Movies you've just watched

[GaijinPunch]

La La Land.

Not sure what it's nominated for, but it I know it was a lot. If you need to date flick, this is the one. Having said that, I did enjoy it. Ryan learned the Piano for the role (as a former pianist, I applaud this) and the musical numbers were catchy. My guess is that most of the Academy will love the jabs it takes at the industry, and thus, will vote the fuck out of it and it will sweep the awards. Do I think it's best picture material? Dunno... The only thing I saw and liked in 2016 was Arrival, and even I think that's a stretch for best picture (even though it was great). Note, I've not seen Moonlight and it's apparently the bees knees.

Dr. Strange (2016)

Has to pause the film somewhere near the end because I really needed to take a dump... and I forgot to resume watching it. (realized two hours later)

Yes it's that captivating.

Sounds like my kind of dump!

[Xyga]

Yes the usual golden turd formula: written and directed by a grade schooler who was given the budget of a small country to shop bankable actors and megafuckloads of CGI.

[rancor]

I think the problem is that in making a movie, you're forced by executives and bean counters to attempt to appeal to everyone. As an example, how many movies these days get a Chinese character, simply because China is such a big market now? In attempting to do this, you actually appeal to almost no one. It's like that car that Homer Simpson designed that was total shit.

[Xyga]

Everyone? I don't know, how can this please adults?

IMHO the worst flaw in most of those films is the total absence of relatable time in the storytelling, the MC goes from one mood to the other, takes decisions big or small, gets hurt and recovers, anything, at a completely even pace.

It's one thing after another in two hours period, you never feel like pauses or accelerations, no passage of time, no suddenness, the time of the story is the time of the film.
That'd be okay if it told a two hours story, but none are supposed to.

That absence of relatable passing of time affects absolutely everything negatively, because whether it's in real life or in fiction, time never 'runs' like that.
I mean it's supposed to flow and the author to control that flow, if he/she doesn't it's like writing "and then, and then, and then, and then".
The only events where that sort of non-pacing normally apply, I think, are live scene shows like circus/theme park or even musicals.

[EmperorIng]

I saw not one, but two movies this weekend:

Gremlins 2:

I was apprehensive about this movie, because of reading how it ditched the horror aspect of the first Gremlins in favor of a more comedic, light-hearted touch. I was happy to learn that those fears were ultimately without merit: even though the movie is no longer dark horror-comedy, the comedy that has replaced it with is very funny. I was laughing at just how many lame jokes and goofy shenanigans with which Joe Dante and his crew were able to stuff the screen. I am a fan of lame puns and bad jokes, so seeing something as low-brow as a gremlin getting covered in cement only to wind up on a cathedral and turn into a gargoyle... well, my fellow watch-mates were rolling their eyes but I was beside myself.

Props to the effects crew for making so many gnarly new designs. Big props to busting out motherfuckin' SLAYER to announce the arrival of one of the big bads, the spider-gremlin:


While the movie feels a little slow to jump into the main fun of watching Gremlins tear up an office building, once it arrives at that point, it really ups the scale from first movie's delightfully vicious and fatal vignettes. I was smiling ear to ear as the chaos erupted all over the screen, served up by a healthy dose of creative special effects and the same satirical view of American life that Dante showed in the first film.

While the first Gremlins is a superior film, Gremlins 2 far exceeded my expectations and is a fantastic "bigger and better" flick.

Hidden Figures:

In two words? Oscar Bait. I am embarrassed to say that I was shifting uncomfortably in my seat, painfully aware of how much time had passed in my viewing and wondering when it would be over.

That isn't to say the movie is "bad," it just is exactly as it looks: a drama that's entirely by-the-numbers. It's rare in a movie that I notice how dull the cinematography is, but because the acting was so blase, I was forced to recognize how unexciting and pedestrian the camera work was, how predictable the shots were set up, and how milquetoast the soundtrack was implemented, and how it does not seem that the director, for the life of him/her, could coax a decent performance out of nearly all of the actors.

This movie continues my long-running assumption that Kevin Costner cannot act. He is as flat, dull, and monotone here as he was in Waterworld, Dances with Wolves, and the Postman (lol). He brings out no personality. Maybe he has none. The three central characters offer a bit more in terms of actually having definable personalities, wants, goals, etc., but the script is so blunt (akin to a hammer falling on the audience) that the movie's numerous "gotcha" moments just made me more and more uncomfortable.

Some clunkers (maybe I'm too nit-picky?):

"You would know [what you're daughter is up to] if you were home more often!"
"You are a black woman working at NASA. I am a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. We are proof that the impossible can happen!"
"Here at NASA we all pee the same color" ~ the line of the film goes to Kevin Costner's magnificent delivery here

Maybe this is the definition of a "crowd pleaser," or light entertainment meant to gently warm the audience's heartstrings and "make them think." My family seemed to enjoy it (but they all think Costner is a good actor). I dunno. I must be jaded. I'd rather rewatch Gremlins 2 again.

