Movies you've just watched

[Steamflogger Boss]

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

9/10

Fantastic old western with Bogart and Walter Huston. Well worth a watch.

Why do you classify it as a Western? Just curious, it's a bloody good one indeed.

It feels like one to me, but you are right that it isn't officially classified as one.

[soprano1]

It feels like one to me

Yeah, I can understand, the background and story are very Western, only it takes place in the 1920's.

[emphatic]

Alita: Battle Angel, 5/5

I haven't read the manga. This was glorious.

[Vexorg]

Bohemian Rhapsody: **1/2

Straight up award bait. Seems likely to disappoint Queen fans with its sloppily edited versions of the various songs it uses (seriously, I think even Wayne's World did more justice to the title song than this one did) and takes way too many creative liberties in the name of creating drama that wasn't actually there in real life. Rami Malek did a good job here given what he had to work with, but pretty much everyone else mailed this one in. Likely earned its Best Picture Oscar nomination more on its political correctness than on its merits (in fact, it's the worst reviewed movie to get a Best Picture nomination since the 80s) . That said, the Live Aid scene at the end of the film was quite good, but you could pretty much fast forward to it and not miss much.

[Leandro]

Bohemian Rhapsody: That said, the Live Aid scene at the end of the film was quite good, but you could pretty much fast forward to it and not miss much.

That scene has a better version of it available on youtube since long before this movie. I gave this movie 6/10- but it was worth to watch in the theaters. Definitely doesn't deserve any important award.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I experienced something of an epiphany the other day. Bear with me. So when, a tad earlier, watching Super (2010, US) for the first time, quite a drink had been had on that day, but I had NOT suffered a significant memory loss, meaning that I'd remembered most of the film without major gaps. Therefore, when I started my second viewing, off-screen narration from the word go took me by a huge surprise. Normally, I get upset by this kind of thing immediately, so my initial tolerance to it indicated something extremely unusual. I would not typically forget such a thing in years.
Thing is, Rainn Wilson plays ALL of his role dead seriously, which is nothing if not a pinnacle* of acting Olympus. As stated before, this particular film is no comedy, but I've no doubt now that he could take on a comedy with flying colours. For you see, the funniest comedy is played dead seriously too. If you can come up with a task more demanding of any actor, I'd like to hear what would that be. So, when I realised just how extraordinarily good acting was on display there, I got struck by his physical resemblance to Orson Welles.

Spoiler

Blimey!

*) The actual Mount Olympus counts 52 peaks for what it's worth.

[Ixmucane2]

Alita: Battle Angel

Dr. Ito finds the incomplete remains of an amnesiac cyborg he decides to call Alita, restores her, and protects them as she recovers memories and finds a place in a dystopian future. Alita's talent for combat leads her to, well, a lot of combat against the worst cyborg villains in town (and some evil soft targets).

Ending the film in the middle of the story is disappointing (especially considering that the viewer realizes quite early that there is not enough time left for the obvious conclusion, only enough for a non-conclusion), there is a typical Cameron-style manipulative subplot (Alita's ultimately useless boyfriend), and some plot points are a bit forced (e.g. the dog-loving bounty hunter who helps Alita against a dog-hating villain), but the story works well enough and the design of everything is unusually coherent and sensible, very original and mostly great.

For example, easily repairable and replaceable cybernetic bodies are more than an excuse for science fiction musings about man and machine: they provide a premise for the protagonist herself and a job to most major characters, go hand in hand with casual attitude about being dismembered in combat, determine economic sectors like cyberware theft and salvaging, enable an unusually high brutality/lethality ratio in combat sports, and allow a few important life or death stunts.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Bridge On The River Kwai

An extremely well made movie that has some interesting things to say. Oh and that ending, holy shit.

[BryanM]

Incredibles 2.

I'm not usually into auteur or actor worship, which usually prompts a pithy Team_America_Acting.youtube or Bubsy_3d.youtube from me... but Brad Bird is a really good craftsman.

While the behavior and actions of the villain make no sense, nor does the premise through which political change in this universe makes any sense, and it all seems to be there to shoehorn in Objectivist preaching (not to be confused with objectionist philosophy)... besides that it's pretty much put together correctly. (It would have been nice to see the mother have to make a moral decision, though.)

