Last movie you watched

[Puffy]

I guess the last movie I watched was La Planète sauvage (1973).
It was a rather odd movie, for it seemed not to convey any human feeling into my soul. I don't know, it was a sort of science fiction story, wherein everyone had the most impassive faces, like those of films noir. And there were some aliens, but they didn't seem "modern", they were just bizarre-looking.
I guess it would be the creepiest film ever, if only it wasn't an animation. Instead it ended up just being wierd.

Haha, it's probably obvious that I liked that film.

I agree that's the kind of feel it has though, it's almost... dehominising

Spoiler

okay, i'll leave now...

 

[Lukenji]

Haha, it's probably obvious that I liked that film.

I agree that's the kind of feel it has though, it's almost... dehominising

Spoiler

okay, i'll leave now...

That scene you have in your avatar, it's the most amazing one in the movie.
I mean, it's thought-provoking.

 

[Cavallier]

^I've been meaning to see that.

I saw Happy People: A Year in the Taiga. It was interesting. It reminded me of some of the old guys I knew in Alaska when I was a girl. The clouds of mosquitoes in summer and the snow deeper than a man is tall visually transported me back to my childhood. It was amazing.

As expected, Herzog does a minimalist but poignant voice over. The people came across as genuine and unassuming which added to the stark natural beauty of environment. At the same time he doesn't idolize the people. I appreciate that he doesn't make these guys out to be more than they are. They are trappers with some very good skills who live a little closer to death than most of us do.

I recommend it if you are in for a fairly quiet and sedate documentary about an interesting group of people in an interesting landscape.

 

[Puffy]

^ Sounds pretty interesting. Herzog's a director I've known of for a while but never got around to watching.

I saw Polanski's Chinatown recently. It has a really high reputation as one of the best screenplays, best film scores, won all the awards in its time, etc. I thought it was good but with that reputation I was a little disappointed, especially as I'm a fan of his early cinema.

It's a film noir that plays on a lot of the film noir expectations. We're essentially following a private detective who is investigating into a case of adultery then murder, but is consistently duped by each of his informants so that nothing's ever what it seems. I won't give away the twists.

I found the plot a bit too dense, which made it overly confusing. I don't mind density of information, I love thinking over background details, motifs and things, but when it's density in terms of the actual plot it becomes hard to follow. We kept pausing every 25 minutes to recap what had happened; I have a low attention span admittedly, but my friend is normally quite observant so I found it odd.

There's some good cinematography and foreshadowing and some of the shots produce their own mysteries. I felt by the end though that it was largely a plot film, with not as much thematic depth as I'd hoped. If you like the genre (or Jack Nicholson) I'd definitely recommend it though.

 

[Cavallier]

I found the plot a bit too dense, which made it overly confusing. I don't mind density of information, I love thinking over background details, motifs and things, but when it's density in terms of the actual plot it becomes hard to follow. We kept pausing every 25 minutes to recap what had happened; I have a low attention span admittedly, but my friend is normally quite observant so I found it odd.

That's a Film Noir trope as well though. Think of The Big Sleep. The plot was so thick in it that at one point the director and the screen writer had to wire the author of the book it was based on to confirm if a character had killed himself or simply been killed. The author couldn't remember. (That's good ol' drunk Raymond Chandler for you.)

However, having said that I have not seen Chinatown yet.

 

[Puffy]

That's a Film Noir trope as well though. Think of The Big Sleep. The plot was so thick in it that at one point the director and the screen writer had to wire the author of the book it was based on to confirm if a character had killed himself or simply been killed. The author couldn't remember. (That's good ol' drunk Raymond Chandler for you.)

However, having said that I have not seen Chinatown yet.

Haha, in honesty the only film noir I can remember seeing is Who Framed Roger Rabbit which is an awesome film, but also a bit of a digression.

So I didn't realise that, but fair point. I don't actually mind, pausing isn't inconvenient, and with someone else there it gives a chance to discuss in interludes. I was more criticising as if I'd been in a cinema, where that's not an option, it might have been too disorientating - but then again, if it's a mystery maybe that's the point to.

 

[The Gopher]

"My own private idaho"

It was recommended to me by a forum member but I feel I should keep who private. Strangely enough the main person of note in the movie reminded me of another forum member who I shall also not mention... Partly because I doubt he will want to be mentioned and partly because being associated with a gay prostitute that faints a lot might not be the greatest thing to ever happen to someone.

