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Post by ganews on Oct 2, 2022 23:25:48 GMT -5
I can't seem to find anyone besides myself and Wifemate who actively dislikes Rogue One. The best story arc is Ben Mendelsohn's villain. So many ridiculous character actions. The best in-universe fighter anywhere in the franchise id not a Jedi for Reasons. The laziest fan service ever with Darth Vader.
I'll grant it's the best of the Disney Star Wars movies but what a pitifully low bar.
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Oct 3, 2022 12:36:48 GMT -5
I can't seem to find anyone besides myself and Wifemate who actively dislikes Rogue One. The best story arc is Ben Mendelsohn's villain. So many ridiculous character actions. The best in-universe fighter anywhere in the franchise id not a Jedi for Reasons. The laziest fan service ever with Darth Vader. I'll grant it's the best of the Disney Star Wars movies but what a pitifully low bar. I didn't really like it but don't remember exactly why at this point. I never revisited it. I too am a bit baffled by the love of it. Is it the dour tone? Is it that it has a specific look? The most interesting thing about the movie for me is how much of the movie was reshot. I really want to know what that original version was? Was it better? Even more dour? Did Jinn Erso have a more compelling motivation? Also, I'd say Last Jedi is the best of the Disney Star Wars movies, but I feel in general the fandom is fully turning away from that movie now, too. In a couple more years it will be the consensus opinion that episodes 7-9 were trash and that the cool kids knew they were trash from the start. Then in another decade it will be important to defend how those movies were "good, actually" in 4 hour TikTok edu-dance-a-thons or whatever the hell is happening on social media then. |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Oct 4, 2022 13:59:37 GMT -5
One of my film bro friends (I should specify that all my IRL male friends are basically film bros, but the "we just really love movies" kind of film bros, not the pretentious gatekeeping kind) doesn't care for Rogue One at all. Personally, I think it's the best of the new Star Wars movies, but I like a good war movie.
I think I've said this here before, but it bears repeating: Hocus Pocus fucking blows. It has always blown. It will always blow. I do not understand the millennial obsession with it.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 4, 2022 15:24:59 GMT -5
I can't seem to find anyone besides myself and Wifemate who actively dislikes Rogue One. The best story arc is Ben Mendelsohn's villain. So many ridiculous character actions. The best in-universe fighter anywhere in the franchise id not a Jedi for Reasons. The laziest fan service ever with Darth Vader. I'll grant it's the best of the Disney Star Wars movies but what a pitifully low bar. I didn't really like it but don't remember exactly why at this point. I never revisited it. I too am a bit baffled by the love of it. Is it the dour tone? Is it that it has a specific look? The most interesting thing about the movie for me is how much of the movie was reshot. I really want to know what that original version was? Was it better? Even more dour? Did Jinn Erso have a more compelling motivation? Also, I'd say Last Jedi is the best of the Disney Star Wars movies, but I feel in general the fandom is fully turning away from that movie now, too. In a couple more years it will be the consensus opinion that episodes 7-9 were trash and that the cool kids knew they were trash from the start. Then in another decade it will be important to defend how those movies were "good, actually" in 4 hour TikTok edu-dance-a-thons or whatever the hell is happening on social media then. IMO, the original trilogy works because, even though Luke is a Chosen One figure, he still has to overcome his own moral failings, and this basic hero’s journey story works pretty well the first time around. The prequel trilogy could have been an interesting attempt to tell a more politically sophisticated story like it’s weird defenders argue, but Lucas fucked it up, and sorry, younger Millennials/older Gen Zers, it’s just not good. The sequel trilogy has several problems. One is the lack of a real focus on where the story was going. A lot of it feels like it was focus grouped to death, stripping it of a lot of character. But on top of that VII leans too heavily on viewers nostalgia for the original trilogy and IX is a total mess narratively that also cravenly accedes to the demands of the shithead anti-“SJW” crowd who were mad that the lead was a woman who’s good at doing space magic, that a black guy was another lead, and who fucking HATED Rose, the trilogy’s best character. VIII was quite good imo, but the film suffers from being bookended by two inferior films, and furthermore, while Daisy Ridley is fantastic, and Rey is a good character, the one film that does the most interesting stuff with her character can’t undo the fact that in VII her main character trait is “I don’t know who my parents are” and in IX everything interesting about VIII is discarded in favor of giving her a backstory packed with very stupid lore and turning her into the Most Chosen of all Chosen Ones. Sucks, given that Ridley’s the most talented lead the films have ever had. What I like about Rogue One is that it’s not really about one main character. It’s a genuinely moving story about people standing together in