[BrianC]

I liked the Doctor Strange movie, but the movie version of "Mormammu" doesn't even come close to the awesomeness of the comic version.

[kaicooper]

i dont wanna read the whole story but was it all about STAR WARS or somthing els?

[Some-Mist]

I think the problem is that in making a movie, you're forced by executives and bean counters to attempt to appeal to everyone. As an example, how many movies these days get a Chinese character, simply because China is such a big market now? In attempting to do this, you actually appeal to almost no one. It's like that car that Homer Simpson designed that was total shit.

Tis why I prefer the Indies!

Paterson is pretty nonexistent outside of Cannes but was by far my favorite from last year.

Middle man was surprisingly good too tho it's actually impossible for me to find for a rematch.

[Skykid]

Nothing against the forum and for what it is but honestly you could aim a bit higher with your writing. No offence intended.

None taken. What would you suggest?

Yes the usual golden turd formula: written and directed by a grade schooler who was given the budget of a small country to shop bankable actors and megafuckloads of CGI.

Toldjaso. Then you go onto Rotten Tmts and see the average critic rating for Dr Strange and wonder how the ignorance managed to spread so spectacularly.

Not that Strange was that bad in comparison. I mean, against Civil War or Avengers 2 it was at least watchable.

Ish.

[WelshMegalodon]

Next to Stern's or Englehart's runs the Doctor Strange film feels a bit underwhelming. But it's understandable that they'd save characters like Eternity and the Living Tribunal for sequels.

I think there was a rumor floating around about how Shuma-Gorath was going to be in it. That was disappointing.

[Ixmucane2]

Split

A madman with an overdeveloped multiple personality disorder (as immediately made clear, his personalities form factions) kidnaps three girls. He takes it easy, with plenty of time to visit his (their) psychiatrist; police is absent and clueless, with the "good guys" consisting of the psychiatrist (an old and deluded woman) and the least useless kidnapped girl (arguably the protagonist).
The meta-plot twist is that, despite the author, there is no plot twist; everything is as it seems (apart from some ambiguity about marginal supernatural elements), nothing important is hidden, and it ends in one of the typical ways that could be expected in a plain old thriller or exploitation film (but with a strange hint of a possible sequel).

[MintyTheCat]

Nothing against the forum and for what it is but honestly you could aim a bit higher with your writing. No offence intended.

None taken. What would you suggest?

Many, many options: what do you fancy doing? You could do fiction but there really are so many ways to write and it may simply be best to get into something that you will enjoy.
A friend of mine started writing Horror stories a few years ago, not as his main thing just as a hobby as an example. He found it hard to get into at first mostly coming up with characters but he carried on with it and carried on writing. Might be an idea.

I am working on a back story myself that I work on off and on - can be a nice change of pace to the usual stuff I have to write

[Stevens]

I liken this to an electronic musician using a Synthesiser back in the 70s and 80s to today. In the old days a musician would have to create the patches from nothing and it was rather challenging constructing FM patches for say the DX7 by yamaha. These days the musician is absolutely blown away and overwhelmed by the endless choices and it would be more akin to choosing what not to use from a massive library.

Slightly OT -

Mark Ferrari uses a similar example explaining making art on 8 bit computers. How he did his best work when his options were limited and how it forced him to turn the few programs he used inside out.

I've only watched the 1st 15 minutes, but want to finish it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcJ1Jvtef0&t=919s

[MintyTheCat]

I liken this to an electronic musician using a Synthesiser back in the 70s and 80s to today. In the old days a musician would have to create the patches from nothing and it was rather challenging constructing FM patches for say the DX7 by yamaha. These days the musician is absolutely blown away and overwhelmed by the endless choices and it would be more akin to choosing what not to use from a massive library.

Slightly OT -

Mark Ferrari uses a similar example explaining making art on 8 bit computers. How he did his best work when his options were limited and how it forced him to turn the few programs he used inside out.

I've only watched the 1st 15 minutes, but want to finish it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcJ1Jvtef0&t=919s

Exactly - we are overwhelmed. I am just listening now but thus far this is worth seeing I would say. I like how he says that their compression tools could not handle dithering Most likely it was all RLE back then which is really encoding and not compression.

I imagine it would be like learning to paint with oils or acrylic which takes some time and then every few months or so an entirely new medium of paint comes out. It would be too hard to get up to seep quickly. I often find this with software engineering: I have had people come along with a CV with like 20+ languages that they are using. Surely, no one can beat a good level in that many languages. I take it as a warning now.

[BrianC]

Next to Stern's or Englehart's runs the Doctor Strange film feels a bit underwhelming. But it's understandable that they'd save characters like Eternity and the Living Tribunal for sequels.

