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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on May 14, 2020 12:19:10 GMT -5
Mad Max 2: Apocalyptic Boogaloo (AKA The Road Warrior)
I hadn't seen this one in a long time and maybe only start to finish and not edited for TV once before. Anyway, really interesting to see what George Miller is doing and then will eventually just expand on massively in Fury Road. It is sort of strange how the Max, I think the main character, doesn't really have much of a character arch. I guess he eventually decides to help the hippy sex cult being besieged for resources by the the leather daddy sex cult, but only after he has really no other option and his mode of transportation is destroyed and he is nearly killed. Mel Gibson is certainly in this. Not sure there is a lot going on that's exciting. A couple of times the script calls for him to stop grimacing handsomely and suddenly start acting like the biggest swinging dick around to get people to do what he wants. Gibson does fine with that. Really it was a great idea to give him a dog to make him feel more sympathetic. That's some good film making right there.
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Post by Hachiman on May 14, 2020 20:55:44 GMT -5
I watched the Incredibles last night. I had to watch the two little ones for a few hours while my wife and the oldest were out. Man, I don't know if it was subconscious or what, but watching this movie now really hit me a lot harder than watching it at 20. I mean, I've seen it plenty of times since then, but this is probably the first time since the babies came along and life started seeming "sloggier" for lack of a better work. Anyway, good film.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 10:25:38 GMT -5
Mad Max 2: Apocalyptic Boogaloo (AKA The Road Warrior) I hadn't seen this one in a long time and maybe only start to finish and not edited for TV once before. Anyway, really interesting to see what George Miller is doing and then will eventually just expand on massively in Fury Road. It is sort of strange how the Max, I think the main character, doesn't really have much of a character arch. I guess he eventually decides to help the hippy sex cult being besieged for resources by the the leather daddy sex cult, but only after he has really no other option and his mode of transportation is destroyed and he is nearly killed. Mel Gibson is certainly in this. Not sure there is a lot going on that's exciting. A couple of times the script calls for him to stop grimacing handsomely and suddenly start acting like the biggest swinging dick around to get people to do what he wants. Gibson does fine with that. Really it was a great idea to give him a dog to make him feel more sympathetic. That's some good film making right there. I'm inordinately obsessed with the Mad Max series and The Road Warrior in particular. You have some good observations and it's interesting that you point out the lack of character arc in Max, who in most of the films is a cypher. It's actually one of the main demerits for me of Beyond Thunderdome, a film I largely like, in that Max in that one deviates from his usual haunted single-mindedness to help the orphan tribe. I'm failing to find the terrific Drew McWeeny piece that came out around the release of Fury Road that delved into behind-the-scenes details of the franchise, so I guess I'll relate what I remember from it. In early stages of developing Thunderdome, George Miller's best friend was working as a production assistant on the film and he died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations. Since he was grieving, Miller's heart wasn't in the film and that's apparently what allowed Mel Gibson and the studio to ride roughshod over Miller's vision and turn the characterization of Max into something more sympathetic and (in my opinion) inappriopriate. I feel like Miller has always intended Max Rockatansky to be an unknowable force. |
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on May 15, 2020 15:32:44 GMT -5
Mad Max 2: Apocalyptic Boogaloo (AKA The Road Warrior) I hadn't seen this one in a long time and maybe only start to finish and not edited for TV once before. Anyway, really interesting to see what George Miller is doing and then will eventually just expand on massively in Fury Road. It is sort of strange how the Max, I think the main character, doesn't really have much of a character arch. I guess he eventually decides to help the hippy sex cult being besieged for resources by the the leather daddy sex cult, but only after he has really no other option and his mode of transportation is destroyed and he is nearly killed. Mel Gibson is certainly in this. Not sure there is a lot going on that's exciting. A couple of times the script calls for him to stop grimacing handsomely and suddenly start acting like the biggest swinging dick around to get people to do what he wants. Gibson does fine with that. Really it was a great idea to give him a dog to make him feel more sympathetic. That's some good film making right there. I'm inordinately obsessed with the Mad Max series and The Road Warrior in particular. You have some good observations and it's interesting that you point out the lack of character arc in Max, who in most of the films is a cypher. It's actually one of the main demerits for me of Beyond Thunderdome, a film I largely like, in that Max in that one deviates from his usual haunted single-mindedness to help the orphan tribe. I'm failing to find the terrific Drew McWeeny piece that came out around the release of Fury Road that delved into behind-the-scenes details of the franchise, so I guess I'll relate what I remember from it. In early stages of developing Thunderdome, George Miller's best friend was working as a production assistant on the film and he died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations. Since he was grieving, Miller's heart wasn't in the film and that's apparently what allowed Mel Gibson and the studio to ride roughshod over Miller's vision and turn the characterization of Max into something more sympathetic and (in my opinion) inappriopriate. I feel like Miller has always intended Max Rockatansky to be an unknowable force. Hmmm...that's interesting. This watch through was actually inspired by the Blank Check podcast who is going through the George Miller ouvre. I'll probably watch Thunderdome soon. Prior to Fury Road, this was probably my most seen Mad Max movie due to cable plays in the 90s. It'll be interesting to rewatch with this in mind. Still, Fury Road has like the tiniest arc for Max. Maybe similar to Road Warrior but done better. Just like, by the end he gives the tiniest of shits and helps others and not just himself. Probably boosted by Tom Hardy being a better actor than Mel Gibson. I know, hot take. |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 21:40:21 GMT -5
SCOOB! - Rented this for family movie night. It was fun! Some good jokes, and not a bad story, you know, for a Scooby-Doo story. Partial ending spoilers: The villain's main motivation was to get his best friend back. I really liked that.
