Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
edited November 2025
@RobinH that’s a beautiful description of what The Hobbit was all about, making you feel like a child in a world that is filled with strange and exciting things. I loved the humour of the films as well, it was genuinely very funny in places. You’ve put your finger on quite a few of the reasons why I love it.
I appreciate The Lord of the Rings as well, the reasons I liked it is because it put you into the long epic story that the book is, it has some humour in it as well, but much of it is made serious to draw you into the importance of the quest for Mount Doom.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
I’ve been continuing my exploration of what movies changed my life, and one thing I’ve found is that there have been a few that have worked on my sense of fear, which have stayed with me for a long time. Here are some that I’ve remembered…
The Exorcist: I walked into this being shown on Dutch public television in 1983, I would have been 11 at the time. I didn’t see much of it, but what I saw scared the bejesus out of me, and gave me a lasting dislike of all horror films. Jaws: The reason why to this day I don’t swim in murky or ocean water. This was a tremendous cinematic experience, but also a reason to steer clear of big ocean predators. One viewing was enough to have some scenes burned onto my retinas. Dr. Strangelove: Darkly funny, with a great performance by Peter Sellers, but also the single movie about the Cold War which really brought home that mankind hovered on the edge of a nuclear extinction for a long time, and maybe still does. Scary.
There aren't a lot of movies that I'd say changed my life. The tv series: Six Feet Under is something I always recommend people. I can't praise it enough, but I can easily list 50 reasons why it's worth watching. You can tell that the people behind it were interested in painting a picture about these people that's both brutally honest and empathetic, tender at the same time. Nothing I've ever seen came anywhere close to it under what we call tv entertainment and most likely nothing ever will.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@person said:
hate to break it to you, but we are the odd ones.
I don’t know if that is true, I think it is more like a very gradual course of being brain washed. Children’s programming used to be very much more gentle, but it slowly leads you into more serious matters.
The thing is, the violence and the things people supposedly reach with it are all fake! The movies tell us lies, glamorising money, crime, guns, fighting and death as a way of solving problems. I don’t like being lied to.
Happiness, peace of mind, contentment lie elsewhere.
I was just reviewing this thread, and this comment of mine struck me as being valid and worthwhile. If you look at the amount of violence in normal people’s lives, it is minimal. I’ve never fired a gun or even held one, or engaged in a serious bout of fisticuffs in many years. Yet many of the movies I’ve touched on have involved gunslinging cowboys, sword fights, Kung fu, and soldiering.
It seems to me that as examples of real life, many movies are a failure. At best, you might say that some movies try to portray the world as it was in more dangerous times and places. Many other movies are speculative, fairy tales, or highly exaggerated.
I do think it is true that children start off as innocents, and that the Looney Tunes cartoons I remember from my childhood are society’s way of introducing if not death then at least guns, atomic blasters and explosions.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Not movies really, but I've rewatched a few TV shows from the earlier days of serial stories, before streaming, such as Lost, Person of Interest and Heroes. The seasons were 20 something episodes long, as opposed to 8-10 like they are for streaming shows. The pacing makes for a different sort of experience. The story and characters have time to breath, there is much more character development and exploration. The shorter seasons just move the story forward much more quickly.
This might have been my imagination, but I decided to rewatch Mission Impossible (now free on YouTube) and it felt like the pacing was also at a more relaxed pace, even for an action movie, than something made today. I'm curious if there is any research on the length of cuts between shots today vs past, if they've gotten shorter and more frequent?