solidarity willing to sacrifice their lives for something that’s bigger than them. It’s the only Star Wars film with a remotely sophisticated take on empire besides “they’re the bad guys”, which works for the archetypal story told in the original trilogy, but less so in the sequel trilogy with the First Order or whatever it’s called. Also, these sort of blockbusters usually love paying lip service to radical ideas while ultimately coming down on the side of a conservative status quo (see: Black Panther), but Rogue One leaves it up to the viewer to make up their own minds about the difficult and morally gray decisions that the various rebels in the film make, and I appreciate that. Also, it’s got the visual aesthetic of the original films depicted with modern day film technology and it looks pretty damn good. VIII also looks cool (love the casino planet with the those giant racing cats) but on the whole the sequel trilogy’s character, vehicle, tech, and set design is nowhere near as inspired as that of the original trilogy. |
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Post by ganews on Oct 4, 2022 17:11:25 GMT -5
IX is a total mess narratively that also cravenly accedes to the demands of the shithead anti-“SJW” crowd who were mad that the lead was a woman who’s good at doing space magic, that a black guy was another lead, and who fucking HATED Rose, the trilogy’s best character. I guess I haven't actually watched VIII in its entirety since I saw it in the theater. But, assuming this isn't a bit, what to you makes Rose the best character? Literally all I remember is that she started off as a guard, joined Finn the Human for his part of the storyline, and then suddenly declared her love for him before losing consciousness. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Oct 4, 2022 17:50:42 GMT -5
IX is a total mess narratively that also cravenly accedes to the demands of the shithead anti-“SJW” crowd who were mad that the lead was a woman who’s good at doing space magic, that a black guy was another lead, and who fucking HATED Rose, the trilogy’s best character. I guess I haven't actually watched VIII in its entirety since I saw it in the theater. But, assuming this isn't a bit, what to you makes Rose the best character? Literally all I remember is that she started off as a guard, joined Finn the Human for his part of the storyline, and then suddenly declared her love for him before losing consciousness. I liked that there was a major character in the new trilogy whose deal was that she was by Star Wars standards just a regular unspectacular person whose greatest virtue was being selflessly committed to the cause of being part of the Resistance (or whatever the Rebels are called in those movies), and that she wasn't just effortlessly self-assured and constantly ready with her next Whedonesque quip. I don't think it's at all uncommon for people who liked TLJ to think that Rose was a great character, though. Although, yeah, as with every character in the films, they don't give her a good resolution in IX, and in fact she hardly shows up at all. She gets approximately as much to do in IX as Charlie from Lost. So yeah, not a bit. Although, to be fair, here are some of my other favorite Star Wars characters in no particular order: -Salacious Crumb -the bleep-bloop noises snout alien -those giant racing cats from the casino planet -that cool snake at Yoda's house who tries to hitch a ride on Luke's X-Wing -that one lackey of Jabba's who takes the Rancor's death really hard -all mouse droids -the "you wanna buy some death-sticks?" guy -Dexter Jettster -Babu Frik -the desk lamp droid -IG-88 -that fucked-up bat that attaches itself to the windshield of the Millennium Falcon, and last but not least -the assassin who Jango Fett subcontracts out the work of killing Padme to Of course Rose is a more substantive character than any of them, obviously, at least in VIII. But I do seriously think she's a great character, and I think it sucks that there was such intense and reprehensible backlash against her and that she's given almost no screen time in IX. |
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matt
Grandfathered In 
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Post by matt on Oct 4, 2022 22:20:04 GMT -5
I can't seem to find anyone besides myself and Wifemate who actively dislikes Rogue One. The best story arc is Ben Mendelsohn's villain. So many ridiculous character actions. The best in-universe fighter anywhere in the franchise id not a Jedi for Reasons. The laziest fan service ever with Darth Vader. I'll grant it's the best of the Disney Star Wars movies but what a pitifully low bar. Nah, I hate it. If not for Rise of Skywalker it would be my least favorite of the Star Wars movies(and that does include the Ewok tv movies). It was just boring and looked so grey and drab for the first two thirds of it. I legit fell asleep for aboht ten minutes IN THE THEATER. Being boring is the absolute worst thing a movie can be. I would much rather watch a bad trainwreck than a mediocre boring film. Just Rise of Skywalker is not a trainwreck in an entertaining way. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 5, 2022 1:27:32 GMT -5
-the "you wanna buy some death-sticks?" guy He has a name.  |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Oct 7, 2022 22:17:38 GMT -5
OMG, I am laughing so hard at that name. Too bad the rest of the prequel stuff didn't reach this "so bad it is funny" level.
