The All Things Movie Thread

[injurai]

 

Josh Brolin is Gurney Halleck.

It's still going to suck.

 

I'll go in with my **** out.

[Malcador]

If it succeeds, it'll make Brian Herbert write even more books.

[SonicMage117]

Worth posting...

[injurai]

Jason Momoa to play Duncan Idaho....

 

God

 

****ing

 

Dammit

[Gromnir]

Jason Momoa to play Duncan Idaho....

 

God

 

****ing

 

Dammit

 

'course, michael keaton as batman were also a less than intuitive choice.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

[Keyrock]

I watched Five Elements Ninjas last night. I've seen this movie before, as old skool kung fu is my favorite movie genre, bar none, so I've seen almost all these movies, multiple times in many cases. Five Elements Ninjas is one of Shaw Bros. ultimate masterpieces. The sheer level of absurdity in this 1982 gem is mind blowing. It's got it all: Ridiculous weapons and gadgets, super gory deaths, overly dramatic heroic deaths, an ill-fated and really creepy love subplot, and hilariously bad special effects. My only real criticism is that the training montage (generally my favorite part of kung fu movies, or any movie that includes them, for that matter) is relatively short.

[Raithe]

And now the release date for Dune has been set for November 2020. At least, the first movie covering half the book.

[Raithe]

Watched last years Robin Hood.

 

It's a ... weird one.

 

Full of rather good actors working with a bizarre script. It's anachronistic, I see how they're trying to do a whole.. stylistic approach to make it "different" but it really does seem to borrow a lot from DC's Arrow (and I know, the Green Arrow was inspired by Robin Hood so it's very circular).  But they have oddly steampunk aspects, guards carrying repeating crossbows that are treated like assault rifles, the opening sequence of the crusades has the Sherrif sending "draft notices" to the minor lords, and has them acting like a modern day marine unit in Iraq dealing with urban warfare and sending up signal flares for "stones" aka, catapaults acting as artillery support.

 

Jamie Foxx doing the "wise mentor Moor" role they swiped from Prince of Thieves, throwing in a dose of montage ninja training, add a dose of pyrotechnic explosions, a mixture of policitcal correct issues, callbacks to current political elements (Trump style speeches from the Sherrif), a Nottingham medieval city designed to look like the Favelas of Brazil, and some silly drama and soap opera love triangles.

[SonicMage117]

Alita: Battle Angel

 

I can honestly say it's the best adaptation of any medium that has so attempted an an adaptation in the first place. It's probably one of the better cyberpunk movies out there, glad I wasted money on it and happy to see the negative nancy's were wrong

 

"10/10" from SM117

"Finally a proper Cyberpunk movie" -JustSonicThings

"The haters once again prove themselves wrong" Sonic Says

[LittleArmadillo0]

Just saw Persepolis. It was really good. I read a little bit of the graphic novel it was based on and the movie remove the stilted look of the characters in the original piece. It was also insightful to look at what happened during the Islamic Revolution.

[Raithe]

Psych the Movie is apparently getting a sequel...

 

 

Santa Barbara Police Chief Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) is ambushed on the job and left for dead. In a vintage Psych-style Hitch****ian nod, he begins to see impossible happenings around his recovery clinic. Shawn (Roday) and Gus (Hill) return to Lassie's side in Santa Barbara and are forced to navigate the personal, the professional, and possibly the supernatural. Separated from their new lives in San Francisco, our heroes find themselves unwelcome in their old stomping grounds as they secretly untangle a twisted case without the benefit of the police, their loved ones, or the quality sourdough bakeries of the Bay Area. What they uncover will change the course of their relationships forever."

Edited February 17, 2019 by Raithe

[Raithe]

Tor - Attack the Block helped set the course for the last decade of sci-fi

[Hiro Protagonist]

The Wandering Earth.

 

Really enjoyed this and thought it was amazing. Interesting concepts and story. Also liked how all countries were in to help and not one country saving the world. Thought the visual effects were awesome considering the film had a budget of 50 million. It's made over 500 million in less than two weeks in China with a limited release elsewhere.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLcghUzzQCg

[injurai]

Cold Pursuit has lowkey been one of my favorite films in a minute.

[Tale]

There's a Captain Marvel "leak" making the rounds as of yesterday. And the first two-thirds of it are the same as what I started predicting a week ago.

 

This might just break my streak of always being wrong on predictions. YAY

[ktchong]

So last week I saw Alita: Battle Angel twice. The first time in regular IMAX 3D on Wednesday before it officially opened, and the second time in IMAX with Laser on Sunday.  (I am not sure why Alita got only 50ish at Rotten Tomatoes; this movie should have gotten 90ish and The Last Jedi the 50ish.)

