Cinema and Movie Thread: flickering images

[Bartimaeus]

Coraline (2009). I liked it a lot more on a second watch than I did on my first watch. The structure of the film still feels a bit wonky to me (and the film still kinda but not totally feels like it was just an "it was all a dream" sort of film), but I was more O.K. with that on a second watch.

[Katphood]

The Witch(2015) was crazy. Now this is the kind of horror I love, every 'horror scene' in the movie was just...quite. 

[Keyrock]

  On 12/16/2023 at 6:51 PM, Katphood said:

The Witch(2015) was crazy. Now this is the kind of horror I love, every 'horror scene' in the movie was just...quite. 

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Not my favorite Robert Eggers movie (The Lighthouse), but probably his best.

[LadyCrimson]

Finally tried to watch Meg 2. It is not worth watching. The "evil miners" arc shouldn't even have existed and it took up way too much screen time. Felt like they lost most of the self-awareness nods the first movie had - eg, took out all the fun. So what you have left is a boring/dull wanna be more serious, underwater The Abyss and giant sea monsters overly talky action movie. I think the giant sharks where in it, sometimes.

[Hurlshort]

Leave the World Behind - This movie had a good cast, but it was pretty boring, and everyone did stupid stuff. It kind of had that horror movie thing going where people make dumb choices. Everyone except for Kevin Bacon, apparently.  Also everyone is unlikable. I don't think this is how real people act, but maybe rich people are just ****.

[Keyrock]

I'm a bit bummed that the Napoleon movie is apparently not great. I'm probably still going to watch it eventually just because I find the events around Napoleon to be so fascinating. It's the birth of the modern world... Well, modern Europe, anyway.

Someone should make a miniseries covering the roughly century of time from Napoleon to WWI that shaped modern Europe. There's so much meat on that bone. Start out with a big 2-part special based around Napoleon, part 1 about the French Revolution and the rise of nationalism and part 2 about the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. There are the Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian Wars that create not exactly modern day Germany, but close enough, and establish it as the dominant power in central Europe. The continued decline (and eventual fall) of the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan Wars, and finishing off with a rather sloppy assassination plot in Sarajevo that, by all rights, should have had little chance of working, and yet it did.

Somebody has probably already done this, I just need to do a bit of scouring around YouTube and such.

[Gorgon]

Godzilla minus one.

A relief to watch something that doesn't suffer from the tempo problems that plauge most newer American movies. That said, it was a pretty average.

[Hurlshort]

I just watched Gran Turismo with the family, and it is far and away the best video game movie ever made. It's also a pretty sweet racing movie. It was extremely well done and you all need to watch it, especially @Mamoulian War. It's on Netflix.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Scott Pilgrim vs ZA WARUDO The World (2010)

I think I saw this after I graduated high school and maybe a couple of times after that. It's weird coming back to the movie because in my head it kinda bled together with another early 2010s movie with Michael Cera in a band, but it's honestly pretty great.

[Hurlshort]

  On 12/19/2023 at 3:07 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Scott Pilgrim vs ZA WARUDO The World (2010)

I think I saw this after I graduated high school and maybe a couple of times after that. It's weird coming back to the movie because in my head it kinda bled together with another early 2010s movie with Michael Cera in a band, but it's honestly pretty great.

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My daughter was pretty obsessed with this movie as a kid and wanted to be a drummer because of it. We've been watching the new animated version, but it doesn't have the same magic. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 12/19/2023 at 3:37 PM, Hurlshort said:

My daughter was pretty obsessed with this movie as a kid and wanted to be a drummer because of it. We've been watching the new animated version, but it doesn't have the same magic. 

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The anime is better tbh, it's cool to see more development for Ramona and the evil exes plus it has Will Forte.

[Mamoulian War]

  On 12/19/2023 at 4:10 AM, Hurlshort said:

I just watched Gran Turismo with the family, and it is far and away the best video game movie ever made. It's also a pretty sweet racing movie. It was extremely well done and you all need to watch it, especially @Mamoulian War. It's on Netflix.

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Thank you for a recommendation, I have already got few reviews of the movie and unfortunatelly, I already know, I might not share your enthusiasm for this movie  I have to admit, the movie does a very good job trying to bring racing to wider audience in general, but for “Petrol Heads” it has so many flaws, which do not match reality with real racing, that when I finally decide to watch it, I will be complaining for a week or two

[Gromnir]

  On 11/26/2023 at 2:11 PM, Gorth said:

Call me vulgar, but I like Sergio Leone and I love "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

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forgive us for going slight necro, but we recent watched our favorite spaghetti western and it reminded us o' this post.

not sergio leone, but we enjoy pretty much everything about the great silence.

we always watch this film in december for the silliest o' reasons: the snow. 

HAA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Dust Devil (1992)

It's a very weird film, an acid western that dips its toes into horror but doesn't quite dive in. From what I read the film was a victim of the infamous Weinstein (yes that Weintstein) cut and lost about a quarter of runtime. It could have definitely used it, particularly near the end of the film, but what's left is still good enough to be a confusing nightmare with grimy yet striking visuals and a foreboding score.

[Hurlshort]

The Creator - It was nice to look at. Allison Janney was pretty fun as a gung-ho American patriot. Other than that it was kind of lacking. There was a lot of chaos and violence and it was just so-so.

[Raithe]

Rebel Moon, Pt 1.

It's.. odd. It feels like someones pulled chunks of Warhammer 40k fanfiction, slapped a bit of knock-off Star Wars, rolled it around in some Kurosawa, splattered it out there and lost parts of the story.