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604 
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Oct 8, 2022 13:46:16 GMT -5
One of my film bro friends (I should specify that all my IRL male friends are basically film bros, but the "we just really love movies" kind of film bros, not the pretentious gatekeeping kind) doesn't care for Rogue One at all. Personally, I think it's the best of the new Star Wars movies, but I like a good war movie. I think I've said this here before, but it bears repeating: Hocus Pocus fucking blows. It has always blown. It will always blow. I do not understand the millennial obsession with it. Have I dropped my " Hocus Pocus is Space Jam for girls and gays" observation here? It was true before the wholly unnecessary sequel that exists solely to prop up a streaming service and it's true now. |
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Post by liebkartoffel on Oct 10, 2022 17:41:32 GMT -5
My reaction to Rogue One was "I enjoyed this, but jesus it was depressing and I don't particularly want to see it again." But I'm not a particularly intellectually sophisticated person who mostly watches movies for the dopamine hit, and I don't really understand people who watch movies because they deliberately want to experience emotions like fear or sadness or any other emotion besides amusement.
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Post by ganews on May 14, 2023 19:33:26 GMT -5
The pop music cues are generally the weakest part of Scorsese movies.
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on May 15, 2023 18:55:08 GMT -5
I only think Rogue One is really only depressing if you go into it with a rah-rah Star Wars attitude—if you consider it independent of what you expect from Star Wars (and I think it suffered coming so soon after VII, which was basically rah-rah nostalgia repeat to the nth degree) it’s a solid space opera resistance film. When I first watched I felt like there was a better movie buried in there focused on Mads-Whitaker-Mendelsohn being more able to take it as it is seeing it as a second time after Andor I didn’t have that feeling.
I’d add John Boyega’s character to Rose, too, as feeling more like a real person—I was struck by how he was sweaty in VII, which represented a very real, visceral feeling that was mostly absent from Star Wars before then, and ultimately not one really capitalized upon (note that I can’t remember Boyega’s character’s name off the top of my head, nor the actual name of Episode VII).
I like the broader critique in The Last Jedi—a view into the still quite prosperous elite (something that is nicely shown-not-told in Andor is that there was a lot of continuity from the late Republic into the Empire, which you can read into TLJ as well) and the Adam Driver’s character’s (again, can’t remember the name) nihilism but I think it suffers from major worldbuilding problems. Everything’s just too close together—there was a fair amount of time between each of entries in the original trilogy, which kept the world from seeming too small and convenient. There seemed to be little sense of spatial scale, either, and TLJ really continues to drive home that we have no idea what the First Order really is (it really does seem too big), how big it is, how central or peripheral this conflict is, etc. Everything also seemed turned up to eleven emotionally, even compared to the mythic original trilogy, which kind of comes back to why I appreciate Rogue One’s tone.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jun 6, 2023 14:00:16 GMT -5
I only think Rogue One is really only depressing if you go into it with a rah-rah Star Wars attitude—if you consider it independent of what you expect from Star Wars (and I think it suffered coming so soon after VII, which was basically rah-rah nostalgia repeat to the nth degree) it’s a solid space opera resistance film. When I first watched I felt like there was a better movie buried in there focused on Mads-Whitaker-Mendelsohn being more able to take it as it is seeing it as a second time after Andor I didn’t have that feeling. I’d add John Boyega’s character to Rose, too, as feeling more like a real person—I was struck by how he was sweaty in VII, which represented a very real, visceral feeling that was mostly absent from Star Wars before then, and ultimately not one really capitalized upon (note that I can’t remember Boyega’s character’s name off the top of my head, nor the actual name of Episode VII). I like the broader critique in The Last Jedi—a view into the still quite