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on May 15, 2020 23:43:12 GMT -5
I'm inordinately obsessed with the Mad Max series and The Road Warrior in particular. You have some good observations and it's interesting that you point out the lack of character arc in Max, who in most of the films is a cypher. It's actually one of the main demerits for me of Beyond Thunderdome, a film I largely like, in that Max in that one deviates from his usual haunted single-mindedness to help the orphan tribe. I'm failing to find the terrific Drew McWeeny piece that came out around the release of Fury Road that delved into behind-the-scenes details of the franchise, so I guess I'll relate what I remember from it. In early stages of developing Thunderdome, George Miller's best friend was working as a production assistant on the film and he died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations. Since he was grieving, Miller's heart wasn't in the film and that's apparently what allowed Mel Gibson and the studio to ride roughshod over Miller's vision and turn the characterization of Max into something more sympathetic and (in my opinion) inappriopriate. I feel like Miller has always intended Max Rockatansky to be an unknowable force. Hmmm...that's interesting. This watch through was actually inspired by the Blank Check podcast who is going through the George Miller ouvre. I'll probably watch Thunderdome soon. Prior to Fury Road, this was probably my most seen Mad Max movie due to cable plays in the 90s. It'll be interesting to rewatch with this in mind. Still, Fury Road has like the tiniest arc for Max. Maybe similar to Road Warrior but done better. Just like, by the end he gives the tiniest of shits and helps others and not just himself. Probably boosted by Tom Hardy being a better actor than Mel Gibson. I know, hot take. I'm starting to think I watched a different series than you guys. Max always gives a shit and helps others in the end. He always helps despite his burning compulsion to fuck off and wander the wasteland alone with only his thousand-yard stare for company. And I don't get how Max is a cypher. I absolutely get that he's meant to be an Aussie-Man-With-No-Name type - but uh he does have a name. There's a whole movie showing how he got to be like he is. He's a dude who was completely broken by the horrific, brutal death of his wife, child, and close friend, and then had the PTSD piled even higher by the apocalypse that followed X number of years later. It's heavily implied that he's quit the cops before, but that he always comes back. He straight-up states in Mad Max that he's scared of becoming like the bike gangs members. "It's that rat circus out there, I'm beginning to enjoy it. Look, any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, ya know? A terminal crazy... " and that's exactly what he becomes in the end. That's the tragedy of it. My interpretation is that every post-Mad Max movie are those moments in his life where he surfaces from the terminal crazy, and manages to interact an almost "normal" fashion. Road Warrior : This was also my first experience with Max Rockatansky, and I was...eh...like 14? 15? I think? It blew my mind - sheltered little SDA girl had never seen nor really considered anything like it before. Max sincerely tries to just get the gas and go on about his business. But he also is fairly compassionate about breaking the news about that one dude chick getting killed. When he gets brought back by the Gyro Captain after getting exploded, he's not in any way expected to help out with the evacuation - and yet he does. I mean sure, you can argue that he's volunteering to do it so he can prove the Humungous didn't beat him, but he...doesn't actually really seem have a lot of pride? He'll beat the shit out of you, but he never seems invested in it as part of who he is so much as something he has to do to survive. I've always read him driving the rig as a direct effect of Pappagallo's words about him being "out there with the garbage" sinking in. Once again trying to not be a terminal crazy.
