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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 12, 2020 23:41:15 GMT -5
Modest Heroes (2018) - This movie was, in reality, three random-ass thematically unrelated Japanimation shorts. The first one was about some water fairies or some shit. Like Pokemons they could only say their names. They had crab claw spears. Their dad nearly got merked by a bubble. The second one was about a modern times elementary school boy in Tokyo. He has an egg allergy and said "sucks" at his mom. His mom was not happy about either the low level profanity or the egg allergy. He nearly got merked by an ice cream with eggs in it. The third one was about a modern times invisible man somewhere in Japan. His invisibility powers also came with weightlessness so he had to carry some junk around with him so he didn't float away. A blind man could see him when he was sitting on some docks in the rain. He nearly got merked by a big rig truck while saving a runaway baby carriage.
None of these were particularly good Japanimations. The first and second one both looked nice in a kind of "knock-off whatever that company of bloomer perverts that made Pig on a Plane and Kiki's Delivery Service is called" sort of way but had pretty nothing stories. The second one was a bit better in regards of having a plot, though that might just be due to the fact that there was actual dialogue. The third one was that kind of gross "everyone is a gangly fuck" Japanimation that I hate more than all other Japanimations. The plot was probably a metaphor for something, but I'm too dumb and/or uninterested in contemporary Japanese social trends to know what that is. Maybe it's a metaphor for being gay man. Maybe it's a metaphor for being a dweeb who wears emo glasses and drives around on a Vespa. Who knows? Who cares?
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Apr 13, 2020 10:39:52 GMT -5
Blow the Man Down
This was pretty okay. I think I wanted something a little more Cohen Brothers-esque, and I thought the trailer made it seem like Fargo, but in small town Maine. But it really isn't a dark comedy. It's mostly just a dark, small town crime drama, albeit one with a chorus of fishermen who show up occasionally to sing sea shanties. So, it was good, but probably would have liked it better if I wasn't expecting something a little different.
Onward
Yeah, it's a Pixar movie: fun, funny, spends the entire second half trying to make the audience sob. I really liked it.
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Post by ganews on Apr 13, 2020 10:46:25 GMT -5
Isolation week 4 movies
Forbidden Planet What a movie! Roll up every post-war issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction and you've got the perfect bridge between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Star Trek. Pretty damn great special effects and sets, with a generous portion of lighthearted silliness. For example: a super-advanced robot with the juvenile name Robbie; a pack of horny space-sailors leering as hard as anyone onscreen before 1960 who also get killed fending off a monster. Look hard and you can find all sorts of ideas that got used again decades later, from the subconscious-created monster of Michael Chrichton's "Sphere", to the push-in switches of Alien. They Came Together It was on. I don't know what possessed me to leave it on, because it was pretty terrible. An actual rom-com with Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler could probably be funny. On paper it largely makes sense as a farcical parody. What happened? The only solid gag was Poehler's character having white supremacists and a deviant brother, three years before Get Out.
Booksmart I am super impressed with girl-from-Justified and obviously-Jonah Hill's-sister and even more with the script. This almost seemed like it was going to be too close to Superbad, and there are many similar beats, but differences like the better-developed supporting cast really set it apart. This was like watching Freaks and Geeks or American Pie, in that you know you're going to see these young actors again. The setting is kind of insane, or course, with a serious case of Fictional High School. But it was a lot of fun with a lot of big laughs.
Good Boys It's purely by accident that I watched this the day after Booksmart. It follows the same formula of "wild experience to get to the party, breakup, and reconciliation", and it also shares two musical cues of "Nobody Speak" and Will Forte as a father. The setting is less fantastical, and because everybody is younger Good Boys is that much more charming. The characters are even more relatable that high schoolers because they have yet to develop. Great running gags (particularly that the 6th graders actually can't open child-proof bottles), lots of belly laughs. And, as someone who has dislocated and field-set a shoulder, grossness.
Manhattan The man knows how to compose a shot, and he really knows how to write witty dialogue for himself. Too bad he's such a creep, though I've got to admit he's pretty honest on-screen about who he is (he didn't have to write himself a 17-year-old love interest, but he wasn't going to pretend). What really outrages me is that he cast Wallace Shawn so he could call him a "little homunculus", so fuck YOU, Woody.
Risky Business Hey it's Bronson Pinchot! And Joe Pantoliano looking super young! I watched this because of my mother-in-law, who has an inexplicable and hilarious thing for actors in tighty-whities. We know this because of here expressed fondness for otherwise unrelated movies, like Tom Cruise here and Jack Black in Orange County. Prince on the soundtrack, that's alright. I guess it's more sophisticated than your average 80s teen sex comedy, but eh. Would have been better if Tom Cruise had some seedy ending instead of having his dreams come true.