prosperous elite (something that is nicely shown-not-told in Andor is that there was a lot of continuity from the late Republic into the Empire, which you can read into TLJ as well) and the Adam Driver’s character’s (again, can’t remember the name) nihilism but I think it suffers from major worldbuilding problems. Everything’s just too close together—there was a fair amount of time between each of entries in the original trilogy, which kept the world from seeming too small and convenient. There seemed to be little sense of spatial scale, either, and TLJ really continues to drive home that we have no idea what the First Order really is (it really does seem too big), how big it is, how central or peripheral this conflict is, etc. Everything also seemed turned up to eleven emotionally, even compared to the mythic original trilogy, which kind of comes back to why I appreciate Rogue One’s tone. If Rogue One isn't the best Star War (and I not-very-secretly think it might be) then it's probably the second-best. |
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Post by Celebith on Jun 12, 2023 9:09:21 GMT -5
I only think Rogue One is really only depressing if you go into it with a rah-rah Star Wars attitude—if you consider it independent of what you expect from Star Wars (and I think it suffered coming so soon after VII, which was basically rah-rah nostalgia repeat to the nth degree) it’s a solid space opera resistance film. When I first watched I felt like there was a better movie buried in there focused on Mads-Whitaker-Mendelsohn being more able to take it as it is seeing it as a second time after Andor I didn’t have that feeling. I’d add John Boyega’s character to Rose, too, as feeling more like a real person—I was struck by how he was sweaty in VII, which represented a very real, visceral feeling that was mostly absent from Star Wars before then, and ultimately not one really capitalized upon (note that I can’t remember Boyega’s character’s name off the top of my head, nor the actual name of Episode VII). I like the broader critique in The Last Jedi—a view into the still quite prosperous elite (something that is nicely shown-not-told in Andor is that there was a lot of continuity from the late Republic into the Empire, which you can read into TLJ as well) and the Adam Driver’s character’s (again, can’t remember the name) nihilism but I think it suffers from major worldbuilding problems. Everything’s just too close together—there was a fair amount of time between each of entries in the original trilogy, which kept the world from seeming too small and convenient. There seemed to be little sense of spatial scale, either, and TLJ really continues to drive home that we have no idea what the First Order really is (it really does seem too big), how big it is, how central or peripheral this conflict is, etc. Everything also seemed turned up to eleven emotionally, even compared to the mythic original trilogy, which kind of comes back to why I appreciate Rogue One’s tone. If Rogue One isn't the best Star War (and I not-very-secretly think it might be) then it's probably the second-best. It's this or Empire by a wide margin. Vader, and the two jerks from the Mos Eisly cantina, were a bit fanservicy, but if nothing else, this and VIII both tried to get SW away from a Chosen One narrative, and divorce The Force from its Jedi / Sith religious baggage. Maybe I missed something, but I don't understand all the whining about Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself at the end of VIII. It was obvious that his little ship was going to do nothing to stop the massive blast of energy, and all he was going to do was die needlessly. It would be like Luke deciding to fly his Xwing in front of the Death Star blast, instead of actually doing something effective. |
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Post by ganews on Jun 12, 2023 11:10:35 GMT -5
The Mos Eisly expy segment of Quantumania made a better Star Wars movie than any of the live action produced since the original SW trilogy.
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Jul 13, 2023 21:39:21 GMT -5
I say this as someone who is a huge fan of the original (I find it soothing when I can’t sleep):
The 2011 version of The Thing isn’t terrible. It’s a perfectly serviceable horror movie, hits beats of the original without just copying it wholesale. Yeah I’m not all that fond of the bits with the ship, and the tension level is different than the original*, but the CGI is nicely used and really unsettling in at least one scene.