I still need to read those runs, but I like what I read of the Lee/Ditko run. Eternity was introduced in that run. Ditko definitely has a way with crazy characters. One thing about the movie is that Strange was definitely well cast. I wish they didn't go overboard to make the movie more "mainstream" and "diverse". I did like the Ancient One in the movie, but it's not the same as the comic character.

[Satan]

Dr Strange and Live By Night are fucking dogshit.

[kaicooper]

Dr Strange and Live By Night are fucking dogshit.

totally agree...

[Skykid]

Dr Strange and Live By Night are fucking dogshit.

Then you look at the Dr Strange Rotten Tomatoes aggregate and wonder. You'd think they'd reinvented cinema with that kind of praise, rather than seen a predictable and formulaic CGI festival that was approximately 3% different from the one they churned out just before it.

We're preaching to braindead nations here though, the zombie Apocalypse already occurred, and its first victim was taste.

[BrianC]

Then you look at the Dr Strange Rotten Tomatoes aggregate and wonder. You'd think they'd reinvented cinema with that kind of praise, rather than seen a predictable and formulaic CGI festival that was approximately 3% different from the one they churned out just before it.

I'm a bit surprised by some of your reviews, to be honest. You had some good things to say about Age of Ultron, but now you talk about it like it's one of the worst movies made. I definitely feel Dr. Strange is rated higher than it should be on RT, but it's far from a bad movie. Personally, I think the marvel cinematic universe suffered a bit by having TV shows that tie in to the movies (especially when it comes to Agents of SHIELD).

[soprano1]

Justice League Dark (2017)
Pretty bloody cool. Some really nice animations all around (a bit anime-ish). And it has Swamp Thing.

[z0mbie90]

Justice League Dark (2017)

Yeah, was a fun and entertaining DC animated movie.
The only thing that made me roll my eyes abit was at the end fight when they played some shitty dubsteppy like music. Didn't fit at all. And why is Batman there??
But overall I enjoyed it. Always fun to see Swamp Thing and John Constantine

[soprano1]

Justice League Dark (2017)

Yeah, was a fun and entertaining DC animated movie.
The only thing that made me roll my eyes abit was at the end fight when they played some shitty dubsteppy like music. Didn't fit at all. And why is Batman there??
But overall I enjoyed it. Always fun to see Swamp Thing and John Constantine

To say "Hmmm".

[BryanM]

Just watched the first 15 minutes of this new and exciting Ghostbusters: Answer the Call movie. Interesting take on Ghostbusters, to do it without the comedy or horror. (Also I'm still confused about what the blonde ghostbuster lady was there for besides being a lesbian sex freak? I might have missed the part when she had a reason to be there because reasons.)

Rich Evans was right: watching movies is like being dead for two hours. I decided to sleep through the rest of the movie. I regret nothing.

Not remotely disappointed. If I wanted to watch something hoping to like it, it'd have been Turbo Kid.

[BIL]

Train to Busan (2016) Oh heck no, super fast zombies overrun South Korea. White collar divorcee and his estranged young daughter inadvertently catch last train out. Needless to say, a motley crew of survivors must now contend with not only the ravenous hordes but human frailty threatening to destroy them from within.

Does absolutely nothing for zombies stylistically - while generally acquitting itself, the numbing inanity of World War Z occasionally threatens its earlier half. The classic tragedy and struggle of the zombie apocalypse tale is convincingly marshaled, however, and the fraught closing act displays a real knack for sustained tension. A bit formulaic, but not a bad casual evening's horror drama.

[Skykid]

Then you look at the Dr Strange Rotten Tomatoes aggregate and wonder. You'd think they'd reinvented cinema with that kind of praise, rather than seen a predictable and formulaic CGI festival that was approximately 3% different from the one they churned out just before it.

I'm a bit surprised by some of your reviews, to be honest. You had some good things to say about Age of Ultron, but now you talk about it like it's one of the worst movies made. I definitely feel Dr. Strange is rated higher than it should be on RT, but it's far from a bad movie. Personally, I think the marvel cinematic universe suffered a bit by having TV shows that tie in to the movies (especially when it comes to Agents of SHIELD).

Wait what? I said good things about Avengers 2? Where?


Edit: ok found my initial review

So my fears are put to rest, because AoU is basically the complete opposite of Drum's comments, so hope for Fury Road being awesome are realigned.

Avengers 2 is sadly quite a lot poorer than its predecessor. Echoing the general sentiment so far, the plot is altogether worthless and most of the movie is spent piffling around trying to fill space between CG cartoon sequences.

On the upside, the humour is appreciated: comic books were always about the wisecracks between the smacks, and Whedon's dialogue is solid enough in that respect. Ultron was well done by James Spader and some of the exchanges had some weight and poignancy.

