Last Movie Watched Thread

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

I’ve seen a fair amount of Miyazaki, but this blew me away with its creativity—I don’t think he ever really matched this level of worldbuilding again. It’s unbelievably imaginative. The whole concept of a world so far in the distant future world that saying whether it’s ahead or behind us is fascinating and something we don’t get enough of in SF—think of the delicacy of the wind-harnessing machines in the valley and contrast them with the jet-powered glider—it brought to mind some of Arthur C. Clarke’s late forties-early fifties short stories and novellas (Castle in the Sky would be another example). But the big influence I see is from French animated SF. The whole world has this organic, segmented feel to it that gives the film a unique texture—in some ways it reminded me of Angel’s Egg, which had a fascination with fossils in contrast to Nausicaä’s insects (organic, segmented, hard, and spiny), but Nausicaä’s world feels warm, inviting and alive. And the Ohms are magnificent—they convey such personality without having a real face, which is all the more impressive given that our first real introduction to them is as an empty shell resource for the Valley people (and those shots through the molted exoskeleton are amazing). Anyway these sort of organic visions of the future or alternate worlds fascinating in a way a lot of the more sleekly technological ones aren’t.

Really the novelty of explorin the world and seeing what happens next or what new wonder will be around the corner is enough to sustain the film. I can see why it’s apparently fallen in esteem in Miyazaki’s filmography—some stuff that’s quite good on its own seems like a rough draft for later stuff—the Tolmekian Princess, for instance, feels like a rough draft for Princess Mononoke’s Lady Eboshi, though Lady Eboshi’s so awesome that any comparison against her is an unfair contest. And the way the story’s structured is idiosyncratic—a plus for me but probably a minus for others.

It’s a plus especially for the dénouement with the giant warrior. Everything builds up to him, and he’s extremely destructive but an anticlimax. That’s ballsy. And on-message, too—everyone wants to use him, but they’re too impatient to make him work. It’s ingenious storytelling (but also pretty gross).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t somehow link this to Lupin and it’s pretty easy—Naya Goro, Zenigata’s voice actor—plays Lord Yupa, a badass old-man noble from the Valley. He has an awesome old man voice, but it’s different here—I knew it sounded familiar but couldn’t place it without resorting to wikipedia. It also provides evidence for my guess in that in the final episode of the second series Miyazaki decided to use Lupin-in-disguise-as-Zenigata mainly for that voice (the episode also features a sort of proto-Nausicaä character, too, plus the robot from Castle in the Sky).

Watching the beginning of the Man from UNCLE before I go to bed, and two things struck me:

1. No American would use the word "biscuits" in the context Solo uses it here; they'd say "cookies," and I'm a little surprised that would make it into a movie in 2015.

2. Jared Harris cannot do an American accent to save his life, and there's a part of me if he's there to make Cavill's accent, which is actually pretty good, sound better.

The Nice Guys: Mostly enjoyed it. Wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did, particularly at Ryan Gosling, who does some excellent physical humor throughout. Kinda loses its thread towards the end. While I liked the actress playing Gosling's daughter, wasn't so keen on her playing, say, direct roles in gunfights, or going to a porn party.

Witness

Good movie, got that nice Peter Weir slow-burn going. Harrison Ford does well in what would otherwise have been a generic thriller. Godawful synth score.

Branded (2012)

Watched this because it's leaving Netflix streaming on 6/15 and I remembered being entertained by a Nathan Rabin takedown of it at A.V. Club, in which he deftly described it: "everything we’ve just seen was the crazy, shitty dream of an Adbusters editor." 

It didn't disappoint on those terms. Recommended for fans of high-budget, surreally misconceived films (The Happening, D-War: Dragon Wars, etc.). 

I'll freely admit that alot of it has to do with having a blonde daughter rapidly closing in on that age, so I'm probably a little too sensitive to it.

One Hour Photo I've owned the Blu-ray for ages, but never watched it before.

Fair point, at least if that's why they did it. It struck me more as "British actor and director forgot to correct for vernacular," but it may have been a conscious choice.

Keep in mind, I only watched the first 15 minutes or so. I'll watch the rest before long, since I think I've got access to it.

