Movies You've Seen (or would like to see) Recently

[Bartimaeus]

Dafuq?

 

Yeah, I really have no idea. Pretty much everything you see there is wrong in some capacity. The sky is alright, I guess.

[ShadySands]

The Man From Nowhere - I'd seen it before but was only half paying attention so I decided to give it another go. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

[LadyCrimson]

That poster make me think of Tremors crossed with Star Wars, Star Trek and a host of other misc. films and even novels. I might pay to see an actual concept film like that, if it was a comedy. Emphasis on "might."

[LadyCrimson]

The Man From Nowhere - I'd seen it before but was only half paying attention so I decided to give it another go. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Won Bin. Good movie for its type.

[Gfted1]

Before I Go To Sleep

 

Meh, better than a feces smeared stick to the eye, I guess.

[Amentep]

Oklahoma! - the Todd-AO, 30 fps blu-ray edition.  30 fps really looks sharp and crisp (perhaps preternaturally so since the eye tends to note motion blue but 30 fps doesn't give it).  Rod Steiger's Jud is possibly a little too dis-likable for the film to work (why'd Laurey and Aunt Eller keep him on?) particularly given that his solo song is one of two cut from the film and Gloria Grahame seems miscast as Ado Annie.  But its a sharp looking film - even if we loose some of the roadshow spectacle without seeing it on a curved screen in an oval theater as intended.  Also possibly the youngest I've seen Eddie Albert, even if he's not really right for the part he's playing.

 

The Illustrated Man - There's probably a problem with what is at its heart and anthology movie when the framing sequence is more interesting that the stories they frame.  Thankfully Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom can sell the anthology stories even if they don't work in their entirely.  The movie is let down by a non-end and I can't help but think the material - as a whole - would be better suited to a modern television series than a single movie.

[the_dog_days]

I read that the original American cut of Nausicaa, Warriors of the Wind, was quite the butchering, too. Hilariously bad cover art that should tell you enough about it:

 

That cover looks like He-Man: Masters of the Universe and Heavy Metal making love.

 

Its beautiful.

Edited January 16, 2018 by the_dog_days

[algroth]

One, I watched it with someone else (in person) who was trying very hard to convince me to like anime when I've very explicitly never liked anime (the art styles and the way characters tend to be written and the film-making conventions that seem to go with it), so that was already going to make it very difficult for it to work out. Two, I watched it in Japanese, and I have since learned (as it's been some years since I tried to watch Grave) that I seem to utterly despise Japanese dubs of pretty much all nature. Listening to Japanese people actually talk in a normal manner, I don't have too much of a problem, but whenever I hear Japanese entertainment (TV, movies, games, whatever), it seems like their enunciation just goes completely over-the-top, which activates my misophonia in the most extreme of manners, to the point where I'd honestly rather listen to silence with subtitles than Japanese dubs. It doesn't help that the casting choices for Japanese VA always seem laughably ludicrous...but given that that seems to be a problem in everything Japanese I've ever heard, I'm assuming that there's just a cultural difference in the way people's voices sound there that I'm simply unable to get over. Three, all I remember from that movie is a whole lot screaming and crying, and that I was utterly miserable throughout the entire thing.

 

For most other languages, I would tend to stick with the original dub. Russian, Polish, Hungarian, German, Spanish, Greek...I'm fine with all of those. Japanese and Chinese, and to a lesser degree French*, are the ones that I know of that tend to make me want to gouge my ears out.

 

*Funnily enough, I tend to like French when it's sung, though...and actually, I don't automatically despise Japanese singing, either, now that I think of it.

 

I love the sound of French and Japanese personally, so there's perhaps a bit of that which helps... But it's funny that you should mention French as a dub you can't stand as I would argue that they're some of the best dubbers I've come across generally. I also reckon I can see how some Japanese performances might be a bit over the top, but by and large I feel they handle subtlety really well both in a more theatrical and realist mode. Have you watched much other Japanese film?

[Bartimaeus]

No, I have not. I'm not much of a moviegoer to begin with, and I'm way too intolerant of things I don't like which further suppresses my desire to watch new movies.

[injurai]

[Bartimaeus]

Only Yesterday (1991). It was really depressing. I liked the as-a-child segments way more than the as-an-adult segments.

[Tale]

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters

 

The first part of a planned Godzilla CG animated trilogy written by Gen Urobuchi. He's known for writing some pretty dark stuff.

 

Premise is that when the monsters arrived, mankind was offered help by two alien races who also lost their planets. Together they failed to fight off Godzilla and abandoned the planet. Now they've returned to try again.

 

And it was pretty good. Not fantastic, but a great starting point for a trilogy.

 

I love the Mechagodzilla references at the beginning.

[LadyCrimson]

Watched the first 1/3 of Age of Shadows (Netflix). It seems promising. I marked it mostly because of Gong Yoo   but Song Kang-ho could be seen as the main star and he's also a very good actor. It's a loose historical/period thriller set during the Japanese rule of Korea in the early 1900's. eg, patriotic and who's side is who on type of plot. Not really a serious politics movie, thriller/some action oriented.

 

Sadly per usual when I try to watch movies these days I fell asleep so I'll have to finish it later.

 

Netflix needs to stop adding so many things I'd like to watch or at least check out. My watchlist is waaaay too long and I keep adding stuff to it recently.

[algroth]

Only Yesterday (1991). It was really depressing. I liked the as-a-child segments way more than the as-an-adult segments.

 

That is a wonderful film... I wouldn't quite describe it as depressing though, even if there a few quite harrowing anecdotes in it. The whole thing to do with her acting gig, the slap, or that classmate of hers for example... All in all though it is utterly beautiful and it really showcases Takahata's eye for detail when it comes to portraying people. The characters and situations are all remarkably vivid thanks to this knack he has for capturing the details and nuances that dictate the emotional undercurrents of a scene. Every inflection is captured so meticulously and perfectly, it all does make him something of a modern-day equivalent to great humanist masters of Japanese cinema the likes of Ozu, Mizoguchi or Imamura. I can't say I enjoyed the adult-day segments any less myself, I felt the pastoral feel of them along with the many keen observations really made it just as enjoyable and moving in my experience.

 

If you want another utterly gorgeous and harrowing film from him, though, be sure to check out The Tale of the Princess Kaguya as well.

 

 

(Again I would recommend watching it subbed, but that's really up to you. Did you watch Only Yesterday dubbed?)

[Bartimaeus]

I'd describe it as depressing. I'm having trouble describing exactly why, though. I guess it boils down to time and growing up. So many opportunities in life lost because of stupid decisions by either yourself or your parents, that devilish whimsy and selfishness that children have being inexorably snuffed out because of time's ever-accelerating course and being forced to grow up in some manner to survive, and being stuck in so many ways with your oh-so-random lot in life. The ending may have been optimistic and hopeful on the surface, but it really just reeked of the deeper, more desperate fight with life that we all undergo and try to win in a variety of ways.

 

I didn't really mind the contemplative bits of the adult segments, but I guess I just didn't find the ongoing story of Taeko to be very compelling. Yes, I did listen to the English dub. I tried a little of the Japanese dub, but as usual, it wasn't for me.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Stalker. I liked it a lot and need time to think about it.

[algroth]

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was fantastic.

[Amentep]

Thread closed for length.  Incoming refresher thread ...er... incoming.