Movies you've just watched

A place where you can chat about anything that isn't to do with games!
User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2439
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by vol.2 »

I forgot, actually saw another movie last week.

The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson

Timothée Chalamet was much better in this movie than he was in Dune. It was a near-perfect casting for him.

All 4 sketches were excellent, the Owen Wilson being the least of them in both length and quality. But even his bit was entertaining enough. My favorite was the Jeffery Wright sketch, he really carried the narrative.

This is obviously not going to be for everyone; the bourgeois-apologist narratives that W.A. seems to be trapped in are still present, and the degree to which it is relatable may be limited to a narrow socioeconomic strata. Nevertheless, W.A. continues to effectively draw from what he knows best, and The French Dispatch is cute and funny and well constructed. Perhaps he went a bit overboard with frames within frames within frames (you'll know what I mean if you watch it). I assume this was done to bring home the photographic feeling of the printed word, but it gets heavy handed at times. It's also, very self-consciously, a nod to early filmmaking in which the language of live theater had not yet been completely abandoned; in earlier film, this was done mostly as a crutch when the language of film had not been sufficiently developed, but here is done for aesthetic effect, sometimes feeling a bit too hammy or over-wrought.
User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2439
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by vol.2 »

Ok. So I watched Uncut Gems on Netflix last night.

It is a well constructed movie. The music is great. The casting is great but not perfect. The writing is predictable and boring. There is no point at which I ever felt like I didn't know what was going to happen or I had any question about how it would happen. In spite of that, the editing was done in such a way that you are dragged through the action face-first, and (for me) this created stress because I knew that Adam Sandler would continue to fail over and over and things would ultimately go bad for him, and there was no hope; I just had to sit there and watch him lose hard.

Not my cup of tea. I don't enjoy getting stressed out as I have a great deal of anxiety about real things in my own life and I don't feel any catharsis from watching others fuck themselves over and fall into holes.

Maybe some people like this kind of thing because they feel like it's a challenge to watch and they "made it to the end?" IDK. Maybe there is something else to the film that eluded me? Please feel free to say what you like about it that I didn't mention. There's got to be a reason so many people enjoyed it.
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Just saw Eternals, and honestly, it isn’t as bad as every critic says.
User avatar
cj iwakura
Posts: 1729
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:28 am
Location: Coral Springs, FL

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by cj iwakura »

vol.2 wrote:Ok. So I watched Uncut Gems on Netflix last night.

It is a well constructed movie. The music is great. The casting is great but not perfect. The writing is predictable and boring. There is no point at which I ever felt like I didn't know what was going to happen or I had any question about how it would happen. In spite of that, the editing was done in such a way that you are dragged through the action face-first, and (for me) this created stress because I knew that Adam Sandler would continue to fail over and over and things would ultimately go bad for him, and there was no hope; I just had to sit there and watch him lose hard.

Not my cup of tea. I don't enjoy getting stressed out as I have a great deal of anxiety about real things in my own life and I don't feel any catharsis from watching others fuck themselves over and fall into holes.

Maybe some people like this kind of thing because they feel like it's a challenge to watch and they "made it to the end?" IDK. Maybe there is something else to the film that eluded me? Please feel free to say what you like about it that I didn't mention. There's got to be a reason so many people enjoyed it.
Check out their first(?) film, Good Time, also on Netflix(or it was), and also with an amazing OST by Oneohtrix Point Never.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpkcJ20Gvk

VERY similar, but I found it more gripping.
Image
heli wrote:Why is milestone director in prison ?, are his game to difficult ?
User avatar
MOSQUITO FIGHTER
Posts: 1717
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:32 pm

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by MOSQUITO FIGHTER »

The Nightingale. Lots of really awful stuff happening in this one. Still great movie though. Really shows how bad the British were back then. Bet a lot of that stuff probably happened too. Damn…
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

Rewatched Dune '84 and '21 respectively.

The only thing I'd say in '84 that's superior to '21 is the soundtrack.

Same with Blade Runner. Hans Zimmer does not do great covers of Vangelis.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

Rewatched '84 myself, for old times' sake. I've always enjoyed the early scenes' capturing of Caladan's familial warmth, and its impending loss. Lots of talented, likeable actors interacting at length, cool. I think the desert battle scenes are what really drag the film down. Tensionless, repetitive, compositionally uninteresting, even as ninja commandos drive an aircraft carrier-sized worm wreathed in crackling ozone straight through an even more monstrous wall. The Weirding Module sums it up, a daft weapon for boring battle.