I'd heard that Snyder released this as a pg-13 version, but also shot an R-rated Director's version that will see the light of day at some point. I'm wondering if that's why the story feels so choppy. Things happen and you feel as if there should be 10-15 minutes of dialogue and scenes setting up the transition from where you last saw characters talking.

Good actors, some great visuals, some interesting ideas, and lots of hollowness.

[Keyrock]

  On 12/23/2023 at 8:13 PM, Raithe said:

Rebel Moon, Pt 1.

It's.. odd. It feels like someones pulled chunks of Warhammer 40k fanfiction, slapped a bit of knock-off Star Wars, rolled it around in some Kurosawa, splattered it out there and lost parts of the story.

I'd heard that Snyder released this as a pg-13 version, but also shot an R-rated Director's version that will see the light of day at some point.

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We're going to go through the Release the Snyder Cut bull$#!+ again?

I was told by someone whose judgement on movies I trust that if I've seen Seven Samurai (1954) then I've already seen a much better version of this movie, and I have seen Seven Samurai and it's inferior but still quite enjoyable remake The Magnificent Seven (1960).

Edited December 24, 2023 by Keyrock

[Raithe]

  On 12/24/2023 at 1:34 AM, Keyrock said:

We're going to go through the Release the Snyder Cut bull$#!+ again?

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Not exactly. I saw a report that he got the agreement to do both versions from the get-go, so he apparently set out from the beginning to film two versions of the story. So you aren't going to get fans starting a movement, but the wait for that.

Still, I'm wary, since usually R-rated means the gratuitous sex, or extreme violence. And I can't really see them adding the meaningful dialogue if it's just during sexy time between characters.

Yes, the significant Kurosowa sprinkling is the Seven Samurai's aspect, the gathering of random heroes to defend a village.

 

[Amentep]

Species (1995) and Species II (1998) - first film is okay trashy sf but the humans have absolutely some of the worst plans in film.  Second film is altogether worse, the main astronaut villains family strife is a time waster, our returning heroes are somehow worse at alien capturing than in the first film, and Mykelti Williams is given some horrendous dialogue/character bits.  In both films the actors give it their best, though, so kudos to them.

[Maedhros]

Watched Barbie - I expected it to be overhyped, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. It's not funny, and it's not clever. Not a good combo for a film that tries to be both. 

[Hurlshort]

  On 12/27/2023 at 5:40 PM, Maedhros said:

Watched Barbie - I expected it to be overhyped, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. It's not funny, and it's not clever. Not a good combo for a film that tries to be both. 

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Side note: Did you grow up with Barbies in the 80's and 90's? The movie is pretty much tailored to that audience, so it would make sense that it fell flat if you weren't exposed to that in your youth.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Hurlshort

[majestic]

  On 12/27/2023 at 5:54 PM, Hurlshort said:

Side note: Did you grow up with Barbies in the 80's and 90's? The movie is pretty much tailored to that audience, so it would make sense that it fell flat if you weren't exposed to that in your youth.

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You do realize you're talking to someone who liked The Rings of Power?

Ooh, wait. Never mind.

Anyway.

Watched What Lies Beneath (2000) with my wife. She wanted to watch the film, and it was fine. It ended up being too slow for its own good. It was sadly far too easy to predict what was going to happen, and therefore the attempts of the film at slowly building suspense fell a little flat for me. Still, as far as horror films go, this one does not rely on an overabundance of jump scares and the pacing is very deliberate. It is well made, and if by any chance you're either unaware of rote horror stories or have never seen a horror film before, it is an easy recommendation.

Feels like I am unreasonably hard on the movie just because I figured it out what is going on after a third of its runtime. It probably beats more modern horror films by virtue of being mostly free of CGI and having decent performances by its lead actors, particularily Michelle Pfeiffer.

Edited December 27, 2023 by majestic

[Hurlshort]

  On 12/27/2023 at 7:02 PM, majestic said:

You do realize you're talking to someone who liked The Rings of Power?

Ooh, wait. Never mind.

Anyway.

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I thought you were trying to seem less snobbish.

Rings of Power is definitely my bag. It was right up my alley and I can't wait for more. Which is why I'm concerned that it was badly recieved.

Barbie is pretty much the opposite. It was a huge hit and well recieved. It also wasn't really geared towards me. Sure, I enjoyed it, but for my wife, her mom, and my daughter it was a powerful film that evoked their childhood and mirthfully touched on their struggles as women in this society. So yeah, I'm puzzled when people can't see outside of themselves enough to recognize that a film isn't really geared towards them.  

[ShadySands]

What Lies Beneath was a good movie. I haven't seen it in forever but I remember it being the kind of horror that I like, or used to like back when I still watched horror movies.

[InsaneCommander]

  On 12/23/2023 at 8:13 PM, Raithe said:

Rebel Moon, Pt 1.

lost parts of the story.

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This felt like it was a series and they decided to take some parts and turn into a 2 hour movie instead. Every character they recruited joined without needing any convincing and most of the time what was about to happen was predictable. Still not that bad, until later in the movie when two massive facepalm moments completely ruined it for me.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

First, the bad guys captured every rebel, the admiral ordered then executed but somehow allowed the bounty hunter to hand the protagonist's love interest a gun, claiming that if he killed her they would let him live. Why? There was nothing to gain from it. The bounty hunter didn't know them well enough to want to make them suffer or to trust him to obey. And the admiral had no reason to delay his ticket to a senate seat. Predictably, the guy used the weapon to kill the bounty hunter and freed the rebels, screwing the admiral's plans.

But you think that was bad? A little later somebody broke an artillery window in the Empire's mighty dreadnought and turned a lever that caused the whole ship to hit the port and blow up. Wtf? Are you telling me they can't control the ship's position from the bridge? Is it that easy to destroy their ships? It can't be, I probably missed something.