'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[Michael Kerpan]

I think it is best to not even _try_ to understand certain illogical opinions (like th TS review at hand). ;~}

[oldsheperd]

He probably wants to know where Obama's birth certificate is.

[HistoryProf]

Netflix reviewer on Tokyo Story:

The purpose of this well shot and mounted film was to make the Japanese seem 'human', complete with family problems.

What?

presumably, he's trying to say that Ozu was trying to counter anti-japanese propaganda from the WWII era like this.....



...which often showed them as inhuman caricatures, monkeys, apes, rats, etc. Yet it sure does sound like he thinks doing such a thing is silly, because everyone knows that japs really aren't human. so this movie is ridiculous!

or something like that. It makes me want to send him a copy of War Without Mercy though.

[Thomas Dukenfield]

Yet it sure does sound like he thinks doing such a thing is silly, because everyone knows that japs really aren't human. so this movie is ridiculous!

Yes, that's what I was trying to say in a smartass roundabout way. Superman probably thinks Tokyo Story is ridiculous too.

[dx23]

Batman Begins synopsis according to a Chinese bootleg:

[Brian C]

What's with the slash in "Ra/'s Al-Ghul'? It's like no one edited this thing. At all.

[Roger Ryan]

Confusing Batman with Spiderman seems par for the course with these kind of bootlegs. You've got to love "Dr. Jackstraw", though; that name is pretty good.

[oldsheperd]

He strokes all kinds of criminals?

Is this the Batman/Spiderman gay porn?

[s.j. bagley]

He strokes all kinds of criminals?

Is this the Batman/Spiderman gay porn?

isn't it always?

[domino harvey]

This is a very solid case for how the higher resolution can produce a more substantial presentation in regards to a film's impact. I felt so much more tension and suspense than ever seeing previously - definite Kudos to the Blu-ray format.

[knives]

What's wrong with that? That's just a tech way of saying that a clearer presentation lends to a stronger viewing experience which I think everyone here agrees with.

[domino harvey]

No one else finds it absurd that a slightly better picture quality increases the tension and suspense of a thriller?

[Brian C]

No. This is why filmmakers prefer quality presentations of their films over crappy ones.

[mfunk9786]

Yeah I have to pile onto you too, Domino - I am not sure what film Tooze was talking about there, but I have certainly experienced exactly that effect watching Silence of the Lambs and Terminator 2 on Blu-ray, among others

[stwrt]

Yes, it's like the way those $200 cables give more oomph to a picture which looks pretty crappy when viewed via a Walmart cheapo job.

[Le Samouraï]

No one else finds it absurd that a slightly better picture quality increases the tension and suspense of a thriller?

Not really. There's even a good neuropsychological explanation for it.

Basically, we use the same parts of the brain when we watch films as when we navigate through space in our everyday life. The initial decoding of the audiovisual stimuli does not take into account whether we are watching a film or a real event. It just scans for salient features, like possible dangers, and passes the data along in the brain architecture. The assessment of the reality status of the stimuli comes much later, when the data reaches the higher brain functions in the frontal lope.

This is the main reason people get aroused by suspenseful films - the brain activates muscular tension, feeds you epinephrine and temporarily shuts down bodily functions that are not essential, like the digestion, to prepare your body to react in a potential dangerous situation. Only when the data reaches the frontal lobe and the reality status is assessed ('it's only a film') is the motor activation inhibited. This explains why people, while scared by a horror film, don't run out of the cinema.

The reality status mechanism constantly reminds your brain that you are only watching a film, but in certain situations when the stimuli becomes too salient, it might overpower the reality assessment for a short moment and you might scream, jump in your seat, look away or even laugh (laughing is considered a bail-out mechanism) to let out the tension. This is partly due to the fact that what one might call our 'work memory' is actually limited and can only hold limited information at any time. Powerful, salient stimuli simply seems to push the notion of the reality status of the experience out of the memory for a short moment.

Experiments have shown that the properties of the stimuli play a role in the strength of the arousal they create in the subject. It appears that the more artificial stimuli are able to mimic the properties of real stimuli, the more arousing they feel. In layman's terms this means that you will experience more tension watching a thriller in the cinema than watching the same film on VHS - due to the size and better resolution of the cinematic image. The higher image resolution makes it easier to cheat your brain into believe that the incoming visual data are real because they are closer to the properties of a real-life experience. The same goes for the difference between DVD and BD, though in lesser extent of course.

This is probably also why you keep see reviewers refer to the 'almost 3D like quality of the BD picture'. It's a little known fact, but our depth vision are only partly based on the binocular cues that comes from having two eyes. Most of the cues our brain uses to construct depth are in fact monocular or ocular-motoric. The monocular cues are shadows, the convergence of lines etc. and it seems that BD has finally reached a resolution so good that in certain situations it is able to cheat our brain into experiencing some sort of depth based on those cues.

[tenia]

I wasn't expecting to learn so much in a topic like this.
Very interesting.

[MichaelB]

A sorely disappointed viewer of Emmanuelle unburdens himself on the IMDB:

Well let me start off by saying they should have called this movie "Blue Balls". I found this tape while cleaning out my garage(must have been my dad's or something, I respect him much less now knowing he would watch some weak garbage like this). The summary on the back sounded hilarious, so I decided to give it a go. The tape was in pretty poor shape and it took over an hour just to get it to work. Boy was I in for a big letdown. I have seen some bad soft-core in my time, but this is the most god-forsaken bunch of crap I've ever seen. I felt corrupted by the soul-crushing message behind the movie, yet I wasn't even able to get my rocks off. It would take a remarkable imagination to be able to shoot one out to this movie. Time after time, the clothes come off, the girls are making out, you see a little fur-burger here, a little whisker-biscuit there(just frontal, no open clam), and just when it looks like the chicks are going to get down to some serious munching, it just cuts to some worthless clip of them cuddling after they had "made love", whatever the hell that is. Funny the chicks name is Alaine Cunny and yet there really isn't any of that. I just wanted to see some good ol' chowing of the muff, but this movie provides nothing, but some blue balls. Even a convict wouldn't enjoy this. This is more like torture. We should just play this movie over and over again for the prisoners at Gitmo if we want to torture them. SO if you want to see some chicks chompin' down on the neden, this ain't the movie. Even if your back is against the wall, don't waste your load on this one, just wait for a wet dream.

Have a guess which bit made me laugh out loud.

[Der Spieler]

Wow, this really is a gem.

[med]

The "Alaine Cunny" bit is too good to be true. I don't believe a word of that review is serious. Still, I laughed.

[colinr0380]

Presumably the version he watched didn't feature the scene in which a lady smokes a cigarette through an orifice that wasn't intended for the purpose.

[karmajuice]

Good find. On a slightly tangential note, butterin' up the whisker-biscuit has to be the best euphemism for female masturbation.

[oldsheperd]

What's a "neden"?

[domino harvey]

An ICP term for the downstairs female parts

[knives]

Paths Of Glory (1957).

I found it very underwhelming. Infact as far as battlefield films go, I'd say "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a far superior and more intense film, despite bring made 27 years earlier.

5/10.