Simple damn things like action scenes designed to show off unique aspects of a character's power set, stuff like that. They really do have a love of the Elastigirl character, constantly having her use leverage and tension in different ways, besides the stereotypical "stretchy punch" stuff.

The question that comes to mind, of course.... WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY TRY MAKING A FLASH GORDON-ESQUE SPACE FANTASY FRANCHISE LIKE THIS???

It worked for Star Wars, when they added muppets. It could make all of the money.

[Skykid]

It's been a while, shall we have a movie FIGHT?!

GHOST IN THE SHELL 2017 WAS BETTER THAN ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL





I've already lambasted GITS 2017's final act, which basically blew a hole through the film overall. It was a cliche, lacklustre, forced finale that sucked any wind out of the movie that was there beforehand - but at least it had some beforehand.

I went to see Alita last night and was unsurprised to discover the safest possible translation of the source material imaginable. And when I say safe, I mean Disneyfied.

Let's do a breakdown of the artistic merits of our contenders.

Emotion:

ALITA: Performances from all the actors bar Salazar were substandard and flat. Emotionally devoid, with failed attempts to create a genuine human element to connect with. The guy who played Yugo was useless, Christoph Waltz barely managed a thespian erection, Jennifer Connolly was again, somewhere else entirely, Ed Skrein was Ed Skrein being Ed Skrein and giving the exact same one-note performance whether he plays the good guy or the bad guy.

Conclusion: Rodriguez can't direct actors, has no concept of acting. Nothing changed here but it wasn't totally awful, more just completely pedestrian.

5/10

GITS 2017: Surprisingly good casting throughout. Johannsen played Killian/Kusanagi well, Juliette Binoche was solid and convincing in her wanting to protect Kusanagi. Michael Karmen Pitt gave a good, eerie and understated performance as the troubled antagonist Kuze. Relative unknown Pilou Asbæk gave a decent turn as Batou. Other highlights include Beat Takeshi playing himself and the Japanese lady who plays Kusanagi's real mother in one of the best scenes of the movie, when Kusanagi meets her in her apartment.

Conclusion: Good casting, decent performances. Emotional level: We feel something. The revelation that Killian is a stolen ghost reconnecting with her mother is genuinely affecting.

7/10


Visual Design:

ALITA: Welcome to the Spanish Riviera! People having coffee by the roadside, little puppy dogs in the streets, sunny arches and French flower potted windows overlook a beautiful iron metropolis with distant CGI piping and some painted in junk. Very pleasant, just like the Manga. Except it's nothing like the manga, where the Scrapyard is the place where Zalem's outcasts live in a hellish, poverty-stricken underworld that's full of violence, depravity and danger. Organ harvesting and brain theft is one of the primary themes and supports the idea that most of the inhabitants live in prosthetic custom built bodies with stealable parts. It's why Gally, as the unlikely hero, works so well as not just the protector of her friends but also the warrior fighting back against Zalem's stranglehold. But in Rodriguez's vision we get the Disney build: a very colourful, reasonably well off seaside resort town that doesn't seem overly put-upon.

Additionally, Alita is ugly and jarring to look at. Oversizing the eyes to follow the comic character is unnecessary. Salazar herself already has large eyes naturally and could have played Alita in person with no problems. She would have been far less awkward-looking and annoying, and far less weird compared to the doppelganger puppet curio presented in her place. Also CGI. Our brain knows it's not real, stop using it.

Waltz was well cast as Ido, good resemblance, as was Yugo, despite being a shitty actor. Connolly was totally wrong, but Mahershala Ali as Vector was right. Even though they played with various character designs from the comic and mashed them up, the Hunter Warriors and Motorball racers looked good, and the motorball race itself - all 2 minutes of it - was the most visually successful aspect of the film.

Conclusion: No real achievement here. It goes the Disney route and fails to live up to Kishiro's original vision of the world and its inhabitants by creating a superficial, Hollywoodised version that lacks dramatic depth and intrigue.

