The New Cinema and Movie Thread

[majestic]

Yeah, I guess I really am an alien. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow's CGI doesn't even try to pass itself off as real, and therefore is infinitely better than the CGI animals in Prey. The film looks like an animated version of a early 20ies/30ies sci-fi movie with a campy 50ies storyline. It is absolutely perfect in what it tried to achieve. Actually, if CGI was exclusively used for films like that, I'd sit here arguing for more instead of less.

Is it a good film? Well, probably not. But it's simply wonderful.

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

But to @Gorgon's point, the age of big budget films not looking like a gross/uncanny CGI disaster is pretty much over. Smaller and more grounded films may look good for what they are, but those types of movies aren't ever going to be like...epic action, fantasy, or sci-fi films, you know? So if that's the type of thing that you like (as opposed to someone like me with a taste for relatively simple, character-driven stuff that doesn't really much need special effects), I could totally understand feeling as though movies are pretty much dead. It's not too different from what we're personally familiar with in regards to pathetic modern Japanese animation...or really even the sorry state of triple-A gaming right now: while the particular issues are different, that dread feeling of the entire medium having moved beyond you is largely the same.

I was thinking of high budget movies in general, and there are those that are still shot on film, like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I've never watched because I generally find myself not liking Tarantino films (in spite of them usually being more character and dialoge driven than regular films, I guess there's something about his style that simply doesn't speak to me). In epic action, fantasy or sci-fi films, even the big budget titles that don't look terrible fall flat because they're terrible for other reasons. The Force Awakens for instance had good sets instead of everything being CGI like in the prequels, but the film itself was creatively bankrupt to the point where it make Return of the Jedi's reuse of the Death Star looks like a vibrant, fresh idea.

But yes, that mirrors the issue with triple-A gaming and (Japanese) animation, but I still think film is still in a better place than either anime or triple-A gaming. Anime often panders to the lowest common denominator in a way that just wouldn't be acceptable in film any more and employes rote tropes and stereotypical characters to that end, and modern character design looks gross and adds a malus to that needs to be overcome by everything else being better than it otherwise would need to be. Triple-A gaming does the same, with a different focus group.

Films? Yes, the overwhelming amount of films that come out are trash, and there's a new dime a dozen romantic comedy or superhero film out every day. Yet, still, there's usually a bunch of servicable or better films in any given genre per year of varying budgets. The writing's on the wall, of course, with everything in the streaming world heading towards an inflationary period where everything is simply being drowned in mediocre trash to keep people subbed to a hundred different services.

Subjectively, I had more success finding various films I enjoyed that were made recently than either games or anime. Actually a bunch of pretty good ones came out last year or this year. However, as per the initial part of this post, I guess my subjectivity isn't worth much to actual people.

On 8/20/2022 at 1:15 AM, Keyrock said:

What I'm trying to say is that I will sometimes rate action schlock movies that are conventionally bad higher than average schlock if they are bad in an entertaining and/or memorable way. Take this with a grain of salt, given that I am a lover of terrible movies.

Don't misunderestimate (lol ) me here, I do enjoy the occasional so bad it is good film, and I have Masters of the Universe in my top 10 movies of all time list for a reason. Fire Birds isn't one of those, and Top Gun - at least the first one - isn't a bad film by any metric when looking at what it is, factoring in genre conventions of the time and adjusting your expectations accordingly. Something that is much easier when one is provided with contrast in the context of said conventions.

It sure feels outdated nowadays and probably aged less gracefully than other films, but that is something else entirely.

Still perfectly valid to not like Top Gun. I hated being forced to watch Bridget Jones's Diary too, but the film is arguably a good romantic comedy if one likes that sort of thing.

Edited August 20, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). This is a fascinating method of drinking from a bottle, though not one I think I'll be trying any time soon:

What I've learned from this film is that if you're ever going to double-cross someone, you should be certain that they're dead before you wander off, otherwise you might be caught in an endless loop of revenge and more double-crossing.