I Love You Phillip Morris Here's one to double feature with Man on the Moon, or maybe Cool Hand Luke. Jim Carey does his method thing playing a con-man trying to build a life on a series of hilarious lies for his love of Ewan McGregor. And who can blame him? McGregor is a dream. Hilarious and touching. And it closes on a cloud that looks like this. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2020 12:13:20 GMT -5
Isolation week 4 movies
Forbidden Planet What a movie! Roll up every post-war issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction and you've got the perfect bridge between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Star Trek. Pretty damn great special effects and sets, with a generous portion of lighthearted silliness. For example: a super-advanced robot with the juvenile name Robbie; a pack of horny space-sailors leering as hard as anyone onscreen before 1960 who also get killed fending off a monster. Look hard and you can find all sorts of ideas that got used again decades later, from the subconscious-created monster of Michael Chrichton's "Sphere", to the push-in switches of Alien. They Came Together It was on. I don't know what possessed me to leave it on, because it was pretty terrible. An actual rom-com with Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler could probably be funny. On paper it largely makes sense as a farcical parody. What happened? The only solid gag was Poehler's character having white supremacists and a deviant brother, three years before Get Out.
Booksmart I am super impressed with girl-from-Justified and obviously-Jonah Hill's-sister and even more with the script. This almost seemed like it was going to be too close to Superbad, and there are many similar beats, but differences like the better-developed supporting cast really set it apart. This was like watching Freaks and Geeks or American Pie, in that you know you're going to see these young actors again. The setting is kind of insane, or course, with a serious case of Fictional High School. But it was a lot of fun with a lot of big laughs.
Good Boys It's purely by accident that I watched this the day after Booksmart. It follows the same formula of "wild experience to get to the party, breakup, and reconciliation", and it also shares two musical cues of "Nobody Speak" and Will Forte as a father. The setting is less fantastical, and because everybody is younger Good Boys is that much more charming. The characters are even more relatable that high schoolers because they have yet to develop. Great running gags (particularly that the 6th graders actually can't open child-proof bottles), lots of belly laughs. And, as someone who has dislocated and field-set a shoulder, grossness.
Manhattan The man knows how to compose a shot, and he really knows how to write witty dialogue for himself. Too bad he's such a creep, though I've got to admit he's pretty honest on-screen about who he is (he didn't have to write himself a 17-year-old love interest, but he wasn't going to pretend). What really outrages me is that he cast Wallace Shawn so he could call him a "little homunculus", so fuck YOU, Woody.
Risky Business Hey it's Bronson Pinchot! And Joe Pantoliano looking super young! I watched this because of my mother-in-law, who has an inexplicable and hilarious thing for actors in tighty-whities. We know this because of here expressed fondness for otherwise unrelated movies, like Tom Cruise here and Jack Black in Orange County. Prince on the soundtrack, that's alright. I guess it's more sophisticated than your average 80s teen sex comedy, but eh. Would have been better if Tom Cruise had some seedy ending instead of having his dreams come true.
I Love You Phillip Morris Here's one to double feature with Man on the Moon, or maybe Cool Hand Luke. Jim Carey does his method thing playing a con-man trying to build a life on a series of hilarious lies for his love of Ewan McGregor. And who can blame him? McGregor is a dream. Hilarious and touching. And it closes on a cloud that looks like this. I saw Forbidden Planet for the first time when George R.R. Martin bought and reopened the Jean Cocteau Theater, as it's his favorite movie. It does indeed rule. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 13, 2020 18:52:52 GMT -5
Sol Levante (2020) - Looked like a trailer for a PlayStation RPG. There were monsters and wizard shit but none of it made no sense since it was super short and completely devoid of any real context. Bad scene, everyone’s fault.
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Post by Hachiman on Apr 13, 2020 23:08:58 GMT -5
Modest Heroes (2018) - None of these were particularly good Japanimations. The first and second one both looked nice in a kind of "knock-off whatever that company of bloomer perverts that made Pig on a Plane and Kiki's Delivery Service is called" sort of way but had pretty nothing stories. These were made by Studio Ponoc, which is actually a studio comprised of ex-Studio Ghibli ("bloomer perverts") animators. That's why they look so similar. Its less of a knock off and more of a change in branding. I also hate "gangly fuck" animations as well, so I am with you there. As a big guy in Asia, it's like, "I get it. I'm disgustingly huge to you. No need to rub it in with your skeletal cartoon characters!" |
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Post by Hachiman on Apr 13, 2020 23:21:46 GMT -5
Fly me to Saitama (飛んで埼玉）
This one will probably never make it to the rest of the world. It's a great example of a local hit that is barely understandable to anybody who doesn't live here. The film is this action comedy based around Saitama Prefecture, which is a part of the larger Tokyo Metropolitan area. It's often compared to New Jersey. While there are plenty of other non-Tokyo parts of the greater Tokyo area, Saitama is constantly shit on for a variety of reasons. It's the only prefecture in that area without any coastline (basically any city worth a damn is on the coasts), it doesn't have an airport for some reason, and it doesn't have anything otherwise notable about it like scenic beauty or interesting local things. Its just a boring place where a large horde of trashy people live. There's all sorts of nicknames for Saitama, like "Dasaitama" which combines "dasai" (tacky) and Saitama. There's more nicknames and there's a great scene of the main character using all of them while his comrades stand there humiliated.
