Movies you've been watching...

[wankerness]

When it comes to Glass, there was one of the twists that was a bit predictable, but overall, I thought it was a good movie. I wouldn't say I loved it as much as I loved Split, but I loved it more than Unbreakable. Of course, the highlight for me was James McAvoy's performances in both Split and Glass. Dude can fucking act. He's got crazy chops.

I'm seeing SO much seething hatred for this movie. The critic I like the most quite liked it and said "you have to approach it on its terms," which seems like good advice. Most of the hate I'm seeing is from people who failed to do exactly that and instead raged about the lack of CGI superhero fights or whatever.

I don't remember a thing about Unbreakable apart from Bruce Willis twisting around in a pool, and didn't really like Split that much, so I'll probably catch it in a year or two when it turns up on a streaming service that I subscribe to.

 

[PunkBillCarson]

I'd say that's a fair assessment. There aren't big massive CGI fights. I'm a big Marvel fanboy and I didn't expect that out of this movie because that's not what these movies are about. Honestly and truly, I watched this mainly after having seen McAvoy's performance in Split, but as a movie, I thought it was pretty good. There's going to be some people who simply don't like this movie for the fact that it's not exactly blown way the fuck up in terms of superheroes compared to Marvel or even DC. It's not a CGI fest like you said and I feel like there are people who didn't take the time to really understand the movie or the series. Hell, there's even a scene in the movie in which one of the characters says something along those lines in terms of it being "the real world" but that doesn't mean that people can't do extraordinary things.

 

[MFB]

I'm seeing SO much seething hatred for this movie. The critic I like the most quite liked it and said "you have to approach it on its terms," which seems like good advice. Most of the hate I'm seeing is from people who failed to do exactly that and instead raged about the lack of CGI superhero fights or whatever.

I don't remember a thing about Unbreakable apart from Bruce Willis twisting around in a pool, and didn't really like Split that much, so I'll probably catch it in a year or two when it turns up on a streaming service that I subscribe to.

Anyone who expects a big CGI fight after seeing the movies leading up to this has no clue how tone or possibly even movies in general work. I would be more surprised if there suddenly WAS one than the apparent lack of them here.

 

[TedEH]

There's going to be some people who simply don't like this movie for the fact that it's not exactly blown way the fuck up in terms of superheroes compared to Marvel or even DC.

I think I like it *because* it's not another one of those blown up comic hero movies. I'm getting really tired of those. I'm perfectly ready for movies to pick a new "cool thing" to run with.

Marvel and DC right now feel like:

 

[MFB]

Marvel and DC right now feel like:

I would have agreed with you on DC until Aquaman came out and swam off with my heart. Its new life in a once grim-dark, overly blue hued world. Marvel will hopefully settle down once Endgame comes out, as everything has been building towardd that. I could do with more grounded movies from them like Black Widow/Hawkeye solos.

 

[TedEH]

I haven't seen Aquaman yet.... I was under the impression that opinions of that one were mixed.

 

[MFB]

I haven't seen Aquaman yet.... I was under the impression that opinions of that one were mixed.

Really? I've seen nothing but praise for it from everyone, and anyone I know personally who saw it was telling everyone they could to see it. The visuals were on par with the prequel Syar Wars in terms of legitimately feeling like you're in a different world; just such a wonderful sense of fantasy to all of it.

 

[wankerness]

Aquaman's reviews are mixed in that most reviews are like "the visuals are so wild you have to see it, but man is it overlong and stupid and Jason Momoa is an idiot and Amber Heard is not good" and some are like "IT WAS ALL AWESOME." Both camps are technically positive. It's kind of like Wonder Woman, where it was split between "that third act is really terrible but the middle act is great and it's by far the best of these DC movies so far" and "IT WAS ALL AWESOME." It's not really very polarizing. I don't think I'm going to see it in the theater cause it's too late for it to be in any decent theaters anymore, but I do plan on blind-buying the 4K disc!!!

Speaking of superhero movies, I just rewatched Batman Begins, and it's not nearly as good as I remember. The main thing that was eyerolling are the relentless attempts at humor, of all things. People talk about these three movies like they're dark and gritty, but probably over half the lines from Alfred here are those terrible jokes that are held on at the end of scenes to give the audience a chance to laugh before cutting to the next scene. I HATE THAT, it's such a staple of bad blockbusters from that era. There's plenty of other unfunny lines that are thrown in with another bad editing tactic, too, such as Gordon going "I HAVE GOT TO GET ME ONE OF THESE!!" or various cuts to cops reacting to his suit, where the cut to them tells you nothing about the scene and gives you no information and sometimes isn't even a named character, it's just there to be funny in the middle of an action scene, and given how dark the tone is much of the time, it's jarring.

