Movies you've just watched

[Vexorg]

Wonder Woman: ☆☆1/2

Just not a big fan of the whole grimdark DC Murderverse thing, and although this one isn't as bad as Man of Steel or Batman V Superman, it's still pretty grim. Ares (the main villain) felt just a bit too much like a discount Loki, and the first part of the movie felt like it was blatantly ripping off Moana of all things. I figure I'll probably get dragged to see Justice League, but my expectations remain low.

[lilmanjs]

Doberman Cop
Chiba does pretty well through this movie. Its one that looks like if anyone else had taken on this project it would have exploded into pieces and sucked. Biker gangs, island cop, singer and yakuza all in one movie? Sounds like it would suck, but I did enjoy it. Looks quite well on blu-ray.

[soprano1]

Short Circuit (1986)
First time watching this, what a nice movie, only could have been made in that time period.
The special effects are actually great, and the humour is spot on. I see it has a sequel, is it worth a watch?

[Mischief Maker]

Short Circuit (1986)
First time watching this, what a nice movie, only could have been made in that time period.
The special effects are actually great, and the humour is spot on. I see it has a sequel, is it worth a watch?

It's not as good, but if you like the amazing practical effects, it's worth a watch.

Definitely better than Chappie.

That said, you should be warned that SC2 includes the horror of "Los Locos," a scene that was very formative for Donald Trump's view of latinos in the 80s.

[Stevens]

Short Circuit (1986)
First time watching this, what a nice movie, only could have been made in that time period.
The special effects are actually great, and the humour is spot on. I see it has a sequel, is it worth a watch?

Ah Steven Guttenberg, the pride of Massapequa.

[Zen]

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) - Sidney Lumet

Meh.
Basically Philip Seymour Hoffman dominating an average film.

[soprano1]

Short Circuit (1986)
First time watching this, what a nice movie, only could have been made in that time period.
The special effects are actually great, and the humour is spot on. I see it has a sequel, is it worth a watch?

Ah Steven Guttenberg, the pride of Massapequa.

It was fun seeing him and G. W. Bailey together in a non-Police Academy movie.

[Mortificator]

The Wicker Man

I'd seen the remake with Nicholas Cage, so I knew the basic path of story, but hadn't watched the original previously. Though I was aware Christopher Lee was in it, I'd somehow assumed he played the protagonist, rather than the villain (which he did a great job at). The actual protagonist, Sgt. Howie, seems to be the consummate professional at first, but turns out to be kind of weird in his own way. I see there's an extended version with scenes of him on the mainland, which seems like it gives that aspect away.

Of course, the bigger arc is how weird the island turns out to be. I think this sometimes dragged, with the musical numbers going on too long. Even though I knew it was coming, the actual sight of the wicker man was striking.

The preaching on the end is laid thick, though it can be read both earnestly and subversively. You can see Howie as the man with true understanding who's sacrificed by the deluded, or as someone clinging to his own flavor of superstition.

[GaijinPunch]

That said, you should be warned that SC2 includes the horror of "Los Locos," a scene that was very formative for Donald Trump's view of latinos in the 80s.

that scene has been sleeping in my mind, and has only awoken just now.... the sad thing is, i can recite the fucking chant and I only saw the god damn thing once... in the theater... on release.

[EmperorIng]

F for Fake by Orson Welles.

Loved that film. Welles was unique.

I've been on quite a Welles kick as of late. I consider it a formative viewing experience when I first watched a Citizen Kane VHS back when I was in middle school I bought it myself looking at whole huge stack of VHS's for sale. It really entranced me, but more for story/writing reasons at the time, since I was too young to recognize all the tricks of camerawork etc. I should probably buy a bluray now.

He indeed was unique. For a guy always scraping together pennies to shoot footage, from appearing on talk shows to slurring through commercials, it's amazing what he could do with a handful of crew and some improvisation. Other independent/guerilla filmmakers just can't compete. I mean heck, just look at how he took footage of him and his wife acting in his house for The Dreamers and turns that into something special, if not magical (at least the bits I saw on a documentary I just saw, Orson Welles: One-Man-Band). Or how he takes nothing and spins it into this footage for The Merchant of Venice. Welles is quite the inspiration for what you can accomplish despite all odds arraigned against you.