"I do think it is true that children start off as innocents, and that the Looney Tunes cartoons I remember from my childhood are society’s way of introducing if not death then at least guns, atomic blasters and explosions. "
I'm not sure what you mean by that innocence lost, but I never found labeling media as a great corruptor and censoring a good solution to such. Fiction is an extension of fantasy, since pretend play is more of a kid's thing, fiction is sometimes the only tool we have to both communicate and process the very real anxieties the world is giving us. I tend to agree, that watching cartoons with unrealistic, over-the-top violence (like Tom and Jerry) can cause a lot of frustration that most kids would not be able to rid themselves of these days, because time spent in front of the tv screen and in front of the computer screen and smart phones is not stimulating enough, I'm also sure that there's plenty of overall peaceful and healthy kids growing up without access to these types of entertainment, but we, adults are usually the ones who project our own negative interpretations on things kids do and if a child steals a candy we sometimes react with them growing up to be notorious criminals having most of their lives spent behind bars - as a mental image in our minds, which is quite silly. The inability to strike a healthy balance in life (spending an immoderate amount watching tv for example) and surrounding subjects deemed taboo with fear and mysticism are a lot more responsible for someone's negative behavioral patterns than any amount of fiction could ever be.
But while on the subject: I'm watching Train Dreams right now, on Netflix. It seems like a meditative experience, reminds me of the book Walden.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
I watched this end-of-the-year video for 2025 from Like Stories of Old (Tom van der Linden), and strangely it gave me some hope about modern movies. The segments he included actually made me want to go and watch some of these films. Not bad!
It could be so, but many of these films don’t make it down to where I live. We only have a modestly sized local cinema which shows a few blockbusters and not much else. So I’m reliant on what I can buy from Apple TV.
I might buy One Battle After Another and No Other Choice just to get a bit of a sense where Tom is coming from with his film sensibilities, or maybe Splitsville which has the virtue of being a comedy.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
I bought One Battle After Another and while it’s a thriller, it was fun to watch, good action, not many deaths or gratuitous violence and it was very much a movie of its time. The story of a father and daughter caught up in a left wing revolutionary group in the US is really interesting as a sign of the times.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@Jeroen said:
I bought One Battle After Another and while it’s a thriller, it was fun to watch, good action, not many deaths or gratuitous violence and it was very much a movie of its time. The story of a father and daughter caught up in a left wing revolutionary group in the US is really interesting as a sign of the times.
Hail St. Nick!
A well made movie and good story. I was wondering who directed it during the watch, thinking maybe Coppola. It was Paul Thomas Anderson. Some more world building would have interested me, but I think the subtle, nebulous way it was handled served the story better, it was outside the focus of the father and daughter story.
@Jeroen said:
I bought One Battle After Another and while it’s a thriller, it was fun to watch, good action, not many deaths or gratuitous violence and it was very much a movie of its time. The story of a father and daughter caught up in a left wing revolutionary group in the US is really interesting as a sign of the times.
Hail St. Nick!
A well made movie and good story. I was wondering who directed it during the watch, thinking maybe Coppola. It was Paul Thomas Anderson. Some more world building would have interested me, but I think the subtle, nebulous way it was handled served the story better, it was outside the focus of the father and daughter story.
“Your guy fell off a roof and got himself arrested…”
It had some humour as well. I thought it was good also, and nice to see that alongside the action it also had some sex and pregnancy and birth. A well rounded very human story, and a different side of America that doesn’t usually see daylight. The ultimate fate of Col Steven J Lockjaw was a final surprise.
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
I think part of what made it interesting was that it wasn’t a superhero movie, and also hadn’t fallen prey to the ‘Marvel syndrome’ of interchangeable hero’s all with quips and jokes and monologues to camera and poses. It was a heartfelt story told with sincerity, good acting and moments of real tension.
It was really interesting watching Tom’s video about the Marvel syndrome, especially the section about corporate passion and real passion as embodied by the Lord of the Rings films and everyone who had worked on them. I don’t think there has been anything to match the craft and detail as shown by the appendices to those films since then.
In a way, all the TV series that were trying to be the next Game of Thrones were suffering from following in its footsteps and having one eye on potentially huge success and then not honouring their source material. Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Foundation, Sandman, none of them really blew up to a must-see phenomenon.
Well, I watched Nuremberg and I thought it was awful. The whole thing felt more like an Avengers film. And what a terrible message about doctor morality...
Enjoyed this. Fast paced but then that is the way at present...
