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Tiger Zinda Hai This movie is bizarre. The last film ends with Tiger and Zoya loving off together until Pakistan and India put their problems aside. Then this movie has RAW contacting Tiger whom has apparently created an entire intelligence division inside his basement on the off chance India needs him back. The thing is India and Pakistan do both end up working together to grab the hostages, but it's not until after Tiger has already decided to go back for his own national pride reasons. It's like they wanted to keep the same message of reconciliation between the nations, but only on Indian terms. Aside from that, the movie is also just not as fun or interesting as it's Casino Royale riffing predecessor. The villains basically being ISIS kinda fucks up chances of that what with all the very unfun executions, terrorism, and rape. Plus the whole plot makes very little sense, they send the team to an oil refinery run by Isis so they can fake an explosion so they can get the team into the hospital with the hostages. Was there not a better way to assault the compound, especially considering the time they spent doing that was the time it took the villain to move from Mosul to the Hospital, using it as his new main base. The back half of the film ends up being a lot more entertaining, they give up on all the spy poo poo and go all in on the eighties style action. Including Tiger gunning down mobs of dudes with a machine gun and exploding an oil tanker with an RPG. Zoya getting involved in a sword fight was also awesome and unexpected. Decent flick but doesn't live up to the first or the current last of the franchise.
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Apr 4, 2023 00:43
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Keoma I was cracking up watching Keoma for this very reason but Nero is great and the finale goes hard. Enzo G. Castellari is one the best Italian schlockmeisters.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:51
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Old Joy: Watched this to get in the mood for the new Reichhardt coming out this weekend. Beautiful movie, man do I miss Portland.
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Apr 5, 2023 02:58
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Dnd: Honor Among Thieves wasn't as bad as I feared, can't really recommend it though? Maybe watch it when it hits streaming if you're that bored. Glad they didn't beat you too over the head with the dnd references and opted for fairly typical snarky fantasy film. My eyes would have probably rolled out of my head if they went in a "ZOMG just like my dnd games!" direction.
Turbinosamente fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Apr 5, 2023 |
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Apr 5, 2023 05:30
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Seven to One (1973) This is a pretty decent Taiwanese martial arts flick, recently put out in really satisfyingly crunchy 70s quality by AGFA, but the standout part of it is really the extensive use of Hocus Pocus by Focus basically as a recurring theme for the main characters, a couple tiny snippets of Jimi tracks, and a tense little foot chase that uses Pink Floyd’s On the Run multiple times, complete with that iconic maniacal laugh. Given the budget for this thing, I’m assuming the music use was probably unauthorized but it’s actually used really well to pep up stuff that might otherwise be a bit dull. Worth checking out if you’re into that kind of thing. https://youtu.be/QdBikCYNeHw?t=2m12s Starts at 2:12 if that link doesn’t work. Big Mean Jerk fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Apr 5, 2023 |
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Apr 5, 2023 08:21
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Turbinosamente posted:Dnd: Honor Among Thieves wasn't as bad as I feared, can't really recommend it though? Maybe watch it when it hits streaming if you're that bored. Glad they didn't beat you too over the head with the dnd references and opted for fairly typical snarky fantasy film. My eyes would have probably rolled out of my head if they went in a "ZOMG just like my dnd games!" direction. This is a very valid take and I respect it, but I wanted to post my counterpoint: D&D: Honor Among Thieves is played sincerely and written like the kind of memorable campaign that you have with your tabletop friends. You've got characters with backstories together, you've got newcomers, and they're up against believable stakes for who they are (pulling a heist, reuniting a father with his daughter, and saving a city from an evil wizard and an rear end in a top hat). It uses practical effects whenever possible, which means some characters move a little clunkily but prevents the movie from looking like a CGI greenscreen fest. There's some exposition to bring people up to speed, but it's done within the story (where the characters are pleading their case for a pardon). It also makes sure to show rather than tell whenever it can, demonstrating why the villains are to be feared and how our protagonists are heroes who might actually have a chance at winning. Like a great campaign, everyone gets their moment to shine, failures always move the story forward, and the characters grow throughout the movie. I personally feel like this movie has a ton of heart, comedic moments that make sense (Simon the sorcerer's speech on how "This is real life, magic can't solve every problem" stood out to me), and was made by people who really loved everything they were doing. However, I'm biased as I'm a tabletop RPG nerd, a sucker for fantasy, and a big fan of Chris Pine. I'm probably going to see it in theaters again because I love it that much.