I do remember that Thunderdome Max wasn't necessarily what Miller would have wanted in character development. And I remember that a lot of people were (still are) pissed-off about the kids, or at least felt everything with them was wildly out-of-character: "You fucked up a perfectly good shell of a man! Look, he's got empathy!" I've never thought it was out-of-character, so much as unexpected, although yeah, it was a weird thing to wrap your head around after repeated viewings of The Road Warrior**. And there are some slap-sticky moments I could definitely do without. But I like the kids. I like seeing him let his guard down a little, because he's got nothing to prove to this kids, and nothing to defend against from them. Much like Max saw his murdered son in the Feral Kid, he's also seeing Sprog in the Lost Tribe. He might be seeing siblings, teen-aged relatives. He's definitely conscious of them as a new generation that knows nothing about about the world as it was before The War, and is wondering if he can find a place in the new way of things, instead of just wandering. He's all ready to stay there with them.***
He goes after the kids because they are completely naive about the world outside their little oasis, and will certainly be "eaten alive" by Bartertown without him. He doesn't kill Master-Blaster because he feels sorry for them & knows it's wrong. He could have left the Pig Man behind, or thrown him out of the plane, instead of jumping out himself. He could have ignored all of the above, and just gone on his way. But he does give a shit, if he takes a minute to allow himself to do so. He's trying to not be a terminal crazy, but he doesn't know how to sustain it. That's pretty much the cycle of the movies:
1. Establishing circumstances to show Max is a man you shouldn't fuck with and who is in fact mentally unstable to some degree or another 2. Max falls into a Situation. 3. Max acts like he's participating in The Situation out of 100% self-interest 4. Max catches feelings about Other People In The Situation, helps them out in what may-be-hesitant-but-is-never-half-assed manner 5. Max ends up alone again, presumably sinking back into Terminal Crazy I own all the movies, so obviously I have no problem with the cycle, and I'm not sure I'd actually want to see him change step 5 into "starts to overcome all the trauma and maintain Not Terminal Crazy", because then it's a different series. **** But he always cares eventually, to one degree or another. He always helps out, even if there's no gain for him in it - and there's not. Like, ever. Not in Road Warrior, not in Thunderdome, not in Fury Road. He ends up back where he was, wandering the outback alone, usually with fewer shoes or cars or monkeys than he started the movie with. Him caring and helping in Fury Road isn't an abberation, it's the pattern.
What I think is interesting about the actors is that, while Gibson always played the closed-mouth tough-guy angle, that is an extremely late 70s-all-the-80s approach. Not the best time for sympathy toward mental health issues, so "mad” translated into “squintier and more clench-jawed than anyone else conceal don’t feel”, which is SUPER 80s. But Gibson’s performance is exactly what you’d expect from that type of character at that point in time.***** Hardy just goes hell-for-leather into the “yeah Max is thisfar from a PTSD breakdown complete with hallucinations, but we don’t know if that break is in the future or if he’s recovering from it just be careful cause he may bite your face off” zone. Which is very 2000s, as well as very Hardy. They both work for me, but it did take me a minute to get used to Hardy's more emotionally blatant version, after so much exposure to Gibson's.
Look I have a lot of Rockatansky feels
**Also YMMV but it is never not funny to watch a tough guy have to deal with children - although in Max's case, he's probably not clueless of how to deal with them so much as his experience is in arresting drunken idiot teenagers. Watch how he deals with Savannah Nix.
*** I mean it's pretty long odds he would actually have allowed himself to settle there for more than a short period of time, but he at least gave every impression of wanting to try.
****I would totally be into seeing that happen at a geologically slow pace – that is the kind of character development I live for - but that’s not something you can do in movies.
