The Cinema and Movie Thread

[majestic]

  

9 hours ago, Amentep said:

Did everyone get tired of James Cameron all of a sudden?

Nah, but that's personal preference and attention span, I guess. Both Terminator and Alien are more grounded (as far as sci-fi films go) than their more action laden sequels. The first Alien also has the advantage of Ridley Scott's attention to detail and ability to set scenes. His more recent movies might be lacking in everything else, but that's still one of his biggest strengths.

In film snob circles it's heresey to not prefer Terminator to the sequel and Alien to Aliens.

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I have to be honest with you - although I've actually for real seen both Matrix 2: Redevilutionizer and Matrix 3: Resonancecascadization, I am having the darnest time trying to remember what happens in one versus the other. All I'm remembering are small details like...Neo being stuck in some kind of train station loop, some really awful meme-y looking martial artists, a white room with a billion cameras...I think that's the second one. The third one is just a billion Agent Smiths and the giant mech defense of whatever the hell the human sanctuary was called? Icon? Cyclon? ...Ah, screw it, it's not worth remembering anyways.

The train station (helpfully called "Limbo") is from the third one, like the billion Smiths and the terribly boring mech defense, and the room with all the screens is from the second, and yeah, I know you're being facetious here, but I can't help myself. City is of course called Zion, because why not, it certainly fits the whole Chosen One narrative the films have going on.

The third one fell completely flat for me because I figured out how it will end after Neo had his talk with the Architect in the second. Also wasn't too terribly interested in this hybrid Eastern/Western philosophy and religion motif they came up with. The Matrix sequels are what happens when the Wachowskis try to come up with a Western equivalent of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which for all its problems, does everything better than the Matrix sequels. Probably becaues it doesn't try to fuse Judeo-Christian mythology and the quest for the holy grail with Nietzschean philosophy and Buddhism.

Funny how watching something completely unrelated makes something already awful even worse.

7 hours ago, KP Cross Split Attack said:

I have never seen any Gremlins movie. I guess I should remedy that someday.

Huh, not sure how they would hold up for a first viewing in 2021, but they were great fun. The basic premise is about as stupid as the one in the Matrix - don't feed Gremlins after midnight (midnight where?) makes no sense, just like using humans as batteries makes none, but that's just something you need to gloss over because otherwise the films fall apart. Well, Matrix more than Gremlins.

7 hours ago, Keyrock said:

The lesson here is: Don't make your protagonist a god at the end of the first movie if you intend on making a franchise.

Or at least cut down on the action sequences inside the Matrix, and cut down on the stupid action sequences outside of the Matrix too, then focus on one philosophical topic instead of them all. In other words, make a completely different film, then it could work.

6 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Fun Fact: Pitch Black is the 3rd best Aliens movie. 

That's basically wrong, but also correct. Pitch Black is a fantastic little indie film that had the unfortunate side effect of spawning the Riddick franchise. I enjoyed the films in the "so bad they're good" sort of way and there's a reason I'm referring to Karl Urban as Lord Eomer Vaako McCoy, but... yeah. That's just me.

[Lexx]

My "problem" with Aliens over Alien is that Aliens is a completely different movie genre. It's not a worse or better movie to me, just completely different.

[Raithe]

34 minutes ago, Lexx said:

My "problem" with Aliens over Alien is that Aliens is a completely different movie genre. It's not a worse or better movie to me, just completely different.

That's part of what makes it work to my mind.

A sequel where they take the original idea and try something slightly different from it while expanding the "universe" as a whole. Instead of just redoing the first film "bigger".  Switching genres is an interesting way to play with it, and lets it stand more on its own merits, plus it gives you interesting way to do character growth and evolution from the ones who survived the first film.

Which is also one of the things I actually admire about The Chronicles of Riddick as well. So take of that what you will.

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

 In film snob circles it's heresey to not prefer Terminator to the sequel and Alien to Aliens.

Weird, the film snob circles I know of wouldn't touch a fantasy, sci-fi or horror genre film with a 10-foot pole.

FWIW, I thought Pitch Black and Riddick were really good. Chronicles had elements I liked and some I didn't, but killing off all the characters from Pitch Black pointlessly never sat well with me.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

Weird, the film snob circles I know of wouldn't touch a fantasy, sci-fi or horror genre film with a 10-foot pole.

 

am having similar experience, with noteworthy infrequent exceptions such as the green knight, the seventh seal and a few other films, particular old stuff such as metropolis... 'cause somehow film snob's reflexive lip curl at the mention o' sci-fi or fantasy suffers a kinda selective amnesia regarding a few o' the most groundbreaking films o' all-time.

