Movies

[Luther Lansfeld]

70s Bond is best Bond.  Also go see Kingsman already.

I may actually try to go see it. I usually don't go to the theater, but I had fun the last times I went and decided I might go more often. Just gotta talk others into coming.

[The Duck]

There are like five good Bond movies. Yeah I said it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

To be honest I've watched all but like four of the movies and tend to think of myself as a fan but I can't say I really disagree. (I like about seven of 'em, I realised.)

[Sierra]

There are like five good Bond movies. Yeah I said it.

Well now I'm curious which ones you consider qualify. I've probably seen about 50% of them but the only ones I've really liked enough to own were the Daniel Craig ones.

I'm pretty comfortable never watching any of the Roger Moore movies again.

[The Duck]

Oh, if the criterion is whether they're worth owning, only Casino Royale and Skyfall really apply (and I own both).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hyping Quantum of Solace above every non-Craig film is crazy talk. That movie was a mess, and is the sole reason why I haven't yet seen Skyfall, which admittedly sounds pretty great.

[The Duck]

Quantum of Solace is pretty bad. As I recall, the villain wanted to monopolize the water utility? So nefarious! (although water companies in real life are pretty evil)

Skyfall is definitely worth a watch. The plotting isn't always logical but that's just Bond, and Javier Bardem has great screen presence. It's shot beautifully. Everything in Shanghai basically looks like it could be a cut from Blade Runner.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bond's generally better when it's at least somewhat over-the-top; I don't watch them for any sort of remotely realistic takes on espionage or world affairs. I actually thought the QoS villain managed to have some presence despite this, but he's a far cry from the scenery-chewing supervillains of some of the other films. (I also didn't care for the Casino Royale villain, but fortunately Casino Royale is a far better film on every other front.) One of the reasons I want to see Skyfall is it sounds like they address this. And also brought Q back (both of these points speaking to recapturing some of the silly humour which Bond was known for).

[Grefter]

Realism and a lack of scenery chewing are definitely not things that happen in Skyfall.

[The Duck]

Eh, the Daniel Craig Bond movies are all very serious, Skyfall is no exception. I don't see that turning back any time soon (and this certainly won't change if Idris Elba is the next Bond) but as Captain K says, Kingsman apparently approximates Roger Moore era Bond movies.

[Sierra]

It's probably not news that my tolerance for camp is low (at least in movies; music is a whole 'nother discussion) so the Serious Business attitude of the newer Bond movies is definitely more in tune with my sensibilities.

Biggest problem for me with Quantum of Solace is just shakycam fights. I don't understand the attraction of certain directors for visually incoherent action sequences. Contrary to initial impressions, I actually approve of the villain. This is 100% casting: he's just this tiny, oily eurotrash goblin, but he has no difficulty brazenly talking trash to brutal dictators. There's a slimy kind of self-confidence there that works. This doesn't necessarily defend his actual plan, and the spontaneously combusting hotel in the middle of nowhere makes zero sense on any economic, scientific, or conceptual level. Quantum of Solace is definitely not in the same league as Casino Royale or Skyfall, but I can enjoy it on about the same nonsense level as the earlier Bond movies (just with a lead actor I like more).

Realism and a lack of scenery chewing are definitely not things that happen in Skyfall.

This. Javier Bardem's villain is an obvious graduate from the Christopher Nolan School of Overly Elaborate Villain Schemes. (The exploding train in particular is a hugely glaring instance of "Why would you even think you would need to do exactly this at exactly that time for exactly that reason?") His entire plan could probably have been compressed and simplified with superior effectiveness. Ultimately I don't care too much because it's such a great performance, but this is one of those nagging details that keeps the movie a notch below Casino Royale for me. Gourry is also correct in his recommendation: visually, Skyfall is an extraordinarily well composed movie.

[The Duck]

Quantum of Solace's action was pretty terrible, which was weird coming off of Casino Royale which had no shaky cam IIRC. Skyfall's action is also very coherent. Thankfully, I think action is moving away from this trend, and there are excellent recent examples of action being done coherently (The Raid movies, John Wick).

