This was Alex Jones once

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• Daggity@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Anyone here trying to defend Jones at any part of his life should listen to knowledge right. He’s always been a fraud and idiot.

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• cobysev@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  My wife showed me Waking Life way back when we first started dating (around 2006 or so). She thought it was the best film ever. Her previous boyfriend and all her other college friends were liberal arts majors, so it was championed in their circle as a crowning achievement of film entertainment, possibly the greatest film ever made.

  I, on the other hand, thought it was the most pretentious piece of artsy garbage I’d ever seen. And I was a huge fan of philosophy and human psychology in those days. I was so disappointed in that film and its poor attempt to convey its themes.

  I felt like the philosophical discussions were all unimaginative topics, presented to the audience as if they were deep revelations. But there was no deeper message, no inspiring new thoughts to convey. Just a bunch of common philosophical themes that we’ve seen explored in dozens of other films. But this one refused to commit to an actual understanding of those themes, instead leaving them vague and open-ended, so you can project your own meanings on them instead of the creator doing actual work or showing any knowledge or understanding.

  Heck, it didn’t even have a decent flow to the story. There wasn’t really a plot, just a bunch of disjointed thoughts that the creator wanted to say without knowing how to properly convey it on screen. There weren’t even decent transitions between topics, and the main character just sort of faded out of the story as it got lost in its tunnel of thought-dumping on the viewer. I absolutely hated that film.

  I last watched it nearly 2 decades ago. I’ve wanted to rewatch it again and see if my feelings about it still hold up. My wife has rewatched it since, and she now agrees with me that it’s a pretty pretentious piece of work. Maybe we should both check it out again and reevaluate.

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  • Impleader@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Like your wife, I thought it was an absolutely brilliant film when I was an enlightened college kid who had just discovered LSD. I watched it again last year and could barely get through it.

    The philosophical ideas presented have no consistency or relevance to whatever passes for a plot, the pacing/narrative is an afterthought, and (sorry to any Linklater fans) the rotoscoping animation started to give me a migraine.

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  • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    that’s a genuine take, and it makes me think about what my opinion of it would be watching it now. i haven’t seen it in about 20 years, either. you’re most likely right, in that my younger self probably thought a lot more highly that i probably would now. come to think of it, the film did feature this one certain asshole… hmm

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• foggy@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  1. Waking Life is an excellent movie that every coming of age adolescent should watch.

  2. Alex Jones got drunk on investigative journalism success. It is not a stretch to say that he and Michael Moore were very similar and on similar paths at one point in history (circa Waking Life, 1999-2001.). . Turns out one of them is both batshit crazy and great at mass manipulation, while the other is still righteous but struggles to get noticed.

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  • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    lmao i’m so happy that you replied so thoroughly, but i’m gonna have to have another look after i sober up, too. when i first saw your reply, i thought GPT. but i don’t think gpt formats like it’s drunk, too lol

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    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m not the person you replied to, but I was taught to write very formally in school and while writing legal position papers at work and llms mimic a style that was drilled into me. It’s really frustrating, but other than swearing or making a dumb joke, I don’t know how to make it clear that I’m a person (and tbh, the former won’t work for long and the latter is already outdated).

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    • foggy@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      📽️ Why A Scanner Darkly is a good film

      🕴️ Keanu is an agent.

      💊 Robert Downy is on drugs

      😉

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• otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’m lucky enough to have a copy of this film on Blu-ray. It’s insanely rare. I got to see it all the way back in 2007 and it still seems almost no one has heard of it. It has changed my life more than any other film I’ve seen.

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I had also never heard of it. It is available on usenet. I will be viewing it in the near future!

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• toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  i know it isn’t easy upvoting alex jones content, so thank you for your service.

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  • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I used to follow Alex Jones before he started making money. He was (probably) authentic and actually tried to physically infiltrate supposed cabalic rituals and such.

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    • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      it really seemed that way, but of course i now question everything he said - and i actually credit him for how i ultimately developed that skill. things may have been very different back in those days, but it’s clear now that he was only just rabble rouser without any real goal at the time. sad that he’s found one now though

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Did they re-use one of his actual speeches or was he just cast to play this character and read these lines? I haven’t seen the film yet.

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    • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      i’m an idiot. i edited my post and then realized you’d never see it.

      this was filmed specifically for the production. i’m in my 40s now (sucks), but i got big into his stuff right after 9/11. police state stuff during the w admin… bohemian grove was huge… some of his gotchas are still wow (david gruggen?).

      he was a force maybe once? but definitely not now. i think it’s good for people to know where he came from so they can help us prevent where he’s going.

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    • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      as i know it, he was filmed making the speech and they animated over top of it, just like the rest of the film. he isn’t the best part. it’s a great movie involving tons of great animators.

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