Hulk realizes that there is nothing more misleading than calling something “an art film,” but that’s just because we have a lot of different ideas about what that actually means. To some it means the kind of films that are pure abstraction. To others, it means any movie that isn’t commercial. And as much as Hulk likes to yap on about the so-called “basics” of blockbusters, what with their maximizing of tension and manufacturing of drama, there is the equally critical arena of filmmaking that is designed to thoroughly engage our minds and maybe even bind them to our hearts. That’s the “art” part of it. And critics can either be at their best and worst with these kinds of films. They can thumb their nose. They can call it pretentious. They can adore what they see, but still render it impenetrable to others by leaving the description of said film awash in a sea of vague superlatives. Or we can transcend that and somehow zero in to express the crystal clear ethos of a work’s probable intention. Or we can adopt a sense of poetics and somehow describe the indescribable. To parse all that out is often difficult. Maybe impossible. And it’s why no criticism will ever be as pure as the work itself.

FilmCritHulk (x)

https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/samandar0n/70683606898/tumblr_m513kslwms1qfo270?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

cowboy-bebop:

Song: Farewell Blues

I fuck with this

Dependence on the Lord God is the only dependence that does not degrade a man, nor turn him into a pitiful servant. But, on the contrary, it exalts him.

Martyr Alexander Medem (via stkatherine)

https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/samandar0n/70683195964/tumblr_mxv49mSbd51t0vloe?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

This is music, this is cosmic, this shit is soul

This isn’t going to be a coherent, persuasive argument, I’m just voicing this so I don’t forget/to make sense of it all:

I’m going to watch Catching Fire and I’m absolutely making no pre-judgements on it or the people who watch it, but I’m estimating despite itself, I’m going to like it. I found this confusing, I’m not one to deride blockbusters inherently, I think films as myth and as fun are important, conversely they can reek of commercial over all, devoid of heart or purpose, a kind of insidious upholder of ideology, etc. Yet (Thor 2 comes to mind), I figure, why do these films get to intelligent people? What is it that appeals, uniformly, to those who can see past the apparent. Beyond their good points or their potential or certain moments and acting and other idiosyncrasies. What also appeals, with addiction, to the ordinary person? I think humans, due to upbringing and exposure, have a pretty good idea about how stories we work, narratives since time immemorial help us make sense of our place in the world, what we ought to do, repeating truths, they educate, and so on; and there are tried and true methods to best accomplish this. Those stories are the ones that stick with us and so do their techniques, we just need to remember them. But a lot of these movies simply do not grasp or present Storytelling 101. What is it that gets to us beyond the aforementioned factor, beyond boredom and the social aspect, beyond going just to see or to critique. Because there’s something that stays with us after all, something vivid, something that makes us feel favourable after the fact. Here’s my theory:

I think what these films do is a kind of sensory and dramatic overload, creating an artificial catharsis. For the former, they play upon our senses with expertise, loud and colorful to points of either numbness or ecstasy, you can’t help but be captivated or at least affected…and that shit lingers, it’s almost hormonal. But to compliment this, no matter how predictable, even if structure is wonky, characterization skewed, and moments unearned, these films move to a dramatic rhythm. They hit the typical narrative beats and punctuate them with emotion, this goes beyond some Hero’s Journey fuckery too. When I say move, it really is a kind of stream or dance, how it entwines with the sensory pressure to present a feeling to the timeline that flows within you. That sounds uselessly abstract but that’s really what it feels like, like passing of season, it’s a MOVEMENT, it is the feeling of emotion and quest walking within you?? An illusion of meaningful transpiration, that’s it! Exhausting and exciting. It’s like a prolonged song with waves known to absorb us within their cadence. 

Yes/no? Am I full of it?

https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/samandar0n/70682695846/tumblr_mcvnn9hdCc1rjkwh5?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

hidden-inthesound:

The Real Folk Blues — The Seatbelts ft. Mai Yamane — Cowboy Bebop Ending

There’s a kinda unpretentious, sincere beauty to ugliness. Beauty’s not the word, but tenderness. The exposed lines of flesh, soft and blemished. Mismatched colours and textures, badly applied make-up, cowlicks and misused gel, fake luxury or nauseating ones, quiet shabbiness and tatters. Stretches, and wrinkles, scabs and dandruff, melting skin and broken teeth, dirty glasses and too-long nails. The ugly as that which halts and arrests you, grabs you with its garish, prickly, sweaty, fat fingers. It doesn’t force you to look, it would often rather you didn’t, but it is forceful in its stillness. A suspending, awkward unpleasantness instead of smooth and seamless aesthetics of beauty, or even its more magnificent iterations, the ugly doesn’t offer you easy answers or any, but a furtive middle-finger, or a yellowing smile. Ugly is a story and wants you to pry but not, it doesn’t hide exactly but like any cheap costume, reveals as much as it gaudily obfuscates. Ugly is true and it tries and it is weak and it is deadly and it is everywhere in the being of everyone, it is the bad lie that tells you everything, it is effort, and I love ugly people. 

doablelikeart replied to your post:I don’t trust forests. Not a bit.

why???

Deep forests seem sinister, wise, and palatial, in an untameable way. I think they distrust arrogance and distrust human violence, and I think they know things. At worst, they’re quietly hostile, the wild beating of heart of the earth, whose only smiles are glasgow, and rarer still, forgiving. At best, smug, apathetic, or admonishing (trees can seem kind). I think we ought to tread carefully and reverently, with some scare in us, within the wilderness. Some are fine, some are brothers to us through God. 

It seems a bit erratic, ahah, but I can’t shake an emerald, ominous vibe off from them.