Author Topic: Movies (Read 308547 times)

Captain K · « **Reply #3000 on:** December 27, 2018, 09:41:36 AM »

Spider-verse: It was good, but the animation was seriously seizure inducing. That kept me from properly enjoying it. If I had seen it in 3D I would probably be in a coma right now.

Best line was from Aunt May: "Ugh, Liv."

Sierra · « **Reply #3001 on:** January 02, 2019, 12:36:10 AM »

The Favourite: this world needs more movies where Rachel Weisz wears 18th century riding dress

Captain K · « **Reply #3002 on:** January 19, 2019, 01:19:04 PM »

Solo. Caught this on Netflix.

It's surprisingly good! Not as good as Rogue One, but a lot better than Last Jedi. No idea why this movie got such negative press.

Lady Door · « **Reply #3003 on:** January 22, 2019, 11:14:25 PM »

Oscar noms are out.

Best Picture (and other top noms)
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman (Directing, Writing - Adapted, Supporting Actor)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Actor)
The Favourite (Directing, Writing, Cinematography, Actress, Supporting Actress x 2)
Green Book (Writing, Actor, Supporting Actor)
Roma (Directing, Writing, Cinematography, Actress, Supporting Actress)
A Star Is Born (Writing - Adapted, Cinematography, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor)
Vice (Directing, Writing, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor)

Roma is a Netflix original. Black Panther is the first superhero flick to get a Best Picture nod. BlacKkKlansman is an early favorite because Spike Lee managed a Best Director nomination for it, too. Roma's also notable for being a Best Foreign Language film nominee on top of it. Black Panther is also the only Best Pic nod without any other top award nominations.

Best Animated Picture (studio)
Incredibles 2 (Pixar)
Isle of Dogs (irrelevant - a Wes Anderson pic)
Mirai (irrelevant - Mamoru Hosoda pic)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Columbia/Sony)

So Spider-Man won at the Golden Globes which is a pretty good sign, but there are not 1 but TWO Disney/Pixar movies in the mix. They've won most of the time they're nominated so that's a pretty big nod to tradition. Still, by all accounts those two pics just weren't as strong as previous Disney-Pixar entries have been. I am happy to push Mirai for the sake of it, because it's anime and because I like the other stuff Hosoda's done, even though I've never seen it. Isle of Dogs is Wes Anderson so that's got its own cult, too, nevermind the film itself. But after all that... Spider-Man was just really, really good. I hope it wins.

In other news, the U.S. government is still a flaming pile of shit and it makes it hard for me to care too much about this and consider it a lot more of a pointless distraction or highlight of our Hollywood-centered lives and attention spans than a celebration of the arts but, well, here we are.

superaielman · « **Reply #3004 on:** February 14, 2019, 12:18:45 PM »

Spiderman was *really* good, just saw it last night.

Captain K · « **Reply #3005 on:** February 14, 2019, 11:06:50 PM »

Alita Battle Angel: This is how you do a live-action anime. It's very faithful to the feel of the 1990s anime (I never read the manga so can't compare). There are story/detail changes but the overall feel of the thing is right on. Having said that, old anime isn't to everyone's tastes, and I'm not sure how well this will play to the masses. But I thought it was great.

NotMiki · « **Reply #3006 on:** February 15, 2019, 12:52:55 AM »

Glad to hear it. The OVA is a great adaptation of Alita as it existed at the time, though in the many intervening years the manga has gone in a somewhat different direction (though the body horror-slash-dark-comedy has been pretty constant).

SnowFire · « **Reply #3007 on:** March 04, 2019, 12:07:11 AM »

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Yeah this one was good, watch it.

BlacKkKlansman: This was also good! The last half is very Hollywood'd up, but that's not necessarily even bad, since phone conversations only go so far on the cinema drama-o-meter. Interesting & scary stuff, but it's also a funny movie, so don't underestimate that side - makes the depressing drama part go down better.

Battle Angel Alita: Confirming this was good, I liked it. I think I still slightly prefer the 1993 OAV? But this was solid regardless, and had some great action scenes. (Note that if you're cheap and haven't seen it yet, you can easily find the OVA on YouTube and the like, go check it out - it's short, just two episodes.)

My major thought I'll leave here - in the original Battle Angel OVA, the overarching "villain" is society, which is terrible and warps even good people to evil. For example, there's a defense system on the pipes that lead up to the floating sky city. There's no indication that anybody is using it specifically against Alita & someone else when they end up there for reasons, it's just there to shoo away intruders or trash in general. It's a faceless, uncaring evil that doesn't care if you live or die so long as the factories send up their goods. In the movie, there's an evil mastermind who is out to screw you personally, and is pressing "deploy" on the defense system button (among other things) to fuck with you. This is far more common in cinema - have a nice hatable villain & all - but I prefer the original slant, actually. Cthulhu doesn't know your name, he just swats you away like a fly.

