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A Matter of Life and Death: this might be the first Archers film I've seen, and it makes me want to see more based on the production value alone. Heaven has a neat design in black and white with some great matte paintings and that impressive stairway set. The real world was full of wonderful gardens, busy libraries, and a lively wartime English village. Overall this was a cute little romantic war fairytale complete with a true love (in a matter of hours!) conquering death itself. All of the dialogue was snappy and fun, especially the opening plane going down scene. The actual court battle in heaven had a little too much America vs British patriotism, but it probably played better in 1946. Once they get past that and into the love test the trial aspect fully comes together.
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Feb 19, 2024 20:06
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Oldstench posted:So I watched this for the first time tonight based on this review. Uh...I didn't care for it. JStew is too old and Kim Novak is too young for that relationship. Stewart's weird control fetish at the end prior to his realization of the truth is really hard to take nowadays. I also can't overlook how hokey the love angle is portrayed. Scotty spends literally three days with her and they confess their love. I realize it's a movie (and a '50's movie at that) but it's just so over the top and melodramatic that it becomes eye-rolling to the extreme. Other than that, the film look great and the soundtrack is amazing. Well yeah, she's lying to him. It's supposed to be a bit of a send up of Hollywood romanticism, and Scotty is the sucker who buys into it bc of his own insecurities. It's cool
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Feb 19, 2024 20:12
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Watched The Princess Bride earlier today. Fun watch, very enjoyable, although I don't have a whole lot to specifically say. Definitely something I could see myself watching again, if it comes up, had a very smooth flow to it. Feels really well casted, always love to see Andre
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Feb 19, 2024 20:23
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checkplease posted:A Matter of Life and Death: this might be the first Archers film I've seen, and it makes me want to see more based on the production value alone. Heaven has a neat design in black and white with some great matte paintings and that impressive stairway set. The real world was full of wonderful gardens, busy libraries, and a lively wartime English village. I also recently saw A Matter of Life and Death - it's the third Archers film I've seen, and my least favorite, because, as you mention, it feels pretty propagandistic and dated. Highly, highly recommend you check out The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus, the other two I've seen, which have similarly outstanding production design, while imo being head-and-shoulders above Life and Death in the way of characterization and plotting.
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Feb 19, 2024 21:03
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I enjoyed the lack of restraint in Punisher War Zone - parkour gangsters (as in that's their only form of movement) on a "permanent meth high", the mutilated villain immediately embracing his new evil persona and a scene with a man throwing himself into several mirrors.
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Feb 19, 2024 23:43
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In Training posted:Well yeah, she's lying to him. It's supposed to be a bit of a send up of Hollywood romanticism, and Scotty is the sucker who buys into it bc of his own insecurities. It's cool
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Feb 20, 2024 00:15
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smug n stuff posted:I also recently saw A Matter of Life and Death - it's the third Archers film I've seen, and my least favorite, because, as you mention, it feels pretty propagandistic and dated. Highly, highly recommend you check out The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus, the other two I've seen, which have similarly outstanding production design, while imo being head-and-shoulders above Life and Death in the way of characterization and plotting. I bought the Red Shoes 4K based on the acclaim so definitely excited to check it out soon!
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Feb 20, 2024 00:28
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River's Edge (1986) - a kid in high school murders a schoolmate for no clear reason, tells his friends, and things kinda spiral from there. Reminded me a bit of Stand by Me in terms of the atmosphere and that the whole film takes place over a very short period of time and feels like a journey. Features a very young looking Keanu Reeves being very Keanu and Crispin Glover in an extremely disturbing mullet being very Crispin Glover, which aren't necessarily bad things. There's some slightly wooden acting but otherwise it's pretty great, the plot gives no fucks and there's a constant dread that things are about to explode building in the background. Would recommend.
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Feb 20, 2024 01:26
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Oppenheimer - Despite being overlong by 40 minutes (usual for Nolan), having some weird directorial decisions (usual for Nolan), sometimes having the soundtrack drown out the dialog (usual for Nolan), and getting a little JFK there every once and a while, this was a great movie. The soundtrack, actors and cinematography were all top-notch. Great film.
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Feb 20, 2024 22:47
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Navalny: this was alright. The whole investigation and phone call to the assassins about the poisoning was good stuff, but then there's another 30 minutes left where unfortunately we all know how it ends. I don't watch too many documentaries, so maybe this is normal, but I thought the camera work and directing was like a 60 minutes episode where it's informative but not interesting.