3 hours ago, majestic said:

movies vs. games vs. animation

In my specific case, you're right: there's nothing that's fundamentally wrong with new movies that will prevent me from enjoying them wholesale, whereas with the other two, well...exceptions are very rare. For someone who has different preferences and priorities (possibly Gorth?), that may not be the case, though.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

The Dollars trilogy were my favorite Westerns growing up (Westerns were huge in my family) but I don't think I've seen any of them in since I was a teen. The Re:View of The Good, the Bad, the Ugly made me want to rewatch them all.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

The Dollars trilogy were my favorite Westerns growing up (Westerns were huge in my family) but I don't think I've seen any of them in since I was a teen. The Re:View of The Good, the Bad, the Ugly made me want to rewatch them all.

Westerns are not really my cup of tea, but I thought it was enjoyable (albeit somewhat indulgent - it's a long movie!). I decided to watch it so that I could watch the RLM re:View. I guess I should also say that I watched the Italian dub (2:54 run-time "Mondo Restoration") because the English dub was...um, pretty bad/wacky on the whole? Maybe the Italian was as well, but it worked much better to my ears. I kept switching between them for like the first twenty minutes of the film (well, once dialogue started at all anyways), and felt like I didn't really have a choice in selecting the Italian. Probably gave it a somewhat different tone compared to the English.

(e): The re:View is much more enjoyable and interesting after having watched the film than it would've been without it, I think.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

While I love The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I still think A Fistful of Dollars is the best movie in the trilogy, and not just because it's a ripoff homage to one of my favorite movies ever, Yojimbo.

[Malcador]

Always found it interesting how they never seemed to show For a Few Dollars More on TV as near as often as the other two. As if they wanted to cover it up or something.

 

[Keyrock]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Always found it interesting how they never seemed to show For a Few Dollars More on TV as near as often as the other two. As if they wanted to cover it up or something.

 

I think it's the weakest of the 3, though still a highly enjoyable movie.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

While I love The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I still think A Fistful of Dollars is the best movie in the trilogy, and not just because it's a ripoff homage to one of my favorite movies ever, Yojimbo.

If RLM ends up doing a re:View of A Fistful of Dollars (mentioned by them as a possibility), I'll probably watch that one too. There doesn't look to be an Italian dub version of A Few Dollars More (or at least not one easily available), which might make that one a tougher sell if they end up doing that instead. I really have trouble listening to English when the vocal delivery just isn't quite right, whereas I don't know enough of what Italian should sound like to know whether they're doing it correctly, .

I should watch some of those classic crazy Japanese films someday.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

11 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If RLM ends up doing a re:View of A Fistful of Dollars (mentioned by them as a possibility), I'll probably watch that one too. There doesn't look to be an Italian dub version of A Few Dollars More (or at least not one easily available), which might make that one a tougher sell if they end up doing that instead. I really have trouble listening to English when the vocal delivery just isn't quite right, whereas I don't know enough of what Italian should sound like to know whether they're doing it correctly, .

I should watch some of those classic crazy Japanese films someday.

If you watch A Fistful of Dollars (and even if you don't) you should absolutely watch Yojimbo. It's easily my favorite Toshiro Mifune performance ever, and that's really saying something. The movie (and its Italian ripoff homage) is absolutely dripping with delicious cynicism. The Criterion Collection blu-ray I own is Japanese with English subtitles, as it should be.

I really need to read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest some day so I can judge for myself whether Yojimbo is an adaptation of it, as is debated (but never confirmed).

[Gromnir]

11 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Westerns are not really my cup of tea,

a few o' our all-time favorite movies is westerns. would include: the searchers, the treasure of the sierra madre, red river, the wild bunch. searchers is invariably top-ten for us and the other two are not far behind. a half dozen or more other westerns is vying for recognition and we have a hard time explaining why high noon, the ox-bow incident, the gun fighter and others ain't included with our top four. 

the thing is, many films and shows you perhaps don't think o' as westers is, or were at least western homage/influenced. kurosawa were heavily influenced by american westerns, as well as film noir and shakespeare. have mentioned previous how outland were effective high noon in space. if you like the mandalorian... etc. 

is also not the same thing, but if you like tarantino, then sergio leone is obvious a huge influence.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorgon]

Criterion streaming looks interesting.  It works with a VPN supposedly.

There are a bunch of lesser known Samurai drama on there too. Kurosawa's are all very western inspired. 

 

[Keyrock]

7 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

kurosawa were heavily influenced by american westerns, as well as film noir and shakespeare.