Quantum of Solace at the very least had the opera scene which was done fairly well.

I'll also mention that Skyfall's opening sequence was fucking gorgeous as well. The lyrics are completely nonsensical but I think most Bond theme songs are.

Have fun with Moonraker, Ciato! As I recall, that is the one with space Nazis and Jaws is basically Wile E Coyote.

[Grefter]

Bond songs and opening sequences don't have to make sense.  They usually suffer when they try to.  The more attention you pay to them the more painful they can get.  I love many covers of Man With The Golden Gun but it is a weird lyrical slurry of murder and dicks.  Lie I think the only one I like in isolation is The World is Not Enough (because Garbage are amazing) and it is frankly better without the context of the movie even though it REALLY does fit with it.

Quantum of Solace's biggest failure I think is them trying to setup Spectre or something like it well before they had the rights or the ability to do anything with it.  If movies had kept coming out every year or so and we had something between it and Skyfall that actually picked up that thread it MIGHT have been okay, but I think it really would have needed the Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings treatment and filmed two movies at once so you could dump the sequel out like 6 months later and use them as a double feature or something.  I think the shaky cam is a direct response to people likening Casino Royale to Bourne films.  It is CORRECT that people did like it a bit more because it brought it more down to earth like Bourne movies are, but it is wrong to have taken that on board as "we should do shitty shaky cam like Bourne films do" because that is literally the worst part about that series.

Skyfall really is pushing the razor edge on what you can get away with ignoring realism and having a huge character while still being SRS BSNS.  It might have honestly pushed it just a bit past where you get away with (compared to Nolan Batmangs) with just how quickly people started to talk about how ridiculous it was.  Most people just shrug it off as a Bond movie, but I know some people came out disliking it for it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Out of morbid curiosity (and because it was free), I watched the new Ninja Turtles movie. Honestly, it could have been salvaged if it wasn't so ugly. It was just stupid enough to be cute if the aesthetic looked 'cute' instead of 'most hideous artstyle in the known universe, even worse than Akira Toriyama and Lyefeld collaborating'.

Still, the whole thing was just -really- awful. Terrible acting, terrible casting, terrible characterization, terrible plot, and terrible pacing! At least they weren't aliens.

I immediately found a good movie to cleanse my mind: I watched the new Xmen, which this topic has already raved about and I generally agree wholeheartedly - it was really fun and it even retconned X3!

[Luther Lansfeld]

Serious James Bond is not very appealing to me. If I wanted Bourne I would watch Bourne (and I have never done so). Daniel Craig is also ugly.

[Meeplelard]

Out of morbid curiosity (and because it was free), I watched the new Ninja Turtles movie. Honestly, it could have been salvaged if it wasn't so ugly. It was just stupid enough to be cute if the aesthetic looked 'cute' instead of 'most hideous artstyle in the known universe, even worse than Akira Toriyama and Lyefeld collaborating'.

Still, the whole thing was just -really- awful. Terrible acting, terrible casting, terrible characterization, terrible plot, and terrible pacing! At least they weren't aliens.

Regarding the aliens thing, that was a misconception of Michael Bay's statement.  He mentioned alien origins, but not that they were alien themselves, which is actually a completely fair thing to say since the original TMNT (as in the 80s comic), the Ooze's origins were alien, so it may have been a "we're bringing them back to roots!" thing.  It sounds like if they did do that, though, because everything I've heard of the movie sounds like it's literally Amazing Spider-Man, only it did...well...one of these:



Yes, I know that's not being 100% fair to FF7 at all, but it gets the point across is all.

Only with Spider-Man related things being replaced with Ninja Turtles related things, but also with way worse...well...everything.


The rest of your statement...yeah, that sounds about accurate to what I've heard.

[Fenrir]

Imitation Game: Apparently I am smarter than Alan Turing.
Or the movie decided to have a kinda nonsensical plot twist for the sake of making the story flow more naturally.
But I think it's the former.

[Sierra]

Without having seen the movie, I'll just guess it's the latter instead. History is rarely quite as dramatic at just the right moments as Hollywood screenwriting requires it to be. Usually it's more interesting too.

[Grefter]

Probably both.

