Good call. Quite a few Miyazaki movies do that for me. Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke are two of my favorites. Also, Ghibli not Miyazaki, but Pompoko is awesome and has a scene where tanookis attack cops using their ballsacks as weapons.
And if you're really hung up about LOTR, now we have the Soviet version to watch.
Haha Mad Max isn't weird. That movie is so god damn good that it takes my mind of of anything besides how badass it is. Sure it's not a very peaceful movie, but Alien and Aliens are two of my comfort movies for similar reasons.
Tolkien was a legitimate anarchist and LOTR has a huge left wing following.
I think Tolkien was a Christian anarchist who didn't know he was a Christian anarchist. The LoTR books are also super super racist toward Orcs, describing them frequently as slit-eyed, black-skinned monsters. He also has a pretty fucked up attitude toward miscegenation. The books and movies are nonetheless excellent and extremely enjoyable.
He knew he was an anarchist, a letter to Christopher Tolkien from June 1943 -
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston and his gang’, it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy. Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo efiscopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that – after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world – is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way. The quarrelsome, conceited Greeks managed to pull it off against Xerxes; but the abominable chemists and engineers have put such a power into Xerxes’ hands, and all ant-communities, that decent folk don’t seem to have a chance. We are all trying to do the Alexander-touch – and, as history teaches, that orientalized Alexander and all his generals. The poor boob fancied (or liked people to fancy) he was the son of Dionysus, and died of drink. The Greece that was worth saving from Persia perished anyway; and became a kind of Vichy-Hellas, or Fighting-Hellas (which did not fight), talking about Hellenic honour and culture and thriving on the sale of the early equivalent of dirty postcards. But the special horror of the present world is that the whole damned thing is in one bag. There is nowhere to fly to. Even the unlucky little Samoyedes, I suspect, have tinned food and the village loudspeaker telling Stalin’s bed-time stories about Democracy and the wicked Fascists who eat babies and steal sledge-dogs. There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
Well, cheers and all that to you dearest son. We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water. Also we have still small swords to use. ‘I will not bow before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.’ Have at the Ores, with winged words, hildenǣddran (war-adders), biting darts – but make sure of the mark, before shooting.
(Yeah I’m one of those people about Tolkien)
He considered himself a “monarchist anarchist” by 1945. His logic was that he liked monarchies aesthetically and thus wanted a “symbolic monarchy” that had no actual power but was solely for state functions and traditions.
I was afraid that someone who knew more about Tolkien would correct me. Thank you.
I do however agree with you on orcs. They're the only creature in all of middle earth described as "irredeemable". Every other creature can be saved except orcs. They're cursed creatures born only of evil. Add to that the clearly racist coding and... Yeah. Not good.
Brendan Fraiser: Look what I got :cat-confused:
Imhotep: Mission failed, well get em next time
I can watch that one video of Brendan Fraser wildly clapping/laughing and instantly be in a better mood
Lebowski is a pretty big one for me. Feels like a pretty standard dude answer but it just does it for me. Tampopo and Lost in Translation get me there. Alien and Aliens are two of my all time favorites so no they usually work. Lately I've found Her being of some odd comfort to me as well.
Mine are all stupid as fuck.
- Home Alone
- Drop Dead Fred
- Freddy Got Fingered
They all make me laugh to the point of incapacity. Formerly abused kids like violent slapstick a little too much.
In terms of actual "substance" -
- The Tree of Life
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
- The Princess Bride
- England Is Mine (I know but embarrassingly I'm not sure I ever related to a movie more in my life.)
I think Terrence Malick's movies seem incredibly long when you first see them but then you just keep coming back over and over again, and they get shorter each time you watch them. I think I've only seen Tree of Life once or twice and I still don't even know which one of the kids actually killed himself. I'm also like: do you need to have women dancing around in every film you make? Nonetheless I love his movies. The New World is in my top ten.
I saw a 5-part video essay on youtube that has convinced me Freddy Got Fingered is actually a dadaist masterpiece
Twister.
So well made, brilliant cast and ensemble of character actors, cute dogs, awesome scary weather, practical effects, and plucky underdog scientists just trying to do the right thing vs corporate douches trying to make money.
I know it's a ridiculous movie, but I can't help but to love it. I still remember watching it in a family owned movie theater when I moved into a new town when I was like 7.
I once spent half an hour waiting around in a video rental place to get Twister. They had like twenty copies of it and all of them were checked out.
Grosse Pointe Blank.
I didn't even understand half of the jokes the first time I saw it as a teenager, and now I swear it just gets better every year.
Ikr?!?? It wasn't until my rewatch just last year on edibles that the implication hit me and I had to pause the movie I was laughing so hard. Talk about fucking layers!
The entire movie feels like it's trying to do commentary on the American labor movement, but like 4 different writers who've never spoken to each other are just taking it in like 6 different directions and you end up with an insane mess of a film with totally non-sensical politics lol.
Also his girlfriend working for Radio Free Grosse Pointe was kinda on the nose given that he was also a CIA agent
Jurassic Park is a big one, pretty much anything with dinosaurs really.
Even Carnosaur? Or Tammy and The T-Rex? or Theodore Rex?
I have seen all of them and yes. I watch most Best of the Worst movies.
Prehysteria? Dinotopia?
I loved Prehysteria as a little kid. I caught a little of it as an adult and couldn't believe how bad it was.
Seen em and love em. They aren't good but if there are dinosaurs and especially bad puppet or animatronic ones I love the movie regardless. I lose any sense of objectivity when dinos are on the table.
Even though technically quite a lot of people die Shaun of the Dead does it for me, haha