Cinema and Movie Thread: flickering images

[Gfted1]

Theres only one way for strikers to succeed, by going full French. Fatcats wont peel any bills from their wads until the strikers riot, loot, and burn the towns they live in to the ground. Thatll show em. 

[Keyrock]

51 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Theres only one way for strikers to succeed, by going full French. Fatcats wont peel any bills from their wads until the strikers riot, loot, and burn the towns they live in to the ground. Thatll show em. 

[Keyrock]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt 1 - My first trip to a movie theater post pandemic. I don't know if I'll go again any time soon because $#!+'s expensive and I have a pretty good setup at home, but I don't regret going today because the movie was awesome. This might be the best of the MI movies, which is impressive given that they've mostly been good to great.

You know, Tom Cruise is a weird dude, he clearly has quite the ego, I mean he got a hilariously giant gold medal from Scientology, but God bless him for making these movies. God bless him for still making old skool action movies with real stunts in real locations. If there was any question of whether Tom Cruise could still do this at age 60, the answer is a resounding yes. Dude is still a fantastic action man and he delivers the goods here. This crazy mother****er jumped a motorcycle off a mountain. He didn't jump a motorcycle into a foam pit in front of a green screen, he jumped a motorcycle off a mountain, potentially multiple times (I don't know how many takes they did).

The movie is quite long, roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes, but it didn't feel 2 hours and 40 minutes, it felt more like and hour and 45 minutes. It never dragged, it was always engaging, thrilling and spectacular at times. There were some really great action sequences. There was a really long car chase that managed to be simultaneously comical and adrenaline pumping. There were great fight scenes that felt visceral. And don't you worry, there was plenty of Tom Cruise running. You always have to have Tom Cruise running. 

It seems like they may be setting up Hayley Atwell as Tom Cruise's replacement, or for a spinoff. I'm all for it, she was terrific as Grace. I would be totally down for her to be action woman. She was everything you would want in a leading action star; charming, witty, resourceful, even vulnerable at times, and it doesn't hurt that she's rather attractive. I would also welcome a prequel of sorts about her exploits as an international thief.

My only complaint is that Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames weren't in the movie enough, especially Ving Rhames. But, that's a small complaint in an otherwise terrific action movie.

[Raithe]

I always remember Danny Trejo's response on being asked about stuntwork.

Quote

I know that all the big stars hate me to say this, but I don’t want to risk 80 peoples’ jobs just to say I got big huevos on The Tonight Show. Because that’s what happens. I think a big star just sprained an ankle doing a stunt, and 80 or 180 people are out of a job… We have stunt people who do that stuff. And if they get hurt, I’m sorry to say but they just need to put a mustache on another Mexican and we can keep going. But if I get hurt, everybody’s out of a job. So I don’t choose to do that.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Raithe

[Keyrock]

My biggest takeaway from MI7 is that Hayley Atwell should be getting a lot more leading roles than she has been. She was Peggy Carter in Captain America and the Agent Carter show and then... What has she done since then? She should be an A-list Hollywood actor, she should be on the Jennifer Lawrence level, she's really good. I hope it's not too late for her, she's around 40, I think, and after a certain age the roles for women in Hollywood get rather narrow. It would be nice to see her be the lead in a few big blockbusters before she's relegated to just playing witches.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Keyrock

[Raithe]

Circa 1979...

 

Edit: Yes, I know, I was distracted and threw this in the wrong thread

Edited July 18, 2023 by Raithe

[Amentep]

 

[LadyCrimson]

Don't remember if I or someone posted the teaser trailer a while back, but the full "official" trailer is out now. It still looks potentially interesting. Original IP, not an over-inflated mega budget production ("only" 86 million! heh). Kinda rooting for it.
 

 

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Don't remember if I or someone posted the teaser trailer a while back, but the full "official" trailer is out now. It still looks potentially interesting. Original IP, not an over-inflated mega budget production ("only" 86 million! heh). Kinda rooting for it.
 

 

This looks great. I'm definitely rooting for it too.

[bugarup]

Trailer really wants us to remind us it's "From the director of Rogue One", but manipulative editing aside, methinks the director of Rogue One can do good things if he makes a decent main character and casts a  charismatic actor for it. Which he unfortunately didn't in Rogue One. Maybe this time. 

[Keyrock]

17 hours ago, Amentep said:

 

As a fan of 70s blaxploitation movies, and just exploitation movies in general, I like the look of this.

9 hours ago, bugarup said:

Trailer really wants us to remind us it's "From the director of Rogue One"

Is that supposed to be a selling point? Do people remember that movie fondly?

[Sarex]

32 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Is that supposed to be a selling point? Do people remember that movie fondly?

Probably the best Star Wars anything that has come out of Disney.

[Keyrock]

11 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Probably the best Star Wars anything that has come out of Disney.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

Do people remember that movie fondly?

Lots do, although may be helped a tad by the rest of the new Star Wars media being not that great.

[Keyrock]

I do believe that at the time I watched Rogue One, which is to say as soon as it was available to watch outside a movie theater, I did think it was better than The Force Awakens. That said, I was nowhere near as high on The Force Awakens as was the general consensus. My quick review of The Force Awakens is "meh". My quick review of Rogue One is "meh", but said with a slightly more upbeat inflection. My review for Solo is "meh" but with a significantly more negative inflection. The Last Jedi outright sucked and Rise of Skywalker was an atrocity. So maybe it really is the best Star Wars anything that has come out of Disney? Not exactly a high bar to clear, but there it is.