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Feb 21, 2024 03:59
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checkplease posted:Navalny: this was alright. The whole investigation and phone call to the assassins about the poisoning was good stuff, but then there's another 30 minutes left where unfortunately we all know how it ends. I don't watch too many documentaries, so maybe this is normal, but I thought the camera work and directing was like a 60 minutes episode where it's informative but not interesting. What I really want to hear is the *next* phone call that guy got
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Feb 21, 2024 18:34
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tenet I loved this, it has all the style and clichés of an action movie, with a fairly conventional structure, and then a big serving of Nolan stuff on top to make it interesting. The more you think about the details of the plot the more confusing it becomes, but there's no issue understanding it as a film (and it tells you how to do this!). extremely self aware. makes me think of the symbolism art movement in some respects? Dialogue was incomprehensible on TV speakers, perfectly fine on wh-1000xm headphones so recommend using them for home viewing additionally, Elizabeth Debicki is Tall distortion park fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Feb 23, 2024 |
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Feb 23, 2024 08:06
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I've been meaning to rewatch it with subtitles to see if that makes me not hate it.
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Feb 23, 2024 10:05
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The Sweet East: Probably the best conservative art I've seen in a bit. The movie follows a high schooler around the American Northeast as she encounters a bunch of like classic American weirdos who are living apparently quite fulfilled lives. The characters are fun and occasionally very funny, and the soundtrack is really great.
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Feb 23, 2024 16:07
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American Fiction: I found this to be pretty fun with the best aspect being the family moments. The book and its success was a solid bit but the filmmakers wisely realized this needed something more. And of course this plays well with the whole meta aspect of the film where there are black characters with struggles and successes in life that have nothing to do with racism or poverty. Jeffery Wright was fantastic and quite funny with his smug grumpiness. Also love the helper/grandma figure lady. The scene where she says you can't impose on family was just filled with warmth. The ending kind of treaded water a bit but it came to a funny full circle at least.
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Feb 24, 2024 03:53
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Drive Away Dolls - Joel doesn't necessarily need Ethan, but Ethan desperately needs Joel.checkplease posted:American Fiction: I found this to be pretty fun with the best aspect being the family moments. The book and its success was a solid bit but the filmmakers wisely realized this needed something more. And of course this plays well with the whole meta aspect of the film where there are black characters with struggles and successes in life that have nothing to do with racism or poverty. gently caress.
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Feb 24, 2024 16:45
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Mega Comrade posted:I've been meaning to rewatch it with subtitles to see if that makes me not hate it. I'm going to have to do this. I saw it for my second time in 70mm and the sound mix still made the dialogue incomprehensible.
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Feb 24, 2024 21:35
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Mega Comrade posted:I've been meaning to rewatch it with subtitles to see if that makes me not hate it. I watched it with subtitles the first time as I was forewarned, and let me tell you; the emperor has no clothes. The film's much-vaunted amazing complexity is 100% a failure to clearly communicate through the medium on the director's part, and Nolan's disdain for his audience has gone well over the line. Frankly with regards to the end of this film, I feel like the movie would have been a whole lot better with less runtime and lower stakes. The whole world-ending stakes part of the plot felt tacked-on, frankly, and if the climax of the film was changed to be defeating Sator during/shortly after the inverted airport scene in the quest to save Kat with the realisation that in the earlier airport scene the protag had been fighting himself as the climax, it would have probably elevated the film in my eyes to be at least moderately enjoyable as opposed to the huffing-its-own -farts slog that we got.
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Feb 24, 2024 21:49
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Tokyo Pop - amazed I'd never heard of this. 80s music comedy romance where a luminous Carrie Hamilton moves to Japan to try and make it. She meets Diamond Yukai who has incredible hair throughout. The aesthetics and fashion are powerful and the fairly basic and predictable story is helped along by sincere performances. It's a vibe as they say. Somehow it's considerably less racist than the much later Lost in Translation, too.
