The Blockbuster Oscar Bait Movie Thread

[Amentep]

Del Toro's Pinnoccio is for Netflix, not Disney.  It'll be animated via stop motion.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, injurai said:

I saw Beauty and the Beast in theater. Something felt off and sub-par the whole watch. It wasn't until I watched Lindsay Ellis' video that it really sank in just how bad they mangled the narrative. I think in the back of my mind I was sort of implicitly defaulting back to my conception of the film, and was leading myself along. When you really break down it's newly contextualized take, the whole thing becomes utterly hallow and nonsensical. Not that the original didn't have it's issues, but it was more of it's message being askew than it's foundational structure.

I watched Beauty and the Beast as sort of a "meme watch" with a friend. I knew that I was in for a bad time in the opening moments of the film where I learned that Emma Watson couldn't...err...well, it's not quite that she can't sing at all, but it was immediately obvious that she certainly should've never been picked for a musical role, much less the protagonist of one. It really only got worse from there. At least it gave us the Lindsay Ellis video on it.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Bartimaeus

[Zoraptor]

Haven't seen B&tB but I'd wager money Watson was at least a better singer than Russel Crowe- who actually does have singing experience- was in Les Mis.

[kirottu]

15 hours ago, Amentep said:

So far Rey has lost the fight she tried to pick with Snoke, didn't get the training she was looking for from Luke, and got saddled with Kylo Ren and Finn.  So I'd argue she's on trajectory to be just as much a loser as Anakin (lost the fight he tried to pick with Dooku and Obi-Wan, didn't get the relationship he wanted with Padme, was saddled with Jar Jar Binks) and Luke (lost the fight he tried to pick with Vader and Palpatine, didn't get the training he wanted from Yoda and didn't get the relationship he wanted with the Princess because she turned out to be his sister, and was saddled with C-3P0, the biggest buzzkill droid in the galaxy). All she needs really at this point is to pick another losing fight and to make a bad relationship choice, and they've given her three good candidates for the later, if not the former (Finn, Po, Ren). 

There's no way you can convince me that she lost against Snoke. Snoke got cut in half and she walked away. She lost a round against Snoke, but her side definitely won the fight. 

Wasn't the major theme of her training that she didn't need it? "All the ancient texts can't teach her anything she doesn't already know."  

[majestic]

Oh boy, so that line "a thousand generations live in you!" is meant literally, and Rey's really a clone with the experience of generations of Jedi loaded into her at creation. Kind of like a human holocron. >.<

[algroth]

5 hours ago, Amentep said:

Del Toro's Pinnoccio is for Netflix, not Disney.  It'll be animated via stop motion.

Oh! I assumed it'd be a Disney venture what with Del Toro working pretty closely with the Fox people and it being a property that I assumed to be owned by Disney. That sounds pretty cool.

[Gfted1]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Oh boy, so that line "a thousand generations live in you!" is meant literally, and Rey's really a clone with the experience of generations of Jedi loaded into her at creation. Kind of like a human holocron. >.<

That's almost word for word the plot of Wu Assassins.

[213374U]

16 hours ago, majestic said:

[auralnauts]

Thank you for this. I spent more than one hour last night watching their version of the saga.

Been the most I've enjoyed myself with Star Wars since Vader Sessions.

"Sigh. Would you like to buy some drugs, Larry?"

"Well, that's why I'm here!"

[Amentep]

8 hours ago, kirottu said:

There's no way you can convince me that she lost against Snoke. Snoke got cut in half and she walked away. She lost a round against Snoke, but her side definitely won the fight. 

Wasn't the major theme of her training that she didn't need it? "All the ancient texts can't teach her anything she doesn't already know."  

Ren defeated Snoke.   Ren and Rey beat the Red Guards though, so she wasn't completely worthless in that sequence, but she picked a fight with Snoke and lost and would have been dead or turned if not for Ren.  IMO that's a defeat for her even if she ultimately escaped with her life.  Based on your argument, you could argue that Luke defeated Palptine because he walked away from it (carrying Vader, who did all the heavy lifting in the defeat of Palptine).  Or that Anakin defeated Dooku because he walked away from it (despite his major contribution to the fight being loosing a limb).  Although I'm sure we can all agree Anakin clearly lost against Obi-Wan because he wasn't walking away from that de-feet.

I took the training to be less about Rey not needing training and more about Luke having come to the conclusion that he wasn't a teacher (and indeed doubting that teaching the Jedi ways was the right thing to do anymore).  If she knows good from evil, what more can books tell her about the light or dark side?

[Gromnir]

admission:

given a choice between a well-developed and character driven villain and a symbolic stand-in akin to grendel, am gonna choose character 99% o' the time. the thing is, the joker already exists.  try and reverse-engineer origins and understandable motivations is wasted effort and counter-productive.

