Movies

RenegadeMonster said:
I think you can say that about a lot of movies these days. It's very hard to find something that hasn't been done before.

I'm in it for the entertainment and laughs, not the originality as that would be setting expectations to high.
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Yeah, right there with you regarding Family Plan.
Cliche? Derivative? For sure
Fun to watch? Entertaining? Certainly.
There's movies and there's cinema.
This one is a movie.
Perfectly serviceable, entertaining for a family Saturday night watch but, otherwise unremarkable.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
What'd you guys think? Mr. Robot is a top 3 TV drama of all-time in my book and I like Homecoming a lot as well so my expectations were quite high.

Here's the review I left on Letterbox (with a 3.5/5 score):

Leave the World Behind is primarily an exercise in themes and tone.

The film does a phenomenal job of seeping you in a creeping sense of dread and paranoia. It's also gorgeously shot and features superb sound design and performances.

Unfortunately, the film goes the route of overtly explaining the puzzle instead of leaving the audience with just enough pieces to come to their own conclusions. And by doing so, some of Leave the World Behind's themes become muddled.

If Sam Esmail had made a few tweaks in the editing room, he could have had a cult classic with an iconic ending shot on his hands. Instead, Leave the World Behind is merely a fun ride that also mildly disappoints considering the standards set by Mr. Robot and Homecoming.

Still, I'll be first in line for whatever he does next.
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I watched this. I don't really know what to think of it as a whole but I enjoyed the journey watching it. I'm not familiar with his other works so this is the first thing I've seen of his. It reminds me of an M Night Shyamalan movie but with better dialogue and you don't get a definitive ending with most of the characters. That last bit bugged me a lot about it particularly with the runtime it felt like a cop-out.
 
zomgbear said:
I watched this. I don't really know what to think of it as a whole but I enjoyed the journey watching it. I'm not familiar with his other works so this is the first thing I've seen of his. It reminds me of an M Night Shyamalan movie but with better dialogue and you don't get a definitive ending with most of the characters. That last bit bugged me a lot about it particularly with the runtime it felt like a cop-out.
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I think thematically the way it end fits. It's a film of tone and themes which is what the book apparently was.

We live in a chaotic, emotionally draining world and a country inching closer and closer towards a technology driven dystopia. And within that world, people are grasping at straws to assert of sense of control and meaning over the chaos. Or to escape via pop culture, alcohol, music, ext.

The ending, minus the Friends bit, is also how the book ends. You know everyone involved knows about the bunker is likely heading there, you know its likely an act of war and that radiation levels are spiking and you know both families are going to hunker down together (which could be another moving all in of itself).

My issue is that more weight seems to be given to Ali's various hypothesis. Granted, part of that is sort of just that character being certain he is right.

But as a former editor who had always said working with Sam would be a dream (as far as his work matching my skill sets and sensabilities), I would have fought hard to cut that last monologue out. Because his explanation felt clunky and wasn't necessary. All you needed was all the little details that become available via the bunker when the girl turns the power on.

Also, give Mr. Robot a spin if you have Prime. It's a mashup of 90's and 00's influences that launched Remi Maliks career, pushed cinematorgraphy forward and has some really great twists. And everything was outlined from A-Z before the show was greenlit so everything holds together beautifully by the end.
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
Funny you say that

fandomwire.com

Joe Pesci Made Up His Own Language After Home Alone Script Wouldn’t Allow Him To Say His Favorite Curse Word

Shooting Home Alone was a major challenge for Joe Pesci, had to invent his own language to avoid saying his favorite curse words.
fandomwire.com fandomwire.com
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That's funny that the gibberish wasn't in the script but just him trying not to cuss.

You can see it a few times where he's really struggling to not go full-on Tommy Devito haha
 
The Denmarkian Wonder said:
This was definitely heavier than the first two. Some really sad scenes, especially in the second half. But a lot of funny scenes as well.

Did Groot take steroids or something?

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 1
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The Avengers
Iron Man
Avengers: Infinity War
Captain America: Civil War
Black Panther
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Captain America: The First Avenger
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Thor Ragnarok
Eternals
Doctor Strange
Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Thor
The Incredible Hulk
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
Black Widow
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 2
Captain Marvel
Ant-Man And The Wasp
Ant-Man
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
Thor: The Dark World
Thor Love And Thunder
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I did not enjoy this one at all. I couldn't even finish it, was way too mean spirited for me.
 