Flatulent action scenes aside, I still wouldn't call it a bad film, certainly not an outrageously poor one. '21's the better adaptation for sure.

Speaking of, I almost wish they'd referenced Brian Eno's one track, it's sublimely haunted and yearning. OTOH, I'm guessing they were doing their damnedest not to associate with the De Laurentiis production. Image
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

New detail I noticed rewatching '84 this time: Duke Leto's unkillable pug. Survives all the way up to the final scene, even after leading the doomed charge at the Saudaukar with Gurney Halleck.

I like to think that little pupper is the real Kwisatz Haderach in the movie, manipulating Paul from the shadows to bring the Jihad so he can mark trees across the entire galaxy.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

Holy shit, that's beautiful. :lol:

Image
User avatar
TransatlanticFoe
Posts: 1737
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:06 pm
Location: UK

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

I thought Lynch's was largely great right up to Paul finding the Fremen. Then it's just clearly been hacked apart to meet the studio's demands. Also the effects are dreadful. A year earlier you had Return of the Jedi, now you've got puff and bang weapons a la Blake's 7. The scene where the navigator barfs into a tie-dye sea, christ I think you have to be David Lynch high as a kite not to find that laughable.

Gurney and that pug is epic though, hope it's around to tear shit up in NuDune part 2!
User avatar
drauch
Posts: 5637
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:14 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by drauch »

Been over a decade since I've watched it and don't remember that. Time to revisit. Not really a fan of the book in the first place, but I've always enjoyed its sandy, wormy influence.
BIL wrote: "Small sack, LOTS OF CUM" - Nikola Tesla
User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2439
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by vol.2 »

The pug has been well-memed. Totally shocked that the rest of you lot don't instantly know the Patrick Stewart with pug moment. Though maybe it's just my age. Whatever.
User avatar
GaijinPunch
Posts: 15646
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:22 pm
Location: San Fransicso

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Kyojin to Gangu / Giants and Toys [1958]

A 1958 story about the cut throat world of... caramel. Closely following one of three companies vying for title of best caramel in Japan, the film takes a satirical look at Japan's obsessive postwar work culture, fame, and shitty teeth. Strangely enough for the time, shot with anamorphic lenses and in color.

Image
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
User avatar
GaijinPunch
Posts: 15646
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:22 pm
Location: San Fransicso

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Kumano Sujo / Throne of Blood [1957]

Kurosawa's take on Macbeth. Honestly, I can't remember shit about Macbeth but watching this I knew it was based on something Shakespearean. Played out a lot like a fable - quite an entertaining one. Run time quite paltry by Kurosawa's standards. I do find the 4:3 ratio of this era a tad distracting for such an acclaimed film maker.
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

GaijinPunch wrote:Kumano Sujo / Throne of Blood [1957]
Helll yeah. :cool: Only thing better than Throne's Kabuki Macbeth is Ran's Sengoku Lear. (The Bad Sleep Well's Hamlet via diabolic postwar salaryman doomfest is cracking, too, in slightly more downbeat mode)

Trivias - the actor playing the messenger that an enraged Mifune stabs had a board under his kimono; the prop sword busted through and left him with a permanent scar. Hardcore. Image Also, much more widely-known, but Mifune shitting himself at the final scene wasn't all acting, those were some real-ass arrows thunking into the scenery (albeit fired just out of shot).
User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2439
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by vol.2 »

Saw the Eternals last night. It was okay. Maybe even good.

Main criticism is that it's exceptionally shallow, but that only matters because they made a huge effort to feature every issue/minority possible. There is disability, race, gender, sexual preference, environmentalism, all presented in an almost impossibly superficial way. In discussing this with my friend last night, I arrived at the phrase "canned wokeness." That kind of sums it up for me.

However, because it's so shallow, that leaves a lot of space for whatever action flick stuff there is and that was okay, maybe good sometimes.

It's not a great film, but it's impressive that I didn't fall asleep or get bored for almost 3 hours. Some of it was cool, when it got more sci-fi.
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

BIL wrote:Trivias - the actor playing the messenger that an enraged Mifune stabs had a board under his kimono; the prop sword busted through and left him with a permanent scar. Hardcore. Image Also, much more widely-known, but Mifune shitting himself at the final scene wasn't all acting, those were some real-ass arrows thunking into the scenery (albeit fired just out of shot).
Yeah, that was the thing they did in Seven Samurai. All the extras had boards under their kimonos, and a master archer offscreen shot them where the board was supposed to be.

