Cinema and Movie Thread: coming at you at 24fps

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I saw one of the Resident Evil films in a theater. It was terrible, but not really on the level of some of the b-movie trash I consumed as a teenager.

Have not recently watched as much as I'd like. But I Saw The TV Glow was the last thing I saw in a theater and it was incredible. Maybe I'll watch Challengers this weekend. Anyone have any recs? I'm drinking quite a lot tonight so I'm primed to make very good decisions.

[Hurlshort]

9 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I saw one of the Resident Evil films in a theater. It was terrible, but not really on the level of some of the b-movie trash I consumed as a teenager.

Have not recently watched as much as I'd like. But I Saw The TV Glow was the last thing I saw in a theater and it was incredible. Maybe I'll watch Challengers this weekend. Anyone have any recs? I'm drinking quite a lot tonight so I'm primed to make very good decisions.

They made quite a few Resident Evil flicks, so clearly you weren't the only one. I enjoyed most of them. Milla Jovovich is one of the most beautiful people in the world, so watching her kick people is worth the price of admission for me. They were decent popcorn action flicks.

Wing Commander was just bad on so many levels. Bad acting. Bad action. Bad kilrathi. It lacked any charm that might make it a B-movie. 

But hey, someday we can compare it to Star Citizen.  

[Malcador]

13 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Wing Commander movie, opening day in the theater.

Checkmate!

Yeah but did you leave after the Episode 1 trailer?

[Lexx]

20 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

They made quite a few Resident Evil flicks, so clearly you weren't the only one. I enjoyed most of them. Milla Jovovich is one of the most beautiful people in the world, so watching her kick people is worth the price of admission for me. They were decent popcorn action flicks.

Wing Commander was just bad on so many levels. Bad acting. Bad action. Bad kilrathi. It lacked any charm that might make it a B-movie. 

But hey, someday we can compare it to Star Citizen.  

For me, Milla Jovovich in a movie is a clear sign for a bad movie now. I don't think she was in a good movie in years by now.
The first Resident Evil movie was still ok, but everything after that just got worse and worse, imo.

[BruceVC]

I started watching Romulus but I stopped after 20 minutes

I couldnt watch a movie where the entire crew are so young and they suppose to represent colonists, you have to some level of institutional experience to be a colonist or scavenger which requires lived experience. They should have included some older crew with the younger crew to make it believable

I was reading the reason the crew were so young was because the director felt it would make there deaths more emotional and jarring, it has more impact in a horror to see young people getting killed than older people. Apparently its quite good but I couldnt watch it

I  also watched the new Salems Lot

Its worthwhile, its not excellent but it has some good parts to it even though it feels rushed

It changes the narrative in several ways compared to the 2 other Salems Lot movies and the movies are always different to the book which is the best way to understand the story. But books are generally always better

Edited October 7 by BruceVC

[Amentep]

I watched Megalopolis (2024).  Part 70s arthouse film, part 70s does the 30s film (like The Great Gatsby (1974) or Day of the Locust (1975); it swings for the fences and I wouldn't say always makes it, but it was a fun watch.

Also rewatched Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).  I saw the shorter release in the theaters so hadn't seen the director's cut which I think makes some little things clearer.

On 10/4/2024 at 8:54 PM, Hurlshort said:

Wing Commander movie, opening day in the theater.

Checkmate!

I also saw Wing Commander on opening day, watched the whole thing and have never played a Wing Commander game.

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I started watching Romulus but I stopped after 20 minutes

I couldnt watch a movie where the entire crew are so young and they suppose to represent colonists, you have to some level of institutional experience to be a colonist or scavenger which requires lived experience. They should have included some older crew with the younger crew to make it believable

They're not really colonists in the sense of people colonizing a frontier though; they're families brought into an existing mining colony on a labor contract who decide that they want to escape their world for a system not run by Weyland-Yutani. Its not even clear if they actually accepted the terms of the work contract or were born into it since all of the youths had parents who worked on work contracts for the company and our heroine, Rain, seems to have inherited her dad's debts.  Its also unclear if any of them can actually satisfy the work contract since Rain's was extended arbitrarily by the company without explanation.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

IThey're not really colonists in the sense of people colonizing a frontier though; they're families brought into an existing mining colony on a labor contract who decide that they want to escape their world for a system not run by Weyland-Yutani. Its not even clear if they actually accepted the terms of the work contract or were born into it since all of the youths had parents who worked on work contracts for the company and our heroine, Rain, seems to have inherited her dad's debts.  Its also unclear if any of them can actually satisfy the work contract since Rain's was extended arbitrarily by the company without explanation.