@algroth your provided video, which we actual watched in spite of not having seen the 2017 film, does a fair job o' explaining concerns. thanks for sharing btw.  

now perhaps am misunderstanding joker film. maybe is a full on deconstruction o' comic book villains. the whole point is to subvert tropes and archetypes and whatnot. film joker is not batman's joker save for sharing name and aesthetic similarities. 

batman/stranger shows up in the final act only to beat mr. phoenix's character to edge o' death and whisper for the joker to sing of walls.

"grendel, grendel! you make the world by whispers, second by second. are you blind to that? whether you make it a grave or a garden of roses is not the point. feel the wall: is it not hard? he smashes me against it, breaks open my forehead. hard, yes! observe the hardness, write it down in careful runes. now sing of walls! sing!"

batman tears off the joker's arm with his bare hands. the world explodes in white-hot agony and arthur fleck stumbles out into the snow to die, but not before breaking the fourth wall and cursing the audience.

fin

*eye-roll*

am not seeing it.

HA! Good Fun!

[Amentep]

[LadyCrimson]

I haven't watched it yet, but I just noticed Clint Eastwood's "The Mule" is on HBO, a film I don't remember ever knowing it existed. I watched the trailer. My first thought was "he was old when he did that Grand Torino movie, but now he's REALLY old." 

He's still super awesome however (dunno if the movie is any good or not, just saying Clint is awesome) and I'm glad he never truly retires. I'll watch it with the hubster this weekend. When he finally passes, I'm going to do an Eastwood movie watching mega-marathon (there may be crying), some of which I haven't seen in 15-20 years.

[ShadySands]

 

 

[majestic]

On 8/29/2019 at 3:42 PM, 213374U said:

Thank you for this. I spent more than one hour last night watching their version of the saga.

Been the most I've enjoyed myself with Star Wars since Vader Sessions.

"Sigh. Would you like to buy some drugs, Larry?"

"Well, that's why I'm here!"

I love their music videos. In The Zone from Episode 2 is a work of genius.

 

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, ShadySands said:

video

 

as soon as andy garcia and denver were mentioned, our brain started loading up scenes from things to do in denver when you're dead. 

not a good movie, but it had a few fun scenes and more than one quotable moment.

but yeah, clint eastwood is old. he were old in gran torino and that were 2008.  is so old that he and ruth bader ginsburg look like twins, save for the height difference.  'course betty white is 96 or 97, yes?

apologies for the brobdingnagian proportions o' the video.

HA! Good Fun!

[algroth]

 

[Bartimaeus]

Steven Universe: The Movie. It was goofy and good and the ending was sort of paced all over the place, but given how unreasonably excited for it I was (which I refuse to get about virtually anything because of how frequently I am disappointed), I was happy with it.

[kirottu]

On 8/29/2019 at 4:56 PM, Amentep said:

Ren defeated Snoke.   Ren and Rey beat the Red Guards though, so she wasn't completely worthless in that sequence, but she picked a fight with Snoke and lost and would have been dead or turned if not for Ren.  IMO that's a defeat for her even if she ultimately escaped with her life.  Based on your argument, you could argue that Luke defeated Palptine because he walked away from it (carrying Vader, who did all the heavy lifting in the defeat of Palptine).  Or that Anakin defeated Dooku because he walked away from it (despite his major contribution to the fight being loosing a limb).  Although I'm sure we can all agree Anakin clearly lost against Obi-Wan because he wasn't walking away from that de-feet.

I took the training to be less about Rey not needing training and more about Luke having come to the conclusion that he wasn't a teacher (and indeed doubting that teaching the Jedi ways was the right thing to do anymore).  If she knows good from evil, what more can books tell her about the light or dark side?

Rey/Luke went in and tried to convince Ren/Vader to leave the dark side. The direct result of their convincing was Ren/Vader killing Snoke/Palpatine. It was their victory.

  

Edited September 3, 2019 by kirottu

[Gromnir]

8 hours ago, kirottu said:

Rey/Luke went in and tried to convince Ren/Vader to leave the dark side. The direct result of their convincing was Ren/Vader killing Snoke/Palpatine. It was their victory.

  

luke was annoying for the first couple movies. he were whiny, flawed and refused to take advice o' those with more experience, to his detriment. yeah, luke has moments o' competence in the first two movies, but those exist as a way to setup and magnify his failures.

rey, in spite o' being a junk scavenger on a remote world who ekes out a subsistence existence, is instantly competent/superior at everything. ignore advice o' merlin figure not matter 'cause whereas luke loses a hand and has world shattered, rey frees her boyfriend from snoke, the seeming biggest bad in the galaxy at the time. the comical wide-eyed stares and f'ing threatening luke with a f'ing lightsabre 'cause he won't answer her questions? is a horrible character on many levels, but y'know, 'cause she is cute, she gets a different standard. 

and is apparent both rey and luke sold their soul to the robot devil

blame on the direction, but there is nothing subtle 'bout the luke or rey performances. 

there were a time when growth were kinda the key to heroic character development, so is not shocking luke takes a long and difficult journey to become more than the whiny youth from episode iv. the problem for rey as a character is she started competent and were intuitive smarter than everybody else around her.  in the third movie rey ain't gonna overcome fears or prejudices or failures o' the past, 'cause she don't have any such flaws. kylo has obvious room for growth, but rey? no doubt she will come to terms with her past in the upcoming flick, but becoming even more supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is kinda lame. is the new norm o' lame.