Also Mifune, highest paid actor in Japan at the time, actually faced down a kicking horse during the final battle.

Still safer than shooting a Baldwin movie during a crew walkout.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
GaijinPunch
Posts: 15646
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:22 pm
Location: San Fransicso

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Jesus, those fuckers were hard as nails! I was wondering how the hell they did all those arrows without hitting him.
and a master archer offscreen shot them where the board was supposed to be.
Fuck that noise. I can't imagine their aim being 100%.
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

GaijinPunch wrote:Jesus, those fuckers were hard as nails! I was wondering how the hell they did all those arrows without hitting him.
and a master archer offscreen shot them where the board was supposed to be.
Fuck that noise. I can't imagine their aim being 100%.
Well that's what the guy doing the commentary track for the Criterion Collection DVD said.

Here's how they did it in Throne of Blood. Apparently there were wires through the arrows in addition to the board, but you can see 20 archers standing on a scaffold with those huge crazy bows.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
GaijinPunch
Posts: 15646
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:22 pm
Location: San Fransicso

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Damn, that's nuts.
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
User avatar
it290
Posts: 2542
Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:00 am
Location: polar malortex, illinois

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by it290 »

vol.2 wrote:Maybe some people like this kind of thing because they feel like it's a challenge to watch and they "made it to the end?" IDK. Maybe there is something else to the film that eluded me? Please feel free to say what you like about it that I didn't mention. There's got to be a reason so many people enjoyed it.
It's tension of the highest order, it's literally the same emotion that makes for a good thriller or suspense film, and to some degree horror. It's interesting to me that you didn't like it, because I noted your previous log on Possession, which is also one of my favorite horror films (maybe #1 favorite), though I may like that one for different reasons—for me Possession succeeds because it successfully portrays the real cruelty that people who love each other can inflict on one another. With Uncut Gems, it's similar; Sandler's character continually fucks himself, but his hope for himself, and his love for Fox's character are real. I thought the script was on point and thoroughly unpredictable for similar reasons; the character is very unpredictable and you don't know where his impulsiveness will lead him. Perhaps you disliked it for emotional reasons—how it made you feel? It also has an amazing soundtrack, and I thought the casting was some of the best I've ever seen; Julia Fox is a revelation and the fact that the Safdie brothers cast people from NYC's actual diamond district, not to mention Kevin Garnett himself, is pretty amazing.
Image
We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Red Notice was good fun!
User avatar
lilmanjs
Posts: 1572
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:36 am
Location: Lawrence, Kansas

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by lilmanjs »

Last 2 movies I've watched are Eat Drink Man Woman (South Korean Blu Ray, better release than the OOP US release) and Mind Game. Mind Game still has the most amazing sequence in an animated film to date.
User avatar
Vexorg
Posts: 3055
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:33 am
Location: Greensboro NC

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Vexorg »

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: ***

Ever notice how even though all the heroes and villains in the Marvel universe have all these amazing superpowers or all sorts of incredible technology, in the end all the combat eventually devolves into straight-up fistfights? I figured they'd eventually just make a straight-up martial arts movie and call it good, and that's pretty much what you get here. But of course since it's Marvel there's all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy gobbledygook involved as Shang Chi finds himself having to save Wakanda-With-Harry-Potter-Beasts from his Daddy Issues. In the end it can't seem to decide if it's Crazy Rich Asians with Kung Fu (the inclusion of Awkwafina in a lead role certainly contributes to that) or Harry Potter with Kung Fu. I'm sure it all ties into Eternals and the second upcoming Doctor Strange movie (especially since Wong makes a couple of cameos) but now that Marvel has pretty much used up all their top-tier material and has to start digging deeper into the back catalog for MCU material it's going to start getting a lot harder to follow this stuff.
Last edited by Vexorg on Sun Nov 14, 2021 6:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
We want you, save our planet!
Xbox Live: Vexorg | The Sledgehammer - Version 2.0
User avatar
Herr Schatten
Posts: 3259
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:14 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Herr Schatten »

