Topic: The Movie Thread

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@Ravix I read all of the above and I'll reply (to it all as I figure out)

This part 'So the movie did make you feel in your own way?' Normally I'd just have a long flowing answer, I'm genuinely stumped, and that doesn't happen. I don't think it's happened before. Except long before that roadblock was put there. I looked at what I'd said last night with breakfast and made an instant connection with 'John Hugues'.

Do you remember Planes Trains and Automobiles? Remember I told you that the media I watched was dated and I was still catching up, that movie was before my time but it was 'new' to me.

There's a scene at the very end where Steve Martin brings John Candy to his home for Thanksgiving? then there's this odd interaction between Martin's wife and Candy. Some kind of strange warmth. I didn't understand it then because he was a stranger and in my life there were no strangers. Everyone was Family, an associate or a friend of ours. There were, and still are, no outsiders. We're completely closed off and insulated from your society, hence me sneaking over the walls so to speak. I need to do it.

I saw that when I was really young, maybe eight years old. I didn't fight that Boss who debuffed my emotions to 0+ until after that. I couldn't understand what I was seeing because 'who would permit a stranger to their door?', and 'why are they being warm to someone they don't know'. I know now that's empathy, but no one in my world had empathy especially for an outsider. We hardly have it for ourselves, though like I said I have it for you. I can't turn it off. I think I was seeing empathy in action and I didn't understand it, the scene stayed with me, and I think because I felt that connection.

I think I tapped into that scene again last night. That memory and emotion was somehow projected through Drive, probably because of the same dynamic range in my music. The result was a burst of that familiar warmth followed by my emotions saying 'what is this? why are we here this is a movie? we are usually here for the dynamic range of music'. I hadn't felt a movie since I was eight years old and everything was discombobulated.

You asked me months ago why I watch so much horror, and you talked about something making you squeamish. I told you that nothing makes me squeamish that I'm perhaps desensitized to it or something. But last night I wasn't, the violence in that movie is nothing compared to some of the other things I've seen and none of that affected me, but last night it did, the dynamic range again. I'm not desensitized at all, there just wasn't anything there on either the good or bad scale to compare it to. So last night when I watched the movie and something did hit, I felt utter confusion. I'm still trying to find the words. Connection maybe, I generally don't register the connection between two people in a movie, but I understood his feelings towards his neighbor and that he felt something for her child, something protective. Something you mentioned the night before about parents protecting children, and I had no reference point for it because protection to you meant some kind of natural nurturing? and protection to me meant bullet proof glass and close protection security. I applied my life to what you said, last night I saw something different, then felt it.

That is my default setting. So no, a tasty beverage didn't sponsor that quote. When we start to have more normal conversations you will see that my 'normal' is weirder than my weird

• I'm a really bad judge of normal, but I do appreciate the weird, it's honesty.

I'm not very analytical, I am more on the 'what does it make me feel' side of things, but I get what you are saying about that HDR now (it is kind of spooky)

• I'm not even sure that I always was. I think once that debuff happened something else kicked in to fill those spaces and my mind shifted to focusing on something more complex. For example you look at a car and think 'I sure hope I have enough fuel to get to X Y or Z', I look at it and rotate it in my mind, start to see all of the little working pieces, visualize each piece running and understand why that happens. I do that with everything and everyone. If we have company over, for a meal etc, I sit quietly on the floor and watch and study them, then slowly figure out how they work by how they talk, act and so forth.

That boss debuff shifted a lot of things around, it made me look at things and people differently and it didn't go unnoticed. They noticed because I started taking things apart, I wanted to see how they ran, even strip firearms, everything. Then I applied it to movies, especially for every closed set in Pinewood (maybe sixty or so times, Batman, Bond, Starwars, etc) I didn't talk to the actors I went straight to the camera operators. I didn't feel anything from the actors, because I didn't feel, especially some kind of performance.

Games are no different, I've only ever once felt a game. Spiritfarer and I think because someone close to me passed that week, the game triggered something, then my feelings followed. Other than that I've never felt a game, just gone straight to games to build or explore, even skipped cut-scenes (sacrilege) I did it because they confused me and I didn't understand any of that baked in emotional context or content. Dark Souls is different, no one knows what's going on, hence my favorite franchise. Yours might be driven by emotions, character development, character relationships, mine would be 'I see a mountain, I need to get up there so I can have a better perspective of the world map'. I do all of the side content first, walk every corner of the map, then do the story last, because I have to do it for completion.

If I apply that same thinking to Pinewood it would go something like this 'what was Christain bale like?', I'd say 'no idea I was talking to the DP (director of photography) which is true, it's the same for every set I've ever been on. California was the same, I had no interest in the actors. I couldn't even understand why my ex-girlfriend would get so starstruck every time she met someone like that, I'd feel nothing. For her it was almost nightly, that's what L.A. is like, no matter where you eat privately you see such a person. She wanted selfies with every single one of them. Hundreds of selfies, it was constant and shock horror, that's why she was with me, and that's why she's now an ex. The one that did it for me was Dan Aykroyd because he's handsome (he is) and has such an amazing brain, he's incredibly intelligent and can speak for hours about one topic, amazing quality in any man.