So the movie is about these Saitama people having an actual battle with another neighboring prefecture(Chiba) to basically decide which area gets to be third place since Tokyo and Yokohama are obviously 1st and 2nd. This movie is ridiculous since Chiba is obviously 3rd, if not actually second. Chiba has a beach, Tokyo Disneyland, and Narita International Airport. Chiba's aight. Saitama is not. Anyway, if you're down for some weird characters, weird costumes, weird stories and drag, then this is worth a watch.
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Post by President Hound on Apr 14, 2020 19:58:36 GMT -5
War Horse: wow I didn't know WW1 ended because no one, regardless of nationality, would shut the fuck up about how awesome the horse is
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Apr 17, 2020 21:31:46 GMT -5
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
I like some of Kevin Smith's movies. This one sucked donkey balls. Honestly, I expected no better, but it was free on Amazon (I think) and I couldn't sleep.
There were about 5 minutes of good performances, in maybe 10-30 second bursts throughout it's hour and a half running time. It may very well have been fun to be in the cast, they seemed to be having a good time. God only knows why else anyone of them put up with, it couldn't have paid much. Weirdly, Jay did most of the acting heavy lifting, such as it was, and from that and some other movie I saw him in where he was a paramedic who's girlfriend turned into a zombie or vampire or some shit, in some alternate timeline he might have actually been a decent actor. Almost all of want passed for character development went to him, and there were moments when he sold his character growth.
The writing was just terrible. Apparently it was fan funded, and all I can figure was that everybody who sent in $10 got to write a line of the script. I have seen better actually fan created movies. It was absolutely the most "Fuck you, I no longer give a shit" thing I have ever seen, on so many levels. Possibly the most horrifying thing about the movie is the fact that everybody in it, simply looked awful. I can only assume there was no budget for makeup or lighting. I don't want to bash anybody because of their appearances, but these were professional actors on a supposedly professional film shoot, and I've seen Butter Cows at the state fair that looked more human. Kevin Smith looks like The Comedian from that awful Watchman movie, Jason Mewes looks like Woody Harrelson, if somebody had beat Woody Harrelson's face with a tire iron (and he sounded like he had gargled drano). Almost all the cameo stars looked like badly reanimated zombie versions of themselves. I suppose everyone is getting older, but why did they all look like they were getting deader? Chris Helmsworth looked pretty normal, but he was just a holograph. Watch Dogma instead.
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Apr 18, 2020 9:50:03 GMT -5
Smallfoot. Really stupid, as I expected. I had to fast-forward through all the songs as well. But I did get a few real laughs (mostly at sight gags) so not a complete waste of time.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2020 12:40:18 GMT -5
Smallfoot. Really stupid, as I expected. I had to fast-forward through all the songs as well. But I did get a few real laughs (mostly at sight gags) so not a complete waste of time. That movie is a lot more entertaining for people who have left cults in the past. (Well, it was for me anyway, I don't know if you and I have shared experience in that regard.) It seemed tailor-made for me. |
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Apr 18, 2020 13:36:44 GMT -5
Smallfoot. Really stupid, as I expected. I had to fast-forward through all the songs as well. But I did get a few real laughs (mostly at sight gags) so not a complete waste of time. That movie is a lot more entertaining for people who have left cults in the past. (Well, it was for me anyway, I don't know if you and I have shared experience in that regard.) It seemed tailor-made for me. Huh. Now I'm reevaluating - I can definitely see how that would be different. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2020 22:36:02 GMT -5
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
After how divisive the reviews for this movie were, I definitely wasn't expecting a thoroughly mediocre Wes Anderson knockoff.
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Post by pairesta on Apr 19, 2020 8:24:50 GMT -5
Even more movies with our daughter:
Big: This is probably my favorite Tom Hanks performance. Growing up, we all loved Tom Hanks movies, so I'm steadily showing his 80s oeuvre to my daughter. She hasn't thought much of them so far (Splash and Money Pit), but really enjoyed this one. It's an effortlessly great, endlessly charming movie except of course for the incredibly problematic romantic interest story. The Man with One Red Shoe is next on my Hanks list to show her, but I'm hesitant.
The Fugitive: I've always really loved this movie, but it does kind of sag in the middle. She didn't have much to say about this one except that she seemed to like Ford's performance, a far cry from Han Solo or Indiana Jones.
Romancing the Stone: This has icky kissing in it, so she wasn't so into this one until the gator scene at the end. "WHOAH!" She cried at the famous catching-the-jewel scene. I'm listening to the 80s all over podcast, and they had just covered this one, so I had renewed appreciation for it this time after their glowing comments.