...

am gonna offend a few folks with the following observation, but am thinking one unfortunate aspect o' our current culture which has artists and entertainers conscious o' the need to make female characters in all kinds o' mass media more capable, is that too many female characters is being cheated o' a chance for growth. is ok to start weak. is ok to begin a story with a female character who is flawed and ignorant and in need o' help. so cautious o' avoiding damsel-in-distress and double-standard that we end up with rey and wonder woman and ms. marvel being the expected and defensible norm. lame.

is ok to have a few super women characters in pop culture and entertainment as we have had many supermen over the years. unfortunate, is a terrible sameness to the predictable competence o' female protagonists nowadays. seeing as Gromnir has complained 'bout the male characters who is instagood at everything and have no real growth, would be unfair o' us to hold back on criticizing the new trend o' 2-d and soulless uberfrau.

HA! Good Fun!

[ManifestedISO]

6 hours ago, Gromnir said:

is ok to start weak. is ok to begin a story with a female character who is flawed and ignorant and in need o' help

HA! Good Fun!

 

not offended; appreciate perspective from the few remaining well-read

 

mentioned Ms. Marvel ... who is distinct from uberfrau Captain Marvel, in the form of a flawed, ignorant, and in need of help, teenaged kid from Jersey City ...

Kamala will get her own live-action on the Disney streaming service, which should be ostensibly incapable of continuing the noted instagood trend

some potential to avoid that terrible sameness: high-schooler with immediate family from Pakistan, gifted unwittingly, bit of a dork, no idea that, with great power must also come --

 

only bring it up because this character leapt off the page in a way Diana or Jen, Carol or Rey didn't quite ... as human, as flawed, sometimes weak, self-unassured, yet indomitable in spirit

[LadyCrimson]

Tried to watch Aquaman during the weekend. I got about half an hour in then turned it off. It's what you'd expect from such a film now but nothing you haven't seen already re: superhero origin stories and my eyes started to roll too often. The whole time I kept thinking this Aquaman sure looks like he could be a long lost sibling to Thor. I was also distracted the whole time with contemplating how much work it must be to CGI in all that underwater flowing hair.  :P

[Gromnir]

6 hours ago, ManifestedISO said:

not offended; appreciate perspective from the few remaining well-read

 

mentioned Ms. Marvel ... who is distinct from uberfrau Captain Marvel, in the form of a flawed, ignorant, and in need of help, teenaged kid from Jersey City ...

Kamala will get her own live-action on the Disney streaming service, which should be ostensibly incapable of continuing the noted instagood trend

some potential to avoid that terrible sameness: high-schooler with immediate family from Pakistan, gifted unwittingly, bit of a dork, no idea that, with great power must also come --

 

only bring it up because this character leapt off the page in a way Diana or Jen, Carol or Rey didn't quite ... as human, as flawed, sometimes weak, self-unassured, yet indomitable in spirit

too many marvels. we actual intended to reference mcu carol danvers and had a brain fart.  

HA! Good Fun!

ps captain marvel, for marvel, will for Gromnir always be the guy who died o' cancer.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Gromnir

[Guard Dog]

Just saw the trailers for the new Joker movie. Looks pretty good. 

[Amentep]

Marvel has seven Captain Marvels(!) so its understandable as to why they discussion of them can be confusing (and that's without even bringing in the two non-Marvel Captain Marvels).

I do think that there is sometimes a pull in media to try and present female characters as less flawed than similar male characters for fear that they aren't representing women well by creating a flawed character.  That said I think with Wonder Woman there's only so much room to maneuver in terms of the character and flaws. Carol Danvers has a hugely messed up backstory that in the comics has allowed her to be a flawed character when they transitioned her into the Captain Marvel role, but in the movie she mostly comes off as stubborn (but right to be stubborn) a trait she shares with Rey so far in the Star Wars films.

[Bartimaeus]

It (2017). It (ha!) was kind of bad. Almost everything felt off with this movie, and the horror elements were really comedic - I literally laughed at most of them. No tension or suspense in this one. Everyone except the main kids were unrealistically, gratingly awful, and even the main kids were not that great (and a couple of them I've literally already forgotten). I am shocked this got as much hype as it did.