Chas McGill fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 24, 2024 23:57
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Taken - lmao this is the most divorced movie ever
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Feb 25, 2024 02:47
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Your Name Shinkai - Considered his best work by many, many who aren't me. The film wastes it's initial premise on goofy jokes and gags instead of feeling out how the characters felt about inhabiting a different life in a different body. The second half becomes a standard disaster movie with a relgio-psychologic-romantic hook that works, but not as well as it could if the set up had been better done. That said, when It seemed like the man was going to 5cm me again I was ready to punch my TV. Motherfucker can do longing for missed romance. The BeekeeperThe funniest movie I've seen this year. Some people thought Wolf of Wallstreet wasn't tough enough on the finance bros, luckily we now have a film for those people. The FBI parts loving sucked though, drop all that poo poo for the second. I want more Bee puns, more cut off digits, and more assholes getting what they loving deserved. Focus 3 star rear end movie. Margot and Will are both giving good star performances, and they even got me for a second in the football bet con. The film is a bit too Catch me if you Can, Now you see Me levels of fantastic to take too seriously as a con film and the second half feels so underbaked one wonders if they even got it in the oven. Basically nobodies arc or motivation makes much sense but hey lot of cool looking glasses. Also the end credits use Windmills of you Mind as the end song, which isn't even a song from the same genre this movie is in. Very odd choice. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 05:42
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Data Graham posted:Taken - lmao this is the most divorced movie ever Taken was such a massive hit and it's hard to understand why. "They took my daughter" action films have been around forever but this just clicked with audiences. Not saying it's a bad film, it's enjoyable enough, but it did so well for what it is. (Wow $25m budget too on a $220m return)
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Feb 25, 2024 08:48
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Clicked with every audience member who wanted to imagine themselves as "operators" who could John McClane their way through no-go-zone Paris dishing out post-9/11 self-medication lines like "you think you can immigrate and take advantage of us because we're soft" and 360noscope the evil fat Arab end boss and save their daughter and come home and their ex-wife tearfully kisses them and says "you were right all along" while her effete new husband watches impotently you mean
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Feb 25, 2024 13:33
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Galaxiana — what a shame this was so slow and the gags were so unfunny, because there's a really fun movie hidden in there somewhere. I liked the universe they presented, a goofy laid back mic off Star Wars, Barbarella, and Alien. When they weren't doing gags it was actually quite charming. Absolute nonsense, but not trash.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:21
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Rewatching Predator films for first time not on a tv channel. Predator 1 still so good. The cast is just full of personalities (and as iasip puts it, mass). There's a touch of 80s politics as the squad attacks the guerrillas camp causing massive explosions before a cia conspiracy is hinted at. But all of that disappears as it becomes a slasher film. Arnie vs predator is just peak stuff. Predator 2 is just wild stuff and very fun. I hadn't watched this in over a decade now and forgot how packed it is with action. Within minutes of starting the movie is right to a big shootout. It's a sweaty La police vs gangs movie, and then with a predator/govt conspiracy. There's kind of this funny effect where every time the police go to stop a crime, a whole lot of people are killed and it's just that drat predators fault once again. Predator cast isn't as memorable as 1, but it's not bad. Paxton and Busey are having a great time, and Glover mostly works as this experienced (but not too old!) cop will play some tricks to win. I think it only stops working in the last 10 minutes where Glover somehow pushes the predator off a building and then very slowly chases the predator before a final duel in the ship. Glover just doesn't have the same physical presence at the end. Lots of new tools in 2: spears, net guns, super sharp disc, new med stuff, new vision modes.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:26
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Suitable Flesh : what in the Reanimator hell was that? Very obviously a good time, but it's chockablock with stuff that shouldn't work - multiple non-nude sex scenes, horrific gore, a Necronomicon subplot that doesn't go anywhere, the most bumbling rear end cops since forever and a goofy husband who doesn't mind that his wife is possessed by a horny demon, so long as he gets his rocks off... But as a whole it's a cheesy sleazy late 90s VHS era gem updated for current audiences, down to casting Reanimator vet Barbara Crampton and being set partially at Miskatonic.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:43
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Mega Comrade posted:Taken was such a massive hit and it's hard to understand why. "They took my daughter" action films have been around forever but this just clicked with audiences. I think a lot of its success was due to Liam Neeson. Action hero was a new turn for him at the time so people were interested in seeing that and he nails that "I will find you, and I will kill" speech that was in all the trailers. It also released right at the end of January 2009 and looking it up there was not much in theaters at the time that would have been strong competition.
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Feb 25, 2024 18:48
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The movie was totally sold on the speech in the trailer. For whatever reason that speech hit
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Feb 25, 2024 18:56
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I don't even get it. I knew going in that the speech was a big meme or something, but then it happens in the movie and I'm like ... that's it? Maybe it was novel at the time or something, idk
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Feb 25, 2024 19:24
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It's a revenge fantasy for Pit Viper-wearing divorced dads/red-pilled BJJ bros/wanna-be operators. That's it. That's the appeal.