Red Dawn: This was a shocker. She fucking loved this one. She jumped up and cheered at the popping out of the foxhole scene and was gutted when all the deaths of the Wolverines geared up in earnest. While yes, there was a completely forgotten remake of this a decade or so back, I've always thought this has potential to be remade or put into a miniseries-type format. There's a lot of moments in the movie that they just brush past that really could have used more attention.
Minority Report: Another one she really liked. I get more mixed on this every time I see it. The eyeball replacement scene is so over the top gross that it brings to mind the excesses of the banquet scene in Temple Of Doom. There's a lot of bizarre tonal shifts in the film. It's also front loaded with a lot of action and then like the Fugitive, settles in for a sometimes listless back half.
A Quiet Place: We're steadily steering my daughter into horror movies. Like her dad, she's a big weenie when it comes to this stuff, but it is fun watching these with her. I forgot how fast and bare bones the movie is: it basically takes place over, what, a day?
Bonus sans daughter: It.
"Let's watch something SCARY!" My wife said Friday night. "OK!" I agreed, and promptly put on It. "Oh. Um, okay . . . " my wife said nervously, shrinking into the couch. My daughter happened to be walking through and saw the credits, then promptly ran upstairs and closed her door.
We had to watch the damn movie with the volume on 5 lest the kids hear anything. So it was a constant "Turn it up I can't hear! Turn it down, turn it down!" We really need to get a tv in our bedroom. This was surprisingly good, nailing nice little period details the way Stranger Things does. You can tell a lot of thought and geek love for King's novel went into it. Having a movie just on the kids part of the book is genius. The girl in this movie needs to find a Molly Ringwald movie to remake and star in. My understanding is that the second part is a big letdown so I'm not in much of a hurry to get to it.
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 19, 2020 19:17:43 GMT -5
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - I finally saw this and after all the "THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!! IT RUINED MY CHILDHOOD FOREVER!!!!!!" hype I was disappointed that it was mostly just okay. For all the bellyaching people did it should have been way worse than it was. There was some dumb stuff in it and some decisions that were clearly made to placate the dunderheaded oafs who bellyached about the last one having an Asian woman as a primary character but mostly it was just your garden variety Star Wars fare. There were spaceships and laser swords and goofy looking aliens and robots and space Nazis and noble sacrifices and space wizards and pretty much everything one could possibly want from a Star Wars movie unless you're the sole person who thought that the stuff about trade disputes from The Phantom Menace was the best thing to ever appear in a Star Wars movie in which case you'd probably be very disappointed about this one.
I watched it with my four year old daughter and she had a grand ol' time with it, laughing at the goofy looking aliens, wondering why the "sick boy" (Kyle Ren/Ben Solo) disappeared at the end, insisting that BB-8 is a girl robot, so for her at least, it was about as effective a movie as the original Star Wars was when I saw it at the same age. Both are goofy movies for kids with space wizards and robots and laser swords and I think if people realized that they'd be less angry about new Star Wars movies.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2020 20:01:29 GMT -5
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - I finally saw this and after all the "THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!! IT RUINED MY CHILDHOOD FOREVER!!!!!!" hype I was disappointed that it was mostly just okay. For all the bellyaching people did it should have been way worse than it was. There was some dumb stuff in it and some decisions that were clearly made to placate the dunderheaded oafs who bellyached about the last one having an Asian woman as a primary character but mostly it was just your garden variety Star Wars fare. There were spaceships and laser swords and goofy looking aliens and robots and space Nazis and noble sacrifices and space wizards and pretty much everything one could possibly want from a Star Wars movie unless you're the sole person who thought that the stuff about trade disputes from The Phantom Menace was the best thing to ever appear in a Star Wars movie in which case you'd probably be very disappointed about this one. I watched it with my four year old daughter and she had a grand ol' time with it, laughing at the goofy looking aliens, wondering why the "sick boy" (Kyle Ren/Ben Solo) disappeared at the end, insisting that BB-8 is a girl robot, so for her at least, it was about as effective a movie as the original Star Wars was when I saw it at the same age. Both are goofy movies for kids with space wizards and robots and laser swords and I think if people realized that they'd be less angry about new Star Wars movies. I'm sure for kids it's great. Most of the stuff I thought was the BEST THING EVER as a kid, I've tried to rewatch and it was horrible, horrible garbage. That's the problem with this one - it was billed as the final chapter in a nine-movie saga, and managed to be more of a mess than the worst prequel movie. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 19, 2020 20:33:54 GMT -5