HA! Good Fun!

ps amentep has heard us rail more than once 'bout the worthlessness o' the genre labels which didn't actual exist until publishers o' pulp magazines magazines and book sellers embraced 'em. am not certain why people are so wedded to the labels, but such has indeed resulted in the the self-identified snobs feeling inexplicable justified in dismissing movies which share a few elements common attributed to sci-fi or fantasy.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Gromnir

[Lexx]

Joke's on you people for being close to such film snob circles.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

One of the weirdest things about (certain) film snobs is how they'll dismiss genre films out of hand but go nuts for biopics. Are they too dumb or lazy to read a bookWikipedia article and need to have their education fed to them through a movie?

[Keyrock]

Dismissing any genre is a pretty terrible elitist attitude and that goes for all manner of media. There are genres I don't gravitate towards but I certainly don't think of them as being beneath me. I can not like a genre yet still see the value in it.

[Raithe]

13 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Dismissing any genre is a pretty terrible elitist attitude and that goes for all manner of media. There are genres I don't gravitate towards but I certainly don't think of them as being beneath me. I can not like a genre yet still see the value in it.

Twilight Fan Fiction is pretty much its own genre even now.

Note: Also, My Little Pony Fan Fiction / Slash Fiction / Torture Erotica.   Yes, there are things I really wish I didn't know about the internet.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Raithe

[Keyrock]

3 minutes ago, Raithe said:

Twilight Fan Fiction is pretty much its own genre even now.

It's not my jam and I'm going to take the piss out of Twilight when the opportunity presents itself, but there are tons of teenagers that get a lot of enjoyment out of those books and movies and that's great.

[Raithe]

3 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

It's not my jam and I'm going to take the piss out of Twilight when the opportunity presents itself, but there are tons of teenagers that get a lot of enjoyment out of those books and movies and that's great.

I'm a firm believer in people getting their geek on about whatever it is. It just has those aspects that make me think a lot of those teenagers are picking up the wrong lessons of what relationships should be from them.

Then again, I never think of Romeo and Juliet as romantic. I see it as Shakespeare doing moody teenage angst melodrama warnings.

[Lexx]

I thought the landscapes in the Twilight movies were pretty nice.

[Keyrock]

I'm a big rasslin' fan, people poke fun at that all the time, and rightly so, it's grown men and women with spray tans and very little clothing pretending to fight. I poke fun at fandoms whenever the chance presents itself, whether it's furries, Star Wars fans, or whatever. Ultimately if that's what you get enjoyment out of, that's cool.

I will draw a line at thing like lolis, because that's getting dangerously close to child pornography, and snuff films, since actual murder took place.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Keyrock
grammar

[Malcador]

26 minutes ago, Raithe said:

Twilight Fan Fiction is pretty much its own genre even now.

Note: Also, My Little Pony Fan Fiction / Slash Fiction / Torture Erotica.   Yes, there are things I really wish I didn't know about the internet.

The MLP 40k stuff should be made if only to trigger 40k fans.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

44 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Dismissing any genre is a pretty terrible elitist attitude and that goes for all manner of media. There are genres I don't gravitate towards but I certainly don't think of them as being beneath me. I can not like a genre yet still see the value in it.

In general I agree, a good movie is a good movie regardless of genre. I think my biggest issue with the whole film snob anti-genre attitude is how some of the films they love are equally as ridiculous as some sci-fi schlock or b-movie horror madness. It all seems very arbitrary and lacking self-awareness.

[Malcador]

https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/

Last film I watched was John Wick 3, only hearing issues with dialogue were due to the gunfire.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Dismissing any genre is a pretty terrible elitist attitude and that goes for all manner of media. There are genres I don't gravitate towards but I certainly don't think of them as being beneath me. I can not like a genre yet still see the value in it.

Realizing that some things are simply not for you and not making an instant "THIS IS BAD AND I AM SUPERIOR" judgement call is a pretty important step for civil conversation about media. But that part can be pretty difficult for a lot of people, including even myself at times. The whole feel-good action adventure genre, including your Star Wars and your Indiana Jones, your Goonies, and...whatever else, is probably a genre that's never going to quite fully appeal to me for various reasons, but I still recognize plenty of good things about them and understand why they're so often so many people's favorite movies even when I still don't enjoy them nearly as much as others. I might dunk a lot on some of the...lesser or outright bad entries of those series, but that's because it's just so incredibly easy as they're actually just not very good and there is so much ammo to go around - you won't see me talking much smack about the original Star Wars or Indiana Jones trilogies anytime soon.