5/10


GITS 2017: Following the Oshii visual take rather than Shirow's manga, GITS 2017 has a few minor aesthetic blips (specifically giant holograms that look like poor Akira rips) and some slightly underfed neon signage, similar to the lo-fi quality present in Blade Runner 2046. Despite that, it's artistically excellent in places, riffing on Oshii's styling with re-imagined real-world aspects. Using Hong Kong streets and skyrises as in-camera roads, backdrops and periphery, and then reworking the shots with CGI embellishments to thicken the number of towers or add futuristic stuff, looks great. Importantly it echoes the bleakness of the original very well, capturing the deadness of a world that's mostly cyborg or technology driven. And to add to that, certain set designs are superb, conceived with a genuine artistic flair that's nice and consistent from costume design up, and the CGI isn't overly intrusive.

Conclusion: Visually, it's an accomplished sci-fi movie; artistically it's an extremely accomplished Hollywood movie. It wins points for accurately capturing what made GITS so haunting.

7/10


Sound Design:


ALITA: This is probably the most heinous failure of this movie. Where was the grind? The pumping, dark bass? The sci-fi synth? The otherwordly notes to accompany wide vista shots? When the motorball race kicked in I was expecting to get lifted out of my seat with adrenaline boosted beats. What happened here?

The score of the movie is so tonally incorrect it renders the movie as a whole tonally incorrect. It's scored like Avatar FFS. Standard cinematic themes, often far too upbeat and positive to make one feel as though Iron City residents live in a world of poverty and ruin. Quite the contrary, the movie was scored like, well, a Disney movie. Once again Rodriguez failed completely to understand the source material or form the correct mood.

Conclusion: Audio and tone are so important in a movie, it can't be overstated, and that's why this is probably Alita's biggest failure. A real crushing, lazy error.

2/10


GITS 2017: Kenji Kawai, Gary Numan, DJ Shadow... need I say more? One of GITS biggest triumphs in creating tone, emotion and resonance was its exemplary soundtrack. The director put a large amount of thought into how to score the movie, and impressively used silence to good effect much like Oshii did before him.

Conclusion: There is basically nothing wrong with the score in GITS 2017. It's married perfectly to the material and amplifies it. It remains one of the best aspects of the film, and it's excellent. Perversely, if you play certain tracks from GITS and imagine them being used in Alita... well, that would have actually worked.

9/10


Adaptation:


ALITA: Mostly very faithful to the manga, although with strange alterations that didn't need to be there, such as Alita about to win Motorball and go to Zalem and off Nova (which doesn't happen in the Manga). They ruined Yugo's character somewhat by making him a much more romantic interest instead of the naive dreamer he was. His portrayal in the book and his belief he'll reach Zalem made you feel so much sympathy for him at the end of his journey. But in terms of general plot, it's mostly all there. I'm still none the wiser why Ido has an assistant here who never utters a line, or why Ido removed his mark of Zalem from his forehead, but most of it hangs together well.

Conclusion: Even if it's dramatically flat due to poor direction and generally unremarkable camera work, the basic tools of the story remain intact and well established.

7/10


GITS 2017:

This one is controversial. If you have ever seen Oshii's original GITS movie adaptation, it's a fairly philosophical, arthouse movie that purposely avoids all exposition. To the layman it literally makes no real sense by the end. It's the Japanese way, I don't have any issue with it, and I sort of like its opaque storytelling. In GITS 2017 they reworked the plot to be actually understandable and rearranged it quite dramatically in the course. That said, I don't think the ideas they used were failures: in fact I think they worked really well in movie sci-fi terms. Finding out that Killian is a stolen ghost is the most poignant and interesting plot thread, while Kuze is a sympathetic villain who is fighting back for suffering the same fate. It's a disturbing idea, to essentially kill people but harvest the spirit for corporate ends, and it's a good one. What I really feel like it loses points for is the terrible final act and its cliche nonsense corporate boss going out in a tank to try and gun down the protagonists. Ham-fisted fail at its worst.

Conclusion: Doesn't stick to the source material for obvious reasons, but does well at reworking the ideas. Big shame about the ending.

