What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[trish]

Imitation Game

It's about Alan Turing, the British mathematician who is a founder of the theory of computation and mathematical logic in general, who wrote on the question of whether machines can think (inventing the Turing Test which the Voight-Kampf test alludes to in Blade Runner), helped break the Enigma code in World War II and was convicted of being gay in an age when there was a law against it (for which he was sentence to chemical castration and was probably the motivation for his eventual suicide). The movie focused on his codebreaking days at Bletchley and his conviction for engaging in sex with a male prostitute.

It was worth the ticket, but it struck me in places of being unfair both to Turing and co-workers. (He probably wasn't quite as stereotypically aloof and his co-workers probably weren't quite so daft as I think the movie makes out.) One of the interesting things about breaking a code is figuring out how to use the information to which you're now privy without letting the enemy know you've broken their code. Apparently the best strategy is to let a lot of bad things go down even if you know ahead of time that they're going to happen. The movie led me to believe that it was Turing who was making these sorts of decisions (or at least recommending them directly to MI6 bypassing the hierarchy of command) based on statistical analysis. It may have been true, but it strikes me as being somewhat beyond the pay grade of a code breaker. So I wasn't so sure in the end what was true and what wasn't.

[Stavros]

Imitation Game

It's about Alan Turing, the British mathematician who is a founder of the theory of computation and mathematical logic in general, who wrote on the question of whether machines can think (inventing the Turing Test which the Voight-Kampf test alludes to in Blade Runner), helped break the Enigma code in World War II and was convicted of being gay in an age when there was a law against it (for which he was sentence to chemical castration and was probably the motivation for his eventual suicide). The movie focused on his codebreaking days at Bletchley and his conviction for engaging in sex with a male prostitute.

It was worth the ticket, but it struck me in places of being unfair both to Turing and co-workers. (He probably wasn't quite as stereotypically aloof and his co-workers probably weren't quite so daft as I think the movie makes out.) One of the interesting things about breaking a code is figuring out how to use the information to which you're now privy without letting the enemy know you've broken their code. Apparently the best strategy is to let a lot of bad things go down even if you know ahead of time that they're going to happen. The movie led me to believe that it was Turing who was making these sorts of decisions (or at least recommending them directly to MI6 bypassing the hierarchy of command) based on statistical analysis. It may have been true, but it strikes me as being somewhat beyond the pay grade of a code breaker. So I wasn't so sure in the end what was true and what wasn't.

One of the other brilliant minds at Bletchley Park, but not movie material-

"But it was Harry Hinsley who, at the end of April 1941, identified the Enigma system’s fatal flaw. The same codebooks used on German U-Boats were also aboard their unprotected trawlers. These trawlers, transmitting weather reports to the Germans, also received naval Enigma messages. Hinsley helped initiate a programme of seizing Enigma machines and keys from German weather ships, significantly aiding Bletchley Park’s breaking of German Naval Enigma."
http://thebloxwichtelegraph.com/2012...harry-hinsley/

[Stavros]

Good for you. That's one of the best police dramas ever made, and one of my favorite shows ever. The people responsible for creating Homicide went on to make The Wire for HBO.

I think The Wire ranks as the best of the American tv drama series of recent vintage, the kind of drama that the UK no longer produces comparing in the past a narcotics-related 1980s drama series Traffik (remade by Steven Soderbergh as a feature film, Traffic) and the BBC nuclear power drama Edge of Darkness was brilliant. Since then UK drama has produced nothing of substance. I liked seeing some of The Wire actors in the series but I think the impetus of the series faded in the sixth series and it was never the same without Melissa Leo and Andre Braugher. I was never sure about Al Giardello's Sicilian family background, or the bi-sexual Bayliss even though he never seemed to have a girlfriend, and it is a great pity to see a talent like Andre Braugher in the juvenile rubbish of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

[Stavros]

Divergent (Neil Burger, 2014)
I see this as being one of those films which occupies the same niche as The Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner. An autocracy established after some devastating war, divides society into manageable blocs, be it the productive (or non-productive) sectors in the Hunger Games, or the social groups of Divergent. The idea that social order is best managed through the strict demarcation of social groups is at least as old as Plato's Republic, can be found in some form in Hobbes' Leviathan, and is clearly needed in Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In the latter two novels, as in the films the key figure is a rebel, with the two films opting for a young woman as the rebel and would-be saviour though neither starts out with this intention.
In both films, a regime of violence, we are led to believe, can only be challenged and overthrown by violence, a grim post 9/11 scenario which seems to have added weight in the face of IS even though the record of using military force against military force in recent times is not good.
It is hard to know if there is a Christian evangelist agenda in these films although it does seem to be there -both heroines are it seems destined to lead, while both opt not to engage in sexual intercourse at any level, suggesting a level of purity that is linked to a redeemer figure being in some way apart from the others.