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - I finally saw this and after all the "THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!! IT RUINED MY CHILDHOOD FOREVER!!!!!!" hype I was disappointed that it was mostly just okay. For all the bellyaching people did it should have been way worse than it was. There was some dumb stuff in it and some decisions that were clearly made to placate the dunderheaded oafs who bellyached about the last one having an Asian woman as a primary character but mostly it was just your garden variety Star Wars fare. There were spaceships and laser swords and goofy looking aliens and robots and space Nazis and noble sacrifices and space wizards and pretty much everything one could possibly want from a Star Wars movie unless you're the sole person who thought that the stuff about trade disputes from The Phantom Menace was the best thing to ever appear in a Star Wars movie in which case you'd probably be very disappointed about this one. I watched it with my four year old daughter and she had a grand ol' time with it, laughing at the goofy looking aliens, wondering why the "sick boy" (Kyle Ren/Ben Solo) disappeared at the end, insisting that BB-8 is a girl robot, so for her at least, it was about as effective a movie as the original Star Wars was when I saw it at the same age. Both are goofy movies for kids with space wizards and robots and laser swords and I think if people realized that they'd be less angry about new Star Wars movies. I'm sure for kids it's great. Most of the stuff I thought was the BEST THING EVER as a kid, I've tried to rewatch and it was horrible, horrible garbage. That's the problem with this one - it was billed as the final chapter in a nine-movie saga, and managed to be more of a mess than the worst prequel movie. I don't know, the opening buy-in was kind of disjointed but once you got past that it was a pretty straightforward adventure movie with the heroes trying to get some MacGuffin in order to stop the Big Bad of the series which they did. Kyle Ren got his redemption arc just like his hero Darth Vader so that was all well and good. There was some dumb stuff but nothing that broke the movie or the franchise. This is a universe that has established clones existing and historically had a character use dark magicks to become a lich or whatever the Star Wars equivalent was and Force Ghosts and stuff so it's easy enough to handwave away the return of the Emperor and Rey being related to the Emperor is pretty much par for the course with this franchise since everyone is related to someone from the original trilogy but that was something established in the prequels. All the other nonsense was very minor stuff that was kind of dumb but not really worth getting up in arms about (Chewbacca getting a medal because he didn't in the original one for example). |
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Apr 19, 2020 21:45:37 GMT -5
Even more movies with our daughter: Big: This is probably my favorite Tom Hanks performance. Growing up, we all loved Tom Hanks movies, so I'm steadily showing his 80s oeuvre to my daughter. She hasn't thought much of them so far (Splash and Money Pit), but really enjoyed this one. It's an effortlessly great, endlessly charming movie except of course for the incredibly problematic romantic interest story. The Man with One Red Shoe is next on my Hanks list to show her, but I'm hesitant. Try The 'Burbs! That one gets forgotten, and that is a crime.
And I know Red Dawn is shit on, like, so many levels, but I do love it. Even at the time, I was all, "yup, that's exactly how small town Colorado huntin' type teenagers would react".
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2020 22:33:28 GMT -5
I'm sure for kids it's great. Most of the stuff I thought was the BEST THING EVER as a kid, I've tried to rewatch and it was horrible, horrible garbage. That's the problem with this one - it was billed as the final chapter in a nine-movie saga, and managed to be more of a mess than the worst prequel movie. I don't know, the opening buy-in was kind of disjointed but once you got past that it was a pretty straightforward adventure movie with the heroes trying to get some MacGuffin in order to stop the Big Bad of the series which they did. Kyle Ren got his redemption arc just like his hero Darth Vader so that was all well and good. There was some dumb stuff but nothing that broke the movie or the franchise. This is a universe that has established clones existing and historically had a character use dark magicks to become a lich or whatever the Star Wars equivalent was and Force Ghosts and stuff so it's easy enough to handwave away the return of the Emperor and Rey being related to the Emperor is pretty much par for the course with this franchise since everyone is related to someone from the original trilogy but that was something established in the prequels. All the other nonsense was very minor stuff that was kind of dumb but not really worth getting up in arms about (Chewbacca getting a medal because he didn't in the original one for example). I won't belabor the point(s) further, since we have an entire thread devoted to the movie already. Chewie getting a medal was one of the GOOD points for me. |
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Post by ganews on Apr 19, 2020 22:46:48 GMT -5
Isolation week 5 movies Unleashed Jet Li and his stunt coordinator were responsible for everything good about this movie, and Luc Besson was responsible for everything else. It is very much a product of the early 2000s. All the jobbers and pit-fighters look like they got rejected from The Matrix Reloaded. How much anime was Besson watching when he wrote this? There's never been a more anime-style writing production in the West except Alita: Battle Angel. 38-year-old (at the time) Jet Li's character is clearly, clearly supposed to be 18-23. Bob Hoskins is fun as a gangster but is no Brick Top, and I wish he was in a better movie. The Host (2006) I tried to watch this movie many years ago but had turned it off somewhere in the middle, maybe after the memorial scene? The movie is a mish-mash of horror, satire I guess, and broad comedy. It didn't do it for me, it's either too dark or too light I guess. Parasite Like everyone else, we watched this week as it premiered on Hulu. It was good, not quite what I expected. Snowpiercer was cool, high-concept, and functionally crazy; The Host was grounded for a monster movie and a bit of a mess; but this was grounded in a surprising way. Parasite only seems like satire if you don't know about slums in Seoul. I assumed that the poor family, populated by Bong's acting stable, would be more sympathetic, more desperate than devious. I also assumed the title would be more of a "worker and parasite" sense, that the rich family would be gleefully evil in a way the rich are perfectly capable of being. Instead they don't really rise above 4/10 on the Rich Asshole scale until abandoning the stabbed poor daughter , being more clueless and insular than aggressively malevolent and hypocritical. I guess that makes it a more realistic portrayal of how people act but for me less fun than a Tarantino fantastical revenge of the oppressed. The full-circle ending was a familiar theme to me from some Japanese stuff so it didn't seems as poignant. What's with the uncommented-on Olympic medal, which was silver here and bronze in The Host?