I also approached the man who plays Jigsaw in SAW and 'I'm not that person sorry', he was, and he finally admitted it when I refused to leave his table, or the two guys with me convinced him with a look, either way I really wanted to talk to him and did. Mainly about the first movie and he mentioned some of his other pictures and so many TV shows that I'd never heard of (which shocked him) one was Seinfield, I've never seen it, or Walking Texas Ranger, I don't watch Westerns all that much. But, and this is interesting. The character he played was an engineer, he built contraptions and visualized everything, I think I approached him because I identified that same mechanical thinking. He was friendly when he realized I genuinely wanted to talk, not 'sign this for me'. I tend to not do that, Clive Barker was an exception too, a handful of others. I just see it as 'they are people and need privacy too'.

With everyone else there was just nothing there, or rather they were capable of brilliant performances and each one was lost on me. The same for the music industry, cameras again, and audio-techs. I didn't even know who the artists were in my favorite bands, and still don't, I meet them and think 'who even was that'. That's why I asked Phil Lynotts Mum 'who is that man in your picture? is it Jesus?' and I swear everything stopped at that moment, she and I were sitting around maybe ten other old ladies. I was quietly drinking in their wisdom while the rest of the crew band were off drinking it up at an after party somewhere, I think she'd adopted me that night or something. I'd hardly said a word, then 'is that Jesus?' was my opening. There were maybe twenty or so others mingling, I think even the violinist stopped playing. The room went silent and then she asked 'have you ever done drugs?' and I said 'no thank you I'm not allowed' even more silence. She told me who it was, I'd listened to Whiskey in a Jar hundreds of times before and because I felt the music not the person I thought her son was Jesus. I went back to the venue the next night and was asked 'how was the party?', I told one person what happened, within maybe an hour everyone knew. Some were shocked, others were dying from laughter. I couldn't explain why I didn't know who he was.

It happened over and over again with Metal (unless they were older and very attractive, then I knew) but in general I wasn't hearing them, I was feeling the sound. Which is why I've listened to Alkaline Trio my whole life and didn't know who you meant last night. You said it maybe twice and it never registered.

That is kind of cool, right? Was it weird having that happening?

• Extremely. I generally have nothing there but adrenaline, it builds all day until I can remove it by doing something particular for my Partner, my brain reward system is broken. A game trophy to you is a 'well done', I understand it as a trophy, but not as an achievement because I can't feel personal achievement in anything, unless it's by proxy. I try to find it by pushing myself to the limit, constantly, in everything, but never have. When I get that 'good job' from him and when I believe it, I 'feel' some of what he's feeling and get hit with a wave of serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. Then I either get drunk (naturally) on those chemicals or I black out. I told Tjuz I went to sleep on the floor of that restaurant and he couldn't understand it, I'd blacked out. Hence we travel with a blanket, I even saw one in the picture I shared yesterday, right beside me in the car, same reason.

My mind can't handle going from nothing on an emotional level to a supernova of natural brain chemicals. He can regulate my sleep with that same technique. Then without it (he was away last night on a business trip) I don't sleep, the adrenaline doesn't allow me to, especially if it's mixed with jet-lag. Music gives me a little bit more of that emotional context, a movie never has and I have walls full of them. I know most movies I've seen inside out but on a technical level. That was incredibly weird last night, very surreal.

I love how genuine and without hidden agenda or motives The Driver is. He is unnamed, very quiet, but his actions are incredibly loud, even when not literally loud they are just as impactful to the people around him, like his care for the kid, that is quiet but impactful. I'd say he is the type of character/person that can often get used himself, too.

• I identify with some of that but less as a violent outburst and more like this; I tend to only speak for maybe thirty minutes per day (which shocked Tjuz, he thought it was forced) or sometimes not at all, I've gone without speech for over a year, I've said maybe ten words in the last two days and each was probably 'thank you' to whomever brought tea. I spend my time quietly studying and learning. Then suddenly when I do speak certain people are shocked that there is a high level of intellect there. I think (know) that words can be weapons, I'm careful how I use mine. If, and when I do speak it can be seen as an outburst to some, but only because just like that character I spent more of that time quietly just being. I don't see much of the same in anything else, so there was a connection there too. I've only ever felt a connection to Batman, I understood his situation, his circumstance, and his drive to fix and injustice that most people were blissfully apathetic to. I'm reading three books right now about that same character, one based on their psychology, another on their philosophy and another on their ethics. Connections are important and as rare as Astatine.

Another example, we were sharing music a couple of weeks ago and I shared a French song. I like it a lot, and can sing it fluently but I didn't see what you saw. You said 'that's very depressing, are you sure you are okay?' but I was happily bopping along to the feeling of the tempo, the modulation and the structure. I didn't notice it was 'sad' until you said so. You'd call it synth-wave, just like Drive.

The last song I posted in the music thread is apparently sad too, I checked the lyrics today and there it was. I didn't register what they were even saying. To an observer that would be dark and 'are you okay?'. I was unaware of that part and I'd listened to it on repeat for maybe three hours, the energy and movement felt like a warm cup of coffee, they could have been singing or screaming about painting a house, I'd have missed it. Now I'm wondering about all of the other tracks I've posted on here. It's weird, but interesting, at least it is for me when I have some way to see it in hindsight, normally I wouldn't because it's all internal, just like Drive.