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Movie Appreciation

Synchronicity Discussion

We are always comparing notes on movies we just saw. Did the movie contain hidden references to a song? Did a musician do a cameo in the movie? And most of all, did that movie have stupendous synching potential?

Maybe you heard of how the editors matched the action to your favorite song? Maybe they chose the wrong music for a movie. Or better yet, they chose the perfect music for a movie and it locked into your very core!

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Art Nouveau

I was reading about the first movie "Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory" by the Lumiere brothers at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re

One of the early movies they took was of Loie Fuller mentioned here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loie_Fuller

Loie Fuller had dance routines that were like rythmic gymnastics before their time. She would weave the air with the fabric of her clothes. She also developed psychodelic stage lighting for which she held patents on. I wonder if her innovations led to today's modern rock concert lighting? I am sure she synchronized her movement to music but sadly, they only had silent film back then. Her flowing clothes have a hypnotic effect and she was the subject of many other artists trying to capture the essence of air and movement. Her dance was not so well recieved in the USA but she was quite popular in France were she spent the rest of her life.

"It's all part of my rock 'n' roll fantasy
It's all part of my rock 'n' roll dream."

Bad Company "Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy"

looney runes's picture

Imaginative

There are several tributes to Loie Fuller on youtube, modern recreations of her style. I did find one video where a band uses an old film of her performing as a video for their song. I'm off to read that wiki...Thanks for sharing!



Looney Runes on YouTube...

Serpentine Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkT54BetFBI&feature=related

Above is a hand painted movie that would demonstrate the lighting effect of her dance. She also danced topless which was not quite so recieved well in the USA. I would have liked that very much zo!

"It's all part of my rock 'n' roll fantasy
It's all part of my rock 'n' roll dream."

Bad Company "Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy"

The DeVille's picture

Movie Appreciation

Just finished reading the shooting script for pulp fiction. Here's a website with hundreds of movie scripts: http://www.dailyscript.com/movie.html I like to play a movie in my head as I read the script and spot the differences.

It's also a lot of fun to mentally work out how shots were set up, how it was edited together, and what tricks were used. I like trivia, directors commentaries, behind the scenes and the making of features. I even have a shelf of books dedicated to all the different aspects of filmmaking.

Is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet? (Hope I didn't scare you) Smiling

The DeVille

tronicmale@yahoo.com

www.SyncMovies.com (when it's working)

Share your thoughts, click here to join The Arkive: http://www.synchronicityarkive.com/referral/77777b6f

Pulp Fiction

I think that "Pulp Fiction" is a story about the "Gold Watch". With each generation, the story about the "Gold Watch" gets bigger and better. This is what I get from the movie. The writers and producers may have had something else in mind.

"I have dozens of friends and the fun never ends...."

from Styx "Too Much Time on My Hands"

Kurt Vonnegut

In the 1986 movie "Back to School" Rodney Dangerfield's rich character hires the actual Kurt Vonnegut to write a term paper about one of Kurt Vonnegut books. After reading it, the class professor tells Rodney something like, "You don't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!"

Kurt was an American who was captured by the Germans in World War II. He was kept in a slaughter house by the Germans. The funny thing about Germans is they don't like noise, so they built the walls of the slaughter house very thick. When the Allies bombed the town/city Kurt was imprissoned, the only people who survived in the bomb feild were some American prisoners, including Kurt, in the "Slaughterhaus Funf(5)". Kurt noticed that this made the Germans angry that they were the only survivors in this bombed town. Psychologists say survival of this magnitude profoundly metamophasizes people to become very active in life. His book "Slaughter House 5" is based on his real life event. His books are widely admired.

Kurt Vonnegut died Thursday April 12, 2007 at age 84.

arkiver's picture

Vonnegut is the bomb...

a dark, dark day... no more KV. Sad

Slaughterhouse 5 was awesome, very non-linear and philosophical. My personal fav is probably Breakfast of Champions.... lots of great observations of human society there. Just re-read Slapstick and the Sirens of Titan... now on Deadeye Dick. Good stuff.

I highly recommend the movie version of Mother Night... excellent excellent film.

peace,
--mj
arkiver

The Magic Theatre
for madmen only
Price of admittance your mind
Not for everybody.

Dave Bytor's picture

Ice 9, anyone?