Speaking of the editing, that bizarre cut back to Falcone making a face and looking around for a few seconds after Bruce Wayne is thrown out of his restaurant should not be there! That's stuck out at me like a sore thumb all 6 or so times I've seen this thing.

It's still a solid movie, but it's very easily the worst of the three, probably like a 6.5/10, it's got a brilliant origin setup but kinda falls flat once Batman is back being Batman with the exception of some killer scenes like the cops chasing the batmobile.

On a positive note, Katie Holmes is not even close to as bad as I remember and I couldn't figure out what my problem had been. I guess it's just that she looks kind of immature to be a big important DA, and yes, Maggie Gylenhaal is much more convincing as a super-intelligent prosecutor. But, Katie Holmes really is fine here, just slightly miscast. On a miscasting 1-10 scale with that child they cast as older-Margot-Kidder-with-kids-and-a-noble-prize in Superman returns being 10, she's about a 3.

Anyway, the jokes in Batman Begins make me appreciate the Marvel factory, at least their jokes are often funny and they cut around them in a snappy way that doesn't seem to include pauses for a laugh track.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Of the Nolan trilogy, I much prefer Batman Begins over Dark Knight Rises namely because the latter awkwardly resets mid movie and completely undermining Batman's arc and kills pretty much everything before it.

 

[wankerness]

That’s the popular opinion and what I was expecting to think when I started this up, but watching tdkr right before bb really highlighted a ton of positives tdkr has in comparison. This is a tired complaint, but the fist fights in the back half of BB are about the most incoherent things ever. The first scene with him snatching guys is excusable cause Batman’s basically the Alien, but as the movie goes on, it looks worse and worse. TDKR’s (and TDK’s) humor is far, far less bad and jarring.

One of my big annoyances with TDKR was softened, too: Bane’s incredibly underwhelming dispatching fits pretty well with Scarecrow’s in this! Though at least this one’s funny and you KNOW he’s meant to be alive thanks to the sequel (and him screaming as he goes off into the night). It makes me wonder if Bane’s was supposed to be similarly deflating of the character.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Tim Burton Batman films are better the nolan films, fight me.

 

[wankerness]

I saw them well after the Nolan ones. I thought the first one sucked by any standard, it was a boring mess and I hated the joker, especially the shit where he was walking around with a jukebox blasting Prince songs, that was the worst product placement this side of Transformers 4. The second is at least an interesting mess. It has a really great score, it's like one of those 1930s movies like King Kong where the music responds to everything on screen, sometimes with whatever the term is for musical onomatopoeia.

 

[broj15]

Watch 8 1/2 (1963) the other night and jfc was it a mind fuck. Not in the modern way, but in the use of it's imagery, non linead narrative, and bad voice over work (maybe because it's in italian and that makes individual voices harder to recognize, but I swear it's like they got 3 people to do the voicovers for the whole movie).

That being said, the story line from what I could discern was really good, as well as the imagery and camera work. Lots of hard fast pans, steep angles and tons of harsh lighting, only played up by the fact the movie was filmed in black and white. Just within the first few scenes you can see that Jordorowsky definitely took some influence from this film. Particularly the scene in the courtyard outside Guido's house with all the women wearing floral print dresses and matching umbrellas. If you like "pretentious art films" with really great camera work and super striking imagery I highly recommend.

Here's the IMDB page for anyone interested.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0056801/

 

[wankerness]

Watch 8 1/2 (1963) the other night and jfc was it a mind fuck. Not in the modern way, but in the use of it's imagery, non linead narrative, and bad voice over work (maybe because it's in italian and that makes individual voices harder to recognize, but I swear it's like they got 3 people to do the voicovers for the whole movie).

That being said, the story line from what I could discern was really good, as well as the imagery and camera work. Lots of hard fast pans, steep angles and tons of harsh lighting, only played up by the fact the movie was filmed in black and white. Just within the first few scenes you can see that Jordorowsky definitely took some influence from this film. Particularly the scene in the courtyard outside Guido's house with all the women wearing floral print dresses and matching umbrellas. If you like "pretentious art films" with really great camera work and super striking imagery I highly recommend.

Here's the IMDB page for anyone interested.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0056801/

Italian movies from that era were f'd, ALL of them were dubbed, even in Italian, cause they didn't record sound on set. Many had the actors speaking in English or in multiple languages. So, the Italian version probably doesn't sound any more coherent and it isn't necessarily "in" italian.

I didn't like 8 1/2 much, but I liked it more than what's probably his second-best-known movie, "La Dolce Vita," which I kind of loathed. Fellini is just not for me. If you're looking for arty Italian movies of that era, I'd recommend Antonioni over him any day of the week. La Notte and Blow-Up in particular!

 

[broj15]

Italian movies from that era were f'd, ALL of them were dubbed, even in Italian, cause they didn't record sound on set. Many had the actors speaking in English or in multiple languages. So, the Italian version probably doesn't sound any more coherent and it isn't necessarily "in" italian.