That is interesting and it makes it more realistic but realism for the reasons you mention  wasnt why the cast was so young 

https://movieweb.com/the-dark-reason-why-the-cast-of-alien-romulus-is-so-young/#:~:text=Speaking with Variety ahead of,with audiences when they die.

" Speaking with Variety ahead of Romulus’ premiere on August 16, Álvarez revealed that the reason he chose such a young cast for the movie was because it would resonate more with audiences when they die. He says it’s much harder to stomach watching someone who is in their prime get ripped to pieces, compared to someone who has already lived a full life."

Previous Alien movies didnt intentionally have a young cast for this reason 

It was a realistic mix of ages that made sense around there roles and lived experience and what they knew 

 

 

 

 

[Lexx]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

compared to someone who has already lived a full life.

Good to know nobody will give a **** if we die just because we are old, lol.

[Amentep]

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

That is interesting and it makes it more realistic but realism for the reasons you mention  wasnt why the cast was so young 

https://movieweb.com/the-dark-reason-why-the-cast-of-alien-romulus-is-so-young/#:~:text=Speaking with Variety ahead of,with audiences when they die.

" Speaking with Variety ahead of Romulus’ premiere on August 16, Álvarez revealed that the reason he chose such a young cast for the movie was because it would resonate more with audiences when they die. He says it’s much harder to stomach watching someone who is in their prime get ripped to pieces, compared to someone who has already lived a full life."

Previous Alien movies didnt intentionally have a young cast for this reason 

It was a realistic mix of ages that made sense around there roles and lived experience and what they knew 

Just because he wants there to be a cast of exciting young people, he still has to motivate it with story.

[majestic]

Huh, what, how and why does Bruce suddenly have a problem with young people born into corporate slavery dying when trying to escape from their lot? It is their lot for a reason, and they should all properly slave away for because shareholders expect proper returns on their investment.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Mr. Vampire (1985)

It's absolutely ridiculous and incredible. Not really a horror film, more like a martial arts movie where the protagonist fights hoping vampires and ghosts using both kung fu and paper talismans. Don't think I went very long without laughing.

Platform (2019?)

Kind of boring tbh. Basically asks the question of "what of prisons were hellholes with arbitrary hierarchies imposed that determine how you're fed?" which is pretty much just the US prison system but with less effort to do techo-dystopia.

[LadyCrimson]

This could be the last Clint Eastwood directed movie. Mostly because, I mean, well, he's 94 after all.
It looks like it could be interesting, has great cast etc, but not sure how interested in this type of story I personally am. Still, I don't think there's an Eastwood directed film that I actively disliked, so I'm sure I'll see it before too many months/years pass.

 

[Amentep]

The juror #2 trailer looked more interesting than its synopsis did to me when it was announced. 

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

This could be the last Clint Eastwood directed movie. Mostly because, I mean, well, he's 94 after all.
It looks like it could be interesting, has great cast etc, but not sure how interested in this type of story I personally am. Still, I don't think there's an Eastwood directed film that I actively disliked, so I'm sure I'll see it before too many months/years pass.

 

Wow that looks excellent, you talk about an interesting moral  and legal conundrum

The right thing to do is remove himself from jury duty and admit he could have accidently killed her?

[CopingMarlinsFan]

I saw the Borderlands movie due to morbid curiosity. People comparing it to Barbarella, I can barely grasp how, what is very telling is that its bad even if you take it out as an abstraction. Which is something I can say for Dragonball Evolution, you take out the adaptation aspect of that film and it's serviceable it average martial arts film. 

[LadyCrimson]

Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense. Because it's still an awesome concert/stage/performance piece. Of course, one has to like Talking Heads music. Which I do.

Some of his dance moves, however, seem even more oddball/amusing today than it did back then.

