Movies

Also I did enjoy the Trent / Atticus score, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if the entire score was just the jazz stuff. Cause I enjoyed that more. Did not know you could get both versions of the soundtracks but I am gonna jump on that.
It was one of the things I liked most about the movie. Giving the Before and After times a truly other worldly feel.


I came out of it kind of meh. It was incredibly predictable and a little empty.
As someone who is often depressed these days "Life itself is enough" wasn't really a welcome message.
 
If superhero movies start taking after Joker, that'll probably be the final nail in the coffin of me ever wanting to watch one again.
Joker was wonderful and Joaquin was terrifying as Joker, that laughing interview scene where he is visibily losing it is holy-fucking-shit-scary. But yes, emotionally it is hard to deal with. I can't say that the idea of a series of extended universe movies with that same emotional palette sounds appealing at all, although I could maybe appreciate the artistry behind it.
 
Joker was wonderful and Joaquin was terrifying as Joker, that laughing interview scene where he is visibily losing it is holy-fucking-shit-scary. But yes, emotionally it is hard to deal with. I can't say that the idea of a series of extended universe movies with that same emotional palette sounds appealing at all, although I could maybe appreciate the artistry behind it.
It's not the emotional weight of it, I just thought Joker was terrible. I realize I'm probably in the minority there though.
 
I didn't hate Joker. I thought Joaquin was great in it but it really did feel more like a Taxi Driver remake than a superhero flick.
Yeah, it's basically a 1:1 of Taxi Driver, but with all the vacuity of a superhero flick. That it was heralded as something new and profound really irked me. That it duped the Academy into eleven (11) Oscar noms (7 more than the og taxi driver) irked me even more. Also, Todd Phillips is a shit heel.

Joaquin is fine in it, but he gives much better 'unhinged' performances in You Were Never Really Here and The Master imo.
 
It was one of the things I liked most about the movie. Giving the Before and After times a truly other worldly feel.


I came out of it kind of meh. It was incredibly predictable and a little empty.
As someone who is often depressed these days "Life itself is enough" wasn't really a welcome message.
I thought it was going to go a much cheesier way...

Like, the meaning of life is...teaching! Or the meaning of life is...fatherhood! So instead of doing that and focusing more on saying 'hey don't sweat the meaning, don't be so focused on your purpose that you neglect every other thing in life' was really nice. And it felt meaningful to me in this moment as I've been struggling all year.
 
That was sort of the point I was trying to make, they hired Snyder hoping he'd give them more of what The Dark Knight did, thinking that dark, gritty etc was the way to go. What wasn't taken into account is that Snyder's idea of "mature" superhero movies was that Batman might say the f-word.
The f word, but also in being just a stone cold murderer. It’s like Snyder doesn’t get it on two levels: the first is a kid’s idea of “mature” behavior and the second is a fundamental denial of one of the core values of the character. He ramps up Batman’s edginess and ruthlessness as substitutes for making him interesting. It would be like “Our version of Superman is the same hero you know and love, only he also uses his X-Ray vision to check out what everybody looks like naked.” It’s more sensational on the screen, but it really undermines the character’s core integrity.

DC wanted to copy Marvel’s Avengers success, but they wanted to take a shortcut to catch up. As soon as the shortcut didn’t work out, they jettisoned their own DCEU continuity that was only 3 or 4 movies old while still holding onto the chunks of it they still had stars for. So, no Cavill or Affleck or (probably) Ray Fisher or (hopefully?) Ezra Miller, but we still have Momoa and Gadot, so we’ll keep making their movies while just losing the Justice League stuff altogether. But we’ll keep the tone and backstory that has already been established for Aquaman and Wonder Woman, which will hamper their solo movies just to stay beholden to Snyder’s vision. Then we’ll recast Batman, but we’ll also make a sequel to Suicide Squad which had the old Batman, but then we’ll also make a separate Joker movie that isn’t even about Batman or set in the same world at all. Then we’ll fucking RESHOOT a movie that came out 3 years ago with all the stars we’re not making movies for anymore about the storyline we’re never going to finish, and see if that...helps? Like...that sounds too ridiculous to be true as I’m typing it out, and I’m not even trying to exaggerate for effect.