I went through a brief Vonnegut phase back in the mid 80's. I first read Cat's Cradle and loved it. Did Slapstick next and loved it. Tried Slaughterhouse Five next and it just didn't do anything for me. Sorry. Maybe if I gave it another shot, lo these two decades hence. Still, on those first two books alone, he had my respect and admiration. And how the hell did he manage to make it to his 80's smoking the entire time?!?!? Eye-wink

arkiver's picture

A Scanner Darkly...

I've stopped going to theatres, but A Scanner Darkly was on my list to see from when it was in theatres. ASD is based on the Philip K. Dick book of the same name. PKD wrote a lot, generally categorized as sci-fi, and I've been a fan of his writing for a while now. His books were the basis for a lot of movies (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Scanners, Minority Report, and a couple other, mostly B-movies). ASD is arguably the most "true to the book", as well as perfectly capturing the mood.

It's also rotoscoped, which in a nutshell means it's animated, but the animation was done over actual live footage. ASD stars Keanu Reeves, Winnona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Rory Cochrane, and all of them are completely recognizable in the movie.

What I liked best about the movie (and the book) was its increasing relevance to today's society. The main themes in the book revolve around surveillance, corporate greed, governmental corruption, drug use, and paranoia. With the recent news that the US govt is already heavily involved in spying on its own citizens, either for the war on "terror" or the war on "drugs", this movie becomes even more relevant.

It's definitely not for everyone. PKD's writing has been criticized as being more than a bit schizophrenic, and ASD has a high "weirdness" quotient, when compared to standard Hollywood fare. But I personally thought it was well-worth seeing, and definitely worth repeat viewing even. The animated look might even make for a good synch... the visuals in the movie are pretty wild. Not a kids flick (mature themes obviously, plus some nudity), but it doesn't baby you at all, and unlike most Hollywood films, doesn't assume you're a moron (always a plus, in my book).

If you check it out, I'd be curious what you think... Eye-wink

peace,
--mj
arkiver

The Magic Theatre
for madmen only
Price of admittance your mind
Not for everybody.

the book

ive read the book (along with some of his other books - 'The Three Stigma Of Palmer Eldritch', 'Martian Time-Slip', 'Do Andriods Dream Of Electric Sheep?' and 'Ubik') but havent had a chance to see the film yet - although its possible i will be getting it for xmas.

I'll be interested to see how they adapted the book as it sems a fairly tricky one to film (?)

The author's note at the end of 'A Scanner Darkly' is very interesting - it talks about how the drug use of him and his friends led him to write the book and lists all his friends who have died or been left with permanent psychosis - about 15 of them!

arkiver's picture

the movie...

Leighton,

The movie ends with a very similar "after-word" using some of those same words actually. I wouldn't say that's a spoiler really, more of a dedication at the end, that's worth sticking thru.

Obviously, the story was adapted for the medium of film (vs. the medium of printed word)... but if you've liked other Richard Linklater films (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, Slacker), then there's at least a chance you'll like this one.

I like PKD stuff 'cuz it's unconventional... and this film definitely fits. I haven't read 3 Stigmata or Ubik yet, but Androids is awesome (basis of Blade Runner, but BR leaves out the whole religious metaphor bit that I thought was pretty much the main theme of the book). I loved Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (that one's a mindjob), and there are a couple others. Lies, Inc. was good. Vulcan's Hammer. He wrote over the course of years, decades, so there are some interesting shifts in his writing... but definitely worth reading.

peace,
--mj
arkiver

The Magic Theatre
for madmen only
Price of admittance your mind
Not for everybody.

baker b.'s picture

kindred folks

PKD is my all time fav, Mike. I haven't been happy with any of the movie adaptations yet, except, to a degree, The Minority Report. Hard to make a great sci fi flick, though; I can only think of 2001 and a handful of others.

My favorite from the books is Ubik, but all are really interesting reads, even the supposed failures such as the stuff from the late 60s (Ubik included here). Of interest to synchers is the "fake" audiovisual synchronicity reported in the VALIS novel, in the second part, and the core story for that one is also found, in a "variant form", in the earlier Radio Free Albemuth.

I also have Selections from the Exegesis, which deals with the 2 million word unpublished work of *fact* Dick was still working on when his life was tragically cut short. If you don't know about it you should check it out.

And the stuff about being bombarded with pink beams every once in a while... Dick became a character in his own novel!