Side note because Parasite won Best Screenplay: it's problematic/racist/fucked-up to use Japanese words for English portmanteau subtitling of a Korean food just because it doesn't directly translate well. And speaking of racism, I wonder if part of the reason for the movie's popularity in America is that, in addition to being good, it portrays class tension free of race in a way that could not be so plausibly done in a US-set movie. That would appeal to a lot of people.
The Black Cat (1995 short) I got the link to this from a comment on an AVC Watch This article from this past week. Really excellent production, and it's very difficult to find a good screen adaptation of Poe - they're usually stretched and padded and poor. I was a huge reader of Poe in middle school, and I remember going to the Poe house in Philadephia in 8th grade where the tour guide recounted the details of the story in the actual cellar.
Network The tree trunk with many branches, from Videodrome to Nightcrawler to...*gestures vaguely at reality*. Weird to watch in 2020. The May-December affair was unnecessary. How did ancient Peter Finch get a nude Faye Dunaway on top of him?
The Nice Guys It was coming on so I left it because it's a fun romp. Ryan Gosling is always great, and Russel Crowe was tolerable. I forgot that Betty from MCU Spider-Man played the daughter. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 19, 2020 23:26:40 GMT -5
I don't know, the opening buy-in was kind of disjointed but once you got past that it was a pretty straightforward adventure movie with the heroes trying to get some MacGuffin in order to stop the Big Bad of the series which they did. Kyle Ren got his redemption arc just like his hero Darth Vader so that was all well and good. There was some dumb stuff but nothing that broke the movie or the franchise. This is a universe that has established clones existing and historically had a character use dark magicks to become a lich or whatever the Star Wars equivalent was and Force Ghosts and stuff so it's easy enough to handwave away the return of the Emperor and Rey being related to the Emperor is pretty much par for the course with this franchise since everyone is related to someone from the original trilogy but that was something established in the prequels. All the other nonsense was very minor stuff that was kind of dumb but not really worth getting up in arms about (Chewbacca getting a medal because he didn't in the original one for example). I won't belabor the point(s) further, since we have an entire thread devoted to the movie already. Chewie getting a medal was one of the GOOD points for me. To the Star Wars is Dumb thread then~! |
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Apr 20, 2020 0:16:02 GMT -5
Isolation week 5 movies
Network The tree trunk with many branches, from Videodrome to Nightcrawler to...*gestures vaguely at reality*. Weird to watch in 2020. The May-December affair was unnecessary. How did ancient Peter Finch get a nude Faye Dunaway on top of him?
I may be mistaken, but I think it was William Holden, not Peter Finch, who got to experience naked Faye Dunaway. However, it was Finch who got the Oscar, so maybe that evens out. Network is a fantastic movie. Ned Beatty's monologue might be the best 5 minute performance in movies, right up there with Alec Baldwin's Glengarry speech.