7/10


Directorial Quality:


ALITA: Barely an original idea in its head. Rodriguez does great with material like Pacific Rim, Desperado or Planet Terror, but fails when it comes to real creative or visually powerful material that requires a certain level of depth or emotional resonance. Alita was a seinen that wasn't exactly mensa material, but there was something in the rich and banished poor scenario, and Gally's growing awareness and transformation. The movie, on the other hand, is as superficial as it gets. On top of all the missed beats of its visuals and awful musical scoring, it suffers tragically trite dialogue and an extremely altered vision of what the author originally laid out. Gunnm is a raw, cyberpunk story about poverty, violence and triumph, and a touch of humanity within a cyborg hero. It's bleak, visually enthralling, and beautifully creative. The movie is directed as a Hollywood paint-by-numbers approximation that played it safe in every possible respect.

Conclusion: Rodriguez is average as hell, but we knew that already. He's now failed at two comic to film adaptations rather than one, and it would be nice if we could get directors with some notable talent to bring visions like Gunnm to life on the big screen instead of these go-to hacks.


GITS 2017: Surprisingly well directed from almost unknown Rupert Sanders. Plot deficiencies and cliche ending aside, there was a good use of silence, a good use of music, a lot of nice visual nods to Oshii's original, and most importantly a consistent tonal construction that worked well with the visual style. He directed the actors with a certain purposeful deadpan delivery that made sense, but he didn't manage to do it for all. Cutter, the villain, was poorly implemented and badly handled as a character, far too obvious and simplistic to work as anything except a dumb plot device. He could have lost that character entirely and just focussed on Killian's internal journey which was much more interesting.

Dialogue was again fairly base, but certainly a cut above Alita, with more respect going to what they didn't say rather than what they did; and it's fair comment that the plot line was more interesting and unravelled with much more intrigue than Alita (although Alita's source material was never particularly cerebral compared to GITS anyway).

The end of the movie is tragically poor, and the screenplay is definitely to fault for it, but I think the director bears some responsibility for its handling too.

Conclusion: A surprisingly controlled directorial mark, if far from award-winning. The failure of its final act loses big points, but you know what, I think the movie is underrated based on the endless hate I see for it. I wouldn't rush out to watch it again, but I also don't think it was the train wreck most people do. Just maybe that last 20 minutes.

7/10



FINAL CONCLUSION:

GITS 2017 is superior in spite of its failures, for the reasons noted above.


Come at me bitches.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Delete both movies from existence imo.

[BrianC]

Delete both movies from existence imo.

But without the live action Alita, we wouldn't have live action CGI anime eyes to make fun of.

[soprano1]

The Piano (1993)
A great movie taking place in 19th century New Zealand about a mute piano player, Ada, and her eleven year old daughter (amazing supporting role, by the way!). The setting is great, and the story was great. Recommended.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
A powerful war movie that needs seeing, I think.

[Leandro]

Damn Skykid. I was hyped to see Alita tomorrow

Incredibles 2.

I'm not usually into auteur or actor worship, which usually prompts a pithy Team_America_Acting.youtube or Bubsy_3d.youtube from me... but Brad Bird is a really good craftsman.

While the behavior and actions of the villain make no sense, nor does the premise through which political change in this universe makes any sense, and it all seems to be there to shoehorn in Objectivist preaching (not to be confused with objectionist philosophy)... besides that it's pretty much put together correctly. (It would have been nice to see the mother have to make a moral decision, though.)

Simple damn things like action scenes designed to show off unique aspects of a character's power set, stuff like that. They really do have a love of the Elastigirl character, constantly having her use leverage and tension in different ways, besides the stereotypical "stretchy punch" stuff.

The question that comes to mind, of course.... WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY TRY MAKING A FLASH GORDON-ESQUE SPACE FANTASY FRANCHISE LIKE THIS???

It worked for Star Wars, when they added muppets. It could make all of the money.

I saw this one last weekend. Thought it was fun and worth the watch but it was inferior to the first one. I knew it would be impossible to even be equal to the first one, but it disappointed me anyway.
I'm going to rewatch it with my family later since I saw it alone, it deserves another chance

[MX7]

I've heard the live action Alita compared to the live action Valarian which was great, so I'll check it out when it hits £6 or something. To be honest, Gunmn was never very exciting and I gave up after the first two volumes. Ghost In The Shell (the Oshii film) was already a stylised adaptation of the source material, a stylisation that was later perfected in the exceptional diptych of Avalon and Innocence so I have absolutely no curiosity in seeing the Hollywood version.

[BryanM]

Been watching a lot of GoodBadFlicks these days.