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DownIsTheNewUp said:
I adored Poor Things and didn't feel the length other than being surprised by the false ending. By only major critique is
that the lack of menstrual blood at any point feels like a real oversight that is the result of a male creative team.
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A big issue hovering over the movie is the fact that it's ostensibly a woman's story, but it's told by a man and while hers is a self-started journey, towards self-possession, she's pretty consistently shepherded through it by men and does end said journey by returning to the den of her morally-void (at best) creator. I do find it interesting that the bulk of her sophistication and worldliness is learned through sex work, though the movie doesn't have much time to really put that point across.

I'm not so aghast at the sex as this Vulture writer, but if I find myself responding to criticism of a movie's themes and story with "well they're talking about this one woman and not all women," maybe I'm not standing on very solid ground.
 
Meanwhile, I was utterly demolished by The Boy and the Heron the weekend. Saw subs; definitely want to get back in there to see the dub.

In lieu of a review, I present in chronological order, a list of the times I cried during this movie:
  1. When Mahito found the book inscribed by his mother.
  2. When Mahito and Kariko are pushing the boat out to sea. I don't know what was going on with me, but it was just so beautifully animated and overwhelming, and there was something about them struggling and working together.
  3. When Mahito is begging Natsuko to come with him, the slips of paper are engulfing him, he's actually calling her his mother, and she screams in his face that she hates him.
  4. The Parakeet King following Mahito back to the uncle; something about the creeping inevitability of his pursuit was so dang overwhelming.
  5. When the world is falling apart around them; it's, again, so overwhelming.

Thank you for watching my Ted Talk.
 
Bull Shannon said:
A big issue hovering over the movie is the fact that it's ostensibly a woman's story, but it's told by a man and while hers is a self-started journey, towards self-possession, she's pretty consistently shepherded through it by men and does end said journey by returning to the den of her morally-void (at best) creator. I do find it interesting that the bulk of her sophistication and worldliness is learned through sex work, though the movie doesn't have much time to really put that point across.

I'm not so aghast at the sex as this Vulture writer, but if I find myself responding to criticism of a movie's themes and story with "well they're talking about this one woman and not all women," maybe I'm not standing on very solid ground.
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That Vulture writer can choke on a cat-pig. She's all over Letterbox huffing and puffing.

I went with 2 women and 3 men. The group was fairly split, with me and another guy loving it, one woman really liking it but needing to process it, one guy on the fence and one woman hating it.

But in the 45 minutes convo we had after the film, several things became clear.

A) The reasons for people not liking it were all over the map. My friend Melissa is too logical and couldn't get over the mental development part. Like the character's logic seemed all over the place to her-- whereas to me her actions were perfectly grounded in the emotion based logic of a child. The "throw her overboard glee but then crying over dead babies" moment being case in point in our disagreement. Children don't understand the implications of death so throwing her overboard sounds fun, but then she sees the dead children and it clicks.

B) The women who needed to think it over was disturbed by the sexualization of a person with a child brain (by the men in the film). But that's part of where the satire derives it's power, no? Men have historically viewed women as their property and children were often married off.

C) The guy who disliked it found large portions of it disturbing instead of funny. Where as my cousin (other guy who loved it) works for the Onion and thought it was the funniest film he had seen all year.

D) To me, the fact that she circles back "home" at the end, signifies her choosing intellectual persuits and science. It is her siding with the line from the old lady on the boat and deciding that she prefers intellectual stimulation or, at least, has decided that she needs more than just the pleasure that derives from sex.

At the beginning of the film she is a toddler inside of a grown body containing adult genitalia. Which leads to an obsession with sexual pleasure because, like any kid, she lacks impulse control. By the end of the film, she seems to have reached close to adulthood intellectually and thus her priorities have shifted.

I'd also push back an the idea that her adventuring boils down to whoring. That is merely one chapter within the film.

At the end of our long conversation we all came to the conclusion that sparking such a long debate over themes and director intent and inducing such wildly different experiences within an audience is an indication of a film that demands to be seen.

Which I think is why people pike the Vulture writer annoy me so much. My three favorite films of the year are Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things and Bottoms. And the first two have been plagued by an extra carricular conversation that distracts from and does a disservice to the depth of the films. You even had the Root running a headline trying to compare Green Book to Flower Moon while telling people not to give it $$$.

Yorgos films will never be for everyone. My brother will never forgive me for telling him to watch Dogtooth (which is in the covo for my faborite film of last decade). He is a director that wants to make his audience uncomfortable and probe at the concept of cultural norms. He mines the absurd in order to satirize and constantly straddles the line between morbid and hilarious.