I enjoyed it, but Welles took up space (pun intended) that could have been devoted towards additional Elmyr de Hory time.

Ha ha, watching the movie gave me a different response: it became clear to me that Elmyr de Hory was at best secondary to the film itself. He was just a bit player - a simple fraud - that gave Welles the inspiration to craft the "narrative" of the film, criss-crossing between Hory, Hughes, Irving, and Picasso. There are documentaries about de Hory if I want to know more about him. I guess for me the "story" was less important than how it was told.

Going for that one very soon. Only watched Citizen Kane and The Trial (adaptation of Kafka's book) from Orson Welles.

I would recommend Touch of Evil for another Welles movie. It is a fantastic, tense, noir thriller. Make sure the version you watch is the "restored" version, with the footage and editing arranged as Welles had intended (before studios ripped apart the movie). I don't think they sell the "unrestored" version anymore, but watch out just in case. It really is an engaging film - even if they tan Charlton Heston and make him play a Mexican. The opening crane shot is legendary, and the sleaze and corruption is palpable.

I still want to watch The Trial. I just picked up the copy of the book, so I might work on that first. Maybe.

I did watch The Immortal Story, which for being a 1-hour TV movie, is also great late-Welles work. Despite him as an actor spending most of the time sitting around and looking tired, the way the camera work, depth of field shots, and color is used is still pretty remarkable and memorable (though not as memorable as his earlier movies).

[wgogh]

I would recommend Touch of Evil for another Welles movie. It is a fantastic, tense, noir thriller. Make sure the version you watch is the "restored" version, with the footage and editing arranged as Welles had intended (before studios ripped apart the movie). I don't think they sell the "unrestored" version anymore, but watch out just in case. It really is an engaging film - even if they tan Charlton Heston and make him play a Mexican. The opening crane shot is legendary, and the sleaze and corruption is palpable.

I still want to watch The Trial. I just picked up the copy of the book, so I might work on that first. Maybe.

I did watch The Immortal Story, which for being a 1-hour TV movie, is also great late-Welles work. Despite him as an actor spending most of the time sitting around and looking tired, the way the camera work, depth of field shots, and color is used is still pretty remarkable and memorable (though not as memorable as his earlier movies).

Never heard of that one, thanks. F for Fake was in my radar for a long time, but I somehow forgot about Welles films eventually. Happens to everybody, i guess.

Kafka is one of the reasons I write, I can say that. Also, I've read that Welles thought the adaptiation was his best work, and for me the tone is just right with the novel.

Its ok, I like slow pacing nothing-really-happens kind of movies, if thats what you're saying and I understood right. Like, I've been hooked with Arvo Part film to the end.

[EmperorIng]

I finally finished The Metamorphosis (been on my shelf for over a decade since I bought it, ha), and it left quite an impression. Back when I was a groundskeeper, I used to say my job was Kafka-esque all the time.

Plenty happens in The Immortal Story - what I meant is that Welles is large-and-in-charge in the movie, sitting around and rumbling his baritone voice while all the younger people scamper about. It's a good one. Part of what makes Orson Welles so engaging as a filmmaker is that even in slower dramatic films, there is a lot of narrative action, buildup, and payoff, so they are never dull.

Word on the internet is that his last, lost movie, The Other Side of the Wind, will be assembled and released on Netflix next year. If that's the case, that will be really fascinating, especially since it boasts a cast including John Huston, Dennis Hopper, Cameron Mitchell, and a bunch of other famous film directors from the 70s. I won't get too excited though, as they originally said it was going to be released in 2015, or 2004, and so on.

[Mischief Maker]

Hey, I didn't know Unicron could direct!

[EmperorIng]

Hey, I didn't know Unicron could direct!

You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy. Some terrible robot toys from Japan that changed from one thing to another. The Japanese have funded a full-length animated cartoon about the doings of these toys, which is all bad outer-space stuff. I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen.

THE POINT IS, YOU ARE A FOOL!