Ran is an adaptation of King Lear.

[Gorgon]

On Quintin Tarantino. I don't think he's a genius or anything, but he does tend to be entertaining. And the shooting on real film snobbery is appreciated when most other things that come out are so low effort. 

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

is also not the same thing, but if you like tarantino, then sergio leone is obvious a huge influence.

Unfortunately, like @majestic, I very much dislike Tarantino. Another case of a director whose work is technically impressive, usually quite amusing, and seemingly well-written...and yet who leaves me feeling completely empty inside after seeing anything by him. His films are a bit like riding a rollercoaster for me: it's exciting enough while it's happening, but not much of note otherwise. I have not seen a single one of the films (or The Mandalorian) that you listed - a hearty combination of ignorance of and not much interest in the genre, I would think.

Of all the films I would qualify as being a favorite of mine, I feel as though there is very little Western influence in any of them. And even if there is, it's probably what I would consider to either be irrelevant to why I like it or possibly even the weaker and less interesting components of whatever film it is. Here are my top 50 non-TV films (warning: somewhat dominated by animated films, particularly at the top...I'm very much an animation person more than anything else), see if you can quickly identify anything as being particularly Western-influenced:

Spoiler

NOTE: Not quite an exact order, because they're technically arranged by "tiers" where certain films occupy the same "range" within a tier, but it's good enough for this purpose.

Whisper of the Heart [1995]
Only Yesterday [1991]
12 Monkeys [1995]
The Florida Project [2017]
Perfect Blue [1997]
Millennium Actress [2001]
Mulan [1998]
Beauty and the Beast [1991]
12 Angry Men [1957]
Everything Everywhere All at Once [2022]
WALL·E [2008]
Tokyo Godfathers [2003]
Pom Poko [1994]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [2001]
Chicken Run [2000]
My Neighbor Totoro [1988]
Frozen [2013]
The Thing [1982]
Rosemary's Baby [1968]
Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers [1993]
Grave of the Fireflies [1988]
Heathers [1989]
Monty Python and the Holy Grail [1975]
Howl's Moving Castle [2004]
Alien [1979]
Parasite [2019]
The Lighthouse [2019]
The Children's Hour [1961]
Little Man Tate [1991]
Angel's Egg [1985]
Kiki's Delivery Service [1989]
Psycho [1960]
Shrek [2001]
Like the Clouds, Like the Wind [1990]
Diary of a Lost Girl [1929]
Memories [1995]
The Tragedy of Man [2011]
The Little Mermaid [1989]
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [1975]
The Handmaiden [2016]
Crusher Joe [1989]
Watership Down [1978]
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [1984]
The Witch: A New-England Folktale [2015]
Brazil [1985]
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory [1971]
Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave [1995]
Galaxy Quest [1999]
Ghost in the Shell [1995]
Viridiana [1961]

Fun fact: a good bit more of my top 50 films were made before I was born than after. I wonder how often that happens for people, particularly given how much of a hassle it usually is (relatively speaking) to watch older movies.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

19 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Galaxy Quest [1999]

Watched enough Star Trek for the parody to work? I loved Galaxy Quest, but I'm not sure if that film is interesting at all without it working as intended.

Other than that:

Spoiler

Always nice to see someone recognize that WALL·E is Pixar's best work. I think there's a bunch of tasteless hacks on this forum that would disagree.

Usual and obligatory comment on the Dollars 'trilogy' whenever it comes up:

Like some of the commenters on the RL re:View video, I think Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's best film, even if Clint Eastwood would probably have been a better main character than Charles Bronson - but alas, one can't have everything, right? Casting Henry Fonda as the villain was a bold choice, and from what I recall from interviews one of the biggest reasons Henry Fonda took the role in the first place. Doing something else for a change.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)

It's not really a one-take film as it claims so much as edited to appear that way, but semantics aside it is ****ing fantastic. Probably one of the best films I've seen this year.

[Bartimaeus]

25 minutes ago, majestic said:

Watched enough Star Trek for the parody to work? I loved Galaxy Quest, but I'm not sure if that film is interesting at all without it working as intended.