[The Duck]

Imitation Game is very guilty of Hollywood convenience. The made up part with the brother on one of the ships was particularly galling but that's the least of my problems with the film.

Song of the Sea - This is by the same person who did Secret of the Kells. Both are beautiful movies with great art design and direction, and almost every frame of Song of the Sea could be a desktop background. The underwater shots and the light wisps are particular highlights. Unfortunately, like Secret of the Kells, it doesn't have a ton beyond that. The story is very straight ahead, which would be fine since it is a basic fairy tale, but somehow even at 94 minutes it seems like it could have lost like 15 without losing anything substantial. Also the dialogue is so unmemorable that I feel it may have been better told wordlessly. It does touch on grief in a way that is rarely done in a kid's movie. I did like it and I hold out for this director since he has excellent aesthetic sense. If his ability to tell a story ever matches the visuals, he'll be someone to watch out for.

[Fenrir]

Without having seen the movie, I'll just guess it's the latter instead. History is rarely quite as dramatic at just the right moments as Hollywood screenwriting requires it to be. Usually it's more interesting too.

NO


To specify, early on they read a nazi weather report that ends with "Heil Hitler" and I thought "Well, if a lot of messages end with Heil Hitler, that should make codebreaking with the Turing machine quite a lot easier"


And then 30 minutes into the movie later (a few months irl) Sherlock goes all "OH SHIT GUYS! They end messages with "Heil Hitler!" We can use this!!".
This guy is supposed to be the finest codebreaker in Great Britain?
Also they had been using crossword puzzles for reference since the beginning of the movie, and using letters from other words to help guess words is Crossword Puzzle Lifehack 101. I actually thought this was the only reason they talked about crossword puzzles so damn much

[The Duck]

The Dissolve has a good article on some of the traps that a lot of biopics about geniuses fall into, and one thing that sticks out is that most movies don't know how to portray breakthroughs without just straight up telling you what happened or making something really contrived like in the Imitation Game, which ends up with dumb movies about smart people. The examples used are in a Jackson Pollack biopic where a character just says "you've done it, Pollack! You've cracked it wide open!"

I actually can't think of an example where this is done well. Interstellar has a character literally yelling "eureka" and tossing papers in the air after she figures something out (I know this isn't a biopic but the point is the same). A Beautiful Mind makes up the shit about game theory in terms of picking up women at a bar, although it does a better job of showing Nash's inner life than most biopics. In Theory of Everything, it's just kind of a given that Hawking is a genius but this is something that they tell you by showing him writing down scary looking equations and that he got a high score on a super hard test.

Maybe it's a bit easier with musicians since there can be fully articulated performances (although almost every music biopic is the same as well, Walk Hard does a good job pointing that out). Amadeus has a scene where Mozart composes a song on the fly with Salieri transcribing that does fairly well, but otherwise, genius is pretty much told and not shown.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I decided to go rent a bunch of old movies. Yeah, I know, I'm old-fashioned, actually renting movies, but whatever.

I watched Spaceballs first. It's very silly and reminds me of a bit less funny Robin Hood: Men in Tights. But that isn't really an insult to the movie -- I'm a fangirl of RH:MiT. Rick Moranis was pretty much the perfect person to cast as Dark Helmet.

I'm probably going to watch X-Men next! I have never watched those movies for whatever reason.

[The Duck]

Skip X3! It was so hated that it was rendered non-canon.

[Meeplelard]

Skip Origins as well.  Alternatively, watch Origins until the 2nd major Time Jump happens about 40 minutes in, and then stop.  The movie looks like it has a shot of not sucking there!

The only reason to watch X3 is to add some context to the dreams in The Wolverine, though honestly, those are probably some of the weaker parts of the movie anyway as it comes off as "forcefully trying to remind us this is in the X-men canonical timeline!"  In truth, the entire movie is kind of completely skippable; it's not bad, just very clearly came off something to give us between First Class and Days of Future Past (both superior movies.)

But yeah, X1, X2, 1st Class, and Days of Future Past are all varying degrees of good, The Wolverine is alright, but nothing special, X3 and Origins suck.