The end battle is the best of all, and a good wrap up, but really the only time I felt genuinely engaged. A lot of the globe hopping is pointless and makes no sense, and sometimes I found myself thinking "oh yeah, we're in Korea now, I forgot" because my brain kept losing the thread due to being drowned out by too much banality in plot construction and cramming that made threads occur way too fast. Most of it may as well be in fast forward tbh.

There's so much unnecessary stuff, it just makes the whole less interesting. The dream sequences were pointless, ultimately, if you discount the setup for Thor's threequel, as was all that airy stuff about a super gem (yet another super gem).

Banner and Johannsen's romance thing felt weird, and Hawkeye's visit home was total movie downtime - worth nothing at all. The bad guy's motivation was totally nonexistent, and Paul Bettany as some kind of AI god was hilariously shit, because Paul Bettany.

Worst thing really was the "just accept this sudden turn of events" which is basically everything in the movie. Oh now they're good guys? Oh Jarvis is back? Oh Thor's hammer created a super being? What the fuck is happening already?

I suppose I wouldn't say it was a bad movie. It was ok, Whedon's certainly got a handle on many subtleties, but this is really a case of trying to make a better film out of a poor screenplay, as Hollywood usual.

Both recent X-Men movies were superior, and Avengers 1 is way better.

Don't be swayed by positive opinion if you were thinking of holding out for Netflix. You could save yourself a little cash not seeing this in theatres

You're right, I was way too soft on it. It's pretty much a shiny Marvel turd. But keep in mind I was less jaded at this point because I hadn't yet wasted cash on Civil War, aka sleep inducing CGI monotony hailed as the second coming of Christ by critics.

To be absolutely fair, Strange is better than both of the above.

[lilmanjs]

Space Jam
I'm not going to say I'm sorry if you don't like this movie. A very good mix of humor for kids and adults. That Charles barkley scene in the church always gets me. It may be a sports movie, but I still don't think it really plays as one very much. Nor does it ever take itself so seriously unless it needs to. Glad to have gotten this for xmas again.

[kaicooper]

Dark Star 1974
by John Carpenter

its v.low budget movie in space but its Black Comedy
best part in this movie is the Baloon Alien lol..best ever
the rest is meh boaring..but ok movie overall

7/10 for the alien

and yea this movie writer is the one who wrote for ALIEN 1979

[Zen]

Arrival (2016) - Denis Villeneuve

Oh dear, oh dear.

Spoiler free I reckon but just in case;

Spoiler

At the opening blackscreen, awkwardly pregnant with the sways and swells of Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight", there is the strong feeling that Villeneuve is slipping the viewer a mickey.
Is it to force a rapid emotional tie with the main character or to numb you to some fuckery to come? Unfortunately its both but mainly the latter.

On to the film.
Semiotics, semantics and general linguistics. Neurolinguistic development and the eventual and inevitable restraint by same. The chance of being freed from those constraints by a meta language. Fuck me, here we go boys! This could be the "ONE"!
(Now, ask yourself what are the odds, based on your experience of modern cinema, that this is all going to inevitably and violently shit the bed. Remember that mickey finn?)

This is one of those films that can have you shouting at the screen. For a start lets just get the socio-political douchebaggery out of the way. There is a lot of it. And its pretty bad. And thats all I got to say about that.

On to the bed shitting.
A linguistics professor is chosen to make contact with the visitors, a female who you will love goddammit! cause Max Richter and forced personal tragedy says so! She decides on chest tapping, finger pointing, me Jane you Tarzan in a cartoon like fashion to learn and rapidly converse in "God-speech" with the recently arrived. Absolute. Fucking. Genius.
(Hey, miss linguistics, mime me the the concept of "context". No?)
All this pales in comparison to the final insult. The Heptapods speak snowflake! Who fucking knew?! We must "come together" for the win. Anti-evolutionary bullshittery? Naw, dem feels man, dem feels. It must be true.
Then again, something might have been lost in translation by our heroine, who's final solution to the problem of suffering is to perpetuate it by willingly choosing it. Fuck Karmic conundrums. Fuck dem Cathar navel gazers.
Just get it all over with and take a hammer to your balls and smash away. Take yourself to rock bottom in any manner of ways (preferably one that involves copious amounts of emotional masturbation) that way it cant get any worse. See? Genius!

Basically its a film about marcel mar-fucking-ceau, punching himself repeatedly in the balls.

[BIL]

Avengers 2 was sugary guff (my own riveting review - warning, a bit long), as expected. However, the ensuing spectacle of Joss Whedon's asshole getting blasted rim from rim by the deranged SJW hordes he mistook for his fellows makes it a-ok by me.

[BrianC]

Earth's Mightiest Heroes did Ultron better. Too bad Disney replaced good marvel shows with inferior ones. Not sure if putting Christopher Yost on live action Thor instead of animated shows was a good idea.