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Apr 6, 2023 02:57
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Bogus Adventure posted:This is a very valid take and I respect it, but I wanted to post my counterpoint: In retrospect I was probably a bit harsh: this is the first impression thread after all. This is a good movie, even for me who only knows dnd poo poo through cultural osmosis. Even I could appreciate all the stupid plans of the characters as that's how dnd games and player logic works and could tell when Chris Pine rolled a bunch of 1s in a fight. Hell it does the Marvel formula but does it far better than actual Marvel movies do these days and the practical effects make it look better too. So yes, though I find some bits flawed I can't believe it took them that long to figure out the bad guy's obvious plan, I will now say this is worth going out to see, even if you don't know dnd, even if to just encourage this sort of better film making. Perhaps I was still annoyed that my boyfriend was rules lawyering the fights afterwards, particularly the spell casting, without understanding the "rule of cool" and that it's a movie. God imagine if they did film a dnd fight exactly to the rules set, how much that would suck. A review I read put it best: this will be the favorite childhood movie of the current generation.
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Apr 6, 2023 12:36
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K-19: The Windowmaker. Not a good film! Reading the wiki page was quicker and just as interesting. I can't believe how badly cast basically all the leads are.
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Apr 6, 2023 13:44
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Turbinosamente posted:In retrospect I was probably a bit harsh: this is the first impression thread after all. This is a good movie, even for me who only knows dnd poo poo through cultural osmosis. Even I could appreciate all the stupid plans of the characters as that's how dnd games and player logic works and could tell when Chris Pine rolled a bunch of 1s in a fight. Hell it does the Marvel formula but does it far better than actual Marvel movies do these days and the practical effects make it look better too. Oof, that sucks and has made me hate movies before.
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Apr 6, 2023 18:23
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Bogus Adventure posted:Oof, that sucks and has made me hate movies before. I've gotten mostly over it. It was poo poo like druids can't shift into an owl bear in game, or the few spells shaped like a giant hand have a weight lifting limit of like 5 pounds. Real purist and pedantic crap like that. Hell I was thankful they did have better graphical design for spells than the usual energy beam fights Marvel does. I just hope that they don't ruin their budding media franchise and it gets overwrought like the MCU. I think a spin off tv series is already in the works...
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Apr 6, 2023 19:36
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Both of the spoilered rule things in your post are among the dumbest rule restrictions in the game too, so gently caress that complaint
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Apr 6, 2023 19:40
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Tetris Good, charming, and well acted. I didn't like the mid scene pixel art interstitials which really dumbed down the scenes and made it feel like the cut rate docs that use them to pad time. "They didn't have the arcade rights!" *cutaway to an 8bit arcade icon with a big X on it* The most egregious one was during the car chase where the heroes have to do a Tetris to escape, which was already fairly hamhanded and then there's an overlay of a Tetris screen to really slam it home. The family drama also felt a little tacked on. I really enjoyed the reveal of the Game Boy, the budding bromance between Alexey and Henk (which was the realest part of the film and should've been the heart of all of it), and the Maxwells being heinous. I think the actual story of Tetris is much more compelling than what was portrayed. We've been spoiled by dramatizations (like Till) hemming very close to the truth, so finding out the whole KGB plot was invented was a bummer of a return.
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Apr 6, 2023 20:33
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I also watched Tetris just now and I felt like it couldn't quite commit to anything. It clearly wasn't in any way realistic, so at first with the weird graphics I thought it might go for the farcical or over-the-top presentation, but it didn't. Ended up being milquetoast and predictable. I also felt like, even though it didn't really attempt to engage with videogames in any way, the slight attempts felt phony and off-putting. People laughing at the screen when playing Tetris, wrong/fake sound effects when playing other games, "link has zelda", the graphics being not reminiscent of any actual video game of that era.. It's okay to treat videogames as a commodity but then to use its motifs in everything else feels hypocritical and disconnected. The portrayal of the Soviet Union, corruption and"real soviet patriots" was also laughable.