* Im not sure how much of the tension is “any one of us could be one of those things” and how much of it is “barely restrained (male) violence aimed very directly at Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character”so YMMV on that account.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Jul 13, 2023 22:06:16 GMT -5
I say this as someone who is a huge fan of the original (I find it soothing when I can’t sleep): The 2011 version of The Thing isn’t terrible. It’s a perfectly serviceable horror movie, hits beats of the original without just copying it wholesale. Yeah I’m not all that fond of the bits with the ship, and the tension level is different than the original*, but the CGI is nicely used and really unsettling in at least one scene. * Im not sure how much of the tension is “any one of us could be one of those things” and how much of it is “barely restrained (male) violence aimed very directly at Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character”so YMMV on that account. Even see Harbinger Down, the film that repurposed the practical effects from 2011 Thing that were replaced with CGI? I would also describe it as serviceable monsterism. |
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Jul 13, 2023 23:35:09 GMT -5
I say this as someone who is a huge fan of the original (I find it soothing when I can’t sleep): The 2011 version of The Thing isn’t terrible. It’s a perfectly serviceable horror movie, hits beats of the original without just copying it wholesale. Yeah I’m not all that fond of the bits with the ship, and the tension level is different than the original*, but the CGI is nicely used and really unsettling in at least one scene. * Im not sure how much of the tension is “any one of us could be one of those things” and how much of it is “barely restrained (male) violence aimed very directly at Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character”so YMMV on that account. Even see Harbinger Down, the film that repurposed the practical effects from 2011 Thing that were replaced with CGI? I would also describe it as serviceable monsterism. As much as I hate the cold, I’m always down for a polar horror movie, so thanks! |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Jul 27, 2023 14:42:54 GMT -5
I have no feelings about Oppenheimer because I have no plans to watch it. I'm not taking a moral stance either way. I'm just not interested in the subject matter or the director. The more I think about them, the more I realize I don't like Christopher Nolan's movies. They're overly complicated to the point of being nonsensical, are full of beautiful visuals but lacking in emotional resonance, treat the female characters like set dressing, and yeah, are hard as hell to actually listen to. I don't think I even really like his Batman movies, even The Dark Knight. The best thing about that one was Heath Ledger, but the story falls apart if I try to analyze it for more than 30 seconds.
I just wish I could actually say this out loud. I guess shouting it into the void full of you weirdos is the next best thing.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 28, 2023 3:22:06 GMT -5
I have no feelings about Oppenheimer because I have no plans to watch it. I'm not taking a moral stance either way. I'm just not interested in the subject matter or the director. The more I think about them, the more I realize I don't like Christopher Nolan's movies. They're overly complicated to the point of being nonsensical, are full of beautiful visuals but lacking in emotional resonance, treat the female characters like set dressing, and yeah, are hard as hell to actually listen to. I don't think I even really like his Batman movies, even The Dark Knight. The best thing about that one was Heath Ledger, but the story falls apart if I try to analyze it for more than 30 seconds.
I just wish I could actually say this out loud. I guess shouting it into the void full of you weirdos is the next best thing.
I totally get this, and mostly agree. I thought The Dark Knight fell apart at the end. And I didn't like his other Batman movies at all. I didn't like Tenet. I didn't even like Interstellar. I those two were either pointless or nonsensical. I thought Inception was okay, but I didn't like the silly ending. Though, I did like Memento and The Prestige. And I didn't see Dunkirk, because I don't enjoy actual war movies. I haven't seen his other couple films.
And definitely female characters are badly treated in his films. And yeah, the sound issues are as bad as the jokes say they are.
In this case, I am going to see Oppenheimer because I do have an interest in the subject matter, and it strangely aligns with some of the books I've been reading lately, entirely by accident.
We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping I will like it.