Beaming out,
baker beach.

books and movies!

i saw Dazed and Confused for the first time a few weeks ago - i really liked it. but havent seen anything else by Linklater.

i saw Bladerunner several times before i read the book - i ordered a 5 in 1 PKD book. read 3 of the stories, went travelling for a year and then came back and read the last two! i was suprised how different bladerunner was from the source material. but im glad ASD is supposed to be very faithful.

i tried to watch Scanners about a month ago but it was late at night, i couldnt get into it and so gave up. Sad

dazed

dazed n confused rocks

pkd writes some good stuff i liked asd.

scf

The Nightmare Before Christmas ***spoilers***

Jack, the Pumpkin King, is rejected by those he trys to please with his presents. The Christmas world goes as far as to blast Jack out of the sky. They tried to destroy him and his gifts.

Jack felt that Christmas was beyond his grasp. He could not understand the magic behind the gifts. But without realizing it, he had a deeper undertanding of Christmas. That was forgiveness.

Despite being blasted out of the sky, Jack rescues Santa and worries if Santa has enough time to set things right. He even gives Santa back his hat. If somebody else had been blasted out of the sky while trying to deliver gifts, they would have let Santa perish by the boogie man's hand. And definately not given back Santa's hat.

Santa, in return, give Holloweentown some snow to enjoy. As awry as Holloweentown was, they had ment well. And Jack had the true meaning of Christmas all along.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love,
Karl

Constantine / V for Vendetta / Superman Returns

Had some vouchers my work gave me to use up so got these 3 films today;

*I think Constantine has lots of potential as theres great imagery and action etc all the way through and the universal theme of good vs evil etc.

*V for Vendetta im not so sure about although its quite stylised and does have some action in it so it could work with something maybe.

*Ive never seen Superman Returns but once i have i will be trying 'The Soft Bulletin' with it because of the song 'Waitin' For A Superman'...

Anyone got any Synchs or Synch ideas for them?

At War With Constantine

Tried starting 'At War With The Mystics' from that very start of the film but after the first 2 songs it kind of fell apart.
Got a few more ideas to try though...

el Giron's picture

Apocalypto

I just saw Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" and I thought it was great. A wonderful synch waiting to happen. Possibly another "Dark Side" synch? There's an eclipse and everything! Has anyone else seen this movie? Highly recommended.

*bang* I'm dead.

Six-String Samurai

This movie is about the battle of musicians represented by warriors. Who will control the next generation audience? I enjoyed the simplicity of this B-movie and recommend it. I imagine the movie could be synched to a musical artist who varies their style. Or you could just watch a good movie.

Check out the link and you'll be there in a wink Eye-wink

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue83/screen.html

looney runes's picture

who will be the next king?

I agree with karl,this is one of my favorites.The red elvises did an awesome job for the soundtrack! They tour quite a bit-I was sad to have to missed them again this year. I have a copied copy of a copy of this film on vhs. the quality sucks,but I keep watching it,as it is just so good.check it out!

RAN

I went to see "Saving Private Ryan" thinking it would be a drama of people walking through grass fields (like the movie trailers on the telly). I was not prepaired for the following blood bath and almost walked out of the movie theater in despair durring the first 15 minutes.

Then there was the time I went to see "Ran" in 1985 or 86. Whoa! There are rivers of blood in this epic tale. King Lear is based on this eastern tale, not vice versa. I recommend the 3 hour "Ran" and it would be a great angst movie for synching. It is subtitled in english. Here is some movie info: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800354625/info

And here is a "Ran" reveiw:
http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies2/Ran.htm

I am still in shock...

X-People III no spoiler

Stay to the very end of the credits of X-men III. There is more movie there.

I am Legend

I have been waiting for a current movie based on the book "I am Legend" and now it is in the works.

We had Vincent Price as "The Last Man on Earth" in the 1960's.

Charlton Heston as "The Omega Man" in the 1970's (watch out for the nudity folks).

And now, at long last, we have...

http://www.cinecon.com/news.php?id=0604262

I am legend

The only thing wrong with this review is that the reviewer incorrectly stated that "I am Legend", starring Wil Smith, is to beloosely based on "The Omega Man".

In fact, "Omega Man" was loosely based on Matheson's story, "I am Legend".

Another One

There is a black and white movie about a lone New York black man who is the sole human survivor on Earth. I think it was Sydney Poitier. He was trapped in an underground construction accident and was protected durring the days of annihilation.

I wonder if this new "I am Legend" will have this old movie's plot twist.

el Giron's picture

Right, now everyone

go and check out my "The Last Man On EA#rth (Slow InF#inity)" synch.