*****(see also MacReady, RJ) |
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Post by Dr. Rumak on May 16, 2020 7:42:57 GMT -5
Cats
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2020 21:08:33 GMT -5
Hmmm...that's interesting. This watch through was actually inspired by the Blank Check podcast who is going through the George Miller ouvre. I'll probably watch Thunderdome soon. Prior to Fury Road, this was probably my most seen Mad Max movie due to cable plays in the 90s. It'll be interesting to rewatch with this in mind. Still, Fury Road has like the tiniest arc for Max. Maybe similar to Road Warrior but done better. Just like, by the end he gives the tiniest of shits and helps others and not just himself. Probably boosted by Tom Hardy being a better actor than Mel Gibson. I know, hot take. And I don't get how Max is a cypher. I absolutely get that he's meant to be an Aussie-Man-With-No-Name type - but uh he does have a name. There's a whole movie showing how he got to be like he is. He's a dude who was completely broken by the horrific, brutal death of his wife, child, and close friend, and then had the PTSD piled even higher by the apocalypse that followed X number of years later. But didn't the original movie actually have a scene where the doctor attending to Max's comatose wife after the attack says she's going to pull through yet Max goes off the deep end anyway? If I'm remembering that correctly, it muddies the narrative somewhat and I don't think it's so clear-cut in terms of the character's psychology. |
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on May 16, 2020 23:34:03 GMT -5
And I don't get how Max is a cypher. I absolutely get that he's meant to be an Aussie-Man-With-No-Name type - but uh he does have a name. There's a whole movie showing how he got to be like he is. He's a dude who was completely broken by the horrific, brutal death of his wife, child, and close friend, and then had the PTSD piled even higher by the apocalypse that followed X number of years later. But didn't the original movie actually have a scene where the doctor attending to Max's comatose wife after the attack says she's going to pull through yet Max goes off the deep end anyway? If I'm remembering that correctly, it muddies the narrative somewhat and I don't think it's so clear-cut in terms of the character's psychology. IIRC He actually says something like “she’s salvageable”, which could mean anything from “ she’s got a long road of recovery ahead “ to “we can salvage her organs”. At any rate, in the prologue to The Road Warrior, the voiceover says, “In the roar of an engine, he lost everything,” directly followed by flashbacks of his wife & kid getting mowed down. Then there’s a shot of him walking away from two graves. I take that a pretty clear indication that she died of her injuries. Also random weird FYI, I’m watching The Road Warrior now, cause this has all got me in the mood for it, & idk if I ever mentioned it here before, but I’m pretty sure this movie is the first time I ever saw a same-sex couple on screen. Which is just...so bizarre to me. |
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2020 21:39:07 GMT -5
Airport (1970) / Airport 1975
The original: what a slog. Literally the only dramatic tension is wondering if Dino can get through a line reading without bungling a word (he frequently doesn't). The critic Judith Crist famously called it "the best movie of 1944" and she was right on the money.
However, '75 is as hilarious as '70s disaster cheese gets, between the eye-assaulting colors of the decor and clothes, Charlton Heston and Karen Black bringing their reliably weird presences, and the sadly departed Jerry Stiller as a drunk passed out for most of the movie.
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Post by ganews on May 17, 2020 22:43:32 GMT -5
Isolation week 9 movies Zombieland 2: Double Tap If there were any faults with the original, it's that there wasn't enough of it. I'm not just saying that because I liked it, it was originally going to be an episodic TV show and that shows. At its core it's really a hangout movie. So this enjoyable sequel uses a very similar structure with many distinct callbacks to the original. Sometimes it's good, like Emma Stone coming back even though she's above this now, and sometimes it's inferior like the attempt to copy one of the great movie opening sequences with a different Metallica song. Love the dunk on Uber. Typical Hollywood age differential pairing Rosario Dawson with Woody Harrelson. Spoilers: Thomas Middleditch makes a perfect mirror of Jesse Eisenberg, a far better comparison than Michael Cera ever was, in the best gag of the movie. Bill Murray getting his own fight sequence was great. Escape From New York Not all that great, actually. I guess it's notable that it came out a year before Blade Runner, but it was two years after The Warriors. Kurt Russell's Snake is more Halloween costume than character, and there's not nearly as much awesome action as you might assume. But I would like to have Isaac Hayes' car (a Cadillac with a disco ball hanging from the rearview and two candelabras on the hood) and Frank Doubleday's hair. Lee Van Cleef is good as an old hardass. Ernest Borgnine in the Ernest Borgnine role. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm I only saw this once, at least 15 years ago. I remember that the identity of the villain was super obvious from the beginning, even before the movie started dropping hints. With so many people saying it's their favorite superhero/best Batman movie, time for a rewatch. It certainly is the best at the retro aesthetic, which is a little funny considering this production team kicks off the DCAU. The second scene with the love interest is 100% straight out of Goldfinger between Bond and Pussy Galore in the barn. It does get credit for being the only Batman movie where Bruce Wayne isn't overshadowed by the villain. It does commit the sin of giving the Joker an objective origin, so as far as the Joker, I still liked Batman: Under the Red Hood better. Kind of a non-ending, isn't it?Verdict? As far as the best superhero movie, I'm gonna say this was good but no. The animated medium really is the best for a truly super-powered superhero, because you can do the impossible. Batman ought to work better in live action because everything can be done with practical effects. Oh well, maybe someday.