[Skykid]

Spider-Man: HOMECUMMING


Was thoroughly entertaining. It was, in fact, the most entertaining Marvel movie I have just about ever seen. It was several times more enjoyable than the likes of Avengers 2 and Civil Bore, it was way more engaging than Doctor Strange, and generally speaking it captured the spirit of Spider-Man well by taking a refreshing not-since-the-80s adolescent angle and spinning a story around a character. And character development is usually what's completely absent from MCU templates. Most of the time the leotarded freaks are there and dropping the odd comic quip, but they don't actually have any real personality or humanity to hinge the banal save-the-universe-today story around.

Homecoming on the other hand managed to balance the simple journey of a boy being a boy very well, not least because Tom Holland surprised me with a very good performance as the young Parker. Having noted that he worked his performance around Michael J Fox in Back to the Future - which is the best possible source material for inspiration - he actually did very well on-screen and clearly outperformed almost everyone in the movie (not hard) bar Michael Keaton, who was reliably excellent.

Pacing was very good. The set-pieces felt natural and I didn't notice them when they did appear. By that I mean, when you're watching something like Civil Bore you're literally waiting for them to stop sitting in offices/dining rooms/bedrooms and having the dullest shot-reverse-shot conversations so you can get to the next set-piece... which gets equally dull after 15 minutes of CGI flailing. Homecoming didn't suffer from this problem.

So all in all, thoroughly good fun, and surprisingly so.

But it's not perfect, and here's some of the stuff that I didn't find so favourable:

What is with all of this forced-in, shoehorned, nigh-on cringeworthy diversity doing in the movie? And I don't mean to say that racial diversity (or any kind of diversity) is unwelcome or a poor reflection of real life; I mean to say that the effort to cram it into this movie was obvious to a fault and detracted from the viewing experience.

One of the opening lines of the movie is Keaton saying "I used to play with Cowboys & Indians", only for the guy to correct him and say "Native Americans, actually". Warning bells instantly went off, because you know the scriptwriter, who is also the director, has a personal political agenda that he is now trying to inject into his movie regardless of whether or not it's relevant. And in fact, it's not relevant. Spider-Man is a comic book character and not a champion of diversity and/or multicultural societies. Of course you can make those things relevant by way of plotting, which Homecoming doesn't do, and therefore makes the diversity aspects completely superficial and laid on. This hurts the film because it keeps taking you out of it every time you notice the director trying his damndest to make you notice.

Firstly, the love interest, Liz. I should note that regardless of skin colour, she was absolutely fucking shit. Surely the worst actor I have ever seen in a primary role playing the love interest of a lead character. Her "acting" was so awful I almost had to avert my gaze at points.

Additionally she was a tall, model-like African American girl who had zero chemistry with Holland and felt wrong in the role. She doesn't make sense as a love interest: you can't feel it and therefore you can't believe it. The 'girl-next-door' angle worked based on who Parker is and where he lives, while going for an exotic supermodel look doesn't work at all.

The rest of Spidey's classmates took on similar tact. It was diversity 101 to the point that Spidey was the token white guy in class. This is probably an accurate reflection of a real classroom in Queens, but at the same time, it felt as though the director was pushing his agenda and therefore sacrificing a natural element of the movie. Flash Thompson, Parker's infamous school-bully nemesis, is a tiny, unattractive and slightly overweight boy of Indian origin - and that's ok. The problem is not that you can't change a character's look, demeanour, attitude and race, but that when you do change a character's look, demeanour, attitude and race, it's no longer the same character.

For example, you can have a Filipino Spider-Man, but you can't really have a Filipino Peter Parker. Peter Parker is a white American boy who exists in a suburban neighbourhood who lives with an Apple Pie cooking aunt and gets bitten by a radioactive spider. His entire existence is hinged around a specific set of cultural traits that people identify as 'all-American'. You can have a Filipino Spider-Man who has the same suit and can do all the same things and fights crime in the same ways - he just can't be Peter Parker. He can have a different name, a different family, and a different growing-up experience. But he's not Peter Parker.

In this same way, Flash Thompson in the movie isn't Flash Thompson, he's a new character and deserves to be renamed. The 'MJ' character similarly. There's no reason to plaster your political agenda all over the movie if it's going to keep snapping the audience out of their engagement in its events.