More spoilery thoughts:

* They kinda didn't let Dr. Ido do any cool fights? Pretty sure he's the one who takes out Vector in the OAV. There's just fewer fights in general so I can see wanting to give most to Alita, but still.

* Not a huge casting complaint, since they did cast Marshesha Ali & all, but a little odd that for a Japanese anime, the one East Asian guy is a bit player who gets disassembled for parts in his one minute on stage.

* The only blood we see is dog blood? Weird. Oh well, cyborg violence worked well enough.

* This is more a change than a complaint, but kinda odd that Chiren basically got all of her villainous screentime cut. She's an antagonist most of the time in the OVA, but she doesn't really do a heel-face turn so much as a neutral-face turn in the movie.

* I liked the original ending more than the movie ending, but that goes to what I was saying before about writing in the EVIL MASTERMIND. I guess they're stuck with the movie's ending if you write this kind of character in, but easier just to dispense with that entirely, or at least push it further into the background.

Captain K · « **Reply #3008 on:** March 09, 2019, 11:59:59 PM »

Captain Marvel: There's a lot of politics about this movie. Is it a feminist attack on men? Is it a vehicle of empowerment for women? Is it a paint-by-numbers product of the Marvel assembly line? Turns out it's not really any of that.

It's just a good movie. Tells a coherent story from nonstandard perspectives. Has good fight scenes you can follow. Has a neat twist. I really enjoyed it. They even made me like the Kree, and the Kree are probably the most boring alien race in fiction.

It's not an overtly feminist movie. The feminism comes from women being equally good at their tasks as men.* The only thing that really screams that they may have had a feminist agenda is their choice of songs.

*One of the best scenes has Nick Fury getting out of a locked room with his brain, then Carol gets into another room with brute force. Nice gender reversal.

NotMiki · « **Reply #3009 on:** March 19, 2019, 01:02:45 AM »

Alita: Basically agree with SF's take but I want to expand on some points, mainly fueled from having just reread the manga.

Alita: her big silly eyes really got in the way of an otherwise great performance. it's a shame that the movie is to manic to really capture her single-mindedness and determination, which is to say that the motorball stuff, while technically extremely awesome, really does distract from the Hugo and Zapan stuff. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the motorball stuff is wasted, thematically, by having Alita still be all about Hugo while it's going on. I mean I get it, why do an Alita movie if it's not gonna be about motorball? But mashing it into this other plotline is a disservice. (Jashugan is such an interesting guy in the manga! I wanted him to be in the movie more than a cameo!)

Hugo: boy did they do a great job with him, he's such a twerp, it's great. I was a little taken aback by what a heartthrob they made him - looked like he'd just strolled out of Twilight or something - but it totally worked. I wish they'd kept the part in the manga where his older brother wanted to go to the city in the sky and created a balloon to take him up there and then got blown up by its anti-aircraft guns (which really drives home that faceless indifference SF wanted to see) and then later on Hugo found a dude on the street selling his brother's hand as a spare part, so he paid the guy to swap out his hand for his brother's, before taking up his same quest to get to the city. It's such a creepy, great encapsulation of what the world is like. But having him be just a little bit more shallow in the movie also works.

I'll disagree with SF on one issue: I thought Doc Ido was fantastic in the movie and wouldn't really change anything about him.

My biggest problem with the movie is the extent to which it wastes Destiny Nova and also the guy who is a slug with a head, whose name escapes me. He's so dull in the movie, it is a crime. In the manga, he is from Zalom but lives in exile on the surface as a mad scientist. He creates slug-with-a-head not to be some ideal pawn but because it amuses him to give this person a body befitting his karma, and letting him loose on the world to do what he will. He is SUCH a fantastic mad scientist, I can't think of any better honestly. There's this amazing scene in the manga where Alita infiltrates his lab and sees this merry-go-round, and it's live horses with poles stuck through the middle of them, forced to run in circles. One of the horses snaps the pole, runs free, and dies of bloodloss seconds later. Then Nova gives a lecture on the danger of trying to break free of one's lot in life. THAT dude is a great villain.

Anyway that may seem like a whole lot of complaining but I did enjoy the movie, and the action is pretty much all great. One review I read praised the intelligibility of the fight scenes, how easily you can follow the action, and that's certainly a strength. The worldbuilding is pretty good too, though everything is a little too clean.

dunie · « **Reply #3010 on:** April 22, 2019, 03:19:41 PM »

Us was legit solid. I was expected a movie for a white gaze a la Get Out, which is something I would not watch again for things beyond that. It was mostly a boring and poorly paced film IMO. But Us? If Nyong'o doesn't win anything, and if this film doesn't open the doors to her playing more than supportive, demure or traumatized characters of Black womennnn, boooooy..

Captain K · « **Reply #3011 on:** April 23, 2019, 03:03:00 AM »

Shazam: Quite a bit more serious than the trailers would lead you to expect. Considering it's mostly child actors, they do pretty well! Little girl is ridiculously adorable, as is her adult version.