 

[uuuhhii]

the killers game

not terrible

laugh when two scottish show up speaking english but have subtitle

[rjshae]

I went to see The Wild Robot with a family member. It's mostly family fare with a traditional Disney-like anthromorphization of the characters. As an adult I found it only mildly entertaining; it isn't in the same class as Wall-E for example.

[Bartimaeus]

The Shape of Water (2017) by Guillermo del Toro.

(poster would go here, but literally every single copy of it that I can find online looks like mashed jpegos)

It was a cute romantic comedy. Well, it's not exactly a romantic comedy...but the fun parts were. The rest of the movie was just kind of there. Guillermo del Toro's films never really fully convince me, but at least there was enough to enjoy here. I think it's the fantastical tone, the perhaps even childish writing in its caricatures and cliches...intersected with also being very dark and brutal. I'd say I'd like to see him try his hand at an animated film because I feel like his style would work better for that medium, but uh, his Pinocchio film was my least favorite thing that I've seen from his so far, so maybe not. That might be more an issue of the specific material than the general idea, though.

Edited October 20 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Shoplifters (2018).

An impoverished and too big family with questionable morals live in a small shack of a home while taking in a 5 year old girl that is being neglected by her parents. It's the very first live-action Japanese film I can say that I liked without any reservations, with some very interesting ideas on family and being socially isolated from the rest of the world even as it lives all around you. The film apparently won a lot of awards domestically, and I can appreciate why.

Edited October 23 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

The Substance (2024)

The film is a rather unsubtle look at Hollywood's treatment of aging women, and a more subtle (though not by much, mind you) metaphor for self-loathing and self-harm, expressed as various disorders ranging from binge eating to substance abuse. I would call it the highlight of 2024 so far, but that would be looking at it from a very limited perspective, as the only other film that came out in 2024 that I have watched is Deadpool & Wolverine, and that is not much of a film, but merely two (somewhat entertaining) hours of fanservice, which is not a very high bar to beat.

Well, have you ever watched Perfect Blue and wondered how the film would be if Rumi and Mima were actually the same person, and stuck in the grind of the US entertainment industry rather than Japan's? Then wonder no more, and whatch this film. Fair warning, instead of mind games and rape you will be treated to body horror. The actual body horror in the film is not as bad as it is in many other body horror films, but the sound effects are certainly disgusting.

In a way that makes it worse. The film is garish sensory overload, both visually and audially, and certainly knows how to amp up one's misophonia. Whether it is shrimp being eaten or the very frequent sound effect that accompanies a needle being inserted into a body (funny how that works, since that makes no noticable sound in real life), it just frequently makes one's skin crawl (or have involuntary muscle spasms, in my case).

On visual side there is the set design, the costumes and clothing, the camera work, the extended and extreme use of close ups, the juxtaposition of old age and youth and most importantly the framing that keeps one on edge, never being truly comfortable while watching. There are segments of this film that pander to the male gaze to the point they become softcore erotica, but the scenes purposefully lack any of the appeal.

Instead, all you can do, is feel sorry for the protagonist of the film, Elizabeth and Sue, and her way of continually denigrating and debasing herself for fame, glory and acceptance. Will she respect the balance, or will her self-destructive tendencies and self-loathing give rise to the monster within? Watch it and find out.

Gets a recommendation for @PK htiw klaw eriF. Very likely to be way too uncomfortable to watch for @Bartimaeus.

Edited October 24 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Salem's Lot (2024)

I think this is like the third one and it's in the genre of "ancient evil comes to a small town and gets killed after terrorizing the townsfolk". For me it wasn't bad.....it was boring. Generic and forgettable with packaged horror movie scares. I will probably remember nothing of it within a week.

13 hours ago, majestic said:

Gets a recommendation for @PK htiw klaw eriF.

I think you're the fifth or sixth person to reccomend this to me, and I've decided to catch it this weekend.

I'll obviously have more to say when I've actually seen the movie, but a review from The People's Joker (the best Joker Movie of 2024) director Vera Drew has me intrigued.

https://letterboxd.com/veradrew22/film/the-substance/

I've been thinking a lot lately about the fetishization of youth coupled with the disregard for young people (18-29) and based on the above review I think The Substance may hit that a bit.

[Sarex]

15 hours ago, majestic said:

The Substance (2024)

While it is creepy, I mostly laughed my ass off. Not my cup of tea to say the least.