*bang* I'm dead.

....In Memory of Nam June Paik

Mr. Paik charged, "Television has attacked us for a life time. Now we strike back!"

He passed away at age 74 but he will remain vibrant in our memories.

Here is a link to some of the visionary artist Mr. Paik's work.

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.29.96/paik-9609.html

....."Crash"

I was watching the movie "Crash" and felt that the movie needed soothing music to ease the constant plot tension. I felt that a great alternative sound track would be Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" to calm my nerves.

I could not bring myself to watch the movie again. It was good, the acting beleiveable, sometimes the plot was forced, but my emotional chemistry was too reved up by the movie and I could not stand it again. So I have to search my limited movie library for something to match Vivaldi to.

I know. "The Dark Crystal"!

intrest in my site !

hi people ,
just thought id drop a couple of lines in here to tell you of an e-mail i recently recived... here it is ...

I'm a Wall Street Journal reporter working on a story about backmasking with digital music and saw your website. I'm wondering if I could talk to you about how you found the songs with backward messages and your other thoughts on backward music. My contact info is below.

Thanks.

Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street, 10th floor
New York, NY 10281
212-416-4457

prety neat huh! wall street journal is prety big, and im quite looking forward to working on this article !!!

anyways...

take care of yourselves... and each other .... !!!

arkiver's picture

article...

My fiance sent me the link to this article this morning, that was wild. Very kewl.

peace,
--mj
arkiver

The Magic Theatre
for madmen only
Price of admittance your mind
Not for everybody.

could you post the link here

could you post the link here arkiver..

many thanks ..

simon(id4)

......WoW

What an awesome opportunity. Some where in the interview I would tell everyone to stay in school and stay away from illegal drugs. (or some other important message you would like to share besides your unique angle on synching).

You do have a great web site! Thanks for taking the time to create it. I thought more people would have input about backmasking though.

Maybe they will end up making a movie about you. Then we could synch music to your movie.

Let us know when the article is being published. We'd love to read it! I wonder who else they are interviewing in the article?

the arkive

how bout i give a plug for the sync arkive ??
nice new year present for the arkiver Smiling
anyways gotta run...

simon...

.....From "The Wall Street Journal"

"Behind the Music: Sleuths Seek Messages In Lyrical Backspin" By Dionne Searcy. page 1 of the "The Wall Street Journal", 9 Jan 2006.

It is an interesting article but raises more questions than answers.

The article says the Representatives from Brittany Spears and Pink Floyd did not respond.

The article sites the evidence of Weird Al Yankovic's "Nature Trail to Hell" which seems to have the clear backwards message that, "Satan eats Cheez Whiz".

A Mr. Wasmond is quoted, "There is potential for manipulating people's behaviour based on subliminal and subconcious music."

I think Mr. Wasmond does not watch mutch Television where they actually change peoples behaviour.

Simon, Sorry to see you did not make the news. I was looking forward to reading your comments. Maybe you were too mainstream?

...Movies on TV

I synch to movies I tape off the Television. I do not have alot of money to buy stuff. The trouble is:

1. Commercial Breaks
2. Movie Editing to increase commercial time
a. deleting scenes
b. time compression
3. There is no way on earth the synch can be duplicated by other artists.

I am too embarrassed to even mention what i have tried using tapes from TV.

The good points:

1. Feeling out a match before investing money.
2. TV is free and there is so much to choose from.

Free movies.

Have you ever thought of checking out movies from your local library. See if your offers this.
I do it all the time!

el Giron's picture

Movies on TV 2

I've also done this a few times. Sometimes I rather just buy an album or something. Thank God for TCM, and the IFC. Thanks for Cable in general! I don't understand what you mean when you say the synch can be duplicated by other artists though.

*bang!* I'm dead.

....no way

There is NO WAY the synch can be duplicated by other artists. Unless they taped the same exact TV show I used. The time compression and edited scenes would not match anyother way. There is also the matter of stopping and starting when the commercial breaks.

el Giron's picture

ahhh, artists?

When you say artists do you mean folks who synch movies to music (like you and I?) or just musical groups? Sorry about all the confusion.

*bang!* I'm dead.