The MPAA is completely insane. One scene with 18 stabs? X-rating. 12? Ok now you're an R.

Hellraiser movies? People get turned into ground beef or blended into one another? That's an R. Two too many hip thrusts during a sex scene? That's an X.

Also the movie about a man dealing with his stuttering problem is a hard R because he says "fuck" once.

[soprano1]

Saturday Night Fever (1977)
First of all, one of the best soundtracks ever in a movie.
As for the movie itself, it's John Travolta wearing tight pants and disco-ing fabulously to the already mentioned awesome beats to get away from his own personal problems at home and work, pretty simple.
Now the story of how this movie was made, that's bizarre as hell: it's based on a 1976 magazine article by a Brit, who in the mid-90's said what he wrote was all made up, has he had just arrived in the US and didn't know what this newfangled disco thing was.

[Skykid]

I've heard the live action Alita compared to the live action Valarian which was great, so I'll check it out when it hits £6 or something. To be honest, Gunmn was never very exciting and I gave up after the first two volumes. Ghost In The Shell (the Oshii film) was already a stylised adaptation of the source material, a stylisation that was later perfected in the exceptional diptych of Avalon and Innocence so I have absolutely no curiosity in seeing the Hollywood version.

Gunnm is one of the most beautiful seinen I’ve ever read. It gets better and better as it goes on.

Alita is a kids movie made in a paint-by-numbers Hollywood template mould with a shitty script and sleepwalked performances.

GITS 2017 is a good live action stylisation of the Oshii stylisation at the very least. It took the material seriously and wasn’t made for 5 year olds, to its credit.

But fuck all that, it all pales in comparison to Stephen Chow’s new movie, The New King of Comedy which I just got back from and is one of the best films I’ve seen in a decade.

A wonderful critique of the movie industry while simultaneously being emotionally resonant and perfectly made shot for shot, scene by scene. A director in complete control of every aspect of the craft with superb performances throughout and a razor sharp script.

See this or shoot yourself in the face.

[BrianC]

I've heard the live action Alita compared to the live action Valarian which was great.

I heard mostly bad things about the live action Valarian. The live action Alita doesn't sound like the complete disaster I was expecting it to be, but it's still not something I want to jump out and see.

[Skykid]

I also heard Valerian was a muddled mess. Now I’m curious.

[Zen]

Permit me to pimp my own humble review. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32519&p=1283830&hil ... n#p1283830

Welcome back, boss.

[Skykid]

Permit me to pimp my own humble review. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32519&p=1283830&hil ... n#p1283830

Welcome back, boss.

Lol, that review is gold. It’s possible I’d enjoy it more than the movie. Bad is one thing, bad and politically agenda driven makes me want to pour fuel on the guy next to me and offer him a match.

I did hear that if you have prior knowledge of the source material it’s better, but in the case of Alita it’s totally the other way around.

[Vexorg]

Yes, Valerian is a mess. Runs way too long, and spends the better part of an hour of its runtime completely off in the proverbial weeds, doing basically nothing to advance the plot. Has a few good parts, they're mostly in the first 45 minutes.

Johnny English Strikes Again:**1/2

Basically more of the same as the other two Johnny English movies. In this one Johnny is a total Luddite chasing after a cyber criminal attacking a number of government computer systems. The usual dose of British humor consisting mostly of the usual Rowan Atkinson fare. The Virtual Reality portion is probably the funniest part, but I may be biased since my day job involves working with VR.

Mafia! (AKA Jane Austen's Mafia): **

Another slapstick parody film, this one primarily of The Godfather and other mob movies. Notable mostly as one of Lloyd Bridges' last movies before he died. Decent if you like these types of movies, probably a pass otherwise.

[BrianC]

I did hear that if you have prior knowledge of the source material it’s better, but in the case of Alita it’s totally the other way around.

I dunno. I looked up images from the original comics and Valerian looks a lot manlier and Laureline is a redhead.

[Skykid]

I did hear that if you have prior knowledge of the source material it’s better, but in the case of Alita it’s totally the other way around.

I dunno. I looked up images from the original comics and Valerian looks a lot manlier and Laureline is a redhead.

Well no comment, I've no experience of either.


All I know is nobody is talking about Stephen Chow's (Kung Fu Hustle/Shaolin Soccer/Journey to The West/The Mermaid) The New King of Comedy, and that's a total injustice.