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Aug 1, 2023 11:19:51 GMT -5
I'd put Nolan's hit rate at ~33% and would split his filmography into three buckets:
1) actually good movies (Interstellar, The Prestige, most of Inception)
2) movies that lay out their premise/themes/symbolism in a way that make a certain kind of filmbro person feel clever (the Batmen, Memento)
3) Genuinely bad movies (lol Tenet)
If you really like movies like 2 then Nolan is your guy! I would be surprised if Oppenheimer fell into bucket 2, so this is either going to rock or suck lol.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Aug 1, 2023 15:40:05 GMT -5
I'd put Nolan's hit rate at ~33% and would split his filmography into three buckets: 1) actually good movies (Interstellar, The Prestige, most of Inception) 2) movies that lay out their premise/themes/symbolism in a way that make a certain kind of filmbro person feel clever (the Batmen, Memento) 3) Genuinely bad movies (lol Tenet) If you really like movies like 2 then Nolan is your guy! I would be surprised if Oppenheimer fell into bucket 2, so this is either going to rock or suck lol. I think it’s a bit smarter than most of his movies or than I was expecting, but still idk if it’d be category 1 or 2 for you, ymmv on how well he does handling his themes. Fwiw it’s the first one I’ve particularly liked since Inception. |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Aug 1, 2023 16:21:10 GMT -5
I would switch Memento and Interstellar in Rosa’s typology—Memento’s a great thriller while Interstellar gets bogged down in mushy metaphysics. Or at least that’s how I remember them—I saw them both at roughly the same time (when Interstellar came out in theaters one of the independents re-screened Memento) and haven’t revisited either since, though Memento is on my list.
I have a very high opinion of Oppenheimer but I’m not someone who cares enough about Nolan specifically to know whether it seems too “Nolan”-y. To the extent it is (overlapping timelines, play with memory, high interest in technical accuracy but willing to make a big break from it for story/metaphor reasons) those aren’t exactly uncommon among biopics. (I guess there’s some continuity in his cast of repertory players).
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Post by Nudeviking on Aug 3, 2023 3:02:02 GMT -5
The pettiness of South Korea delaying the release of Oppenheimer until August 15th (the anniversary of the day the Emperor of Japan announced the surrender of Japan which to this day is celebrated in both North and South Korea as Liberation Day) is kind of hilarious to me. Like they're not even putting it in theaters for that holiday weekend it's literally opening on a Tuesday.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Aug 5, 2023 10:12:42 GMT -5
I still haven't seen Men but I gather its haters really hate it. That's OK because my opinions on Alex Garland's films seem out of step with the consensus. Ex Machina is highly regarded but I was unimpressed other than the acting. To me, it just trotted out the same "what is human?" themes that have been there since robots were invented as a concept. I much preferred Annihilation; it's not perfect but I admired how it swings for the fences in its concepts and visuals.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Aug 5, 2023 11:54:58 GMT -5
I'd put Nolan's hit rate at ~33% and would split his filmography into three buckets: 1) actually good movies (Interstellar, The Prestige, most of Inception) 2) movies that lay out their premise/themes/symbolism in a way that make a certain kind of filmbro person feel clever (the Batmen, Memento) 3) Genuinely bad movies (lol Tenet) If you really like movies like 2 then Nolan is your guy! I would be surprised if Oppenheimer fell into bucket 2, so this is either going to rock or suck lol. That's the thing, Rosa. They're all rockets built with balsa wood. I'm sorry, but The Prestige might be the stupidest thing I've ever witnessed, momentarily redeemed by the presence of David Bowie (same with Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). Otherwise, I think it's just our fond memories of auteur-ness that's led us to believe this guy is good. |
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Rainbow Rosa
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not gay, just colorful
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Aug 5, 2023 14:49:56 GMT -5
I still haven't seen Men but I gather its haters really hate it. That's OK because my opinions on Alex Garland's films seem out of step with the consensus. Ex Machina is highly regarded but I was unimpressed other than the acting. To me, it just trotted out the same "what is human?" themes that have been there since robots were invented as a concept. I much preferred Annihilation; it's not perfect but I admired how it swings for the fences in its concepts and visuals. Men was great, with the caveat that the attempts to make the film A Metaphor For The Lingering Effects of Grief In A Male Dominated World Or Whatever were, IMO, a complete and total dud. The sort of person who uses Letterboxd as an ersatz Twitterclone is thus going to hate this movie because it's fodder for them to show off their superiority to - cringe! - male feminists. That, and the more obvious A24 trappings here struck me as kind of bizarre. (I was especially bemused by the incongruously cottagecore dress Jessie Buckley is wearing in the film's final act - what, did they run out of money for costumes and had to raid the storage closet from Midsommar?) But as a work of cinema the film is quite creepy and gets astonishing mileage out of, like, walking in the forest for twenty minutes.