I would suggest S.O.B as a double feature. It skewers the movie business as Network skewered the TV news business. It's more blatantly funny, but just as dark, and it also features Holden. Another overlooked gem (in my opinion) in Holden's filmography is "The Earthling". I believe either it or S.O.B was Holden's last film. He plays a man dying of cancer who decides to return to his boyhood home in the Australian outback to live out his final days in seclusion. On his route he finds a boy (Rick Schroeder) orphaned when his parents RV rolled off a cliff. Holden's character realizes he doesn't have enough time left to lead the boy out of the outback, so he begins to teach him how to survive the long and dangerous journey back to civilization. I read a lot about it when it first came out, and about the grim circumstances of it's production: The director was dying of cancer as they were filming, his original ending was very bleak, and was reshot against the director's wishes, or possibly with another director, Holden died soon after it's release. I haven't seen it in decades, so I may be remembering it in a better light than it deserves, but I remember it as being grim but ultimately hopeful, and emotionally powerful. |
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Post by liebkartoffel on Apr 20, 2020 0:37:40 GMT -5
I'm sure for kids it's great. Most of the stuff I thought was the BEST THING EVER as a kid, I've tried to rewatch and it was horrible, horrible garbage. That's the problem with this one - it was billed as the final chapter in a nine-movie saga, and managed to be more of a mess than the worst prequel movie. I don't know, the opening buy-in was kind of disjointed but once you got past that it was a pretty straightforward adventure movie with the heroes trying to get some MacGuffin in order to stop the Big Bad of the series which they did. Kyle Ren got his redemption arc just like his hero Darth Vader so that was all well and good. There was some dumb stuff but nothing that broke the movie or the franchise. This is a universe that has established clones existing and historically had a character use dark magicks to become a lich or whatever the Star Wars equivalent was and Force Ghosts and stuff so it's easy enough to handwave away the return of the Emperor and Rey being related to the Emperor is pretty much par for the course with this franchise since everyone is related to someone from the original trilogy but that was something established in the prequels. All the other nonsense was very minor stuff that was kind of dumb but not really worth getting up in arms about (Chewbacca getting a medal because he didn't in the original one for example). As ABz B👹anaz said, there's a whole thread about people's issues with this movie, but I will say that "this is just a dumb-dumb space wizard movie like all the rest" downplays the storytelling of the previous too.s (yes, even the prequels). Return of the Jedi is the closest point of comparison to Rise of Skywalker and it notably isn't about searching for magical space macguffins and then blowing up the bad guy in the end--yeah, it has a super-weapon and space battles and rescue missions and an evil emperor, but none of them are the point, exactly. If you had to say what ROTJ was about you'd say it's about Luke and his efforts to redeem his father. Simple story, personal stakes. And ROTJ was easily the dumbest and most bloated of the original three. The original trilogy aren't exactly a storytelling masterclass, but at least they have a clear structure with easy to understand character arcs that build off of what had come before. Even the prequels, despite numerous problems in execution, have a clear emotional through-line. Compare to Rise which has to be about macguffins and unbeatable death fleets and a whole lot of random crap because it immediately throws out what little character development that had been built up to that point. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Apr 20, 2020 9:28:38 GMT -5
With my wife and I both still working full time from home while also dealing with a 2yo and 6yo (who has distance learning assignments from school), we are ... uh ... exceeding the recommended daily screen time. My son has glommed onto Frozen 2 real bad. I have either seen or at least been in the same room as Frozen 2 probably 15 times since it released on Disney+.
And when it's not Frozen 2, it's Frozen 1.
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 20, 2020 18:56:05 GMT -5
The Host (2006) I tried to watch this movie many years ago but had turned it off somewhere in the middle, maybe after the memorial scene? The movie is a mish-mash of horror, satire I guess, and broad comedy. It didn't do it for me, it's either too dark or too light I guess. Parasite Like everyone else, we watched this week as it premiered on Hulu. It was good, not quite what I expected. Snowpiercer was cool, high-concept, and functionally crazy; The Host was grounded for a monster movie and a bit of a mess; but this was grounded in a surprising way. Parasite only seems like satire if you don't know about slums in Seoul. I assumed that the poor family, populated by Bong's acting stable, would be more sympathetic, more desperate than devious. I also assumed the title would be more of a "worker and parasite" sense, that the rich family would be gleefully evil in a way the rich are perfectly capable of being. Instead they don't really rise above 4/10 on the Rich Asshole scale until abandoning the stabbed poor daughter , being more clueless and insular than aggressively malevolent and hypocritical. I guess that makes it a more realistic portrayal of how people act but for me less fun than a Tarantino fantastical revenge of the oppressed. The full-circle ending was a familiar theme to me from some Japanese stuff so it didn't seems as poignant. What's with the uncommented-on Olympic medal, which was silver here and bronze in The Host? Side note because Parasite won Best Screenplay: it's problematic/racist/fucked-up to use Japanese words for English portmanteau subtitling of a Korean food just because it doesn't directly translate well. And speaking of racism, I wonder if part of the reason for the movie's popularity in America is that, in addition to being good, it portrays class tension free of race in a way that could not be so plausibly done in a US-set movie. That would appeal to a lot of people. The medal wasn't an Olympic medal, just a championship medal. I took it as being one part "Al Bundy's Former Football glory" and one part "Here is a woman who was successful at something but gave that all up and married a complete loser because that's what Korean society expects from women." Also what Japanese words popped up in the subtitles for a Korean food? |
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 20, 2020 19:00:08 GMT -5
With my wife and I both still working full time from home while also dealing with a 2yo and 6yo (who has distance learning assignments from school), we are ... uh ... exceeding the recommended daily screen time. My son has glommed onto Frozen 2 real bad. I have either seen or at least been in the same room as Frozen 2 probably 15 times since it released on Disney+. And when it's not Frozen 2, it's Frozen 1. WOOOO! Watching movies with small humans! Back in February, during the first month of Lockdown 2020, I ended up seeing Moana in full like 15 or 20 times. Then it was Mulan for a bit. Now she's at least watching television series so there's at least some variance in the plot of whatever she's obsessed with at any particular time. |
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Post by ganews on Apr 20, 2020 19:49:06 GMT -5
Side note because Parasite won Best Screenplay: it's problematic/racist/fucked-up to use Japanese words for English portmanteau subtitling of a Korean food just because it doesn't directly translate well.