Just think, in a parallel earth right now, George Miller’s Justice League movie actually got made and we have primarily known Batman as portrayed by Armie Hammer for more than a decade.
 
I thought Joaquin was good/great in joker but the storytelling was stilted/problematic, characterization was all over the place, and it was a chore to watch by the end. With that said, I also felt WW84 had poor stilted storytelling with bizarre characterization that was a chore to watch by the end, except Gal Gadot isn't as good an actor as Joaquin Phoenix but she's more fun to watch character wise. I don't think either were really good movies.

Granted I think outside of the first Wonder Woman, the best thing DCEU has done since the last Batman trilogy ended was Shazam so maybe I'm not all on the same train here.
 
I thought Joaquin was good/great in joker but the storytelling was stilted/problematic, characterization was all over the place, and it was a chore to watch by the end. With that said, I also felt WW84 had poor stilted storytelling with bizarre characterization that was a chore to watch by the end, except Gal Gadot isn't as good an actor as Joaquin Phoenix but she's more fun to watch character wise. I don't think either were really good movies.

Granted I think outside of the first Wonder Woman, the best thing DCEU has done since the last Batman trilogy ended was Shazam so maybe I'm not all on the same train here.
You have my sword. Shazam was pretty fun.
 
It was one of the things I liked most about the movie. Giving the Before and After times a truly other worldly feel.


I came out of it kind of meh. It was incredibly predictable and a little empty.
As someone who is often depressed these days "Life itself is enough" wasn't really a welcome message.

It's interesting you say this, because I'm dealing with very similar feelings in the spoiler but it was a message I really needed to take some pressure off of trying to make it more in my world. Different strokes for sure, just illuminating to get the other side.
 
Just wanted to pop in and add a couple quick thoughts. I missed all the movie discussion the last week or so.

Jingle All The Way and Home Alone are my Christmas traditions. We sprinkle in some of the others as time allows. My son saw both for the second time (1st time he was too young to really watch) and he really enjoyed them.

He also expressed that he wanted to watch Soul. I went in completely blind and was thoroughly thrilled and touched. It's a shame we couldn't have taken him to see it in the theaters.
 
I thought it was going to go a much cheesier way...

Like, the meaning of life is...teaching! Or the meaning of life is...fatherhood! So instead of doing that and focusing more on saying 'hey don't sweat the meaning, don't be so focused on your purpose that you neglect every other thing in life' was really nice. And it felt meaningful to me in this moment as I've been struggling all year.

It's interesting you say this, because I'm dealing with very similar feelings in the spoiler but it was a message I really needed to take some pressure off of trying to make it more in my world. Different strokes for sure, just illuminating to get the other side.

I had this convo with my wife, as well. I think for me, I know there's no specific meaning to life, but I already struggle with finding purpose in my day to day. So when the message is "your spark doesn't mean that's your purpose, and you should stop focusing on what you haven't achieved and enjoy what you have achieved" it falls kind of flat for me. I've never had a goal and feel like I've always tried to live in the now and enjoy what I have, but something feels missing. Especially now, when I can't seem to do anything I enjoy, travel, spend time with friends, experience new things, without these outlets I feel empty and pointless. All I have are my day to day home owner, 9 to 5, struggles. It sucks, I wish I had drive, something to even it out. I identify more with pre earth visit Soul 22 than anyone else in the movie. Only I've been experiencing life here for 36 years and still don't really get what the big deal is.
 