 

[BigApplePi]

"Walking and Talking." If you are dating or having trouble with dating and wonder what's going on you will like this movie. 1996. Sexist statements: women will like it; men probably will; gays should like it I think. I'm not dating and I liked it.

 

[MichiganJFrog]

Let There Be Light, by John Huston.

The U.S. Army asked Huston to make a series of documentaries, including this one, which is about combat veterans with PTSD (then known as "shell shock"). The Army didn't like the results, so the film sat in a vault for about 50 years, until someone dug it up, and it made its way to the National Archives. You can watch it on YouTube.

 

[motrhead]

"Ondine" with Colin Farrell...Irish romantic drama, quirky, and I thought very good.
Last night it was "500 Days of Summer" ("This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story"). Very good, but not what I expected.

 

[Jennywocky]

Same opinion of 500 Days...wonderful movie but nothing i had imagined it to be.

 

[Cavallier]

I finally broke down and watched Troll. It's a found footage mockumentary. It was quite enjoyable.

My favorite bit: Troll stromping on the blood of a Christian man like the guy had insulted his mother or some such. Quality.

 

[Jennywocky]

Zero Dark Thirty.

I thought it was really good (so it's a thumbs up), but not quite as good as I had hoped -- mostly because there wasn't much of an emotional arc but more like just following the timeline until you get to the end. Chastain in a few places did evoke emotion (especially the last shot), but mostly the movie was pretty 'cool' (vs hot) in terms of tone.

(I can see why Argo did better, as it had a more "human" touch to its tone.)

Solid performances throughout. Obama is pretty much not mentioned, except for a passing comment about how the president is a "thoughtful, analytical man and will need more to go on." I did not feel like torture was endorsed, either, it was merely one method being used at the time to acquire information that might or might not have been accurate -- meant to highlight how so much of that investigation was ambiguous and unclear for so many years, with various hunches potentially having a great payoff vs no payoff at all. Maya just managed to dog down the right hunch and hit paydirt; one could make a comparison of her to Captain Ahab chasing the white whale, she lived, breathed, and slept this one task as the only job she had ever held, and it was hard to be sure whether she was pushing her assessment because she was right or because she couldn't bear to be wrong. The movie lives in that ambiguity.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I finally broke down and watched Troll. It's a found footage mockumentary. It was quite enjoyable.

My favorite bit: Troll stromping on the blood of a Christian man like the guy had insulted his mother or some such. Quality.

Aw I thought you meant the other Troll series for a second.

 

[Chad]

I watched Alex Cross last week.

It wasn't a bad one time watch. I agreed with my wife that if they were to make a series arch with this one being the bargaining it may be more interesting. Basically, Its all most all a downer for the get go. Many of the supporting characters are killed off. Making the characters who are lift wipe up into an emotional frenzy until it ends with in a very anticlimactic way. But like I said before if they are planing to use this a background of a complete series it may be okay. However, on its own I could only give it a 6.5 stars out of 10.

 

[Cavallier]

Aw I thought you meant the other Troll series for a second.

HA! Those are also quality. Well, at least enjoyable if watching in an altered state.

 

[travelnjones]

I started watching limits of control last night but it was slow and i started falling asleep.

I thought that other one was called troll hunter?

 

[Cavallier]

^Yes, you are right. It is indeed called Troll Hunter.

 

[Chad]

I just watched the Raven the other day. I love reading Egor Allen Poe and I thought the film did him justice. They also added some actual real life facts in there even if the story is completly fictional. I like it. 8.5 out of 10 for me.

 

[JimJambones]

The Hobbit. Despite the critques I have against some of the adaptations made, I cannot help but love this film.

 

[Felan]

The last two movies I watched were "Marrying the Mob 2" and "Marrying the Mob 3". Both are Korean films on Netflix at the moment. I thought 2 was hysterical and 3 quite funny.

 

[Jennywocky]

Watched Blade 2 and Blade Trinity this past week.

Probably liked Blade 2 better than Blade (even the ending was better), but Blade Trinity was kinda laughable. And how can you take Parker Posey and make her such an ugly vampire is beyond me. Same goes for Dominic Purcell.

Ryan Reynolds has some amusing banter, but I don't see why people love him so much... he seems like a teenager with a fake beard to make him look older.