0
JeroenNot all those who wander are lostNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
It was really interesting watching Tom’s video about the Marvel syndrome, especially the section about corporate passion and real passion as embodied by the Lord of the Rings films and everyone who had worked on them. I don’t think there has been anything to match the craft and detail as shown by the appendices to those films since then.
In a way, all the TV series that were trying to be the next Game of Thrones were suffering from following in its footsteps and having one eye on potentially huge success and then not honouring their source material. Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Foundation, Sandman, none of them really blew up to a must-see phenomenon.
I think The Lord of the Rings is approached by many people with respect and a passion because it is a beloved book which has built a worldwide following. So when you make a movie set in that world you have that to draw on, and it can be a project by professionals who are also fans of the source material.
With the later projects like Foundation and Sandman these fan bases weren’t as big or as widespread, and Rings of Power suffered from trying to please its corporate overlords. It’s interesting to see all these projects not make the big stage for one reason or another.
Comments
@RobinH that’s a beautiful description of what The Hobbit was all about, making you feel like a child in a world that is filled with strange and exciting things. I loved the humour of the films as well, it was genuinely very funny in places. You’ve put your finger on quite a few of the reasons why I love it.
I appreciate The Lord of the Rings as well, the reasons I liked it is because it put you into the long epic story that the book is, it has some humour in it as well, but much of it is made serious to draw you into the importance of the quest for Mount Doom.
I’ve been continuing my exploration of what movies changed my life, and one thing I’ve found is that there have been a few that have worked on my sense of fear, which have stayed with me for a long time. Here are some that I’ve remembered…
The Exorcist: I walked into this being shown on Dutch public television in 1983, I would have been 11 at the time. I didn’t see much of it, but what I saw scared the bejesus out of me, and gave me a lasting dislike of all horror films.
Jaws: The reason why to this day I don’t swim in murky or ocean water. This was a tremendous cinematic experience, but also a reason to steer clear of big ocean predators. One viewing was enough to have some scenes burned onto my retinas.
Dr. Strangelove: Darkly funny, with a great performance by Peter Sellers, but also the single movie about the Cold War which really brought home that mankind hovered on the edge of a nuclear extinction for a long time, and maybe still does. Scary.
There aren't a lot of movies that I'd say changed my life. The tv series: Six Feet Under is something I always recommend people. I can't praise it enough, but I can easily list 50 reasons why it's worth watching. You can tell that the people behind it were interested in painting a picture about these people that's both brutally honest and empathetic, tender at the same time. Nothing I've ever seen came anywhere close to it under what we call tv entertainment and most likely nothing ever will.
I was just reviewing this thread, and this comment of mine struck me as being valid and worthwhile. If you look at the amount of violence in normal people’s lives, it is minimal. I’ve never fired a gun or even held one, or engaged in a serious bout of fisticuffs in many years. Yet many of the movies I’ve touched on have involved gunslinging cowboys, sword fights, Kung fu, and soldiering.
It seems to me that as examples of real life, many movies are a failure. At best, you might say that some movies try to portray the world as it was in more dangerous times and places. Many other movies are speculative, fairy tales, or highly exaggerated.
I do think it is true that children start off as innocents, and that the Looney Tunes cartoons I remember from my childhood are society’s way of introducing if not death then at least guns, atomic blasters and explosions.
Not movies really, but I've rewatched a few TV shows from the earlier days of serial stories, before streaming, such as Lost, Person of Interest and Heroes. The seasons were 20 something episodes long, as opposed to 8-10 like they are for streaming shows. The pacing makes for a different sort of experience. The story and characters have time to breath, there is much more character development and exploration. The shorter seasons just move the story forward much more quickly.
This might have been my imagination, but I decided to rewatch Mission Impossible (now free on YouTube) and it felt like the pacing was also at a more relaxed pace, even for an action movie, than something made today. I'm curious if there is any research on the length of cuts between shots today vs past, if they've gotten shorter and more frequent?