I didn't like 8 1/2 much, but I liked it more than what's probably his second-best-known movie, "La Dolce Vita," which I kind of loathed. Fellini is just not for me. If you're looking for arty Italian movies of that era, I'd recommend Antonioni over him any day of the week. La Notte and Blow-Up in particular!

I'll definitely check out some stuff from both of them. My friend just stumbled upon 8 1/2 at a record/movie store and blindly bought it based on some reviews and the synopsis. I really liked it for what it was, but also like jordorowsky's movies, I don't feel compelled to watch it again anytime soon. It was really uncomfortable at times, but not in a bad way. Similar to how I felt about Julian Donkey Boy, but not nearly as severe. It was hard to sit through, but enjoyable at the same time, yet I still breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally over.

 

[wankerness]

I'll definitely check out some stuff from both of them. My friend just stumbled upon 8 1/2 at a record/movie store and blindly bought it based on some reviews and the synopsis. I really liked it for what it was, but also like jordorowsky's movies, I don't feel compelled to watch it again anytime soon. It was really uncomfortable at times, but not in a bad way. Similar to how I felt about Julian Donkey Boy, but not nearly as severe. It was hard to sit through, but enjoyable at the same time, yet I still breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally over.

There's a pretty good Woody Allen movie called Stardust Memories that's a big play on 8 1/2. Dunno how you feel about him!

 

[PunkBillCarson]

Tim Burton Batman films are better the nolan films, fight me.

I don't see why that's unpopular, they were good. Now if you said Joel Schumacher's films were better then we'd being going to fist city, which you'd probably win, because I have no formal training in combat.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I don't see why that's unpopular, they were good. Now if you said Joel Schumacher's films were better then we'd being going to fist city, which you'd probably win, because I have no formal training in combat.

It's not that I dislike the Nolan films, it's just they don't hold up to repeat viewings, whereas the burton films are just plain fun everytime. I even like Batman forever for the same reason, it's good stupid fun and it knows it.

 

[Xaios]

The local film society held a screening of BlacKkKlansman on Sunday, so I decided to see it. Very interesting movie, lots to say about it.

First, peripheral issues such as acting, directing, etc. The acting was good across the board. Some characters are intended to be complex while others are clearly meant to be caricatures, and they all accomplish their task. John Davis Washington was quite good considering this is (I believe) his first leading role. He doesn't yet have the commanding presence of his father, but that will likely come with time. I would say the best performances, however, go to Topher Grace and Adam Driver. Topher Grace manages to perfectly embody the sort of character he's trying to play. His version of David Duke is utterly innocuous to look at. He's well-spoken and speaks compellingly (given his audience), he's not physically imposing, and he doesn't actively project menace. Only when you examine the content of what he's saying do you realize how dangerous he and his views are. The fact that his physical presence doesn't itself embody any threat lulls you until you realize that character is but an empty shell which allows the insidiousness of his ideology to pass unnoticed.

My favorite performance of the film, however, goes to Adam Driver. He plays a detective tasked with being the physical presence that infiltrates the KKK. The character is also Jewish. Personally I felt like Driver displayed the greatest emotional range, even though the character is fairly muted (at least by this movie's standard), and just seemed the most natural. There's one scene that I found particularly interesting where he's talking to Washington's character about his upbringing. He mentions how, even though he's ethnically Jewish, he wasn't raised as a practicing Jew and hasn't really had cause in his life to give the fact of his heritage any second thought. Given the threat that the KKK represents, however, it's now all that he can think about, and he's constantly thinking about what it means to be Jewish, about the ritual and identity that comes with that heritage. I thought it was really well done, it's a very quiet scene but it speaks volumes.

The other actor's all do a yeoman job, serving the plot exactly how the movie needs them to. The directing was also good. Lee definitely got exactly what he needed out of each performance, and the script is solid across the board. There's plenty of hilarious moments and scenes of pure tension. Some of the strongest scenes of the movie are essentially pure exposition. The camera work was also always clear and focused, which shots being well framed. Most of the movie is filmed in a straight-forward style, but it does occasionally break with that to suddenly jump into far more abstract style. It's effective if a bit jarring.

Of course, the real star of a movie like this is the plot, and what it has to say about the world. While some of the characters seem a little more one-dimensional than others, you have no doubt while watching that these people would all exist as they are in this context. Lee's commentary on the Klan is pretty much exactly what you'd expect: they're pure evil. He does stress though that, as an organization, they are definitely not stupid, and their grasp goes a lot further than we'd like to admit. That's because, for those not directly threatened by their agenda, finding the will to fight them means potentially sacrificing that which would simply otherwise be given to you, giving up the comfort that you would have if you simply kept your head down, turned a blind eye and remained detached. He also doesn't let the black rights movement off the hook either, noting a tendency to push forward to their objective while being somewhat blind to challenges coming at them from the side. It's even outright stated that the main character is naive about how far up the ladder institutional racism can run. It also seems as though he's noting that, even though it's very well earned, the movement's complete mistrust of the police sometimes does them no favors and has a tendency to be myopic and overzealous. All this is presented, though, in a way that never makes it any less than crystal clear just which people in this story are victims and which are villains.