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Apr 8, 2023 12:32
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Back in London and at the BFI Southbank (seeing Interstellar at the big IMAX tomorrow morning) so booked up some more films while I'm down here, starting with the 1935 Rogers and Astaire film Shall We Dance, showing from a 35mm archive print. It was introduced with an informative talk from an expert on this era of musicals, and I actually quite enjoyed it despite it not being a genre I usually watch - and the rest of the audience was really into it too. Followed this up with Empire Records at the Prince Charles, also showing on 35mm, and on Rex Manning Day as well. I only heard about this film a few weeks ago but it sounded fun so booked a ticket - however, it turns out the film I actually did hear about a few weeks ago was That Thing You Do!, which in my defense does share two of the leads. Aside from not being the film I thought I was going to see, it was really fun - had some die hard fans of it in the audience as well - the guy sat in front of me was really into it, his date perhaps not so much.
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Apr 8, 2023 19:43
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kiminewt posted:I also watched Tetris just now and I felt like it couldn't quite commit to anything. It clearly wasn't in any way realistic, so at first with the weird graphics I thought it might go for the farcical or over-the-top presentation, but it didn't. Ended up being milquetoast and predictable. Tetris - This had decent reviews and I've never read about the history beyond that it was invented in USSR, so decided to check out something a bit lighter than the above. Without doing research, a lot of feels like very loosely "based on true events" to make it feel like a cold war spy thriller. Did the soviets really send their goons to intimidate a Japanese citizen? Did the KGB have a car with Western businessmen to the airport? I dunno, maybe, but it does stretch the disbelief when watching (not to mention CGI-ish). Then there's the "father misses child's extremely important school play" thing. mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Apr 9, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 20:29
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Prince of the Sun (1990) At one point in this movie a grown man proudly tells a little kid (who’s also the reincarnation of the Living Buddha) that he completely poo poo his pants, and then they break into the apartment of a lady gambler who just got fired from her school because she was literally throwing kindergartners around for insulting her. Later, they team up with Cynthia Rothrock and fight Emperor Palpatine after he transforms into a man-bat. This movie is incredible. Please seek it out. https://youtu.be/US4tNR7FrZs
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Apr 8, 2023 21:41
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mobby_6kl posted:I found the movie quite disappointing for all those (and theflyingexecutive's) reasons, and posted this in the other thread earlier. (Which, btw, why the hell do we have two threads for "review movie you just watched"? Seems like it pretty needlessly splits the discussion) This thread is for posting your first reactions. Please do not rate films in here 🙏
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Apr 8, 2023 22:34
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Just saw Barbarian and all I can say is: Wow I went in having only seen the trailer. I knew it was going to have some weird house shenanigans, but if you gave me a million years to guess who the antagonist would be I don't think I ever would have guessed it to be an incest product and survivor with superpowers who just wanted to care for her baby. Everything in the movie works, the camera shots make everything feel creepy and claustrophobic, and it even adds humor with Justin Long playing a cowardly piece of poo poo. I wish I had seen it in theaters, but my life hasn't given me much time to go out. I finally got a treadmill for my apartment, so at least I can catch up on my backlog via streaming while doing something productive. All in all a fantastic horror film, and another reason why I will never use an AirBnB.
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Apr 9, 2023 05:20
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65 Despite the negative reviews I held out hope that this would be a schlocky good time because Adam Driver rules and the premise is compelling. Unfortunately, it's extremely dour and not much fun at all. Instead of opting for a vibrant, Jurassic Park-like color palette, 65 is really dark and murky most of the time, and it's hard to tell what's actually going on. The choice to have the one other survivor of the crash landing on Earth, a young girl, not speak English (standing in for whatever alien language Driver speaks) is strange and limits the potential for dialogue and character development. Also, what's the point of having Driver learn of his daughter's death while he's on Earth? Such a pointless bummer. Wouldn't you want to keep here alive to provide an incentive for him to escape before the asteroid hits? Overall, pretty disappointing.
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Apr 9, 2023 23:16
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Showgirls (1995) watched the awful copy from Hoopla. It rules that verhoeven realized he met his parodical match in Las Vegas so just showing it from slightly behind the stage curtains was enough to make it feel as heightened as Robocop. Burst out laughing when maclaughlin turns on the neon palm trees situated directly in front of real palms
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Apr 10, 2023 04:24
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I watched Cobra after hearing some Cine_D folks mention how the infamous pizza scene is par for the course of the entire film. loving  at everything in this movie. It's one of those "so bad and cliche that it rules" movies, and I love it so much now. Also lmao that Sylvester's partner is Poppy from Seinfeld.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:58
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Cobra: the version of Dirty Harry that they watch in the Last Action Hero universe. The fact that it's all played straight makes it even funnier. If not for 80s Stallone and Cosmatos hardly being known for their self-deprecating humour, it could almost be taken as a parody. "The Scorpio Killer was a great bad guy, but how can we make him even scarier? I know - he leads an entire army of serial killers who have meetings in an abandoned Duran Duran video and do synchronised axe-banging!"