I watch all the garbage running through the Oscars every year like a corrupt sewage plant and it offends me. That said, Green Book may have been Oscar bait but it's a very good film and I really enjoyed it.

I thought Roma was nicely shot and well controlled, but poorly paced and lacked dramatic intrigue. I've seen better from Mexico and better from independent arthouse film. I personally feel it's overrated, and I don't think Cuaron is as great as he or other people think. I like a lot of his movies, but also see weaknesses in most of them. Roma was like a guy who has done the big budget who felt ready to show his hand as a director's director, and I think it demonstrated that he doesn't quite have the mastery he thinks he does.

Most telling is that he refused to allow anyone to view his script prior to shooting so it couldn't be altered via suggestion. I think this is the fatal error for the movie and it shows, because it could have easily lost 25 minutes from the final cut, or had a really positive rewrite to make it more interesting.

[BrianC]

I'm definitely interested in Stephen Chow movies. Oscars are frustrating. Even with older films, the choices are often perplexing. One Droopy Knight won an award despite reusing jokes from previous shorts and being inferior to Tex Avery's shorts.

The thing that bothers me with newer movies is how PC Hollywood can get. Valkyrie is a character who CHOSE the form of a caucasian blond woman in the original comics, but is played by Tessa Thompson in Thor Ragnarock. Spider-Man homecoming has similar PC stuff going on.

[Zen]

The Oscars, have long since moved past a Bread and Circuses pageant, diving headlong into a chronicle of wanton mediocrity, propaganda and decadence.
The only light at the end of this sewer, is that people have other distractions now and so have the luxury of seeing it for what it is.

On the other hand; "Hollywood 2.0" - Netflix?

I tend to approach new films now, with jaded dread. Watching fewer new films in general, while instead opting for older ones that I may have missed.

[Skykid]

I'm definitely interested in Stephen Chow movies. Oscars are frustrating. Even with older films, the choices are often perplexing. One Droopy Knight won an award despite reusing jokes from previous shorts and being inferior to Tex Avery's shorts.

The thing that bothers me with newer movies is how PC Hollywood can get. Valkyrie is a character who CHOSE the form of a caucasian blond woman in the original comics, but is played by Tessa Thompson in Thor Ragnarock. Spider-Man homecoming has similar PC stuff going on.

I think Homecoming was the most absurd force feeding of the lot, I winced several times in it and went into some detail in this thread a while back. Otherwise I thought it was fairly entertaining for a once-over.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Kiltro (2006, Chile) - seen better movies lately, but this one will be the least laborious to post about (I hope). Worth watching at least as a test how many pop-cultural references one can spot. Interestingly, two are of the films I haven't really watched, but only took a glimpse of them on late evening TV, many years ago: Mauvais Sang by Carax (the protagonist's running to David Bowie's Modern Love) and some spaghetti western I'm not even sure if I'd ever known title of (violated woman shooting herself under a man). Sadly, while said referencing is quite skilfully done, the film doesn't really excel at anything else. Well, I did like the usage of "spaghetti western" music (one has to wonder how Ennio Morricone himself would like that), but it all just doesn't glue together (I think the pacing is most horrible of it all). Simply put, I saw such silly ultra violence films done better, cheaper, funnier. This one reminds me of "Conan" stories written by the imitators of Robert E. Howard (such compensatory fiction takes just as much talent to output as any other kind, studied mediocrity won't suffice).

The Kids Are Alright (starring The Who, 1979) - rather unusual history of producing this one, isn't it? So quite a few tracks got overdubbed, so The Kids Are Alright song only plays briefly during staff roll (much to my disappointment, considering the film's title), and yet I can't think of a better introduction to The Who phenomenon in this day and age. Studio recordings do them disservice and the conception of "rock opera" has provoked condenscending approach for decades, but - for me - it took impact "proper" opera with its idiosyncrasies had on me in recent years to appreciate that The Who actually had what it took to conceive it. I also grew to realise how depressive their music is. Somehow, this film reflects it all, doing them justice at last.

[lilmanjs]

The New King of Comedy a sequel to the other one? I bought that for real cheap and watched it again last night. What a depressing movie, but well acted.