"I do think it is true that children start off as innocents, and that the Looney Tunes cartoons I remember from my childhood are society’s way of introducing if not death then at least guns, atomic blasters and explosions. "
I'm not sure what you mean by that innocence lost, but I never found labeling media as a great corruptor and censoring a good solution to such. Fiction is an extension of fantasy, since pretend play is more of a kid's thing, fiction is sometimes the only tool we have to both communicate and process the very real anxieties the world is giving us. I tend to agree, that watching cartoons with unrealistic, over-the-top violence (like Tom and Jerry) can cause a lot of frustration that most kids would not be able to rid themselves of these days, because time spent in front of the tv screen and in front of the computer screen and smart phones is not stimulating enough, I'm also sure that there's plenty of overall peaceful and healthy kids growing up without access to these types of entertainment, but we, adults are usually the ones who project our own negative interpretations on things kids do and if a child steals a candy we sometimes react with them growing up to be notorious criminals having most of their lives spent behind bars - as a mental image in our minds, which is quite silly. The inability to strike a healthy balance in life (spending an immoderate amount watching tv for example) and surrounding subjects deemed taboo with fear and mysticism are a lot more responsible for someone's negative behavioral patterns than any amount of fiction could ever be.
https://toonhole.com/2019/10/insensitive-costume/
But while on the subject: I'm watching Train Dreams right now, on Netflix. It seems like a meditative experience, reminds me of the book Walden.
I watched this end-of-the-year video for 2025 from Like Stories of Old (Tom van der Linden), and strangely it gave me some hope about modern movies. The segments he included actually made me want to go and watch some of these films. Not bad!
It was a very good year in movies.
It could be so, but many of these films don’t make it down to where I live. We only have a modestly sized local cinema which shows a few blockbusters and not much else. So I’m reliant on what I can buy from Apple TV.
I might buy One Battle After Another and No Other Choice just to get a bit of a sense where Tom is coming from with his film sensibilities, or maybe Splitsville which has the virtue of being a comedy.
I bought One Battle After Another and while it’s a thriller, it was fun to watch, good action, not many deaths or gratuitous violence and it was very much a movie of its time. The story of a father and daughter caught up in a left wing revolutionary group in the US is really interesting as a sign of the times.
Hail St. Nick!
A well made movie and good story. I was wondering who directed it during the watch, thinking maybe Coppola. It was Paul Thomas Anderson. Some more world building would have interested me, but I think the subtle, nebulous way it was handled served the story better, it was outside the focus of the father and daughter story.
That movie has a lot of parallels with Star Wars.
I'm watching PlayTime. Not a modern movie, but a movie about the modern.
“Your guy fell off a roof and got himself arrested…”
It had some humour as well. I thought it was good also, and nice to see that alongside the action it also had some sex and pregnancy and birth. A well rounded very human story, and a different side of America that doesn’t usually see daylight. The ultimate fate of Col Steven J Lockjaw was a final surprise.
I think part of what made it interesting was that it wasn’t a superhero movie, and also hadn’t fallen prey to the ‘Marvel syndrome’ of interchangeable hero’s all with quips and jokes and monologues to camera and poses. It was a heartfelt story told with sincerity, good acting and moments of real tension.
It was really interesting watching Tom’s video about the Marvel syndrome, especially the section about corporate passion and real passion as embodied by the Lord of the Rings films and everyone who had worked on them. I don’t think there has been anything to match the craft and detail as shown by the appendices to those films since then.
In a way, all the TV series that were trying to be the next Game of Thrones were suffering from following in its footsteps and having one eye on potentially huge success and then not honouring their source material. Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Foundation, Sandman, none of them really blew up to a must-see phenomenon.
Well, I watched Nuremberg and I thought it was awful. The whole thing felt more like an Avengers film. And what a terrible message about doctor morality...
Enjoyed this. Fast paced but then that is the way at present...
I think The Lord of the Rings is approached by many people with respect and a passion because it is a beloved book which has built a worldwide following. So when you make a movie set in that world you have that to draw on, and it can be a project by professionals who are also fans of the source material.
With the later projects like Foundation and Sandman these fan bases weren’t as big or as widespread, and Rings of Power suffered from trying to please its corporate overlords. It’s interesting to see all these projects not make the big stage for one reason or another.