I had this convo with my wife, as well. I think for me, I know there's no specific meaning to life, but I already struggle with finding purpose in my day to day. So when the message is "your spark doesn't mean that's your purpose, and you should stop focusing on what you haven't achieved and enjoy what you have achieved" it falls kind of flat for me. I've never had a goal and feel like I've always tried to live in the now and enjoy what I have, but something feels missing. Especially now, when I can't seem to do anything I enjoy, travel, spend time with friends, experience new things, without these outlets I feel empty and pointless. All I have are my day to day home owner, 9 to 5, struggles. It sucks, I wish I had drive, something to even it out. I identify more with pre earth visit Soul 22 than anyone else in the movie. Only I've been experiencing life here for 36 years and still don't really get what the big deal is.
Interesting. I guess I didn't really think the message was enjoy what you have achieved so much as him learning to reframe his life by appreciating how special all of the little things he takes for granted were to 22. Obviously that is something that is impossible for most people to do when they are depressed, so I'm not sure you'd interpret that any differently. Sure, enjoy the little things along the way is cliche, but I think something we can all stand to keep in mind more, illnesses aside. I'm sorry you didn't find any comfort in it and wish you the best.
 
Finally got through WW84 after three sittings - pretty much because every time I kept watching it I realized I could be doing something much better.

That ending....oh boy!

I feel like the writers ran out of ideas so they decided to just give Gal Gadot an overwrought monologue that hit on a bunch of vague, pseudo-maxims that were meant to touch peoples' feel bones to put a cap on that hot bottle of sludge. Of course, an alternative course-of-action might have been some memorable fight scenes.

I thought the movie was pretty middle-of-the-road until that ending. Now I really dislike it.
 
Finally got through WW84 after three sittings - pretty much because every time I kept watching it I realized I could be doing something much better.

That ending....oh boy!

I feel like the writers ran out of ideas so they decided to just give Gal Gadot an overwrought monologue that hit on a bunch of vague, pseudo-maxims that were meant to touch peoples' feel bones to put a cap on that hot bottle of sludge. Of course, an alternative course-of-action might have been some memorable fight scenes.

I thought the movie was pretty middle-of-the-road until that ending. Now I really dislike it.
The whole Christmas time to fit in with release was really weird... took me out of it...
 
The f word, but also in being just a stone cold murderer. It’s like Snyder doesn’t get it on two levels: the first is a kid’s idea of “mature” behavior and the second is a fundamental denial of one of the core values of the character. He ramps up Batman’s edginess and ruthlessness as substitutes for making him interesting. It would be like “Our version of Superman is the same hero you know and love, only he also uses his X-Ray vision to check out what everybody looks like naked.” It’s more sensational on the screen, but it really undermines the character’s core integrity.

DC wanted to copy Marvel’s Avengers success, but they wanted to take a shortcut to catch up. As soon as the shortcut didn’t work out, they jettisoned their own DCEU continuity that was only 3 or 4 movies old while still holding onto the chunks of it they still had stars for. So, no Cavill or Affleck or (probably) Ray Fisher or (hopefully?) Ezra Miller, but we still have Momoa and Gadot, so we’ll keep making their movies while just losing the Justice League stuff altogether. But we’ll keep the tone and backstory that has already been established for Aquaman and Wonder Woman, which will hamper their solo movies just to stay beholden to Snyder’s vision. Then we’ll recast Batman, but we’ll also make a sequel to Suicide Squad which had the old Batman, but then we’ll also make a separate Joker movie that isn’t even about Batman or set in the same world at all. Then we’ll fucking RESHOOT a movie that came out 3 years ago with all the stars we’re not making movies for anymore about the storyline we’re never going to finish, and see if that...helps? Like...that sounds too ridiculous to be true as I’m typing it out, and I’m not even trying to exaggerate for effect.

Just think, in a parallel earth right now, George Miller’s Justice League movie actually got made and we have primarily known Batman as portrayed by Armie Hammer for more than a decade.
you have articulated some stuff that i've had rattling aroung in my skull for a while but not really put words to. it really shows the patience that whoever has the Marvel EU Arc in mind put to work -- to start out with Capt America and do the slow build to where we have Infinity War eventually with everyone and their mother Spiderman
 
Of course, an alternative course-of-action might have been some memorable fight scenes.
I feel like Jenkins over-corrected after all the hate for the CGI slugfest in the first one that she blamed on studio interference. If the original climax to the first one was anything like this one, maybe the studio had a point after all.
 
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