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Apr 10, 2023 08:59
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Payndz posted:Cobra: the version of Dirty Harry that they watch in the Last Action Hero universe. This is honestly the best description of it. Lol at the axe-banging and the whole "New World" stuff that they spout about when justifying killing. It's so '80s and so over the top. Every car chase scene is so ridiculous. Just beautiful.
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Apr 10, 2023 10:05
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Air Affleck is so loving good as Phil Knight, dude nails every scene he is in. Film is a lesser version of all the adult dramas we used to get about poo poo like this, but it's drat well produced and it's nice to be able to see one of these on the big screen. It would be easy to say this could be an HBO movie or a netflix miniseries, but that misses the point that it's perfectly cromulent as an actual movie and I much prefer having some nice B and C tier stuff in theatres to go see on a slow day than seeing nothing but Superhero trash and Horror movies clogging the schedule.
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Apr 11, 2023 01:27
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Babylon. I really enjoyed this, the first 3/4 (or first 2 hrs) is really great and a fun ride. A full showcase of movie things. Last 1 hour really shits the bed and kinda sours the previous 2 though. Chazelle really went for it, most if it works but I can see the justification for lovely reviews. But I’m all in on Chazelle now, dude owns.
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Apr 11, 2023 11:24
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mobby_6kl posted:Tetris - The story of Tetris is intensely fascinating and very, very weird (at one point, three different companies had plausible legal claims that they had the rights to the game), but the movie is heavily fictionalized. The KGB stuff is essentially all made up (although Alexey Pajitnov claims that his apartment was bugged at one point, which seems within the realm of possibility), and a lot of other stuff in the movie flat-out never happened.
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Apr 11, 2023 12:08
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toggle posted:Babylon. I really enjoyed this, the first 3/4 (or first 2 hrs) is really great and a fun ride. A full showcase of movie things. Last 1 hour really shits the bed and kinda sours the previous 2 though. Chazelle really went for it, most if it works but I can see the justification for lovely reviews. You gotta like his weird underground la he’ll party with Tobey. Let’s see him do a horror film next
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Apr 11, 2023 13:38
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Timby posted:The story of Tetris is intensely fascinating and very, very weird (at one point, three different companies had plausible legal claims that they had the rights to the game), but the movie is heavily fictionalized. The KGB stuff is essentially all made up (although Alexey Pajitnov claims that his apartment was bugged at one point, which seems within the realm of possibility), and a lot of other stuff in the movie flat-out never happened. Im going to believe they all really did jam to The Final Countdown. Yeah I kind of wish the film had focused more on legal dealings vs somewhat meaningless action and car chases. It’s also interesting the film focuses on essentially a middle man vs creator.
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Apr 11, 2023 13:48
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There is an old 2003 documentary by the BBC called something like Tetris: From Russia with Love that does have all the facts and has been floating around the internet for years. It's unfortunate that they made up some action bullshit for the new movie when there's plenty of actual intrigue and maneuvering as like 3 or more people scramble to get the rights and who gets hosed in the end.
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Apr 11, 2023 14:43
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Trance (2013, Danny Boyle): Really slick, tight heist/psychological thriller for about half the movie in the Danny Boyle style, then devolves into a series of fakeouts and twists that are just not delivered in an interesting way, capped off with one of the worst exposition dump flashbacks I've seen in a movie. This movie would be an all timer if Boyle and the screenwriters somehow figured out how to convey "what really happened" in a better way.
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Apr 11, 2023 16:08
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Turbinosamente posted:There is an old 2003 documentary by the BBC called something like Tetris: From Russia with Love that does have all the facts and has been floating around the internet for years. I've seen that, and even it gooses some of the facts here and there. The best, and to my best knowledge most accurate, retelling of the Tetris saga is in the book Game Over: Press Start to Continue, by David Sheff and Andy Eddy.
