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Safety Factor posted:Now watch Southland Tales, Richard Kelly's second movie. enjoy, it rules imo
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Dec 8, 2023 15:44
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Kelly's done with movies after the box it seems
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Dec 8, 2023 15:51
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Boy and the Heron : fantastic as expected. Miyazaki only makes 5 star films. There’s the meta angle of him reflecting on his career and the fate of the studio. Or there’s a general commentary on the challenge of creating when it all will fall apart. But the key aspect is that there’a lots of birds in this film, and as Miyazaki is a man focused on details, there is also a whole lot of animated bird poop. People just get covered in bird poop. I think it’s a ghibli first
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Dec 8, 2023 21:37
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Boy and The Heron honestly left me really cold and I didn’t connect with it at all, but it’s obviously technically fantastic and fun to look at. It’s one I’ll probably have to reassess at some point.
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Dec 8, 2023 21:39
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Yeah I don’t think Boy and the Heron will be anyone’s favorite ghibli film. It’s one of Miyazaki’s darkest and contemplative. But I think the heart of it is centered around Mahito and his mother and that takes until the end to really make itself clear. She chooses to go back to her time so she can have and be with mahito even though it will end in her death in a fire. It gives Mahito the closure he needed for feeling frustrated that there was nothing he could do to save his mom. This thought/optimism is further reinforced by the final lines: two years later the war ended and we moved backed to Tokyo. Tokyo was destroyed in the war by fires and bombing, so to go back is to accept the tragedy and rebuild again. I definitely want a rewatch myself. I was just thinking about how the parakeet king mirrors Mahiotos dad who is a king of the war factory. All the parakeet troops are taking over the dream world just like imperialist Japanese solders.
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Dec 8, 2023 22:14
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Cromwell - really pretty good I thought. Wikipedia says contemporary reviewers hated it because of historical inaccuracies, but looking at the details it's like "X thing took place 11 years before Y thing, whereas they said 12 years in the film  ". Can't really work up too much ire about most of them to be frank. (Really I'd save any complaints for it straight leaving out a lot of the big iconic elements of the story that anyone familiar with Monty Python knows by heart. I wanted to see him fleeing LIKE A BAT to the scots)The reviewers also apparently lavished praise on Alec Guinness for his performance, but honestly this just underscores that I have no loving idea what it means for an actor to give a "good performance". People always say so-and-so leading man/lady "did such a good job" or "turned in an incredible performance" in a show or movie, and for the life of me I cannot distinguish that actor from any of the other actors in the piece or what makes the top-billed one's performance so much better. I never, or very rarely, see anyone's acting so distractingly, seventh-grade-reading-out-loud-to-the-class bad that it registers with me as noticeably subpar. But in this movie Guinness of all people is playing Charles I with an apparently historically attested stutter, and he is straight up just leaning on the first letter of a word here and there, just like it's rendered in facile fiction, like "I went to the s-s-store". Nobody talks like that! If people stutter it takes any of a hundred different forms, like "I went to the, uh, went went went to the store" or "I went to the st- the st- i mean the store" or like six other ways I've heard people talk, but never by just drawing out an initial sound of an arbitrary word because it's obviously written in the script that way with little d-d-dashes like it's a Harry Potter book or something. THIS was distracting. 95% of his delivery is perfect and measured and kingly, like someone who's been practicing public speaking his whole life, and then just once in a while he will sssssssstart a word like that. I don't know what the hell he thought he was pulling off but it sure didn't work for me. Anyway the story was a big lol in these trying times. Could not help but take note of its trenchant observations about religious kooks in the lower House taking over the government and abusing the right of free speech to commit treason and sedition, and then by what authority does one drag the anointed superhuman before a rabble for judgment, and wonder just how much history does rhyme
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Dec 9, 2023 04:43
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Is this a real movie or a Napoleon joke?
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Dec 9, 2023 04:47
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just saw poor things if the holdovers didn't exist it would be my favorite of the year. i went in pretty blind except knowing the basic premise so i wasn't expecting the production design, and costume design to be as beautiful and twisted as it was. hilarious and thoughtful throughout with a huge performance by emma stone and a wonderful cast of supporting characters.
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Dec 9, 2023 08:24
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Godzilla Minus One. Yup. Its great. There's a few times where it felt like it might trip on the finish line but, nope, it kinda nails it. It's a great example of what genre movies can do particularly well: address Big Issues very plainly. You can even have a character just straight up state the theme of the movie and it doesn't come off as ham-fisted. It earns (nearly) every big emotional moment and the movie just works. Great job, all around.
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Dec 9, 2023 21:57
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Strays A very rated R comedy with almost nothing but real dogs on screen. Much too long and could have used more Will Forte. I would have liked seeing him actually communicate with the animals like some sort of animal hating ace Ventura. It got a few good laughs out of me, but should have been a 10 minute mini episode / YouTube series.