 

The IMAX 3D with Laser was definitely better than regular IMAX 3D. When I walked into the theater (with the laser projectors,) it was definitely much darker than the regular IMAX theater. The theater was one of the darkest I have seen. I got the perfect seating and sat right in the center and middle of the theater, (for both with and without laser, the both times I saw Alita.) The seating was a main reason why I chose IMAX 3D with Laser over Dolby 3D: I could not get any good seating for any Dolby 3D theaters near me.

 

The images for IMAX 3D with Laser were much sharper - they were the clearest, sharpest images I have ever seen. The differences in image clarity and sharpness between IMAX with Laser vs. regular IMAX were immediately apparent and very noticeable. IMO IMAX with Laser could be clearer and sharper than even Dolby Cinema, (although I have not seen Alita in Dolby 3D so I can't really make a direct comparison; however, I have seen other movies in Dolby 3D.) I remember being blown away last year when I saw a movie in Dolby Cinema for the very first time, and I thought, "whoa, holy crap! From now on I must always see big-budget AAA spectacle movies (like Avengers) in Dolby Cinema!" On the other hand, I was never that impressed by the regular IMAX.

 

From now on, I will definitely be seeing big-budget AAA spectacle movies in either Dolby Cinema or IMAX with Laser.

 

I could be wrong, but I felt the 3D effects were better in the regular IMAX format than the laser IMAX format. However, I personally prefer clearer, sharper images over better 3D images. 

 

However, Alita was spectacular in both regular and laser IMAX. IMO, Alita is likely the pinnacle of CGI and special effects - it is the best of CGI and special effects. There is no other movie that has better CGI or special effects, and it is very obvious and apparent that Alita is at the top of CGI and SFX.  There is simply no other movie that has better CGI or SFX.  Its CGI and special effects are that good, and I have seen over 100 movies in the past year, (closer to 150, courtesy of my movie subscription plans - i.e., MoviePass and then A-List.)  Alita is a movie that everyone must see on a big screen in a theater, preferably in Dolby Cinema or IMAX.

 

The only problem was the glasses: IMO the glasses for Dolby 3D and regular IMAX felt more comfortable. The glasses for IMAX 3D with Laser was big and square. I could see the edges (the inner and bottom edges) of the glasses when I had it on, which slightly distracted me from what was on the screen. I am not sure why the laser and regular IMAX used different glasses, but IMAX seriously needs to fix the problem with the glasses for laser 3D.

 

With video gaming becoming more and more expensive with all the DLC, loot boxes and microtransactions, and with movie theater chains started offering "all you can eat" movie subscription plans, (i.e., I used to have MoviePass until last year, and then I switched over to AMC Studs A-List,) I have been going to movies more and more and playing less and less video games - especially now that I have discovered Dolby Cinema and IMAX with Laser.

Edited February 18, 2019 by ktchong

[SonicMage117]

So last week I saw Alita: Battle Angel twice. The first time in regular IMAX 3D on Wednesday before it officially opened, and the second time in IMAX with Laser on Sunday. (I am not sure why Alita got only 50ish at Rotten Tomatoes; this movie should have gotten 90ish and The Last Jedi the 50ish.)

 

Favoritism and commercialized bias.

 

It's cool to love Star Wars because it's well, Star Wars - a popular franchise that has had horrid writing since the very first movie.

 

It's cool to hate Alita because well, it's an adaptation - therefore people automatically assume it's horrible. I have no doubt they probably did anything but watch the movie to give it a fair chance.

 

I agree that the movie deserve somewhere in the 90's. I don't care wgat anyone says, it's a great movie.

[Amentep]

I think there's a simpler explanation for Alita's score than conspiracy theories - the end doesn't really give a pay-off to the story.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the film and understand why they went with that ending, but it doesn't resolve the plot or the emotional character arcs of the main characters.  It stops rather than ends.

[Gfted1]

Annihilation

 

A cool plot concept that kinda went "meh" for me by the end.

[ktchong]

For clarification:

 

I have never read the Alita manga or seen its anime.  I am not a fan of any manga or anime or anything Japanese in general, except sushi and sashimi.  I do not even like JRPG; in fact, I have said a few times in these forums that I hate JRPG.

 

I had never really enjoyed anything else made by the director, Robert Rodriguez.  He had made some cheesy dumb kid movies, (i.e. the Spy Kids series,) film noir, (Sin City,) and slashers, (Machete;)  I  previously pegged him as a "B-movie" director. 