Parker's friend was absolutely awful. And that's nothing to do with his ethnicity, it was more to do with him being an intolerable fat loser who was completely unconvincing as Parker's friend. Half the time he seemed to be a burden on Parker by his very existence, rather than anyone he would want to spend time with. The actor was extremely poor, and by that note, irritating, and again, part of an agenda that didn't sit properly with the movie. Back in the 80s the friend of the lead character was usually effortlessly cool to the point where he would make the lead character slightly lesser - and Raimi even managed this properly in his Spider-Man. In Homecoming Parker's friend is a Youtube blogger - an incredibly accurate depiction of a stay-at-home nerd with no reason to live except to build Star Wars lego and masturbate. That's not inspiring at all: how can people look up to or feel empowered by a character like that. You shouldn't be telling people that it's ok to be 200lb and eat yourself to death because you might one day get a really cool friend, you should be telling them that it's NOT ok and you should be sorting your life out.

Don't get me wrong - none of these elements were deal breakers. There are other narrative blips that didn't work, like Vulture using alien technology to build his suit, rather than being a scientist, and police threatening to open fire on Spider-Man even though he's been saving people regularly across the city, amongst others. But on the whole it was an enjoyable movie.

You can make a movie about diversity and multiculturalism and make it important. You can make it so it has a message and means something. But using Spiderman as a vehicle for your political messages is not necessarily the best place to lay it on thick. I think some element of forward-thinking is fine in a movie like this, and it can be handled subtly so as to give the message more power. As it stands it didn't work in Homecoming except to make everyone aware that the director was trying to force his ideas on the viewer, and that's a failure in production standards.

And I haven't even mentioned the "slaves built this" scene yet. Talk about awkward.

Anyway, good, fun popcorn movie, I recommend blowing an evening on it.

[soprano1]

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, it seems Hollywood nowadays either makes movies that are shit, or decent movies with their own agenda to piss off Trump and his lackeys.

[Zen]

He indeed was unique. For a guy always scraping together pennies to shoot footage, from appearing on talk shows to slurring through commercials, it's amazing what he could do with a handful of crew and some improvisation.

One of my favourite examples of this was his wonderfully recounted anecdote, with a bit of F for Fake thrown in, on the Dick Cavett show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpqwY7QL7r8

With a big Orson smile at the end, for good measure.

[Mischief Maker]

Spider-Man is a comic book character and not a champion of diversity and/or multicultural societies.

Luke Cage and the X-Men would like a word with you.

[GaijinPunch]

Baby Driver

Really good, but apparently most people in here know that. The incorporation (and wide range) of music was excellent, and the fact that Boards of Canada (albeit only a small excerpt) made the cut was a nice little bonus.

[Skykid]

Spider-Man is a comic book character and not a champion of diversity and/or multicultural societies.

Luke Cage and the X-Men would like a word with you.

Baby Driver

Really good, but apparently most people in here know that. The incorporation (and wide range) of music was excellent, and the fact that Boards of Canada (albeit only a small excerpt) made the cut was a nice little bonus.

Great isn't it? I don't think it's Wright's best, but I always appreciate cinema that's actually been thought out by the individual making it. BD qualifies as a project made with passion.

[Mischief Maker]

Parker's friend was absolutely awful. And that's nothing to do with his ethnicity, it was more to do with him being an intolerable fat loser who was completely unconvincing as Parker's friend.

Oh for sure, but I see that as a symptom of this movie being too close to the spirit of comics. Specifically the desire to add worthless insertion characters who are "just like" the audience in a blatant bit of pandering. Criminals may be a cowardly and superstitious lot, but fucking nobody's afraid of a little boy in green panties, yet having Robin hang around with Batman supposedly will appeal to the youth demographic. Like your previous video pointed out, Parker's friend is a literal insertion character of reaction video youtubers. He's Marvin and Wendy for the 21st century!

[Skykid]

Parker's friend was absolutely awful. And that's nothing to do with his ethnicity, it was more to do with him being an intolerable fat loser who was completely unconvincing as Parker's friend.

Oh for sure, but I see that as a symptom of this movie being too close to the spirit of comics. Specifically the desire to add worthless insertion characters who are "just like" the audience in a blatant bit of pandering.

Yeah, that's exactly it, pandering. But he's an irresponsible kind of pandering. Superhero movies are, at their very core, vehicles to promote role models to young people, and occasionally offer up moral wisdom.