I still like Undeworld better.

Wonder if they'll make Blade 4 now that Snipes is out of jail. Or maybe it's time for new blood?

---

Watched American Beauty again last night. Love the movie, love the performances. Kevin Spacey is a solid but not spectacular actor in my opinion, but he does decently enough in this role surrounded by some really stellar performances by other actors (Wes Bently, Thora Birch, Annette Benning, Chris Cooper, etc.) Great movie about the ugly underbelly of American commercialism and family values, plus with Lester Burnham also examines how a socially castrated man can find himself again. There was a lot of psychological truth in the route that Lester took to maturity, to bring closure to his life; not all of the character traversed that route, but many grew to some degree, forced to "get real."

Spoiler

Basically when someone has lost sense of themselves and their will/power in life, they are forced to 'regress' in order to reclaim power in their lives. It also can be a very messy business. We see as Lester regains his masculinity, he does some pretty embarassing stuff such as drooling all over his daughter's best friend and having some powerful outbursts such as the asparagus incident and also quitting his job and blackmailing his company. Perhaps those were not the most mature responses, and they have ramifications later on, but they were necessary as part of Lester reclaiming his power and getting a sense of what he could accomplish.

Original drafts had him having sex with Angela, but I would have thought poorly of the movie and wouldn't watch it much if he had, it would have been him using her and consuming her with his masculinity. What we see here is Lester holding this girl up on a pedestal as the object of his awakening sexual energy... but when he goes to consumate the act in her moment of vulnerability, he suddenly becomes aware that he has been viewing her as an object and not as a young teenage girl who has fallen into his power. And given the choice to abuse that power or wield it in another way, he steps into his own and uses his position to become a father figure and care for her, in her best interests, rather than using her. As he does so, he becomes a man who is powerful and yet not at the mercy of his own desires and powers, and you can tell that he feels even STRONGER because of that. When we suppress desires, they sneak back out and master us; when we face them and are comfortable with ourselves, we master THEM and can chose when or when not to indulge. There is such a happiness and peace on his face in the last few minutes of his life, where you can recognize a man who has found himself and doesn't need others to fulfill him, and so he can give in return. This gives Lester's journey closure in the narrative.

 

[Jennywocky]

Just watched the last twenty minutes of Primer, after having stopped in the middle about six weeks ago. That was a mistake, boy does my head hurt. Primer is the kind of movie that is hard enough to follow when you watch it in one sitting. Coming into it after having forgotten details from the first 50 minutes just ended up frying my brain.

But it isn't just me: I Googled it after, found a great detailed synopsis, and it's pretty mind-blowing to try to keep everything in order. (xkcd made a joke timeline for the characters in the movie by just drawing a huge squiggle ball with the ends of the lines just sticking out of it at random points).

If you don't know much about it, it's a time-travel movie made on a budget of $7000, which is absolutely crazy, but the director (who also performed about six other duties, including starring in it) ended up making a film that won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2004. I guess one of the reviewer quotes is, "If you understand Primer on your first view, you're either a savant or a liar." The film is specifically written to NOT dumb things down or overexplain, and the quick back and forth hushed dialogue leaves you almost feeling as if you are eavesdropping on the main characters... which was exactly how you're supposed to feel. At the same time, I agree with the reviewer that says it's one of the better time-travel movies out there because of its realism -- not the devices themselves, but the people who invested time travel. Not only did they discover it as a side-effect of somethign else they were trying to create, but they approach it exactly you would expect the kind of people who might actually create time travel to approach it. And they're heavy-tech-inclined, without much ethical wisdom.

I recommend it if you like movies with twists that mess with your head (it's kind of the NT version of Mulholland Drive, IMO). And if you give up watching it a few times to "get it," you can Google the movie to find a few good sites that can explain (more or less) what actually happens.

 

[MichiganJFrog]

Primer was cool. What I thought made it work was that everyone and everything in the movie looked so unremarkable. No aliens, no spaceships, no orchestral scores. I was afraid one of those guys was going to teleport into my living room or something.

 

[ObliviousGenius]

I saw Olympus has Fallen yesterday. The US government was left in a hopeless hostage situation in which the enemy held all the cards. The idea that really stood out about this film was the wisdom to make extremely (yes extremely) tough decisions. There were so many incredible lose-lose choices that had to be made. I could not imagine being in a hot seat where one must make such critical decisions.