Watched Tarsem Singh's The Fall, after a discussion about best-looking movies. The scenery and location shooting for the fantasy sequences is fantastic, and makes for a great live-action fairy tale. The story is a little ramshackle (perhaps excusable for reasons within the movie), but the little girl is adorable. The coming attractions on the DVD began with an ad for a special edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which seems like a really good comparison that otherwise would not have occurred to me.

This is the part I liked the most (I also saw it over the weekend) they really went ahead and depicted high elves and some mages as having eyes burning blue with magic, which is consistent with how they are portrayed in the games but is a little jarring in live action.

I feel like ultimately the problems with the film were twofold. One is the demands of being a blockbuster, which meant that it pulled a couple of punches - it wasn't quite as bleak as how the First War's story ends in Warcraft's lore, although Jones' recent interviews suggest he may have intended to keep that element for a hypothetical sequel

The other is the story has been retconned so many times - you say you've played the first three Warcrafts, but Warcraft II is where some of these characters come from (Gul'dan and Orgrim) and Warcraft III provided still more (Durotan, Draka, and Thrall), so the orc story has evolved from the story it actually had in the first game - an unnamed orc leader killing the Orcish warchief, Blackhand* - to that leader becoming Orgrim, to Blackhand becoming a pawn of Gul'dan, and then later is added that Gul'dan's corruption was rejected by this other entire group of orcs led by Durotan, the guy who's only really notable as being the father of the guy who was the Orcish leader two games from the first; and all of a sudden you have a soap opera of orcish politics that the film struggles to convey.

(I'm in retrospect okay with the film never involving Ner'zhul, a personal favourite among the various bickering orc characters.)

These various revisions also retconned the origins and identities of various characters, especially Garona and Medivh, who bear the blunt of some of the film's clunkiest plotting and motivation, in part because they've had varying differing motivations over the years and Medivh in particular I don't think has ever really made sense. It really could have used less characters and more focus on the motivations of the characters it had (Blackhand and Orgrim feel particularly lost in the crush of motivations; the entire business with Blackhand and Lothar seems to have been to find some way to resolve the oddly tertiary figure of the Horde's de jure leader).

Gul'dan on the other hand probably worked the best because he's literally just an evil sonofabitch who's obsessed with power and is really good at wicked magic (and I liked how visceral Life Tap is in the movie, using that ability as a warlock in a videogame doesn't feel quite so invasive.)

Also whatever the hell was going on in the Glenn Close scene because I had no idea, which doesn't bode well, I presume, for the general public.

*Strictly speaking Blackhand's daughter also goes rogue and gets together with a bad boy ogre in the Deadmines, but obviously that was never going to make it into a movie.

Is this better than that movie which I vaguely recall watching in elementary school about that kid who lives in the same building as Beethoven and possibly there's a dog?

Hey I don't have a kid and I thought it was a weird choice to have her character be so directly involved in the investigation. It makes Gosling's character look terribly irresponsible, yeah he's a drunk but even the worst drunk wouldn't bring their kid to a shoot out with a trained assassin. And it's inconsistent when earlier in the movie he was lamenting how quickly she was growing up. But just generally I'm not a fan of precocious kid characters and don't get why Black loves them so. Although I did the enjoy the running joke about her awful friend Janet. 
Also I really enjoyed Crowe in this, I don't think I've ever seen him be so loose in a comic role before, there was less ACTING!

The Phantom

Fun, though I'm still not sure why that mid-90's streak of 1930's pulp comic strip movie adaptations was a thing.  Also, a Phantom movie in 2016 would surely be the film that launched a thousand think-pieces.  I mean, the core concept alone (rich, white defender of generic "Africa") would make the controversy of Dr. Strange's casting look like nothing.

I guess, although that really seems like an explanation that makes more sense through a 2016 lense.  It's not like in the 90's there was this common wisdom that you had better find some sort of superhero franchise to lock down as your summer tentpole.  The only real recent successes for comic adaptations would have been the Batman movies.  And moreover, it's weird that they decided to go back to the retro pulp well again in the mid-90's for Shadow and Phantom after Dick Tracy and Rocketeer disappointed and flopped at the beginning of the decade.