Keep in mind that I haven't watched any of the Star Wars shows, nor do I have any interest in watching them. Supposedly people liked The Mandalorian and word 'round the campfire is that Andor is good. That's hearsay, I have no plans to find out for myself.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Keyrock

[bugarup]

Andor is good, and IMO good good, not "good for Star Wars".

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

That said, I was nowhere near as high on The Force Awakens as was the general consensus.

I would have said that a "meh" reaction was pretty much the consensus for TFA- a completely generic SW movie seemingly built out of bits of better movies. It was just a meh reaction with the thought that it might get better. I guess in some ways it did get better in retrospect, since the two sequels made you long for something merely generic and soulless.

OTOH Rogue One, while not exactly high cinema and about as original as inventing a circular disk for aiding transportation of heavy goods across long distances did get a lot of stuff right and that despite being based around perhaps the absolute classic done to death SW topic, ie how the Death Star plans were stolen. It was probably worse for Disney than anything else apart from Solo though, on paper, since it needed extensive reshoots and retooling. But it had good villains, passable ensemble good guy cast, a more or less coherent plot (eh... it's SW, at least it needed a bit of thought to find its flaws) and was memorable. And it has to be said memeable as well which as the prequels have shown is good for longer term reception; and unlike the sequels. Except "somehow __ returned", but then that one hardly reflects well on Rise of Skywalker since it's shorthand for pulling a plot point from your butt.

[majestic]

I have not watched Andor or Kenobi yet, but the only Post-Disney buyout Star Wars that I acutally liked, in an unironical fashion, were the first three episodes of The Book of Boba Fett, which pretty much puts me at odds with everyone else.

How I would currently rate the movies:

The Rise of Skywalker > Solo > Rogue One >The Force Awakens >>> dying of rabies > The Last Jedi

My initial impression of The Force Awakens was better than it is now. I called it a better movie than the prequels here on the forum, which is a statement I would nowadays amend to more competently made movie. The only reason it is not dead last in the list due to being utterly uninspired is because The Last Jedi is, well, what it is.

To address the elephant in the room. Yes, I actually liked Solo more than Rogue One. Not by much, and no real indication of any actual enjoyment there, but Solo was the more fun theater experience. The reason Rise of Skywalker ranks so high is because The Last Jedi killed the past for me, and I could just enjoy the film on its own "merit" - which is to say it was so bad that it became hilariously good. What an absolute blast where Palpatine, uhm, blasts an entire fleet with force lightning.

Then there's the ending where Rey Potter fights Lord Sheevdemort. How can you watch the film and not love it for being so bad?

I must add a caveat here, I watched all the movies in the theater and did not pay for anything, courtesy of a friend of mine being a member of a fan club that does get hired for promotional trouping. My disposition might be much worse had I paid any amount of money to be allowed to experience those travesties.

[LadyCrimson]

I liked Rogue One in a casual adventure sort of way. I think it was helped in that the main chrs. were unknown to me and thus I had no stakes and just went along for the ride. Donnie Yen was funny and I always like Mads even if the role was small. Every time that robot was on screen I kept thinking of KOTOR.

But SW to me is kinda like ST - they're both long dead (as story "universes") but the owners of the IP's keep resurrecting them like necromancer minions, because, money. Sometimes it works at least as light/action/cgi entertainment or for new generations tho. Different strokes.

--------
I finally watched that final Avengers: Endgame movie. I'd seen the first one and just never bothered with the finale. But I'm interested in Guardians 3, which made me wonder if it would reference Endgame so I felt I should watch it just in case. I found Endgame to be fitfully amusing in spots but otherwise kind of a snore. Maybe if they'd cut out 30 minutes. But I have seen it now.

Edited July 19, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

40 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

I liked Rogue One in a casual adventure sort of way. I think it was helped in that the main chrs. were unknown to me and thus I had no stakes

To me there were no stakes because we already knew the outcome. That's the problem with making a movie expanding on something referenced in another (much better) movie, the journey better be damn good because we know how it ultimately ends. I'd have a slightly higher opinion of the movie if not for CGI Grand Moff Tarkin.

Not only was the CGI not good, it legitimately bothers me when Hollywood CGIs deceased actors. Just get another actor that looks vaguely like Peter Cushing, don't... Just don't. It's wrong. It's disgusting. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Keyrock

[InsaneCommander]

4 hours ago, bugarup said:

Andor is good, and IMO good good, not "good for Star Wars".

I agree. And the interesting thing is that it is not about Jedis or space battles.

[ShadySands]

6 hours ago, majestic said:

The Rise of Skywalker > Solo > Rogue One >The Force Awakens >>> dying of rabies > The Last Jedi

I'd swap Skywalker and Rogue One but agree with the rest, especially what you wrote about to The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.

Edited July 19, 2023 by ShadySands

[uuuhhii]

really like the nick cage with giant spider part of the flash

despite how awful the cg are

best version of supergirl

sadly most likely will never show up again in any new movie

[Amentep]

[Malcador]

I found Rogue One enjoyable, at least I can rewatch it.   Not really the case for the sequel trilogy that much, would say TFA was the better of the 3, Rise of Skywalker is just a mess I found.

Still waiting for the Chewbacca series, all in Shyriiwook