.......You and Me

I mean you and me trying each other's ideas synched to shows with TV commercials included. Sorry I was vague. It did not occour to me that an musiciain would try to play music to movies with commercials included. What a concept!

arkiver's picture

I Heart Huckabees

Has anyone else seen this movie? It's kind of weird, but might have some appeal to folks that hang here and are more comfortable with "out there" flicks. I caught it on HBO, and thought it was kinda funny, not the best movie ever but I enjoyed it. The model it used to present the story was pretty funny...

peace,
--mj
arkiver

The Magic Theatre
for madmen only
Price of admittance your mind
Not for everybody.

Yeah, great movie.

Yeah, that was one of the best movies made last year, in my humble opinion.

And, possibly the best portral of a Nhilist in a film (and this is coming from a HUGE Big Lebowski fan; I even wrote my Thesis on Big Lebowski! haha).

http://www.myspace.com/richaucoin

.....First Movie Theater Movie

I think the first Movie Theater Movie was shown Dec 28, 1895 in France. It was a documentary showing people leaving a work factory at quiting time.

Thomas Edison was working on the single veiwer movie projector at the time.

Eventually a piano player was added to the theater with a book of "Fakes" music to play perscribed moods, emotions, and motions.

Constantine would be a cool

Constantine would be a cool movie to sync to i think - great imagery

......"Waking Ned Devine"

I was watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and kept feeling like I recognized Grandpa Joe. Then it hit me. Grandpa Joe is one of the lead characters in "Waking Ned Devine".

"Waking Ned Devine" is a good easy movie. My wife and I laughed alot with the jokes they play. I think I look alot like Grandpa Joe. He is a good looker, ay.

Follow the link, you will be there in a wink Eye-wink

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166396/

.....Ho Ho Ho!

"Christmas on Mars" by the Flaming Lips. I wonder if they will match the movie to already existing music or they wrote music with the movie in mind? I wonder if they will be brave enough to use other artists music too like Michael Jacksons' "Thriller"? Follow the link wink Eye-wink

http://www.flaminglips.com/content/film/

theyre writing music for

theyre writing music for it

but they already have songs from previous albums that mention xmas, mars and space etc so could have syncing potential with their other albums

Another Christmas Synch

Hey,

I'm a huge Flaming Lips fan (as you can tell because I called my first track off my album: At War With the Cynics after my huge appreciation of them). If you're looking for another xmas inspired synch you should check out the trailer for this synch I made to How The Grinch Stole Christmas:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mpoauoj9GT0

Or, you can just search "Dark Side of The Grinch" in YouTube.

Hope you like it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

- R i c h a r d -

http://www.myspace.com/richaucoin

....."The Beatles' Yellow Submarine"

I was listening to a beatles song and remembered that their "The Beatles' Yellow Submarine" was synched to music.

There seemed to be two animator teams. One very creative team to animate the main story. Another unimaginitive dolt to animate the song sequences.

For instance, Synching "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" the chose dancing women, a dancing lady with stars covering her nipples, and a horse, all which change colors (why a horse?). They can do ANYTHING with animation. Yet no rocking horse people or flowers increadibly high. No psychodelia. Yet the scenery before and after the synch sequence was fantastic and bizzarre.

They also had many fantastic song to chooe=se from and they chose these? The Beatles have better songs.

I was sadly disappointed considering I have fond memories of it from when it was released in the theaters. Times change.

I did see precursers to the "Fantastic Planet" in the main animation. Strange landscape and bizzarro beasts. Great sound effects.

I did like the No Where Man and his phrases like, "causing the causation of causality".

And the Beatles saying there is only one way to exit. And that is to go out singing. Rock on!

.....Stop Action Animation

I was a big fan of Gumby and Pokey cartoons. I always dreamed of doing my own stop action cartoon with my clay set. Stop action hit the big time with "Rudolf the Red Nose Raindeer" and I was blow away by the "Mad Monster Party" in the theaters. I used to recognize all the personnas used for the monsters.

Back in the 80's and early 90's I saw stop action making a comebback in short animation festivals. I remeber one from Germany oddly reminiscent of "The Nighmare Before Christmas". There were 4 or 5 stick men stuck on a floating square platform. Jack from "TNBC" looked looked like these figures. long tall and thin. These figures discovered a box on their platform in the sky but they had to cooperate to balance the platform to get to the box. Notice how long the cooperation lasted and the balance was tipped. It was very clever. I wish I remember which year and festival it was from.

I should start synching to "The Nighmare Before Christmas" since it is so cool. Or maybe even the "Mad Monster Party".

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