I'm confused about the cursed vs. guardian superhero thing. The cursed hero movies that come to mind are Spider-Man and the Hulks, both of which made bank. What's he thinking of? Daredevil? Darkman?

Let's get Robert Downey Jr. for the remake.

Exactly. Wow, we're really on the same wavelength here. You've never been infected with a psychic worm, have you?

Also, just because something is there intentionally doesn't mean its intended function is to unlock the true meaning of a film. Sometimes it's there to enhance or reflect on the more prominent themes in a holistic way. To evoke rather than invoke, as it were.

I actually liked the details of how the tangent universe in Donnie Darko functioned, I just didn't like finding out that it happened in the first place because SPOILERS intelligent entities from the future accidentally created it by time travelling, then had to coerce Frank's ghost into leading Donnie to fix it. In my…

Well, I mean, the idea that a psychic connection can exist period is dumb. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief for a human-human connection (I assume. You don't hate every psychic movie, do you?), why not a human-pig?

Sorry, I phrased that unclearly. It's not that every movie should be about feeling more than story, it's that, compared to media like books, comics, and theater, conveying experiences immediately and directly is what film can do most effectively. There are certainly films in which the story is more important than the…

@avclub-4f18f486a356810b3ef8008243bcba7a:disqus Come on. I know you hate Upstream Color, but even you can admit that it's far more comprehensively worked-out and internally consistant than Prometheus.

What's complex is the particulars of how and why Diane's real life translates into the dream, and what that means.

@avclub-47546271af6edfca8d96d7f471389b53:disqus  The only things I missed on my first viewing were that the Sampler transferred the worm from Kris to the pig (I thought he was just using a blood transfusion from the pig to restore her), and that the people he saw when he walked around the pig pen were those pigs'…

I don't think it's the human testing phase. I think the Thief's been doing this for a long time, and knows exactly how to use the worms. Considering his age, I'd guess he might even have been apprenticed to a more experienced Thief who used them. He just also sells the (dead, unusable) worms as a recreational drug to…

"Turns out it takes whatever is convenient for the plot, and that's it."

"good movies are more about emotional resonance than the specific details."

"It's not important to the story how the Thief and the Sampler are related."

Why is it dumb? It's bizarre, I'll grant you, but pretty well worked out in terms of causality and mechanism.

It's a metaphor for the conflict between machine and, uh, horse.

The difference between those films and Sopranos is that while ambiguous in some emotional particulars, they end after the story's climax, after the main source of tension has been relieved. In The Thing, Childs may or may not be a Thing at the end, but either way, the complex is exploded and they're going to freeze to…

"it is not about a story, it's about a feeling"

"which was also inspired by Primer"

I would argue that for Upstream Color, trying to figure out what the hell is going on is part of the visceral experience, since by doing so, you put yourself in the place of the characters and follow along in their journey of discovery, feeling what they feel at each moment of revelation.