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Dec 9, 2023 22:58
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May December: I liked this one a lot, but it really left my partner cold. I thought it was subtle and clever. The roof scene and the monologue were of course great, but I really liked how they showed just how problematic the situation was throughout. I don't think it's on the top of my 2023 list, but it was pretty solid. Great cinematography.
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Dec 10, 2023 00:00
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The Archies (2023) - it was ok  I'm not sure if this was meant to be a straight adaptation, a pastiche, a satire, or if there's any difference when it comes to Archie. I'd rather watch this than a lot of other comic book adaptations.
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Dec 10, 2023 01:51
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Hitchcock - what the hell is this hagiographic mess. "Alfred Hitchcock was a kind and loving husband who was devoted to his wife, a two timing whore", really? That's what you're giving us? Make it about finding funding in a cutthroat studio system? Cut away right before The Birds? Allude to "Hitchcock blondes" but leave that just offscreen like an "oh you!"? Lol at all the carefully framed and tracked shots of him in profile though, showing off the facial prosthetics. Including the one where he lurks across the reverse-projection car driving scene so his profile silhouette floats across the screen. Oh you Data Graham fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 03:51
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The killer Well shot and well acted but just didn't feel like it had anything to say. Definitely one of Finchers more forgettable movies. Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 09:16
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Top Secret - I'd never seen this before and enjoyed it a lot. Some of the jokes haven't aged well, but there are surprisingly few of those considering it was made in 1984. The density of jokes is phenomenal and some of them are just straight up weird, like the Swedish bookshop and the train scene. Val Kilmer absolutely kills it in his first film role.
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Dec 10, 2023 13:49
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I wish they'd make more of those types of comedies. Just minute after minute of endless gags and spoofs.
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Dec 10, 2023 16:33
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And scenes done just for the sake of a gimmick. “I know, let’s do a whole scene where we film it backwards! We can cram in all these sight gags, it’ll be awesome”
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Dec 10, 2023 16:52
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Philthy posted:I wish they'd make more of those types of comedies. Just minute after minute of endless gags and spoofs. Check out Angie TriBeCa if you haven’t.
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Dec 10, 2023 17:01
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The key to those movies is that everybody plays everything completely straight. The moment you let the audience know that you’re in on the joke it’s ruins the tone.
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Dec 10, 2023 17:45
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The_Doctor posted:Check out Angie TriBeCa if you haven’t. Love that show! Need to do a rewatch soon
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Dec 10, 2023 17:45
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Charlie Brooker's A Touch Of Cloth is very similar in tone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz9pXTpKZsI
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Dec 10, 2023 18:04
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late to the party, but Oppenheimer ruled. a STACKED cast and just stunning to watch as you slowly piece together what happened between the scenes you're shown, then the scenes are stitched together and then the Trinity test, which in most movies would be the end, but instead we get another hour of fallout (pun intended). A classic in the making. drat! EDIT : the only thing missing here is the Demon Core, which would have been a nice little button on the real human cost even in the relative safety of Los Alamos
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Dec 10, 2023 18:54
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Robocop - I think I must have only seen this once when I was like 12 or something. And certainly the culture around it is so pervasive that there's not much new to say about it story- or theme-wise. So seeing it now is mostly an exercise in how the state of the art has changed. And how that strikes me is that this is a very cheap-looking movie from a modern perspective; it's like a cut-rate Terminator or Blade Runner that thinks its techno-porn is a lot cooler than it actually is. All the close-ups of the machinery (like the Robocop suit and the 6000 SUX) expose it as done to a very slapdash, stuck-together-with-modeling-glue kind of standard that in 1987 had already been well outpaced by a lot of contemporary and earlier stuff. Hell, Star Wars looks like it's from a generation later. And the knockoff Harryhausen-style stop-motion effects on the ED-209 are downright bad. I imagine at the time it all must have come across as way more impressive than it does today, since I have memories of being blown away by how cool and futuristic everything looked; the suit looked very contemporaneous with stuff like the designs in Mega Man which I was obsessed with beyond all reason, and the gun holstering itself in the thigh was super-cool in my memory. But now those holstering scenes looked really flimsy and hastily put together. I also remember being as horror-struck by the toxic waste melting scene at the end as I was by the Raiders of the Lost Ark melting nazi; it haunted my nightmares for years. But now that whole sequence just looks goofy as hell. Still, it was fun to see Ray Wise and Miguel Ferrer as youthful supporting characters, like a proto-Twin-Peaks get-together. The Poledouris score is great in a Terminator kind of way, and the whole story holds together very nicely, despite what I feel is a weakness and inconsistency in Weller's whole role (is he a robot or not? Does he know how to emote? Does he understand colloquialisms? What about the human emotion called love? The movie seems curiously unconcerned with exploring any of those little details that a sci-fi nerd audience would be all over asking questions about). The satirical elements of the story, with corporate ownership of police and all that sort of thing (underscored by the I'LL BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR cheap soporific consumer culture), are both on-the-nose and unfocused, and I'd have to think a bit harder about how effective it is long-term as a critique of Reaganomics, but reading that Verhoeven apparently didn't get that angle at first and had to have it explained to him by his wife is a  . (Especially in light of Starship Troopers; it’s uhh weird that it happened twice?) Also had to chuckle at the highly competent female cop partner who if she were in a new remake done today (I haven't seen the 2014 one so I can't comment) would be decried as woke
Data Graham fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 20:48
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My favourite robocob scene was the one where he smashes the TV real estate agent. Prescient!