In other words, there are any number of decisions in nearly all of his films that could potentially alienate or offend. And the idea of a person who was offended turning around and telling everyone else that one of those films is trash or shallow or should be avoided is a disservice to the discourse in a era where so few films have anything to say.
 
Bull Shannon said:
Meanwhile, I was utterly demolished by The Boy and the Heron the weekend. Saw subs; definitely want to get back in there to see the dub.

In lieu of a review, I present in chronological order, a list of the times I cried during this movie:
  1. When Mahito found the book inscribed by his mother.
  2. When Mahito and Kariko are pushing the boat out to sea. I don't know what was going on with me, but it was just so beautifully animated and overwhelming, and there was something about them struggling and working together.
  3. When Mahito is begging Natsuko to come with him, the slips of paper are engulfing him, he's actually calling her his mother, and she screams in his face that she hates him.
  4. The Parakeet King following Mahito back to the uncle; something about the creeping inevitability of his pursuit was so dang overwhelming.
  5. When the world is falling apart around them; it's, again, so overwhelming.

Thank you for watching my Ted Talk.
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Hisaishi's score as the world collapses is unbelievable. I listened to it again after I got home and... it feels like that liminal period when you awaken from a profoundly sad dream and feel the intensity of that emotion fading moment by moment.
 
Bull Shannon said:
Meanwhile, I was utterly demolished by The Boy and the Heron the weekend. Saw subs; definitely want to get back in there to see the dub.

In lieu of a review, I present in chronological order, a list of the times I cried during this movie:
  1. When Mahito found the book inscribed by his mother.
  2. When Mahito and Kariko are pushing the boat out to sea. I don't know what was going on with me, but it was just so beautifully animated and overwhelming, and there was something about them struggling and working together.
  3. When Mahito is begging Natsuko to come with him, the slips of paper are engulfing him, he's actually calling her his mother, and she screams in his face that she hates him.
  4. The Parakeet King following Mahito back to the uncle; something about the creeping inevitability of his pursuit was so dang overwhelming.
  5. When the world is falling apart around them; it's, again, so overwhelming.

Thank you for watching my Ted Talk.
Click to expand...

that paper slip scene with mahito and the opening scene with mahito running through the city toward the hospital fire, with all of the visual distortion occurring around him was probably my favorite animated parts of the movie. just stunning in the way it added to the chaos of those moments.

on another note, lots of bird poop!
 
kvetcha said:
Hisaishi's score as the world collapses is unbelievable. I listened to it again after I got home and... it feels like that liminal period when you awaken from a profoundly sad dream and feel the intensity of that emotion fading moment by moment.
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Would be very happy if Hisaishi finally got Oscar recognition for this one.
 
Bull Shannon said:
A big issue hovering over the movie is the fact that it's ostensibly a woman's story, but it's told by a man and while hers is a self-started journey, towards self-possession, she's pretty consistently shepherded through it by men and does end said journey by returning to the den of her morally-void (at best) creator. I do find it interesting that the bulk of her sophistication and worldliness is learned through sex work, though the movie doesn't have much time to really put that point across.

I'm not so aghast at the sex as this Vulture writer, but if I find myself responding to criticism of a movie's themes and story with "well they're talking about this one woman and not all women," maybe I'm not standing on very solid ground.
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Also, I watched Priscilla yesterday and mostly enjoyed it. But even by Sofia's standards it felt quiet. Almost too quiet in a way that allowed my brain to starting humming while watching. It's a film about a woman who is an object of possession for a very powerful man. And her life is spent in isolation because of it-- and the audience is almost meant to feel her boredom. Whether that makes for a good movie is debatable (that the film is so gorgeous helps) but it sure seems like Sofia's intent.

I think very similar things are happening in Poor Things. She is shepherded by men because even upon leaving "home", she is still in a world controlled by men and in a relationship with a posseive man child.

For the woman friend who liked it but was mulling it over, the second of her complaints was the fact that there are so few female characters. But that seems intentional for the same reasons.

And both of those realities also help lend power to the ending imo.
 
It's been snowing the last couple of days, which means the atmosphere has been just right for The Thing. I ended up watching both the Carpenter classic (one of the greatest movies ever made!) as well as its much-maligned 2011 prequel, which I'd only seen once years ago and strongly disliked due to its CG effects. I don't think it's as bad now, I can at least see where they tried to make it a good movie, but the effects are still quite disappointing in a lot of areas and the only audience I can imagine getting any kind of suspense from it are people who haven't seen the 1982 film already. It follows the framework laid out by Carpenter's movie too closely and doesn't really have a strong identity of its own. All that being said, big fan of Mary Elizabeth Winstead with a flamethrower.
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