I first watched Galaxy Quest when I was probably like...six or seven years old? My mom then made me re-watch it probably a hundred more times...and then a whole bunch of random bits and pieces of Star Trek: TNG and Voyager over the succeeding decade. Like with Holy Grail, you can consider it a form of childhood bias - the only difference between them (plus a few others like The Fellowship of the Ring, Beauty and the Beast...) and most of the other stuff that she made me re-watch a million times (e.g. the Indiana Jones films, the original Star Wars trilogy, A Christmas Story, The Goonies, and a pile of other random crap) is that re-visiting them as an adult still yields a "ok actually this is really good" reaction from me, hence why it and other exceptions rate higher than the rest. You can probably thank the cast and the characters they played for that (particularly, I'd say, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver).

25 minutes ago, majestic said:

WALL·E

I get why other people don't like it, and that's okay. There are certain thematic, character, and setting elements that make it work for me where pretty much no other Pixar film does. Literally every other Pixar film has some kind of fatal flaw in at least one of those areas that makes it impossible for me to get into them nearly as much as I did WALL-E, but they're probably all things that literally nobody else cares about. I've always been a pretty big Pixar hater outside of WALL-E, even back when practically everyone insisted they were chef's kiss (pre-2010).

8 minutes ago, KP From Another World said:

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)

It's not really a one-take film as it claims so much as edited to appear that way, but semantics aside it is ****ing fantastic. Probably one of the best films I've seen this year.

I was really hoping that film was only 2 minutes long so I could watch it right now, .

(e): I see that it was directed by the same person that made One Cut of the Dead, which I liked. Hmm.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

46 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

Of all the films I would qualify as being a favorite of mine, I feel as though there is very little Western influence in any of them. 

  Reveal hidden contents

NOTE: Not quite an exact order, because they're technically arranged by "tiers" where certain films occupy the same "range" within a tier, but it's good enough for this purpose.

Whisper of the Heart [1995]
Only Yesterday [1991]
12 Monkeys [1995]
The Florida Project [2017]
Perfect Blue [1997]
Millennium Actress [2001]
Mulan [1998]
Beauty and the Beast [1991]
12 Angry Men [1957]
Everything Everywhere All at Once [2022]
WALL·E [2008]
Tokyo Godfathers [2003]
Pom Poko [1994]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [2001]
Chicken Run [2000]
My Neighbor Totoro [1988]
Frozen [2013]
The Thing [1982]
Rosemary's Baby [1968]
Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers [1993]
Grave of the Fireflies [1988]
Heathers [1989]
Monty Python and the Holy Grail [1975]
Howl's Moving Castle [2004]
Alien [1979]
Parasite [2019]
The Lighthouse [2019]
The Children's Hour [1961]
Little Man Tate [1991]
Angel's Egg [1985]
Kiki's Delivery Service [1989]
Psycho [1960]
Shrek [2001]
Like the Clouds, Like the Wind [1990]
Diary of a Lost Girl [1929]
Memories [1995]
The Tragedy of Man [2011]
The Little Mermaid [1989]
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [1975]
The Handmaiden [2016]
Crusher Joe [1989]
Watership Down [1978]
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [1984]
The Witch: A New-England Folktale [2015]
Brazil [1985]
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory [1971]
Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave [1995]
Galaxy Quest [1999]
Ghost in the Shell [1995]
Viridiana [1961]

 

obvious entries which leap forward is tokyo godfathers, shrek, crusher joe, nausicaä of the valley of the wind,  ghost in the shell and mulan. am not even a hardcore film historian, so am suspecting others is gonna recognize more.

am thinking is ez to confuse trappings o' westerns with what were fundamental elements. mulan may be based on a traditional chinese story, but the storytelling is far more reliant on american western traditions. just one element, but is no way eddie murphy character is in mulan w/o american westerns. and tokyo godfathers were just too ez to identify. do a search on influences for tokyo godfathers if you are confused. 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I was really hoping that film was only 2 minutes long so I could watch it right now, .

(e): I see that it was directed by the same person that made One Cut of the Dead, which I liked. Hmm.

Unfortunately infinite two minutes is like an hour and a half. On the bright side, infinite confirmed to not be all it's cracked up to be.

I haven't seen One Cut of the Dead but it looks great.

