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How Ikea Plunders the Planet

The Beach, the Danny Boyle film. Pretty stupid.

Carl wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 11:55 am How Ikea Plunders the Planet

Thank you for this. I watched the third of it yesterday and got instantly depressed, so I'll watch the rest today after work.

enframed wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 12:57 am The Beach, the Danny Boyle film. Pretty stupid.

I never saw the movie, but I read the book (by Alex Garland) long ago and remember really liking it. I don't remember what it was about though.

zircona1 wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:28 am

enframed wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 12:57 am The Beach, the Danny Boyle film. Pretty stupid.

I never saw the movie, but I read the book (by Alex Garland) long ago and remember really liking it. I don't remember what it was about though.

I've heard the book was better, but not enough that I wanna read it. The story just wasn't very interesting, as presented. The narration in the film was completely unnecessary, it's not a complicated film nor were any of the characters. Maybe the book is better that way...

21% on Rotten Tomatoes. Damn. That's fair.

zircona1 wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:28 am

enframed wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 12:57 am The Beach, the Danny Boyle film. Pretty stupid.

I never saw the movie, but I read the book (by Alex Garland) long ago and remember really liking it. I don't remember what it was about though.

A bunch of rich kids on a journey of discovery into how awful they all are.

Gramsci wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:52 am

zircona1 wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:28 am

enframed wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 12:57 am The Beach, the Danny Boyle film. Pretty stupid.

I never saw the movie, but I read the book (by Alex Garland) long ago and remember really liking it. I don't remember what it was about though.

A bunch of rich kids on a journey of discovery into how awful they all are.

I did not see it at the time, nor since, but for some of us, the draw was Virginie Ledoyen on a beach. Couldn't negate a post-Titanic Leo and post-"A Life Less Ordinary" Boyle for me tho.

zorg wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 9:46 am

Gramsci wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:52 am

zircona1 wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 8:28 am

I never saw the movie, but I read the book (by Alex Garland) long ago and remember really liking it. I don't remember what it was about though.

A bunch of rich kids on a journey of discovery into how awful they all are.

Virginie Ledoyen on a beach.

This. Damn.

The copy of L.A. Takedown--Michael Mann's made-for-TV dry run of Heat--looked a little too indistinct on YouTube, so I ordered a DVD of it, which arrives tomorrow and will hopefully exhibit a clearer image. Am excited.

I've come to realize that Heat is maybe the rarest of possible movies for me in that it's a title that almost any guy (or girl) might have in their collection and yet I like it without reservations and could watch the whole damn thing at the drop of a hat. Can think of plenty of "popular enough" movies that do the trick, but not many on this scale. And there's a lot of "typical guy stuff" and award-winning fare that I just don't care for or would consider overrated.

At its core, this interest in Heat stems from it being about work-life balance. This is almost spelled out explicitly in the film but it's elaborated in such a way that it feels fresh all the way to the end. The is done from a hetero perspective and I think that's refreshing because the conflicts are about whether and how intensely someone can be dedicated to their work--where a lot of the real action seems to be--without things outside this starting to slide. This isn't a crisis of faith in one's partner or romantic inclinations but instead a question of how rooted one can be in the world at all while being the best they can be at what they do by trade. Even Pacino's Detective Hanna, who has the benefit of not being on the wrong side of the law and not having empathy be an occupational liability, is a total fuck-up in this regard and weirdly more of a freak than De Niro's more close-to-the-vest loner Neil McCauley. This dissonance is all very amusing as the film wears on, despite Hanna's moments of pathos, warmth, genuine caring,. and crisis aversion.

The other main thing I like about Heat is that its plot beats are exactly how they should be from scene to scene. When one scene ends, the plot thread picks up exactly where it should. This becomes more evident as the film progresses and more and more characters enter the fold. If I were to write a book of these events, chapter to chapter, it would go just like this. I don't even really care if a little bit of the acting is uneven or a House of Pain song gets played in da club or if some of the guys wear cheesy sunglasses or whether all of the romantic relationships are convincing enough or anything else--Heat has an air-tight narrative logic, moves at exactly the right speed, and it's a thrill to behold.

*Movie I will watch