Cinema and Movie Thread: coming at you at 24fps

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Love most of his stuff. You people just angry haters.

Loud and proud. Villaneuve saying that dialogue doesn't matter and film would be better off without it feels like a parody, something I would mockingly ascribe to a director like him that clearly only cares about the looks and mood of a film, except he actually just said it outright and meant it seriously. Consistent flat-line characters and mechanical dialogue that only do the absolute bare minimum just means I never have much reason to care about his pretty little pictures. Again, it's my own tastes, but literally all of my favorite films are very character and dialogue-driven, meanwhile this bozo's out here saying none of that matters. Not exactly a surprise that he and I do not see eye-to-eye on film if that's how he feels about it.

Edited February 28 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

Love most of his stuff. You people just angry haters.

True, but we're not wrong.

Villeneuve's ideal movie is a 2 hour videogame cutscene. Sure that may look kewl (aside from the fact it's going to age like milk) but it's all spectacle and no substance. I have seen three or four Villeneuve flicks and for the life of me I can not remember any striking character interactions that stick with me. The thing I remember most is that the Dune worm looks like a giant fleshlight.

I'm much more likely to get wowed by aesthetic images than @Bartimaeus but even still I can't think of any movie I've truly loved that doesn't have memorable characters. Villeneuve's track record shows he couldn't pull that off if his life depended on it.

[Sarex]

Maybe the issue is that you already read the book, so it's not living up to what you imagined when reading it? For me there plenty of memorable moments in the movie. Starting from the first father/son interaction when going off the home planet, to meeting the matriarch, to his father being betrayed and then killed, meeting the Fremen and the duel. But I have to admit that his set oftentimes overshadows the characters, but I would not say it's because they are bad, but because his sets are so good.

Edited February 28 by Sarex

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

22 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Maybe the issue is that you already read the book, so it's not living up to what you imagined when reading it? For me there plenty of memorable moments in the movie. Starting from the first father/son interaction when going off the home planet, to meeting the matriarch, to his father being betrayed and then killed, meeting the Fremen and the duel. But I have to admit that his set oftentimes overshadows the characters, but I would not say it's because they are bad, but because his sets are so good.

I have never read Dune and my knowledge of it was the David Lynch film and the fact there is a man-worm-god-emperor.

While I can't speak for anyone but myself, my problem is that his films feel like someone didn't really think about the world beyond the way a machine would. @Bartimaeus previously mentioned his sterile sets in Bladerunner 2049 as an example of this, it just doesn't feel like anyone actually inhabits the worlds Villeneuve builds, it may as well be the Neil Breen green screen with substantially bigger budgets and polish. This also spills over to the characters, Android Ryan Gosling can be forgiven for being mechanical but when every character in Dune feels like a drone created to further Plot instead of a real person that's just **** and disrespectful to a cast that talented.

[ShadySands]

I think Dune is the only movie of his that I've seen. My first intro to Dune was the Lynch movie and that was followed by a few Dune video games, then I read the book. 

Don't get me wrong, I did actually like the movie, but I'm really easy... just ask my wife. Still, the vibe I got was cold and sterile... mechanical even. I'm not a great critic so I'll just stop trying to explain.

[Malcador]

The new Dune movie's fans put me off seeing it, so will maybe catch it on TV some day.  Only other films of his I have seen was BR:2049 which I was underwhelmed by

[Hurlshort]

Sicario was fantastic and relied heavily on visuals, but it also had Benicio Del Toro, who doesn't need to say much to be great in a role. I'm very happy to watch a movie with little dialogue and strong visuals. I'd say the theater is a good place for that. With that said, Tarantino also relies on strong visuals, but he backs it up with strong dialogue and music. 

Guillermo Del Toro is kind of the original show don't tell director, and I doubt he'd side with Villeneuve on this. But whatever, I'm still going to enjoy watching the pretty movie on the desert planet. People overthink their popcorn flicks.

 

Edited February 28 by Hurlshort

[HoonDing]

They lost me when they turned Sardaukar into completely pansies.

[Sarex]

But boy do they have a throat on them!

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Sicario was fantastic and relied heavily on visuals, but it also had Benicio Del Toro, who doesn't need to say much to be great in a role.

I wasn't familiar with Benicio del Toro before watching Sicario, pretty sure I haven't seen him in any other film. My impression of his character was that he was a pissy mildly drunk man, and I had kind of hoped he would die early on into the film - along with all the other cardboard cutouts masquerading as main characters. It's probably not Mr. del Toro's (or any of the other actors') fault, all of Dennis' (sic) characters are pretty much impossible to connect with on any emotional level. Maybe if I had already loved the actor in question before starting the film, that can sometimes help.

Edited February 28 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

I think I saw this for the first time with an ex back in my early 20s and I was too distracted to really appreciate it. Coming back to it as an older and marginally wiser man I want to go back and slap my younger self for yet another reason. This film is great, no qualifications. It beautifully does magical realism in a way that Sorry to Bother You (2018) did, but on a much more personal level to illustrate the breakup of a couple.

For starters, the world feels lived in. The apartments look like what I wake up in, the doctor's office feels like what I deal with when I go for a yearly physical, etc. Obviously it has the advantage of being set in the real world, but it's the small things you wouldn't notice unless they weren't there that really make it.

While some hacks may hate it, the film feels driven by dialogue and that works here perfectly. Joel and Clementine fight a lot during the film and if you've ever been in a relationship or known those who have you will absolutely recognize at least some of it. It's got a stellar cast and virtually all of them kill it in parts big or small, everyone flawed in the same ways that you or I or others that we know are.