There are too many cliches and plot holes in Divergent to make it anything other than light entertainment, and though she is as tall as Jennifer Lawrence, and just as pleasing to look at, Shailene Woodley lacks charisma, which Lawrence has in abundance. The male lead, Theo James is an English actor with a terrible American accent, as is also the case with Kate Winslet- why Americans can't be hired for these roles is beyond me.

You can take the Divergent test here, if you want, but as I came out Divergent I think most people would too.
http://divergentthemovie.com/aptitudetest

[Xtina Pink]

Divergent (Neil Burger, 2014)
I see this as being one of those films which occupies the same niche as The Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner. An autocracy established after some devastating war, divides society into manageable blocs, be it the productive (or non-productive) sectors in the Hunger Games, or the social groups of Divergent. The idea that social order is best managed through the strict demarcation of social groups is at least as old as Plato's Republic, can be found in some form in Hobbes' Leviathan, and is clearly needed in Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In the latter two novels, as in the films the key figure is a rebel, with the two films opting for a young woman as the rebel and would-be saviour though neither starts out with this intention.
In both films, a regime of violence, we are led to believe, can only be challenged and overthrown by violence, a grim post 9/11 scenario which seems to have added weight in the face of IS even though the record of using military force against military force in recent times is not good.
It is hard to know if there is a Christian evangelist agenda in these films although it does seem to be there -both heroines are it seems destined to lead, while both opt not to engage in sexual intercourse at any level, suggesting a level of purity that is linked to a redeemer figure being in some way apart from the others.

There are too many cliches and plot holes in Divergent to make it anything other than light entertainment, and though she is as tall as Jennifer Lawrence, and just as pleasing to look at, Shailene Woodley lacks charisma, which Lawrence has in abundance. The male lead, Theo James is an English actor with a terrible American accent, as is also the case with Kate Winslet- why Americans can't be hired for these roles is beyond me.

You can take the Divergent test here, if you want, but as I came out Divergent I think most people would too.
http://divergentthemovie.com/aptitudetest

I second this but with fewer big words
watched Divergent the other night...as above.. But some nice muscles in it too

Cx

[itsnotme]

i feel pride and shame i was part of this scean

[itsnotme]

blackout were shit when they produced there own songs the old mix albums of hard house and hardcore mixes where good shit

[Odelay]

Pretty much agree with everything being said about H:LotS, Imitation Game and Divergent. Thanks for the review on Nightcrawler, I'll have to catch that as I agree about Gyllenhaal being under-appreciated. Although I'm guessing part of this is by design as he's chosen some interesting movies to be a part of and hasn't, to date, opted for the easy buck by being cast as the lastest comic book hero.

Stavros, thanks for your earlier rec of Mr Turner. A very good movie.

Citizenfour (2014 - currently on HBO)
No matter what your opinion of Edward Snowden is, especially in regards to the complicated politics of his NSA revealings, you will likely have a different opinion of him after seeing this documentary.

Laura Poidras intuited beforehand that what Snowden was about to hand her and fellow famous web-journalist, Glenn Greenwald, was going to be huge. So she got Snowden to agree to allow a camera to roll through the entire process. And the result is pretty fascinating. Snowden seems like the classic ordinary man (think of any character played by Jimmy Stewart) who stumbles upon all this NSA spying, struggles with the morality of it all, and then makes a very calculated decision to sacrifice himself, with eyes wide open, by revealing this NSA program. Although Snowden doesn't dive into the specifics of what he foresees as the rest of his life, it can be inferred that he's ready to spend it in exile in a place like Russia, or perhaps a worse country; or, alternatively, be captured by the US or its allies and spend most of the rest of his life behind bars. I realize a lot of people feel he's a traiter or gloryhound or just a plain idiot, but the guy has guts.

[phillip]

Just watched Skeleton Twins with Bill Hader & Kristen Wiig.
A bit depressing but damn good!

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/i...skeletontwins/

[maxpower]

I agree about Gyllenhaal being under-appreciated. Although I'm guessing part of this is by design as he's chosen some interesting movies to be a part of and hasn't, to date, opted for the easy buck by being cast as the lastest comic book hero.

He was at one time strongly considered for both Spiderman and Batman. The one easy-buck movie he did star in, Prince of Persia, bombed terribly.