Spoiler

Not that there would be literally no criticisms to be had about them, of course - but when a movie's good, it's good, even when there are invariably some obvious mistakes, oversights, and small bits of missed potential when given the incredibly enigmatic power of hindsight, .

I also won't ever be making any comments on wrestling, soap operas, comedies, or...plenty of other stuff. Enjoy what you want to enjoy, and I'll try to do the same, excluding a rare inspired foray outside of my comfort zone here and then, which unfortunately sometimes leads to disaster where I am thrown down into the well again, .

P.S. Terminator > Terminator 2.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

7 hours ago, Amentep said:

Weird, the film snob circles I know of wouldn't touch a fantasy, sci-fi or horror genre film with a 10-foot pole.

You're right, if we're talking about actual film snobs and not the film snobs on the internet, but even that has been changing in recent years. A bit, at least. I was by far and large thinking of online discussions like this one, where the opinion overwhelmingly (in my experience) is that Alien is better than Aliens, Terminator is better than Terminator 2, and the first bad Indiana Jones movie wasn't Crystal Skull but The Last Crusade because it was too comedic and not gritty enough as an adventure film.

Yeah, don't look at me.

Also, I guess that would be different for a place like the Bioware forums, if they still existed. Not sure though. Never put up my tent there.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I also won't ever be making any comments on wrestling, soap operas, comedies, or...plenty of other stuff. Enjoy what you want to enjoy, and I'll try to do the same, excluding a rare inspired foray outside of my comfort zone here and then, which unfortunately sometimes leads to disaster where I am thrown down into the well again, .

There's good company down there. Plenty of films I could comment on that would land me back there, I'm sure. Just bring up Fargo... or almost anything by and with Mr. Tarantino. Like, go ahead and ask me what my opinion on Pulp Fiction is. Heh.

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by majestic

[Zoraptor]

Since Raithe mentioned Romeo and Juliet...

By any objective measure its plot is actively worse than pretty much any modern movie's and almost all modern media full stop. Massively contrived at all points, ludicrously contrived ending, maudlin, and the entire plot from meeting to falling in love to eloping to suicide with duels etc along the way takes place over- and this is literally, literally- one day.

If it wasn't 400+ years old, written by Bill the Bard, directed by [famous director] with [RSC alums] acting it would be laughed at by the elitists.

[Achilles]

On 12/4/2021 at 7:54 AM, Gromnir said:

am having similar experience, with noteworthy infrequent exceptions such as the green knight, the seventh seal and a few other films, particular old stuff such as metropolis... 'cause somehow film snob's reflexive lip curl at the mention o' sci-fi or fantasy suffers a kinda selective amnesia regarding a few o' the most groundbreaking films o' all-time.

HA! Good Fun!

ps amentep has heard us rail more than once 'bout the worthlessness o' the genre labels which didn't actual exist until publishers o' pulp magazines magazines and book sellers embraced 'em. am not certain why people are so wedded to the labels, but such has indeed resulted in the the self-identified snobs feeling inexplicable justified in dismissing movies which share a few elements common attributed to sci-fi or fantasy.

Hmm. Isn't "arthouse sci-fi" one of those worthless genre labels? Ala Ex Machina, Ad Astra, Gravity, Annihilation, etc?

[Keyrock]

2 hours ago, Achilles said:

Hmm. Isn't "arthouse sci-fi" one of those worthless genre labels? Ala Ex Machina, Ad Astra, Gravity, Annihilation, etc?

The term "arthouse sci-fi" immediately brings this image to my mind:

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

The term "arthouse sci-fi" immediately brings this image to my mind:

I'll go hit the shower now, and when I'm back I expect you to have edited in a Neil Breen picture, I mean, come on. Just... come on.

[Keyrock]

16 minutes ago, majestic said:

I'll go hit the shower now, and when I'm back I expect you to have edited in a Neil Breen picture, I mean, come on. Just... come on.

The work of visionary film genius Neil Breen is too important, too profound, and too life-altering to pigeonhole into any genre. Neil transcends traditional filmmaking definitions.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I'll go hit the shower now, and when I'm back I expect you to have edited in a Neil Breen picture, I mean, come on. Just... come on.

I would just be worried we'd see Breen's scrotum.

[Amentep]

Zardoz is an interesting film. I don't think it works, but it's still interesting.