Cats It was real bad. James Corden looks like Mr. Creosote. If you wanted more witticisms, you should have joined the watch party. Cape Fear (1962) Robert Mitchum as one of the greatest on-screen villains of all time, especially if you factor in what could be shown on screen in 1962. I should really get around to watching The Night of the Hunter. Anyway I've certainly never been able to erase it from my mind when watching him in any other roll. I don't think I've made it more that halfway through the Scorsese remake. |
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2020 22:50:03 GMT -5
Cape Fear (1962) Robert Mitchum as one of the greatest on-screen villains of all time, especially if you factor in what could be shown on screen in 1962. I should really get around to watching The Night of the Hunter. Anyway I've certainly never been able to erase it from my mind when watching him in any other roll. I don't think I've made it more that halfway through the Scorsese remake. It's grounds for revoking my cinephile badge and making me turn in my gun, but...I never actually got what the big deal about Night of The Hunter is and I prefer Cape Fear to it. I'll be curious to see what you think. |
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Post by Hachiman on May 18, 2020 1:50:25 GMT -5
The Incredibles 2
You know, I really like this one. Again, I think all the kids helps the whole exhaustion subplot really hit home. Also, liked the meta-commentary/rant about the superheroes (and the genre itself), which could equally apply to most forms of fan worship and online follower culture.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2020 9:30:53 GMT -5
The Clovehitch Killer - Not great, not terrible. Apparently a fictional story but based on the BTK Killer. Movies like this that spend far too long on showing the killer capturing and torturing someone stress me out. Also watching religious people not listening to others and judging them stresses me out, even fictionally, because that definitely fucking happens IRL. Decent performances though.
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on May 18, 2020 10:12:48 GMT -5
I watched The Rise of Skywalker last night and it didn't really do anything for me. I'm not a fan of last-minute redemptions, and since it had been a couple of years since I saw the previous one, I had forgotten what was going on. Just a whole lot of light saber battles.
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Post by liebkartoffel on May 21, 2020 14:35:47 GMT -5
We're working our way through AFI's top 100 list along with the "Unspooled" podcast. Just finished The French Connection. It's an extremely well-made movie--that car/train chase scene!--but man, Popeye Doyle is a racist psychopath and it's frustrating how much the film pussyfoots around whether Popeye's supposed to be a hero or an anti-hero, or whether it's attempting to say much of anything about criminal justice or police brutality. Given that worrying so much about a movie's message and politics is very much considered a Millennial Thing, I was mildly surprised to discover Pauline Kael had the same issues with it back in 1971. |
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on May 21, 2020 19:26:24 GMT -5
It doesn’t really count because it was MST3K, but I did watch Space Travelers Marooned last night and you can absolutely botch Apollo-era extremely plausible near-future midcentury SF. People say 2001 deliberately placed, Andromeda’s a bit slow (and Wise’s Star Trek film—which owes a lot to this aesthetic despite being on a fundamentally different branch of SF—is nicknamed The Slow Motion Picture), but none, none compare to the drag that is Marooned (which, to my shock, was directed by The Magnificent Seven’s John Sturges, though I remember Ice Station Zebra being kind of flat too so maybe it shouldn’t have been that big a surprise). There’s no suspense, the plot isn’t even a poorly-connected series of events—there are basically no events. And it looks cheesy too, and since it’s from the same era as 2001/ Andromeda you can’t blame that on the period. Something that didn’t help was the amount of orange in the film—the helmets and experimental spacecraft—which makes them seem kind of fake because we don’t associate that with Apollo-era space travel even if orange is a standard and useful aeronautical color that NASA would use later. Fun fact: It was the only MST3K film to have won an Oscar (for special effects, but I don't recall looking anything special even by late sixties standards). |
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Post by Nudeviking on May 21, 2020 19:26:31 GMT -5
William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge (2015) - I watched this as research for my Star Trek Fuck Report over on the TV boards where I'll probably have a much longer review of this movie posted later today. Have you ever wondered why the first two seasons of television’s Star Trek: The Next Generation are so dire compared to the rather splendid show it would become? This documentary answers that question. It also taught me that Mel Torme’s son wrote the script for that season 1 episode with brain fucklers, Conspiracy.
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on May 22, 2020 1:02:07 GMT -5
The Lighthouse
A tale of two people isolated for an indefinite amount of time in a small area under difficult circumstances. Bad things happen, tempers grow short, reality becomes more and more uncertain, everything slowly crumbles around them and they go crazier and crazier. It gave me an odd deja-vu feeling, but I have never even been to a lighthouse, so I blew it off. After I had finished watching and gone to bed, at some point in the middle of the night I suddenly woke up and the line from the movie "How long have we been here, five weeks? Two days?" popped into my head. At that moment I had a revelation: it was in fact a perfect allegory for quarantine, somehow written and filmed before the virus arrived.
Cooped Up Mrs Floyd told me she was watching a movie about a guy in quarantine, so I watched it too. Not a bad movie, and really weirdly prescient for being made in 2016. They get a lot, but not all, of the details about the current quarantine protocols correct, although the virus in the movie is some African strain that is like 90% fatal. It's a comedy.
