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21:59 <robt3hpirate> viva la revolution via 160 characters
That was a lovely start to the evening! He may have been sarcastic, but I'm happy to mistake a windmill for a giant here.
Sat down to watch Seven Samurai (the complete 207 minute version) with
Kurosawa was just a magical director. He knew exactly how little of a scene he needed to tell the story of that scene and he knew exactly how to get the actors to act what they were thinking.
(The bit in particular where Manzo finds out about Katsushiro and Shino -- pretty much everything there was told with facial expressions. As the villagers clear out, you can see their thoughts on their faces. That is art, right there.)
And it moves! There are two techniques in filmmaking that I admire more than anything. It's the ability to stretch time and the ability to shrink time. Lots of the old Twilight Zone episodes had the former in spades. You'd watch a 24 minute episode, but you'd swear you just watched a movie.
Kurosawa made those 207 minutes feel like 2 hours -- if that.
And a man in Atlanta became the first to have his condition treated with embryonic stem cells. The future is now, people. Live it!