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Apr 11, 2023 16:33
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checkplease posted:You gotta like his weird underground la he’ll party with Tobey. Let’s see him do a horror film next Oh yeah, a horror movie with a jazz music score 
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Apr 11, 2023 23:48
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline: really thoroughly enjoyed this. A suspenseful heist thriller that neatly pulls off the balance of consistently increasing and deflating tension through some very solid editing and storytelling choices. I'm surprised this was allowed to be made and released in the form it was - it doesn't pull punches with its politics. There were a lot of opportunities to water down characters or motivations, or lean on "crazy hippy" stereotypes, that the film didn't do. My only major quibble is with the ending scene with Rowan and Logan - it felt like there was a missing scene, or maybe even a few lines cut, setting up their motivation to actually go through with the plan. I was convinced they were going to spoil it somehow. But maybe I'm just a pessimist  .
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Apr 12, 2023 07:11
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Timby posted:The story of Tetris is intensely fascinating and very, very weird (at one point, three different companies had plausible legal claims that they had the rights to the game), but the movie is heavily fictionalized. The KGB stuff is essentially all made up (although Alexey Pajitnov claims that his apartment was bugged at one point, which seems within the realm of possibility), and a lot of other stuff in the movie flat-out never happened. Seems like the BBC show is on youtube, and I found the book, so that's another thing on the shelf I might never get to read Jenny Agutter posted:Showgirls (1995) watched the awful copy from Hoopla. It rules that verhoeven realized he met his parodical match in Las Vegas so just showing it from slightly behind the stage curtains was enough to make it feel as heightened as Robocop. Burst out laughing when maclaughlin turns on the neon palm trees situated directly in front of real palms 
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Apr 12, 2023 08:41
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Bound: the first Wachowski film, but last one of theirs that I have finally watched. Great stuff. Love the dark noir setup and mind games. Plus a lot of the camera shots and directing feels like trials for the Matrix. Oh and Joe Pantoliano is so good at being crazy. I can see why they brought him back for Cypher.
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Apr 14, 2023 03:22
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Watched this flick called Suzume today. Pretty good anime film, best film I've seen released this year. I did think people might skip it cause at least my theatre's description of it was inscrutable, and it was only being in competition with Mafia Mommy and an Indian Romcom that decided my seeing it. What it actually is is half road trip movie and half disaster movie. Teenage Girl growing up by setting out on her own for the first time against the advice of her mother figure; many scenes with her navigating different sides of life she'd never seen before e.g. hostess bars and Tokyo subways. And also a movie about the impact the various natural disasters Japan has faced has had on the population, and how people can maintain a sense of purpose in the wake of cataclysm. Good poo poo, go see it Raising Arizona What a world we'd be in if the Coens had kept making movies like this. Cage is absolutely perfect for the heightened mundanity of their more overtly comedic films, and having the guts to have a no joke legit happy ending really tied it off well. The supermarket robbery to roadside diaper snatch is some top tier poo poo.
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Apr 14, 2023 04:16
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Lynch's Dune: Watched it completely on a lark because I saw that it was on the Criterion Channel and I'd heard it was very divisive. I haven't read the books or seen the newer adaptation, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! Certainly not very coherent (though I didn't have that much trouble following the story--the only part that I felt the need to look up afterwards was the business with imperial conditioning) as far as conventional narrative goes, but the incredibly baroque visuals were worth it all. I kind of want to watch it again to study the transitions, very oneiric. Guess I'm in the cult for this one. (Fwiw, it's made me curious to read the books now.)
Sir Mat of Dickie fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Apr 14, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 07:08
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Once Upon A Time in Hollywood - Rewatch. Typically frustrating and uneven. The leads are great, the vibes are great, but so much of the content is garbage. Bruce Lee and the Lancer segment should’ve been cut pretty much entirely. The ending is Tarantino aiming for soulful but all he can muster is juvenile sadism. It’s just sad in the end that that’s all there is. It feels like this was his last chance to rise above his usual bullshit, and he failed. A Fistful of Dollars - very cool and good. Loved the atmosphere throughout, loved the final duel. Will be watching the next one very soon. I’ve seen the third one long ago but am due a rewatch too. Air - it’s fine I guess! It’s okay! Moneyball-lite. It’s three-star-solid but Matt Damon’s big speech at the end is very cringe, and the general valorisation of marketing ghouls and corporate strategy leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But it’s fine!
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Apr 14, 2023 20:02
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checkplease posted:Bound: the first Wachowski film, but last one of theirs that I have finally watched. Great stuff. also watched this and it's good. the main characters are very cool but their plan sucks, just run away!
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Apr 15, 2023 07:31
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Sir Mat of Dickie posted:(Fwiw, it's made me curious to read the books now.) If you go past the first one stop after Herbert's original six wrap up.
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Apr 15, 2023 16:41
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