One criticism I'd had through almost the entire running time, though, was that I couldn't help but feel a bit detached at times. It felt like the movie was a bit too high-level perspective-wise of the subject matter. The last roughly 4 or 5 minutes of the movie changes that, though, when the movie delivers an ending that I can only describe as a visceral and outright brutal punch to the emotional gut. I won't spoil it, but that ending will be something that I remember for a long, long time.

Highly recommended.

 

[MickD7]

The local film society held a screening of BlacKkKlansman on Sunday, so I decided to see it. Very interesting movie, lots to say about it.

First, peripheral issues such as acting, directing, etc. The acting was good across the board. Some characters are intended to be complex while others are clearly meant to be caricatures, and they all accomplish their task. John Davis Washington was quite good considering this is (I believe) his first leading role. He doesn't yet have the commanding presence of his father, but that will likely come with time. I would say the best performances, however, go to Topher Grace and Adam Driver. Topher Grace manages to perfectly embody the sort of character he's trying to play. His version of David Duke is utterly innocuous to look at. He's well-spoken and speaks compellingly (given his audience), he's not physically imposing, and he doesn't actively project menace. Only when you examine the content of what he's saying do you realize how dangerous he and his views are. The fact that his physical presence doesn't itself embody any threat lulls you until you realize that character is but an empty shell which allows the insidiousness of his ideology to pass unnoticed.

My favorite performance of the film, however, goes to Adam Driver. He plays a detective tasked with being the physical presence that infiltrates the KKK. The character is also Jewish. Personally I felt like Driver displayed the greatest emotional range, even though the character is fairly muted (at least by this movie's standard), and just seemed the most natural. There's one scene that I found particularly interesting where he's talking to Washington's character about his upbringing. He mentions how, even though he's ethnically Jewish, he wasn't raised as a practicing Jew and hasn't really had cause in his life to give the fact of his heritage any second thought. Given the threat that the KKK represents, however, it's now all that he can think about, and he's constantly thinking about what it means to be Jewish, about the ritual and identity that comes with that heritage. I thought it was really well done, it's a very quiet scene but it speaks volumes.

The other actor's all do a yeoman job, serving the plot exactly how the movie needs them to. The directing was also good. Lee definitely got exactly what he needed out of each performance, and the script is solid across the board. There's plenty of hilarious moments and scenes of pure tension. Some of the strongest scenes of the movie are essentially pure exposition. The camera work was also always clear and focused, which shots being well framed. Most of the movie is filmed in a straight-forward style, but it does occasionally break with that to suddenly jump into far more abstract style. It's effective if a bit jarring.

Of course, the real star of a movie like this is the plot, and what it has to say about the world. While some of the characters seem a little more one-dimensional than others, you have no doubt while watching that these people would all exist as they are in this context. Lee's commentary on the Klan is pretty much exactly what you'd expect: they're pure evil. He does stress though that, as an organization, they are definitely not stupid, and their grasp goes a lot further than we'd like to admit. That's because, for those not directly threatened by their agenda, finding the will to fight them means potentially sacrificing that which would simply otherwise be given to you, giving up the comfort that you would have if you simply kept your head down, turned a blind eye and remained detached. He also doesn't let the black rights movement off the hook either, noting a tendency to push forward to their objective while being somewhat blind to challenges coming at them from the side. It's even outright stated that the main character is naive about how far up the ladder institutional racism can run. It also seems as though he's noting that, even though it's very well earned, the movement's complete mistrust of the police sometimes does them no favors and has a tendency to be myopic and overzealous. All this is presented, though, in a way that never makes it any less than crystal clear just which people in this story are victims and which are villains.

One criticism I'd had through almost the entire running time, though, was that I couldn't help but feel a bit detached at times. It felt like the movie was a bit too high-level perspective-wise of the subject matter. The last roughly 4 or 5 minutes of the movie changes that, though, when the movie delivers an ending that I can only describe as a visceral and outright brutal punch to the emotional gut. I won't spoil it, but that ending will be something that I remember for a long, long time.

Highly recommended.

This is still the best movie I have seen in the cinema all year. The likely hood of Driver taking the Academy Award is stacked up against the other actors and honestly I think this film is leagues ahead of something like Black Panther and that has 7 nominations.

But Driver’s performance in this film is excellent, Grace and Washington are the same. I am reading the book at the moment go get your hands on it