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Post by repulsionist on May 24, 2020 16:48:27 GMT -5
The Call of the Wild (2020)
After a surprise exit from a cushy life at the hands of General Tarkin, a wookie named Buck comes in contact with Finn and Rey. The young wookie finds his home in a team of wookies. A series of coincidences leads one Rick Solo to rescue a wookie after chance encounter during the Klondike run. Wookie repays Han Deckard with loyalty. Wookie spirit begins to feel its home away from humans in a galaxy far, far away. Wookie given permission to depart after telegraphed drama. Wookie goes on to create new breeds of wookie in idyllic, computer-generated wilderness.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2020 16:56:00 GMT -5
The Call of the Wild (2020)
After a surprise exit from a cushy life at the hands of General Tarkin, a wookie named Buck comes in contact with Finn and Rey. The young wookie finds his home in a team of wookies. A series of coincidences leads one Rick Solo to rescue a wookie after chance encounter during the Klondike run. Wookie repays Han Deckard with loyalty. Wookie spirit begins to feel its home away from humans in a galaxy far, far away. Wookie given permission to depart after telegraphed drama. Wookie goes on to create new breeds of wookie in idyllic, computer-generated wilderness.
It's WOOKIEE! TWO "E"s! |
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Post by ganews on May 25, 2020 10:48:09 GMT -5
Isolation week 10 movies, it was a somewhat busy week
The History of White People in America It's true! We're so lame. Good stuff. RIP Fred Willard; Martin Mull presents; Harry Shearer directs. It's a very WASPy whiteness skewered, your classic whiteness. You know, I've always hated mayonnaise. If you have 45 minutes, here it is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx5fsOHML1I
The Spy Who Dumped Me A pretty fun romp that is a close pairing with Melissa McCarthy's Spy. Kate McKinnon in the Kate McKinnon role, except for a change I don't say that with such an eye roll. Kunis is fine, and the on-screen relationship between the actresses is great, but McKinnon's wacky antics are the soul of the movie without going too far over the top. The best gag of the movie is when a sniper is told the target is "two stupid American women" and then there are too many pairs of dumb American tourists to choose from.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 25, 2020 19:03:01 GMT -5
Thor Ragnarok (2017) - I kind of go back and forth on how I'd rank the Marvel movies but there are two things that remain consistent and that is Thor 2 is the worst of all the Marvel movies and Thor Ragnarok is the best. It's got everything one could possible hope for out of one of these movies and is not so overlong that watching it is pretty much an entire day's commitment.
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Post by liebkartoffel on May 26, 2020 1:57:18 GMT -5
Continuing our AFI run with Titanic, which I had managed to avoid seeing until now. Verdict: a top-notch disaster movie shackled to a godawful romance movie. For the non-disaster bits I'd been expecting, I don't know, a middlebrow PBS Trollope adaptation-level of quality, but I'd forgotten that Cameron wrote as well as directed, so of course everything is clunky and tin-eared and obvious and people act in ways that are ever so slightly adjacent to how humans are supposed to act. The only people who even come close to selling the dialogue are DiCaprio and Kathy Bates and at least Billy Zane is fun to watch as an outright psychopath. But...I was never bored, and the second half is legitimately exhilarating and an impressive technical achievement. I get why people heaped praise on it despite its obvious flaws, even if I don't understand how it received near universal critical acclaim and won all of the awards, or why everyone felt compelled to watch it over and over and over and over and over again from December of 1997 to April of 1998.