If it were up to me, what would I do? Do I have the ability to make the right decision? Do I have the intestinal fortitude to move on should I make the wrong decision? This film shows that all those answers should be yes. I'd give examples but I don't want to spoil the movie.

 

[travelnjones]

Im about half way through Safety Not Guaranteed. I am not sure what to make of it yet. It's not so funny as the comedy listing on Netflix said. though its fun so far.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Lawrence of Arabia


Great visuals and film score, I'm sure it would have been tons better at a theater. The motorcycle accident in the beginning wasn't very believable, but I suppose it does effectively contrast with how he unbelievably lived through the desert campaign. I also noticed how everyone he personally helps ends up dying: his escort, the two servants, and the man he went back for. Favorite characters were Auda ibu Tayi, and Prince Feisal to a lesser extent.

 

[nanook]

movies which i have rated 8

Two Lovers (2008) about loving versus being driven by manic depressive temperament. a bit painful to watch, but i like the topic and characters.

Lore (2012) a movie about what happened just after the war. never saw a movie about this subject, which is why i appreciated it so much. the characters are not perfectly fleshed out, though.


movies which i have rated 7

Rust and Bone (2012) this movie is kinda nice, even-though for a love movie it's not very emotional, but that temperament is part of the plot and part of the character, which is played by the actor who played Rundskop

Love Exposure -Ai no mukidashi (2008) this is absolutely hilarious. not sure if it is worth three hours, but i sat through it without proclaiming. it's kinda like sailormoon or something, i mean the characters are ridiculous but you can still take them seriously, in part.

Beginners (2010) okay romance > drama, with ewan mcgregor.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Lost In Translation, a few days ago.


The aesthetics were great, and it was mildly funny but besides that I don't understand the praise it received. Neither the characters nor the story left much of an impression.

 

[wonkavision]

I guess the last movie I watched was La Planète sauvage (1973).
It was a rather odd movie, for it seemed not to convey any human feeling into my soul. I don't know, it was a sort of science fiction story, wherein everyone had the most impassive faces, like those of films noir. And there were some aliens, but they didn't seem "modern", they were just bizarre-looking.
I guess it would be the creepiest film ever, if only it wasn't an animation. Instead it ended up just being wierd.

Ahhhh!!!!! How dare you not praise it to the skies!!!
Just kidding, of course, but that's one of my favorite films of all time.

The last film I saw was Rust and Bone.

Not bad, but I'm not too crazy about it.
Better than most Hollywood sludge, but I was kind of put off by all the gratuitous LEGLESS sex scenes, and I just wasn't feeling any chemistry between the two main characters.
I'd give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The next film I see will most likely be Oblivion, with Tom Cruise.

 

[Jennywocky]

The next film I see will most likely be Oblivion, with Tom Cruise.

A friend just asked me today to go with her to see this next week. I was planning to see it anyway. Reviews have been back and forth on it, but limited in quantity at this stage, so I'm not sure what's up... the trailer seemed decent enough.

Basically Star Trek is my must-see for this spring, and maybe Iron Man.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Pirates of the Caribbean 3

You know, I should hate this movie. The $$black hole budget, completely unfathomable plot, drenched from head to toe in CG effects. I've built up an inherent bias to all that stuff (Thanks Transformers franchise).

But I loved it. The sets, costumes, and makeup were nothing short of amazing. Acting was top notch, especially Captain Barbossa, who is everything I'd imagine a pirate to be. The FX were way over the top as expected, but they were so well-executed that I just couldn't hate them.

I love the scene where Jack Sparrow is marooned on the Black Pearl in Davy Jones' locker. I hope I have an excuse some day to call someone a 'fecculent maggot'.

Strangely, my kids have had this film in their DVD collection for quite awhile, but I never bothered to give it a look. It was just a fluke that I saw it today. I took two of my ESL students, both 9 year old boys, to the mercado to pick out a film to watch in English, and this is what they chose. They certainly enjoyed it, even though they probably understood less than 20% of the dialog. I wonder if I'd have enjoyed it half as much if I'd watched it alone.

 

[BigApplePi]

Ghost World.

How an outsider copes. Watching it for the 2nd time. Inside was this marvelous song ... at least my impression: Devil Got My Woman

 

[Jennywocky]

The next film I see will most likely be Oblivion, with Tom Cruise.