 

Moreover, the Alita movie had some controversy about the casting: the director Rodriguez, who is Hispanic himself, cast Hispanics instead of Asians in many leading roles even though the source materials are Asian/Japanese.  That seemed to be a tribal and self-serving casting decision. However, later I googled and found out the setting of the story was set in a futuristic Los Angeles, so it would make sense for the characters to be Hispanic (or white) for a story that was set in North America. (I live near Los Angeles, and the population is mostly Hispanic.)

 

I brought up the casting in Alita to make a comparison to the recent Ghost in the Shell movie starring the very Caucasian, very white Scarlett Johansson as... "Motoko Kusanagi".  That movie had too many conspicuous out-of-place white Caucasian characters with full Japanese names living, working and blending in a Japanese society. Many of those characters were Caucasian yet worked as undercover agents in a Japanese city filled with Japanese people. I actually googled to check if any Caucasian or white people had ever worked as a police in Japan - and confirmed that, nope, no Caucasian or white person has ever been hired or worked as a police in Japan.   Never.  Yet, somehow audiences were supposed to overlook that fact and suspend our disbelief for Ghost in the Shell, to believe those white Caucasian police officers, especially Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi could work as an undercover officers, easily blend into a Japanese population but somehow did not stick out like a sore thumb among everyone else who were Asian, shorter and rounder.

 

The worst thing about Ghost in the Shell was the film knew it was threading on shaky ground, and then it tried to offer an explanation near the end of the movie as to why Scarlett Johansson's character, with a full Japanese name, living in a Japanese city, working undercover as a Japanese police, was white and Caucasian instead of Japanese. Unfortunately, the explanation at the end came off as insulting and patronizing to Asians, which only made the awkward situation even worse than the casting controversies.

 

Anyway, my point for bringing up Ghost in the Shell as a comparison is this: in the Alita movie, it actually made sense and felt natural for the characters to be Hispanic and Caucasian, because those races fit into the setting and story, because the location and setting were in North America. (Unlike, let say, a white female Caucasian cop working undercover in a Japanese city filled with Japanese people in Ghost in the Shell - which made no sense or whatsoever, and I was never able to get past that huge elephant in the room or suspend my disbelief for the entirety of the movie; it just kept bothering me at the back of my head throughout the whole movie: "wait, she is white; why hasn't anyone else who's Asian noticed she is white in Japan??!?")

 

Anyway, I had read that Alita also had a similar casting controversy as Ghost of the Shell did, so I did go into Alita with negative feelings due to my negative experience with Ghost in the Shell, (even though the controversy was unwarranted for Alita but absolutely warranted for Ghost in the Shell.) Yet, I saw Alita and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Another thing: before I saw Ghost in the Shell, I had heard the term "cultural appropriation".  I had always thought that term was silly and did not make a lot of sense.  Then, when I was watching Ghost in the Shell, I saw all those white people with Japanese names, wearing Japanese kinomos, drinking Japanese tea, eating Japanese meals, sitting on floor like Japanese.  They acted like FAKE Japanese, except none of them was actually Japanese, and they did not and could not even spoke Japanese.   I thought, "this is so dumb andd painful to watch, all these white people are acting so fake and inappropriate within the Japanese cultural context... oh wait, cultural inappropriate!  I finally get why they call it cultural appropriation!  Because it so cultural inappropriate for all these dumb white people to act like fake Japanese!"

 

Thank goodness Alita has a Western sounding name, and her name is not like... I dunno, Yoko or something.

Edited February 19, 2019 by ktchong

[ktchong]

[injurai]

Annihilation

 

A cool plot concept that kinda went "meh" for me by the end.

 

The ending goes similarly to things like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, where the ending is avant-garde and meant to be representative of transcendence. Though I actually liked how it was done in Annihilation way more. Even better though are the ways Interstellar and The Fountain have both skimmed notions of transcendence without leaving an empty mic-drop that doesn't really close off the main thrust of the story. Annihilation closes out the plot of rescue, but basically leaves all the interesting and unique facets of the story as loose ends.

 

Though it does make me want to read the rest of the series to get a better sense how things fit together.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Alita: Battle Angel. Thought it was great. But then I'm biased as I've been reading the manga when it first came out in the early 90s, have the anime on dvd and a couple of original statues. It's been my favourite manga and in my top five comic series of all time.

 

The box office earnings look terrible and I'd say it's failed domestically in the U.S. The foreign box office would be the only thing that could save this but even then I think they'd be lucky to break even. James Cameron said he wanted to do three movies. I'm not hopeful for a sequel let alone three movies in all which I find to be such a disappointment.

[Gromnir]

 

 

This is amazing.

 

whenever we see blue will, we cannot help but wonder, "why didn't he listen to mr. wonka?"

 

HA! Good Fun!