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Post by ganews on May 26, 2020 10:22:11 GMT -5
Continuing our AFI run with Titanic, which I had managed to avoid seeing until now. Verdict: a top-notch disaster movie shackled to a godawful romance movie. For the non-disaster bits I'd been expecting, I don't know, a middlebrow PBS Trollope adaptation-level of quality, but I'd forgotten that Cameron wrote as well as directed, so of course everything is clunky and tin-eared and obvious and people act in ways that are ever so slightly adjacent to how humans are supposed to act. The only people who even come close to selling the dialogue are DiCaprio and Kathy Bates and at least Billy Zane is fun to watch as an outright psychopath. But...I was never bored, and the second half is legitimately exhilarating and an impressive technical achievement. I get why people heaped praise on it despite its obvious flaws, even if I don't understand how it received near universal critical acclaim and won all of the awards, or why everyone felt compelled to watch it over and over and over and over and over again from December of 1997 to April of 1998. I don't know that it rises to Unpopular Opinion, but I find the romance part of the movie to be fine. The only part that was godawful is the contemporary treasure-hunt stuff. Bill Paxton does the worst work of his career, the fat guy is abrasive for no reason, the old lady was the source of a thousand punchlines, and it only added time to a very long movie. James Cameron could have just made an acceptable period piece with cool effects, but instead he had to talk about his real passion which is undersea exploration. |
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Post by liebkartoffel on May 26, 2020 11:14:17 GMT -5
Continuing our AFI run with Titanic, which I had managed to avoid seeing until now. Verdict: a top-notch disaster movie shackled to a godawful romance movie. For the non-disaster bits I'd been expecting, I don't know, a middlebrow PBS Trollope adaptation-level of quality, but I'd forgotten that Cameron wrote as well as directed, so of course everything is clunky and tin-eared and obvious and people act in ways that are ever so slightly adjacent to how humans are supposed to act. The only people who even come close to selling the dialogue are DiCaprio and Kathy Bates and at least Billy Zane is fun to watch as an outright psychopath. But...I was never bored, and the second half is legitimately exhilarating and an impressive technical achievement. I get why people heaped praise on it despite its obvious flaws, even if I don't understand how it received near universal critical acclaim and won all of the awards, or why everyone felt compelled to watch it over and over and over and over and over again from December of 1997 to April of 1998. I don't know that it rises to Unpopular Opinion, but I find the romance part of the movie to be fine. The only part that was godawful is the contemporary treasure-hunt stuff. Bill Paxton does the worst work of his career, the fat guy is abrasive for no reason, the old lady was the source of a thousand punchlines, and it only added time to a very long movie. James Cameron could have just made an acceptable period piece with cool effects, but instead he had to talk about his real passion which is undersea exploration. I do like how they fly Old Rose out to this boat in the middle of the North Atlantic at considerable expense specifically so she can tell them about this priceless diamond...and then she proceeds to tell them this three-hour-long shaggy dog story about her fling with a boy from steerage and doesn't mention the diamond once. But they don't care, because they finally understand that people died on the Titanic. Also, why did she hold onto the diamond? Why didn't she just sell it to begin her new life? The movie seems to want it to symbolize her love for Jack, but Jack didn't give it to her, Billy Zane did. You'd think she'd be happy to be rid of it. (Billy Zane's motivation for intentionally? unintentionally? slipping the diamond into his coat and giving it to her, or indeed his motivation for doing anything at all in the movie is a whole other kettle of fish.) As for the romance, like I said I was kind of running into my own expectations. I knew it was supposed to be this epic tragedy that millions swooned over, and while I wasn't necessarily expecting Casablanca, I also wasn't expecting it to be so distractingly bad. Cameron's handle on dialogue and characterization isn't quite as bad as George Lucas's, say, but writing this kind of old timey Hollywood epic was clearly out of his wheelhouse. "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains." I just...I can't. I can't. |
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2020 11:20:18 GMT -5
I actually think focusing mainly on the romance of Jack and Rose hurt Titanic. I wish it was more of an ensemble piece, there was so many interesting characters and not enough time spent with them. A lot of the deleted scenes and story beats seem like they would be good to explore. It was about Jack and Rose first, the Titanic 2nd. Which is why it ends up very meh to me.
Also, Jack totally could have fit on that board.
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on May 26, 2020 16:22:23 GMT -5
Parasite
It took me 4 days, but I finally got through an entire movie during the baby's naps. Uh, I thought it was pretty good. Yep. A pretty good movie. It didn't really reach the level of the hype for me, which is pretty much on par with the other Bong Joon-ho movies I've seen. Like them, don't love them. I think, for Parasite, it was because I wasn't quite sure what the characters wanted other than "not be poor." It was hard to tell what was driving them forward. I guess the son was maybe the main character and I think he wanted to go to college. Maybe I was missing things in the translation. Like I was missing some cultural shorthand that would have keyed me in sooner to who the characters were. The son, I guess, is sort of a ruthless schemer but I was not getting that from the film until he was deep into his ruthless scheme to bilk a rich family and seduce a teenage girl. I think we were supposed to get that in the interaction with the pizza box lady, that he was sweet talking her or something but I was missing that as I was watching and assumed he was just desperately clinging to any money he could get or thought the pizza girl was cute or something. I did appreciate that it hit the class stuff from an interesting point of view. They weren't evil, just condescending and oblivious to the plight of others, and, honestly the mother felt like the most fleshed out character. Maybe she just fit a Western stereotype of upper class mom.
Anyway, I've now seen 3 of the 2020 best picture nominees: Parasite, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Marriage Story and I think I liked Marriage Story the best, but that doesn't seem right. I maybe appreciated it the most. I think I'm just stuck with movies I found to be well made and interesting but didn't fully love (OUATIH, I really liked some of and really hated other parts of). I don't see any of the rest of the nominees being the one to really grab me. Still, of the lot, Parasite seems like a good choice.