Did you see it? I went on Friday.

I think it was decent enough and enjoyable in its own rights, but it's not like Brazil or Blade Runner or Minority Report. i.e., it doesn't linger very long or demand a lot of multiple viewings.

I also feel like the human elements are a little too sparse. He would do a little better if his movies weren't so clean of human pathos. This movie was definitely better than Tron Legacy; in that movie, the set felt pretty bare of human beings, and also of a lot of human depth until that one scene near the end where Flynn is recalling his son as a little boy, and that part hit me pretty hard. I wish the rest of that movie had dug into that kind of human connection.

This movie, there was more of it but still a little sparse. If you note, there weren't many human beings in this movie either, but he could get away with that because of the actual storyline and setting.

The tech stuff was decent enough, and the warbots pretty terrifying despite their simple design -- very good at their job. I also liked the dropship design, it was pretty clean.

 

[Alex_]

Candy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkZ7ve9P7R8


Got pretty immersed in it, made the trip seem like only a few minutes. Got a bit disappointed with

Spoiler

the ending, though. I think it's better than Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream in some points, but not in general.

 

[Puffy]

^ Requiem was pretty cool, maybe I should check it out.

I've seen a bunch in the last few days for some reason:

Gerry - a Gus Van Sant Art film about two guys who get lost in the middle of no where. The most ambiguously boring/ interesting film I've seen.

Crash, The Brood & Shivers -

All Cronenberg flicks. He's a horror director I've always felt ambiguous towards, as I love the focus on disease and bodily transformation, but never feel he went as far with the theme as he could.

Crash - lots of sex scenes and car crashes, and sex scenes after car crashes, and sex scenes during car crashes, and you get the picture. (The novel by Ballard it's based on is decent though, just not morally so.)

The Brood - Few pretty cool scenes, but meh.

Shivers - Pretty sure this must have inspired 28 Days Later and maybe even The Shining to an extent, due to its labyrinthine focus on this apartment building. Basically, what if people become diseased, sex crazed zombies? I felt this was pretty well done, and apparently it was Cronenberg's first feature that built his reputation. If you're a Cronenberg/ horror fan, I recommend this. Second to his film Videodrome maybe.

The Last House on the Left - A pretty famous exploitation horror film by Wes Craven. I thought this was a really interesting film. Two girls are kidnapped by a group of escaped killers, they take them to a forest (coincidentally outside where the girls live), and expected exploitation-ness ensues.

What's interesting is the strange ironies in it. Like it cuts up torture sequences with the girl's family preparing birthday celebrations, and these slap-stick sequences involving the two incompetent policemen searching for them. The music always seems out of synch with what's happening on the screen, deliberately playing melodic pieces to disturbing scenes to toy with your emotions.

Spoiler

It also ends with the killers staying the night with the parents after killing their daughter, which created a few really uncomfortable scenes.

I'm tempted to say this is a black comedy. I found the concluding montage pretty funny either way.

 

[wonkavision]

Did you see it? I went on Friday.

I think it was decent enough and enjoyable in its own rights, but it's not like Brazil or Blade Runner or Minority Report. i.e., it doesn't linger very long or demand a lot of multiple viewings.

I also feel like the human elements are a little too sparse. He would do a little better if his movies weren't so clean of human pathos. This movie was definitely better than Tron Legacy; in that movie, the set felt pretty bare of human beings, and also of a lot of human depth until that one scene near the end where Flynn is recalling his son as a little boy, and that part hit me pretty hard. I wish the rest of that movie had dug into that kind of human connection.

This movie, there was more of it but still a little sparse. If you note, there weren't many human beings in this movie either, but he could get away with that because of the actual storyline and setting.

The tech stuff was decent enough, and the warbots pretty terrifying despite their simple design -- very good at their job. I also liked the dropship design, it was pretty clean.

Yeah, I saw Oblivion.

I agree with everything you said.

Was hoping for it to be a little better.

Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Next film will probably be To The Wonder.

 

[thekatspajamas]

Les Miserables. It was very good, I enjoyed it.

 

[Hawkeye]

Tokyo Sonata

 

[Jennywocky]

Next film will probably be To The Wonder.

I would like to see that; I'm not sure where I'll fall. I couldn't decide whether Tree of Life was pretentious or awe-inspiring, and apparently this one is even more Malick than that one.