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Dec 10, 2023 21:01
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Pope Corky the IX posted:The key to those movies is that everybody plays everything completely straight. The moment you let the audience know that you’re in on the joke it’s ruins the tone. See also: Scary Movie, Epic Movie, etc.
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Dec 10, 2023 22:22
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Jack Reacher this was fine, a Sunday afternoon or plane watch. The first 30 minutes is the most interesting and fun part, but the central mystery turns out to be pretty boring. Rosemund Pike is probably one of the worst defense attorneys depicted as Tom Cruise has to do all the investigation. Werner Herzog starts off menacing but doesn’t really do anything more than sit menacingly. Car chase was pretty good, last action set piece was fun even if the reasons for it happening didn’t really make sense.
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Dec 11, 2023 03:42
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I'm still amazed they got Herzog in that.
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Dec 11, 2023 04:03
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Kill Boksoon is a movie about a top-tier contract killer who's trying to be a good mom and it loving ruled and Jeon Do-yeon gives one of my favorite performances I've seen this year. It's Netflix distributed so if you've got that what are you doing sitting here, go watch it!
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Dec 11, 2023 04:08
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Love and Monsters (2021) was surprisingly enjoyable. Giant bug apocalypse was a welcome change from zombies, and the post-apocalypse landscape was pretty good. Not a fan of the huge exposition dump though, or the 4th-wall breaking journal entries that are not even being written down. What finally sold me on it was the giant crab. More movies need those.
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Dec 11, 2023 06:28
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Napoleon - Anglo propaganda, funded by Downing Street. So many bizarre choices by Scott, how did he make both this film and The Duelists?
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Dec 11, 2023 07:41
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Midjack posted:I'm still amazed they got Herzog in that. I saw him on his autobiography tour and unbelievably someone asked him about working on The Mandalorian, to which he simply replied: "Yes I took that job because I performed and they paid me money for it". He went on to explain that he'll take any acting job that pays enough so he can funnel all of it into his own projects.
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Dec 11, 2023 08:06
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Buttchocks posted:Love and Monsters (2021) was surprisingly enjoyable. Giant bug apocalypse was a welcome change from zombies, and the post-apocalypse landscape was pretty good. Not a fan of the huge exposition dump though, or the 4th-wall breaking journal entries that are not even being written down. What finally sold me on it was the giant crab. More movies need those. One thing I really liked about that movie was main character makes some huge assumptions/expectations about his girlfriend...then when he finds her, has a moment of reflection and realizes he hosed up, and takes it like an adult. And ends up friends with her instead of a shithead incel
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Dec 11, 2023 21:42
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Tokyo Godfathers Gin failing at doing the Akira slide is funny as gently caress. There's something missing from this film and I'm still not sure what.
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Dec 12, 2023 04:32
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Saltburn started off well, then became so so loving stupid.
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Dec 13, 2023 01:01
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Shin Godzilla Confirms my suspicions that Anno is a poor director. What it's going for is cool and interesting, what it actually is a dull 2 hour slog with acting straight out of a direct to TV special. Florencia en el Amozanas MET live in HD Beautiful, by and by far the best modern Opera I've seen. Poignant, Avant Garde, and Strikingly classical in it's romanticism. Florencia singing out to her lost loves soul at the end only to be transformed in preparation for a reunion at the end is going to stay with me for a minute.
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Dec 14, 2023 00:18
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Gaius Marius posted:Shin Godzilla Confirms my suspicions that Anno is a poor director. What it's going for is cool and interesting, what it actually is a dull 2 hour slog with acting straight out of a direct to TV special. what the gently caress
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Dec 14, 2023 03:13
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Big Mean Jerk posted:what the gently caress look who you're replying to
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Dec 14, 2023 04:15
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i watched marcel the shell last night it was disappointing. fine. a few little chuckles but overall boring. i thought it was gonna ooze charm and win me over by pulling on my heart strings but it was more like a long episode of the office or something idk
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Dec 14, 2023 04:44
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Data Graham posted:Robocop - I think I must have only seen this once when I was like 12 or something. And certainly the culture around it is so pervasive that there's not much new to say about it story- or theme-wise. So seeing it now is mostly an exercise in how the state of the art has changed. And how that strikes me is that this is a very cheap-looking movie from a modern perspective; it's like a cut-rate Terminator or Blade Runner that thinks its techno-porn is a lot cooler than it actually is. Verhoeven's Hollywood movies, even the ones with colossal budgets, all look like cheap tacky plastic crap. I think it's just how he sees America
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Dec 14, 2023 07:05
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Big Mean Jerk posted:what the gently caress
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Dec 14, 2023 17:30
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