Parker's obese token friend has none of those beneficial qualities. You should be finding a way to encourage children to be the opposite of that character, rather than to be comfortable becoming that character.

[Mischief Maker]

Superhero movies are, at their very core, vehicles to promote role models to young people, and occasionally offer up moral wisdom.

Geez, I always saw Batman as Travis Bickle with a trust fund.

[Zen]

Additionally she was a tall, model-like African American girl who had zero chemistry with Holland and felt wrong in the role. She doesn't make sense as a love interest: you can't feel it and therefore you can't believe it.

Thats because she wasn't.

Spider-Man: HOMECUMMING

Indeed.

[emphatic]

One of the opening lines of the movie is Keaton saying "I used to play with Cowboys & Indians", only for the guy to correct him and say "Native Americans, actually".

The guy who said that is one of the bad guys, so I thought it was kinda funny coming from him, but hey, that's just me. Just wait 15 years when we can hopefully look back at movies coming out now and talk about how crazy society was.

I re-watched Thor this weekend, and I can appreciate it much more now than when it first came out. I don't think it suffers as much from the tip-toeing around trigger words and other bullshit as the current stuff.

[GaijinPunch]

Great isn't it? I don't think it's Wright's best, but I always appreciate cinema that's actually been thought out by the individual making it. BD qualifies as a project made with passion.

This is my first of his. Probably didn't hurt that I'm a pretty big fan of most of the cast... well, I don't dislike any and I like Jon Hamm a lot. The girl he was with? First time seeing her but I'd eat her ass like a pizza. Thought Jon Bernthal was good in his albeit small portion. Also happen to be a huge fan of diners, as it's a slice of Americana I missed over the years in Japan. And of course the tunes. So, the film is pretty much stacked in my favor from the get go, but the execution was still excellent. The action scenes were great. That's what a summer blockbuster should be... unfortunately, it's not.

Spiderman

Not seen this, and likely won't. The last i saw was the first one w/ Garfield in it. I just don't really do super hero movies anymore. That being said, the trailer for this one looked way more like the Saturday morning cartoons I grew up on, and not like the comic books I read when I was in high school. I started about a year into the Todd McFarlane Amazing Spiderman run. While he was indeed chatty, he was not an adolescent. In fact he was balls deep in Mary Jane, sharing an apartment with her. This is the 3rd reboot... why can't we get that? I'm sure it's probably worth seeing for Michael Keaton alone.

[Skykid]

Superhero movies are generally boring shit on recycle mode, but Homecoming isn't as bad. Keaton was excellent, but I'd expect no less from him.

It has some really nice invention and a good lead, and while it's a bit tech heavy with regard to Spidey's suit (and all the gadgets in the MCU seem to HAVE to be alien merchandise these days) it does bear a lot of similarities to the Saturday morning cartoons you referenced. It's far from perfect and the political agenda of multiculturalism and white guilt is really far too heavy handed, but otherwise it's undeniably entertaining.

Baby Driver could never be a summer blockbuster because it's too good for the average zombie, but at least Wright turned a profit with it, and it hasn't even hit China yet.

[Skykid]

One of the opening lines of the movie is Keaton saying "I used to play with Cowboys & Indians", only for the guy to correct him and say "Native Americans, actually".

The guy who said that is one of the bad guys, so I thought it was kinda funny coming from him, but hey, that's just me.

He wasn't a bad guy when he said it. If you can't see the complete irrelevance of that (and other lines) except to push a political message on the audience, you're not looking at it right.

I re-watched Thor this weekend, and I can appreciate it much more now than when it first came out. I don't think it suffers as much from the tip-toeing around trigger words and other bullshit as the current stuff.

The original Thor is one of the worst movies I've ever seen full stop.

[soprano1]

Point Break (1991)
Nice movie, except for Keanu's flat performance. The escalating violence towards the last part of the film was a bit weird, maybe a bit tacked on?

[Skykid]

Point Break (1991)
Nice movie, except for Keanu's flat performance. The escalating violence towards the last part of the film was a bit weird, maybe a bit tacked on?

Johnny Utah fucking rules. Love Point Break. Weirdly enough it was on TV last night!