I can't comment on Annihilation (which I have not seen, although I quite like the apparently wildly different book), but I really quite like Ex Machina and think that while the "what is human?" stuff is standard for the genre, the execution of it is really, really good. In particular, one scene towards the film's beginning strikes me as quite relevant today - it's when Ava the gynoid gives Domhnall Gleeson a picture she drew, and he looks at it, obviously perplexed by this image, which is basically a graphite wall of dots and lines, and he asks her, "this is OK, but why don't you try doing a self-portrait?" It was only when the credits rolled and that same sort of dot-and-line imagery filled the screen again that I realized - no, Domhnall, that was a self-portrait - she showed you an accurate representation of her internal life and you said "this is some Jackson Pollock shit" It's a scene I think of whenever I watch the generative denoising process that AI image generators use - which was just in its infancy when the film was written with stuff like Deep Dream iirc, so I feel like Ex Machina is maybe one of the first mainstream films to really grapple with the fundamental alienness of AI rather than using robots in the same metaphorical sense we've been using them since the days of Capek. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Aug 5, 2023 17:04:46 GMT -5
I can't comment on Annihilation (which I have not seen, although I quite like the apparently wildly different book),
Having read the book, if you ever watch it, don't go in thinking "I wonder how they're going to adapt this scene/character/location" and just judge it on its own terms. It barely qualifies as an adaptation - the only things it really has in common are aspects of the setting and at most one-and-a-half characters, and maybe some tonal/mood aspects. In terms of theme, plot, and lead character, it's wildly different, plus some of the most important settings and aspects of the book are simply completely different. I think I would have enjoyed it more going into it either not having read the book (which I really enjoyed) or treating as a non-adaptation. Going in expecting a real adaptation made me enjoy it less than I think I would have otherwise. |
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Post by pantsgoblin on Aug 6, 2023 9:44:21 GMT -5
I still haven't seen Men but I gather its haters really hate it. That's OK because my opinions on Alex Garland's films seem out of step with the consensus. Ex Machina is highly regarded but I was unimpressed other than the acting. To me, it just trotted out the same "what is human?" themes that have been there since robots were invented as a concept. I much preferred Annihilation; it's not perfect but I admired how it swings for the fences in its concepts and visuals. Men was great, with the caveat that the attempts to make the film A Metaphor For The Lingering Effects of Grief In A Male Dominated World Or Whatever were, IMO, a complete and total dud. The sort of person who uses Letterboxd as an ersatz Twitterclone is thus going to hate this movie because it's fodder for them to show off their superiority to - cringe! - male feminists. That, and the more obvious A24 trappings here struck me as kind of bizarre. (I was especially bemused by the incongruously cottagecore dress Jessie Buckley is wearing in the film's final act - what, did they run out of money for costumes and had to raid the storage closet from Midsommar?) But as a work of cinema the film is quite creepy and gets astonishing mileage out of, like, walking in the forest for twenty minutes.
I can't comment on Annihilation (which I have not seen, although I quite like the apparently wildly different book), but I really quite like Ex Machina and think that while the "what is human?" stuff is standard for the genre, the execution of it is really, really good. In particular, one scene towards the film's beginning strikes me as quite relevant today - it's when Ava the gynoid gives Domhnall Gleeson a picture she drew, and he looks at it, obviously perplexed by this image, which is basically a graphite wall of dots and lines, and he asks her, "this is OK, but why don't you try doing a self-portrait?" It was only when the credits rolled and that same sort of dot-and-line imagery filled the screen again that I realized - no, Domhnall, that was a self-portrait - she showed you an accurate representation of her internal life and you said "this is some Jackson Pollock shit" It's a scene I think of whenever I watch the generative denoising process that AI image generators use - which was just in its infancy when the film was written with stuff like Deep Dream iirc, so I feel like Ex Machina is maybe one of the first mainstream films to really grapple with the fundamental alienness of AI rather than using robots in the same metaphorical sense we've been using them since the days of Capek. Thanks for this writeup, Rosa, and I apologize for being overly brusque in my previous response to you. |
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