Also what Japanese words popped up in the subtitles for a Korean food? When the rich family comes home, the rich wife calls ahead to have the poor wife prepare "ram-don". When the dish appears on screen later, it looks like some kind of mixed noodle dish, so we guessed it was a portmanteau of ramen and udon. Turns out we were right! Except the Korean screenplay doesn't say ramen and udon. I found a really good article/comments about it. . The article also discusses how the specific beef used is a marker of wealth, another thing that didn't come across through the subtitle "sirloin".
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 20, 2020 20:12:16 GMT -5
Also what Japanese words popped up in the subtitles for a Korean food? When the rich family comes home, the rich wife calls ahead to have the poor wife prepare "ram-don". When the dish appears on screen later, it looks like some kind of mixed noodle dish, so we guessed it was a portmanteau of ramen and udon. Turns out we were right! Except the Korean screenplay doesn't say ramen and udon. I found a really good article/comments about it. . The article also discusses how the specific beef used is a marker of wealth, another thing that didn't come across through the subtitle "sirloin".
The korean name isn't a portmanteau of two types of noodles it's a portmanteau of two instant noodle brands so I could see that being an issue for audiences outside of South Korea.   Jjapagetti (left) and Neoguri Ramyeon (right)They did something similar in the opening scene when they had people talking about "What's App," instead of Kakaotalk which is the only chatting app anyone in this country uses but no one outside of Korea would have any knowledge of. As for the beef they used, "Hanwoo (한우/韓牛/"Korean beef"), it's true that it's more expensive than imported beef due to the fact that Korea is geographically a small country with a lot of mountains which makes cattle ranching particularly difficult. Again since outside of Korea people probably don't know that Korean beef is more costly than imported beef using sirloin's fine since Hanwoo's about on par with sirloin or Wagyu in terms of how much of a marker of wealth it is. It cost more than Australian beef or American beef but is not so astronomically priced that it's impossible for anyone other than the super rich to afford it. The thing about that whole scene that was supposed to make the audience ask, "How fucking rich are you?" was the fact that the mom told the maid to put it in instant noodles which no one would do including super rich people here. While we're talking about food stuff in Parasite that people outside of South Korea probably wouldn't even notice. There are two scenes in which the poor family are all gathered around drinking beers. The first time they're all drinking the Korean equivalent of like Natural Ice, just the cheapest cheap-ass domestic beer that's available. The second time after I think just the kids had infiltrated the rich peoples houses they're drinking more expensive imported Japanese beers except for I think the mom who is still drinking Korean Natty Ice because she's a Korean mom and Korean moms are willing to suffer so that their kids and husbands can have better lives. |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Apr 22, 2020 5:55:04 GMT -5
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
The Moaning of Ecstasy: First time viewing. Totally dope. I really like this one. I super dig Netflix's access to most of Miyazaki's oeuvre.
The Inevitable Pissing of My Angry Cynicism: Jeez. Christian Bale trying out his Batman Begins voice. And, what was with Ebert's review of this? I respect the man, but his review of the film must have been tempered by his medical situation.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Apr 22, 2020 13:15:07 GMT -5
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - I finally saw this and after all the "THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!! IT RUINED MY CHILDHOOD FOREVER!!!!!!" hype I was disappointed that it was mostly just okay. For all the bellyaching people did it should have been way worse than it was. There was some dumb stuff in it and some decisions that were clearly made to placate the dunderheaded oafs who bellyached about the last one having an Asian woman as a primary character but mostly it was just your garden variety Star Wars fare. There were spaceships and laser swords and goofy looking aliens and robots and space Nazis and noble sacrifices and space wizards and pretty much everything one could possibly want from a Star Wars movie unless you're the sole person who thought that the stuff about trade disputes from The Phantom Menace was the best thing to ever appear in a Star Wars movie in which case you'd probably be very disappointed about this one. I watched it with my four year old daughter and she had a grand ol' time with it, laughing at the goofy looking aliens, wondering why the "sick boy" (Kyle Ren/Ben Solo) disappeared at the end, insisting that BB-8 is a girl robot, so for her at least, it was about as effective a movie as the original Star Wars was when I saw it at the same age. Both are goofy movies for kids with space wizards and robots and laser swords and I think if people realized that they'd be less angry about new Star Wars movies. Viking, what was your opinion of Babu Frik? |
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