Sierra · « **Reply #3012 on:** June 02, 2019, 02:26:57 PM »

Saw the new Godzilla. I was pleased! I could maybe call the previous one a better movie in a number of ways, but this was absolutely all the giant monster beatdown action that my inner child was looking for. Mothra was so pretty I almost cried.

I do miss that classic Ghidorah ululation, though.

Captain K · « **Reply #3013 on:** June 03, 2019, 04:00:24 AM »

Also saw Godzilla. A bit unfortunate that the monsters other than Godzilla and Ghidorah feature so briefly. But those two monsters look amazing. The "new" monsters are super lame. A mammoth? Sorry I don't remember the Japanese movie "Godzilla Fights a Fucking Mammoth".

Endgame: So my physique is pretty similar to Endgame Thor's. I told my wife "Bet you didn't know you lived with the God of Thunder did you?" Without missing a beat, she retorted, "Yes, I hear the God of Thunder all the time. *farting noises*"

Detective Pikachu: This was pretty disappointing. The angle with Mewtwo was pretty Farfetch'd. But the pokemon look great!

superaielman · « **Reply #3014 on:** June 05, 2019, 02:15:27 AM »

Rewatched the 2015 Mad Max movie. It holds up brilliantly on a rewatch; great visuals and the story delivers well enough.

Meeplelard · « **Reply #3015 on:** June 12, 2019, 12:53:06 AM »

Quote

Also saw Godzilla. A bit unfortunate that the monsters other than Godzilla and Ghidorah feature so briefly. But those two monsters look amazing. The "new" monsters are super lame. A mammoth? Sorry I don't remember the Japanese movie "Godzilla Fights a Fucking Mammoth".

While he never fought a Mammoth, he has fought completely lame shit before. A giant lobster, a giant condor that didn't even have a name just "Giant Condor' and it was like 1/10th his size, and Preying Mantises all come to mind.

Hell, one of the original titans is a Giant Spider, which there was a giant spider Kaiju in the Toho-verse in the form of Kumonga, so while technically original, it's still got a precedent.

Really, there's only 2 completely new monster concepts in the movie: The Mammoth and the huge turtle thing that we never get a good shot of.
The other two were the aforementioned Spider and MUTO Prime, which was a derivative from the first movie's villains.

That said, it's easy to explain why they made a bunch of new monsters, rather than tapping into Toho's huge well:

Licensing issues.

They got the rights to the 4 we saw in the movie, and King Kong is in public domain from my understanding. The rest...yeah. I imagine if they make movies after Godzilla vs. Kong, they'll do try to get like Gigan, Mechagodzilla, ANguirus or something.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #3016 on:** July 04, 2019, 07:03:56 PM »

Spidersmans- Talked about (along with literally everything else) here: https://cmdrking.blogspot.com/2019/07/in-which-ck-talks-about-marvel.html

Captain K · « **Reply #3017 on:** July 07, 2019, 03:24:32 AM »

I agree with Winter Soldier being rated as lowly as you have it. But wow, that is a really low spot for Infinity War.

Lady Door · « **Reply #3018 on:** July 08, 2019, 06:58:29 PM »

I liked Spider-man. Tom Holland is my perfect Spider-man. Jake Gyllenhaal played his role perfectly. The mindfucks were mindfucky in a way where you knew it was happening but you knew as much as the PoV character you experienced it with, which was great (though maybe not if you get carsick). The ending, mid-credits, and post-credits scenes were succinct HEY LOOK WE HAVE MORE MOVIES, START WONDERING WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT and included the only cameo that was 100% required for this series to continue.

But Tom Holland is what sold it. He IS the next Iron Man because, like RDJ, I just can't imagine another actor playing his character (and this with several other attempts having already been made!).

Captain K · « **Reply #3019 on:** July 11, 2019, 04:39:36 AM »

Far From Home: I really dislike the angle of Spider-Man being the next Iron Man. Wasn't terribly crazy about it in the previous movie, with the supersuit and all. And as the overall theme of this movie being entirely about filling Iron Man's metal boots, it just wears thin. Mysterio is serviceable, but there's nothing in the movie that really demands him (or anyone else) to really show any acting range. Unlike the Holland/Keaton scenes in the previous film.

Also Zendaya may be the prettiest person alive.

dunie · « **Reply #3020 on:** July 11, 2019, 12:08:32 PM »

I deep-dived into my "Watch Lists" and finally got to "I, Tonya." It's a pity it took me so long– its overhaul of the mockumentary premise for a drama did not lose any steam throughout the entire film. As well, having a woman redneck lead a film about rednecks's othering by upper-class white folk was quite an interesting lens that would've lost something had it otherwise rehashed redneck othering through the tragic white male figure. It's a good film!

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Author Topic: Movies (Read 308547 times)