Recommend me some smart/thoughprovoking movies or dark/sarcastic pieces

[Risquit]

Two Nicholas Roeg films, if you can find either one.

Cold Heaven
and
Track 29

They both meet your criteria, are enjoyable, and are out of print so they have gone off most people's radar. Highly recommended. If you like Gary Oldman, then don't miss Track 29.

[Thirith]

We recorded Track 29 off Film Four and tried to watch it last weekend. Couldn't finish it. God, did I hate what I saw of the film!

I've enjoyed a few Nicholas Roeg films and very much like Potter's The Singing Detective, but the two of them seem to have brought out the worst in each other in that film. The movie struck me as smug, shrill, simplistic, sexist crap that's an embarrassment to everyone involved. it's a bit like a bad Mad Magazine skit on Freud-inspired pop psychology.

Perhaps you have to be in the right mood for the film, but in the first hour I didn't find anything to recommend whatsoever. It made Gary Oldman's performance in Dracula look subtle. It made The Rocky Horror Picture Show seem positively Chekovian by comparison.

Eugh. Just eugh.

[Firefreak]

My take on recommendations, trying to hit the spot:

• Avalon
• The Thirteenth Floor
• Network
• Run Lola Run (orig: Lola Rennt)

All not recent movies, but that's what popped up when skimming through my stack of DVDs.

[faetal]

Wow. Just...wow.

Seconded.

You really should read The Gulag Archipelago.

Ok, so I just ordered a book recommended by Koki. What is the world coming to?

We ought to have TTLG movie nights where somebody streams a movie and we join & chat about it. Not saying it could be done very practically with all the timezones, but if somebody is watching a movie on their laptop or computer, they may as well stream it and throw up a link. I think I'll try that next time & see how it works. Edit: Or not. Guess it doesn't matter if it's legitimate for me to watch.

I think Google+ hangouts let you do something like this, but I'm not sure if the stream would have to be YouTube or not. Also, 10 people max.

[demagogue]

I wasn't expecting more than ten anyway. Worth looking into.

Ok, so I just ordered a book recommended by Koki. What is the world coming to?

I've been reading it over the last few months. It has to be one of the most sardonic descriptions of reality; also probably the most devastating critique of a government ever put to print. You can lol and be stunned in the same paragraphs.

I just passed the whole part where he's observing that the incarceration industry was the only growth industry in the USSR, the one place where employees have a free hand to be as creative and upbeat as possible and they take full advantage of it, concocting these elaborate schemes with props and actors and scripts going over months, just to arrest somebody. It's pitch perfect. Somebody give this guy some kind of medal and a root beer.

[Yakoob]

Just watched The Serious Man. What an excellent, excellent movie that was! Coen Bros films are often "hit or miss" for me, but this one delivered. On to more of the recommendations.