awful lot better thought out, some rather haunting themes, and a film that does a great job of integrating the elements of horror into day to day modern life. A lot to dwell on and consider - not, so much, horrifying, but it's there, it's there. No spoilers here.
So - one dog, one slight masterpiece, a few more to go...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Which was not the easiest film to watch, but - like a lot of things - the reward is directly proportionate to the effort you put into it.
It loosely follows "Oscar" - the protagonist - through his life and flashbacks, into his hallucinations and death. There is, of course, an awful lot more, but for a film as experimental as it is it still maintains interest and a cohesive narrative (the problem with a lot of these films - as experimental as they are, is that they lose all touchstones of humanity and narrative. This one doesn't). Worth watching - but, fair warning, at 2 hours and 40 minutes it's a bit long. And, for the record, while it requires a fair bit of attention it might benefit from a small dose of the many psychedelics it recommends. And ensure you watch it on a big screen...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Having rewatched "Being John Malklovich" - and, again, amazed, laughing, both outrageous and fresh - still, 20 years later. Excellent. And followed it with "Adaptation" - which I remembered only slightly, I still didn't enjoy it, appreciation would be more the word, yet a brighter film than most by a long-shot. The scenes where Charlie Kaufman is trying to write but the internal monologue keeps intruding, the screenwriters seminar, absolutely hilarious...and you can see how this attention to detail, the visual games, are leading him towards "Synecdoche, New York".