It's also visually incredible. The dream/memory erasing scenes are simple but work to much better effect than big budget stuff that looks like an old videogame within 5 years. The frozen landscape (and the temperature drop around Houston) made me shiver.

All in all this is a hard reccomend for anyone and everyone who hasn't seen it already.

[Sarex]

I know I watched it, but I don't remember anything from it apart from Jim Carrey being in it and it not being a comedy. Will give it a go.

[Bartimaeus]

I should also probably re-watch it at some point. I remember liking the main story between Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, but kept getting a bit annoyed by the constant Elijah Wood and co. machinations that felt like they were thrown in to attract a younger audience and make it more gross than it really needed to be.

[Hurlshort]

I should re-watch Being John Malkovich at some point as well. 

[Bartimaeus]

The Zone of Interest (2023).

Thematically strong, a lesson on the banality of evil. There's no sentimentality of any kind, it's just the rather dreary and dispassionate every-day life of seemingly normal (if a bit boorish) people going about their business and living their lives. Except for the fact that it's Rudolf Höss and his family that we're watching. The approach here was thematically interesting for a Nazi film, though hardly exciting cinematically. I've seen Jeanne Dielman before, and I enjoyed that more. My favorite part of the film was, funnily, the intro music that played onto a totally black screen.

If my sleeping brain had music, this is it.

Edited March 2 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Arrebato (1979)

This film is very weird by my standards, so make of that what you will. Many have made films where cinema itself was the focus, this is the first I can think of where cinema is treated as an addiction akin to heroin with steep withdrawals and eventual consuming those who are hooked on it. Stylistically it feels like a drug fueled nightmare with unnerving music throughout and a raspy static voice over narrating much of the film.

[Lexx]

So I watched that latest Indiana Jones and... it's technically not a bad movie, imo. Thinking about it, there really is only one thing I have issues with.... it's too much of everything action. You just run from one action setpiece to the next, constantly, for 2+ hours (can't remember how long it was). At some point it just felt like too much to me and it stopped being interesting. Did everyone forget that you have to give a break to your viewers? If you go full autofire for the whole of the movie, everything will feel bland.

Few days later I've finally watched the latest John Wick and ... yeah, it's exactly the same. You jump from one action setpiece to the next, without any kind of break. The action scenes looked very nice, but also unbelievably stupid. Fighting against guns with sword and bow? Kevlar suits where bullets bounce off of with sparks? Riiight.... Also I really hate how they bloated up the whole assassine universe. The first movie was epic and perfect, because it still felt grounded in reality. Now they muddied it up so much, you gotta go in without a brain to enjoy it. Then at some point I felt like... finally the movie is almost over... and it kept going... and going... so I paused to check the time... 1 hour left to go, wtf. This is where I mentally started to check out. Went to my PC and read some mails, browsed the forum, etc... when I came back to the movie, it was like I didn't missed out on anything at all.

tl;dr ... I feel like this should have remained a 1 movie thing. Now it's just stupid and exhausting.

[LadyCrimson]

5 minutes ago, Lexx said:

I feel like this should have remained a 1 movie thing. Now it's just stupid and exhausting.

While there are and always will be occasional exceptions, I tend to find, for myself, that the vast majority of movies - where unexpected success or long-term IP evaluation ="hey, money" - should have remained singular (Speed, The Matrix, countless others). Or at the most, two (Terminator, Alien, countless others).

Can't blame anyone for trying, tho. Never know when it might work.

 

[Keyrock]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

this should have remained a 1 movie thing. Now it's just stupid and exhausting.

That's Hollywood's motto.

[bugarup]

Watched Dune 2 and it was boring. For a first entire hour, Brian Paul not-the-Messiah was trying not to be Messiah in the land of noble savages while having the most sterile romance this side of Anakin (was it because of sand? I keep hearing it can really ruin them romances) with absolutely nothing of interest happening save for cool new machinery getting exploded. Then Feyd-Rautha is introduced in black and white sequence for some reason, gets hyped out of proportions like a triple A corporate-manufactured video game and, later, fizzles out with a tiny fart just like as one, Brian drinks blue epiphany liquid, goes "F†ck yeah, lets be Messiah, dunno why I resisted for that first hour anyway", starts seeing all the futures and picks one where he wins, unfortunately it's the same one where everyone acts like idiots in order to let him win. Also Josh Brolin shows up outta nowhere mid-movie and contributes nothing. And ending's open, because of course it is.   First movie at least was pretty with a great soundtrack. 

Edited March 4 by bugarup

[Raithe]

Turks and Caicos.  

The 2nd of the Johnny Worricker trilogy of low-key modern spy films. Bill Nighy as the lead, but bouncing around with Christopher Walken , Helena Bonham Carter (in a non character role), and Winona Ryder doing an incredible nuanced performance as a "normal" but highly damaged by abuse woman.  It's no action, just all dialogue and performance.

[Sarex]

Dune 2. Chef's kiss. I don't know why people are saying that the ending is open ended. They showed a lot of teasers for Dune 3 through the movie. Again I am wondering if he is crazy enough to try and do book 4.

[Gorgon]

I went to see Dune 2, and I thought it nearly perfect. My main gripe is that it needed an epilogue, instead it powered through for pacing reasons, and it felt too rushed. Like what seemed like barely a minute after the fremen have won, they run straight into the emperors ships and fly off on a crusade. It was comical, especially since the rest of the movie wasn't afraid to take a minute. I mean you have Criss Walken as the emperor, and you barely give him a minute of screen time.

 

Other than that it was a giant step up from part 1.

[Agiel]

When everyone in the theater cracked up at this moment with Stilgar in <<Dune Pt. 2>> I knew I was among my people: