Best Movies

“I absolutely don’t like the films in which the filmmakers take their viewers hostage and provoke them. I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. I think those films are kind enough to allow you a nice nap, and not leave you disturbed. When you leave the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks. Those are the kind of films I like.” – Kiarostami

“I’ve nothing against entertainment cinema. I watch those films in one sitting. With good films, I go downstairs, check the fridge, make a phone call and go back. I don’t think that independent and thought-provoking films can be absorbed as easily as the Hollywood ones.” – Kiarostami 

“If the camera wasn’t on me, I could speak more freely. When we know we’re being watched, we naturally project another image of ourselves. We become reserved. We project an image that does not represent our real self. The moment we say “Cut,” the actors smile, the contracted muscles in their faces relax, and they come alive again. Despite all our efforts to reflect that pure moment, to capture real characters on camera, we’re hindered by the limitations which technology and technicians have created precisely in order to capture such rare moments.” – Kiarostami

Best survival and survivalism shows. They’re all TV series and one internet vlogger, but if anyone suggests films or anything else, we’ll add them.

1. Naked and Afraid: There are already like six seasons of this 21-day survival series plus two series of the big team 40 day version. They take 2 people, a man and a woman, who have various levels of survival skills, and drop them in some remote place in the world (could be anywhere, from Florida swamp to Madagascar jungle), and they have nothing but one idem they bring with them each plus a map (and sometimes a fire-starter or knife supplied as well).
2. Dual Survival: A hippy survivalist and an ex-military man try to make it out of various extreme survival situations around the world.
3. Ray Meares Bushcraft: Survivalist Ray Mears travels to various locations and does survival, teaching what he knows to viewers.
4. Survivorman: A survivalist goes out by himself into various locations around the world and survives there, until his scheduled meeting with a rescue.
5. Bear Grylls Survival School: The famous survivalist and a few other team members take a group of British kids out into the wilderness and teach them to survive.
6. Survivor (TV game show): The first few episodes actually involved scarcity of food and difficulty of getting by.
7. Ultimate Survival Alaska: Survivalists take on 72-hour extraction challenges in Alaska, carrying backpacks with supplies like sleeping bags, tents, matches, knives and guns.
8. American Tarzan: A group of survivors will take on challenges when this show airs this June.
9. Primitive Technology: This is a YouTube channel that started out when a young man with a survivalist hobby made some videos of himself making things in the wild.

My criticism of the shows: I don’t really like shows that just have one survivalist, because they say everything like they’re correct, but when you get more than one person out there, you see that there are multiple ways to do things, and they criticize each other. Plus its just more interesting. Probably that’s why I enjoyed Naked and Afraid the most of all these. Even when you have a pair of survivalists, that’s just 2 people and you can get tired of that, particularly when they come to the ends of their knowledge and skill — at that point, you want other people to be on the show.

What’s your favorite? Did we miss any?