Vexorg wrote:now that Marvel has pretty much used up all their top-tier material and has to start digging deeper into the back catalog for MCU material
Fingers crossed for a Squirrel Girl movie to materialize eventually. :)
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Quite possibly the best Ghostbusters movie since the original. It has officially earned the franchise’s exoneration.
User avatar
lilmanjs
Posts: 1572
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:36 am
Location: Lawrence, Kansas

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by lilmanjs »

Ran
The Kurosawa classic is finally in North America on 4K UHD and it comes with the best packaging! Best Buy as usual does a horrible job showing off the artwork of their steelbook release, but man does it look amazing in person. I think its the same release the rest of the world got save for the new artwork and the digital copy included as well. Still an amazing movie, and still wows me to no end just how much the different colors representing the armies of the different brothers pop off the screen.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18990
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

One hell of a movie. Image "Do not curse the Gods! The Gods are weeping at our foolishness!" A classic home A/V benchmark, too.

(obligatory mention of Kagemusha, sometimes regarded as Ran's dress rehearsal, but a formidable Sengoku-jidai in its own right. Tatsuya Nakadai really gets to show off his range in the dual lead)
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6117
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BryanM »

Afterlife was the one movie I chose to watch this year. About three times better than Ghosts of Mars, less than 50% of its minutes entertained me, and Ghosts of Mars is more interesting being a kusoge, so I feel like it's another of my bad life choices. To be fair I always thought the "passing the torch" idea was the worst thing, back when they were pitching the idea of bringing in Ben Stiller or whatever. Rather see grandpas ordering employees around from the couch.

I'm more angry about Jay from RLM being more right than wrong, that cynical hack fraud. Every time they watched scenes from the old movie in the new movie, made me wish I was watching that movie instead.

Unless you're obligated to watch it by contract like I am, or more predisposed to what it has to offer (I'm glad there are others who really liked it, at least), here are things I recommend doing with your time instead:

* Play a Harvest Moon.

* Get into the new(ish) genre of analog horror.

* Watch some alternate takes from the first movie.

* Watch/play the video game which is the closest we'll get to a GB3.

And if you need to watch a movie for some reason, just go pick literally anything from 1984. It was a ridiculous spread that year, no wonder they don't need to make movies anymore. They already made them in all. In 1984.

.. it's even got the Last Starfighter, renowned for being 600% better than Star Wars and making 0.001% as much money. And can you believe Nightmare on Elm Street had such a moderate take? Like some kinda indie hit. The market was very different back then.
Herr Schatten wrote:Fingers crossed for a Squirrel Girl movie to materialize eventually. :)
I've been rooting for her too. The obvious reason they haven't is she'd cost a lot of money in CGI, and merging a real person with CGI, they're not so good at that. I think they could make it look decent with a GAN, it worked for Scorpion King...

... the even more obvious reason is the amount of $ to make a Squirrel Girl movie and a Spider Man movie is about the same, and even if it wasn't there's only so many weeks in a year, so many slots to fill. So fill'em with proven properties instead of interesting but unprofitable d-listers...
neorichieb1971
Posts: 7668
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:28 am
Location: Bedford, UK
Contact:

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by neorichieb1971 »

Vexorg wrote:Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: ***

Ever notice how even though all the heroes and villains in the Marvel universe have all these amazing superpowers or all sorts of incredible technology, in the end all the combat eventually devolves into straight-up fistfights? I figured they'd eventually just make a straight-up martial arts movie and call it good, and that's pretty much what you get here. But of course since it's Marvel there's all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy gobbledygook involved as Shang Chi finds himself having to save Wakanda-With-Harry-Potter-Beasts from his Daddy Issues. In the end it can't seem to decide if it's Crazy Rich Asians with Kung Fu (the inclusion of Awkwafina in a lead role certainly contributes to that) or Harry Potter with Kung Fu. I'm sure it all ties into Eternals and the second upcoming Doctor Strange movie (especially since Wong makes a couple of cameos) but now that Marvel has pretty much used up all their top-tier material and has to start digging deeper into the back catalog for MCU material it's going to start getting a lot harder to follow this stuff.
Each 3rd of this movie is a movie in its own right. It definitely moves from one extreme to the other.

I am now looking for scenes in Disney movies where the good guys get put in jail, and there just happens to be someone in there already that can get them out. Since I watched this and Star Wars EP8 back to back, both movies have scenes like this. Actually, 3 movies if you include Solo.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
Post Reply