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Post by Nudeviking on May 26, 2020 19:03:14 GMT -5
I don't know that it rises to Unpopular Opinion, but I find the romance part of the movie to be fine. The only part that was godawful is the contemporary treasure-hunt stuff. Bill Paxton does the worst work of his career, the fat guy is abrasive for no reason, the old lady was the source of a thousand punchlines, and it only added time to a very long movie. James Cameron could have just made an acceptable period piece with cool effects, but instead he had to talk about his real passion which is undersea exploration. I do like how they fly Old Rose out to this boat in the middle of the North Atlantic at considerable expense specifically so she can tell them about this priceless diamond...and then she proceeds to tell them this three-hour-long shaggy dog story about her fling with a boy from steerage and doesn't mention the diamond once. But they don't care, because they finally understand that people died on the Titanic. Also, why did she hold onto the diamond? Why didn't she just sell it to begin her new life? The movie seems to want it to symbolize her love for Jack, but Jack didn't give it to her, Billy Zane did. You'd think she'd be happy to be rid of it. (Billy Zane's motivation for intentionally? unintentionally? slipping the diamond into his coat and giving it to her, or indeed his motivation for doing anything at all in the movie is a whole other kettle of fish.) As for the romance, like I said I was kind of running into my own expectations. I knew it was supposed to be this epic tragedy that millions swooned over, and while I wasn't necessarily expecting Casablanca, I also wasn't expecting it to be so distractingly bad. Cameron's handle on dialogue and characterization isn't quite as bad as George Lucas's, say, but writing this kind of old timey Hollywood epic was clearly out of his wheelhouse. "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains." I just...I can't. I can't. I was always confused about Old Rose's story to the deep sea explorers. Was everything that we the viewers saw happen in 1912 part of her story? Because if it was then they would know she had the diamond in her coat pocket since we, the viewers saw her have the diamond in the pocket. If we the viewers are privy to things that Old Rose is not telling the deep sea explorers then doesn't that sort of ruin the premise of her as a narrator? |
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Post by Nudeviking on May 26, 2020 19:43:32 GMT -5
ParasiteIt took me 4 days, but I finally got through an entire movie during the baby's naps. Uh, I thought it was pretty good. Yep. A pretty good movie. It didn't really reach the level of the hype for me, which is pretty much on par with the other Bong Joon-ho movies I've seen. Like them, don't love them. I think, for Parasite, it was because I wasn't quite sure what the characters wanted other than "not be poor." It was hard to tell what was driving them forward. I guess the son was maybe the main character and I think he wanted to go to college. Maybe I was missing things in the translation. Like I was missing some cultural shorthand that would have keyed me in sooner to who the characters were. The son, I guess, is sort of a ruthless schemer but I was not getting that from the film until he was deep into his ruthless scheme to bilk a rich family and seduce a teenage girl. I think we were supposed to get that in the interaction with the pizza box lady, that he was sweet talking her or something but I was missing that as I was watching and assumed he was just desperately clinging to any money he could get or thought the pizza girl was cute or something. I did appreciate that it hit the class stuff from an interesting point of view. They weren't evil, just condescending and oblivious to the plight of others, and, honestly the mother felt like the most fleshed out character. Maybe she just fit a Western stereotype of upper class mom. Anyway, I've now seen 3 of the 2020 best picture nominees: Parasite, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Marriage Story and I think I liked Marriage Story the best, but that doesn't seem right. I maybe appreciated it the most. I think I'm just stuck with movies I found to be well made and interesting but didn't fully love (OUATIH, I really liked some of and really hated other parts of). I don't see any of the rest of the nominees being the one to really grab me. Still, of the lot, Parasite seems like a good choice. The thing with the pizza girl was that his dad was a spineless coward and his mom was the sort of person ready to throw hands due to a perceived slight and the son was the only person in the family who understood that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. As for the rich daughter I think she seduced him more than the other way around since it's also kind of implied that she did the same the same thing to the poor son's buddy that was tutoring her before the poor son took over. As for the rich mom being the easiest to read character, I kind of wonder if that's due to the fact that rich people here in Korea (especially the nouveau riche like the rich family in this movie) ape Western norms and are keen on sending their children abroad to study. It's why the rich mom would use random English words and expressions when speaking to people. Those weren't instances where the English word had entered the Korean lexicon due to there not being a native term for whatever they were talking about or even a case of an English word or phrase entering the lexicon and overtaking the existing Korean word or phrase in terms of popularity. She was randomly sticking English words and phrases that the people talking to her probably didn't understand into her speech to seem smarter or more worldly than she actually was. |
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