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Feb 25, 2024 20:21
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Data Graham posted:I don't even get it. I knew going in that the speech was a big meme or something, but then it happens in the movie and I'm like ... that's it? Neeson himself thought the speech was corny and didn't like it.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:53
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They used it in Venture Bros unchanged so you know it's cool
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Feb 25, 2024 21:57
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I liked the silent auction where pervert billionaires bid on 16 yr olds with wiimote nunchucks.
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Feb 26, 2024 00:37
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Haptical Sales Slut posted:I liked the silent auction where pervert billionaires bid on 16 yr olds with wiimote nunchucks. Yeah that was incredible. It's like a middle schooler RPG nerd's idea of what billionaires do All sitting in a semicircle in a dark room with a spotlight on each of their chairs so they can see each other bidding
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Feb 26, 2024 00:45
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The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was an enjoyable ok movie.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:44
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Oldstench posted:It's a revenge fantasy for Pit Viper-wearing divorced dads/red-pilled BJJ bros/wanna-be operators. That's it. That's the appeal. It also appeals to all the overprotective parents convinced their precious children will be kidnapped the instant they don't have them under constant surveillance.
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Feb 26, 2024 14:10
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Ravenfood posted:It also appeals to all the overprotective parents convinced their precious children will be kidnapped the instant they don't have them under constant surveillance. Big overlap tbh Watching it I found kind of the biggest cognitive dissonance of the entire thing to be the first half-hour where you're apparently being asked to empathize with Liam who is stonefacedly refusing to let his 17-year-old daughter go to France with friends, only relenting when he gives her a giant list of military-style check-in routines and opsec pointers and topo maps of where the Dalrymple zones are and makes her promise to call him every 4.7 seconds to report on her whereabouts and circumstances. And this is supposed to be seen as reasonable, and his ex-wife is a horrible neglectful person for not insisting on the same level of paranoia. Because the microsecond she lands in Paris she is kidnapped anyway. Those fools, they didn't listen to me, I'm always right
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Feb 26, 2024 15:01
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It was also only eight years after 9/11 and firmly in that "Americans going to Europe are going to be kidnapped and sold into slavery" mindset that was prevalent at the the time. And of course it's France, remember Freedom Fries?
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Feb 26, 2024 16:09
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I wonder how many conservative weirdos obsessed with the Sound of Freedom got their start with taken lol
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Feb 27, 2024 02:55
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Mega Comrade posted:Taken was such a massive hit and it's hard to understand why. "They took my daughter" action films have been around forever but this just clicked with audiences. I'm pretty sure the initial appeal was just "why is the Schindler's List guy doing a Bourne-esque action flick?" and then from there it was just word of mouth plus dropping at time when there wasn't much competition. I was still active duty back in 2009, so I got to see Taken on a military base in a theater full of other active duty knuckleheads and I cannot overstate how much we all LOVED it. Like people cheering in the theater every time Neeson maimed somebody, up to and including when he shot the French guy's wife in the knee. It would be so interesting to read a critical analysis of Taken (and the sequels) by a scholar in the field of American Studies or even sociology, because the entire movie is just American anxieties all over: - Neeson's character as the uber dad who can fix everything and spends weeks pouring over every detail of a secondhand gift (the microphone set) just to make sure he's getting the best deal because he knows the value of a dollar - very salient post 2008/2009 economic crash. - Neeson's character being the epitome of assimilated immigrant (presumably) who embodies the worst most patriotic aspects of American identity even more than native born Americans, so much so that the Leland Orster exposition insert character can't help but demonstrate his respect and admiration in every interaction. - Neeson's character as the manifestation of US hegemony in so many ways, including the rationale of "American interests" as eternal justification for stomping all over whatever and whoever we think deserves it. - Disdain for Europeans, but especially the French as too weak to what is necessary to protect their country from unsavory foreigners (read: Arabs and/or Muslims) and eastern Europeans as "race traitors" willing to betray their fellow whites for money. - The wildly orientalist, outright racist depiction of said foreigners. - The complete disdain for women as rational actors, feminism, etc.Was the ex-wife justified in divorcing Neeson? Maybe, maybe not but she should've known that when times got hard only a real man was gonna be able to get the job done and protect their family. - The insanely blatant white supremacist purity gospel undertones of the whole thing, where Neeson's character is clearly not just worried about protecting his daughter but getting her back before she is sullied (read: loses her virginity) by the evil foreigners. - The "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" vibes from start to finish. Really kind of amazing they managed packed all that into one feature film. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Feb 27, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 03:25
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