 

[motrhead]

Seven Psychopaths. Loved it.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Equilibrium

Total Matrix ripoff. :P There were some cool scenes though, it just seems to have been directed for action rather than the sci-fi depth that the themes hinted at. I wish it was longer and more immersive.

Spoiler

Memento

Crazy, it makes you think.

Commando

Just pure action, there were some funny scenes though, and a ton of one-liners.

 

[Hawkeye]

Blade Runner - still awesome

 

[BigApplePi]

"A River Runs Through It." I don't know how I will feel about this film a month from now but for me I find this the most painful film I've ever seen. I'm not talking dull or objectionable. I'm talking meaning. Some call this a great film and it may be. I find it painful.

 

[wonkavision]

Upstream Color.

Pretty disappointing.

Some great elements, but on the whole, just kinda bad.

 

[Jennywocky]

"A River Runs Through It." I don't know how I will feel about this film a month from now but for me I find this the most painful film I've ever seen. I'm not talking dull or objectionable. I'm talking meaning. Some call this a great film and it may be. I find it painful.

Why is it painful? Did it give you indigestion, or did it just not make sense?

 

[Puffy]

Zombi 2 - The Fulci spinoff of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. I watched that recently to.

DotD is a surprisingly thought-provoking film, largely set in a shopping mall that essentially compares the mindless zombies with consumerists. The cast almost mindlessly risk their lives collecting the merchandise of the store into their sealed off room, even though society's effectively dead and the objects have no apparent value.

In contrast, made within a year of this film, Zombi 2'S special effects are amazing for its time. I mean compare:

Spoiler

with

Spoiler

I think it's more of DotD's thematic point that the zombie's resemble a more human form. As in certain introductory scenes you even see how difficult it is for the characters to kill them, due to empathy; for them at first it's obviously like murder (it becomes progressivley easy for them til a certain point where their actions are contrasted with the brutality of a gang). It's a human element you rarely see in zombie films these days, which treat them as fodder.

Zombi 2 is less cerebral, and is more of a spectacle/ gore-fest/ shock horror (and was on the UK's banned video nasties list). But it has some really innovative effects for its time, and some serious WTF moments. I mean a zombie wrestles a shark underwater... yeah... srsly, wat? Really impressive though. A must see for horror afficionados.

Iconic film score to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrrwonL5UVU

 

[Puffy]

Tarkovsky's Solaris.

I've seen most of his films now, and I have a love-hate relationship with him. I think this and Stalker, his two science-fiction films, are brilliant, where I've found his other stuff inaccessible. It's partly because he has a really slow style, (Stalker is 142 minutes and only has like 160 shots), which basically eschews any kind of popular narrative. If you're not hypnotised by the theme I find that his films fall flat.

This has been called a response to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddyssey. Tarkovsky didn't like Kubrick's predilection towards special effects and cold rationalism, and created this as a kind of counter-point. It's similarly an exploration of space, but I think also a kind of warning about humanity's distancing from nature and the unconscious (literally: in terms of space travel, away from the earth.) We're on earth for forty minutes, from nature, to a city, to space, so that in the latter we can feel this kind of sterility and homesickness. They've come into contact with this living ocean they can't understand and so consider destroying, which responds by manifesting itself through delusions on the ship. It felt like a really Jungian film to me, in that sense.

Kubrick's film had a much more overwhelming effect on me (as it's a really spectacular film), but this was satisfying and subtle. I think some of it's images are more likely to stay with me. If anyone here is a fan of science-fiction cinema I recommend it, but it does need a lot of patience.

 

[Jennywocky]

Tarkovsky's Solaris.

I need to watch this. I just watched Soderbergh's version last week, after a ten year lull (or however long it's been), but I'd like to compare. I think Soderbergh tried to view the story more through the lens of Chris and Rheya's relationship, but it had one of those delightful performances by Jeremy Davies (along with Viola Davis, who is more prominent now but I didn't know who she was back then!) There are some various levels of subtext there, where perhaps the ending is not quite as "happy" (loose term here) as it could be taken, once you dig a bit into the underlying philosophy.

Soderbergh said he wanted to make something that more honored Lem's initial intent in writing his book, but the author's response suggested he thought it further from his intent (which seems to be more what you described).

 

[TheScornedReflex]

The Big Lebowski.

Man. The things this guy goes through for a rug.