[Bartimaeus]

50 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

obvious entries which leap forward is tokyo godfathers, shrek, crusher joe, nausicaä of the valley of the wind,  ghost in the shell and mulan. am not even a hardcore film historian, so am suspecting others is gonna recognize more.

Okay, funnily, Shrek, Nausicaa, and Mulan were the three that I thought were maybe possibilities, but again, my ignorance of the genre limits me in being able to determine that, and it definitely limits me in being able to tell if the Western influence is something I appreciate in them anyways. Mulan, for instance, I largely don't care about the dramatic action sequences, Hunnic invasion stuff, the particular musical cues, filmography choices and such...I love Mulan the character, her story, and the interactions with the rest of the characters. Those elements don't hurt the film by any means, but if they're not what I really care about, then it feels a little besides the point. But I definitely did not think of Tokyo Godfathers (...or Crusher Joe/Ghost in the Shell, for that matter...but I guess Crusher Joe is pretty Star War-sy, which of course has roots in westerns, so that one makes some sense after having it pointed out at least - yay for arguing from a place of ignorance!).

@KP From Another World Maybe I'll check it out. Does it carry an official recommendation to specifically me?

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Maybe I'll check it out. Does it carry an official recommendation to specifically me?

No, but go ahead and give it a shot.

[Hurlshort]

As much as Bart derides my taste in movies, I wonder how he feels about the fact that my end of the year movie for my students is Galaxy Quest? The kids groan about the choice for about 10 minutes, and then they are onboard for the best scifi flick ever made.  

[Bartimaeus]

31 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

As much as Bart derides my taste in movies, I wonder how he feels about the fact that my end of the year movie for my students is Galaxy Quest? The kids groan about the choice for about 10 minutes, and then they are onboard for the best scifi flick ever made.  

Hey, I don't deride your tastes in movies. Well, not much...publicly, anyways, . I'm about to start deriding your recent usage of those lousy art style emojis if you don't stop with that nonsense, though. Who in their right freaking mind would use that crap over the legacy emoticons? Some of us have eyes, man!

Well, that's the nice thing about Galaxy Quest: it has a good emotional core driven by its characters, strong performances from its cast in their respective roles, some clever but also cliched humor played tongue-in-cheek with regards to its nature as a semi-parody...and some sci-fi silliness and action to top it all off. What more could you ask for from a film of this type?

Spoiler

Seriously, who the hell wants to look at...

...instead of your classic...

?

Tasteless psychopaths, that's who.

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

21 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

 Mulan, for instance, I largely don't care about the dramatic action sequences, Hunnic invasion stuff, the particular musical cues, filmography choices and such...I love Mulan the character, her story, and the interactions with the rest of the characters. Those elements don't hurt the film by any means, but if they're not what I really care about, then it feels a little besides the point.

maybe you are getting distracted by the typical trappings and elements o' american westerns, which is reasonable 'cause when you look at definitions o' an american western you is gonna see reference to the setting and most people think o' the shootouts and the common themes and the cliché bad guys.

tokyo godfathers is a good example o' how perhaps what many persons believe is integral to how american westerns influenced movie-making in general might be missing the mark, yes? while tokyo godfathers is inspired by an american western, it don't have any o' those aspects you think o' when you reflect 'pon what is a western, yes? kubrick were influenced much by john huston's the treasure o' the sierra madre, but is not gonna be a kubrick western found in his catalog... though were a close miss with one film. scorsese is hardly an outlier when he describes the influence o' the searchers on his efforts, and is probable not the stuff you consider when you think o' westerns which were most meaningful to a young martin watching the searchers for the first time.

warning: watch only if you never intend o seeing the searchers. 

now admitted, the searchers were kinda unique in a number o' ways and it don't represent all or even most westerns, but what american westerns brought to film weren't just film techniques and cowboys v. indians;  the influence they had were were more far-reaching than you might expect. am willing to bet that most o' the writers and directors o' the films you like best were heavily influenced by american westerns and if not directly, then by their admiration for guys like scorsese and kubrick who were direct influenced by westerns.

HA! Good Fun!

[Amentep]

23 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow came out in 2004, so it was exactly 18 years ago that CGI became terrible.

But...SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is awesome.

"...lens cap."

I hate that the planned sequel got scrapped.