I just watched that last month and really liked it. Definitely a case of style over substance, but the style is so good and the substance gives me just enough that I don't mind it.
Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| August 2016
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I just watched that last month and really liked it. Definitely a case of style over substance, but the style is so good and the substance gives me just enough that I don't mind it.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Hi. My name is Lord Freeza and we are a... wait no, let's not. I still had some catching up to do with about 30 movies that I've seen since my last post in these threads, so this is the first part of that catch-up. You might enjoy this, you might not. A man, possibly alien space Napoleon Hitler, accepts this.
21. Hunger Games (2015) ehm…..part 4, I guess. It’s mocking me, bird? Or jay? Or something?
In this movie, you can have the bizarre experience of what’s like to see a dozen millionaires watch television, which plays back events that literally are happening right outside the apartment. You would expect one of the stormtroopers to walk in on them and “the plot” to move forward on that gag, but no that’s the actual movie. And to add “tension” to said “plot”, which is the film crew staying in the back while the real revolution takes place somewhere else (YES, that's a thing), there is a segment featuring Leviathans from Supernatural or perhaps the deacon from Prometheus, because those things randomly being in this city isn’t fucking weird at all or anything. And some people die, creatures get blown up and oh hey, they’re just out of the sewer and into the street again, where stormtroopers are waiting for them. Wait, why didn’t they just…. Ah fuck it. And aside from “yeah, but which of us men will our woman choose?” (quite literally a line in the movie. Bechdel test? hahaha) and “don’t trust them” (oh no, I wonder how this will play ouuuuut), there is a literal ‘WHAT’ when the movie decides to have its climax return Lawrence to that same fucking hospital we spend the last movie in. Wow, literal reset to zero progress, time to resolve the actual movie! Thankfully the ever charming Donald Sutherland is there to save and make somewhat interesting what would otherwise be a complete waste of my time, until you get the really creepy “but we haven’t seen her as a housewife yet” part where you hope they won’t do that and then that’s of course exactly what happens. Pffff. And to think this is probably the best of the YA series. To be entirely fair, at least the propaganda angle was legit interesting, but the movie did too little with it to really matter in any way. Primarily however, the awkward distance from the real fight only gets forcefully ‘resolved’ at the end, making the whole thing an exercise in padding a five minute segment of material into a feature movie and getting ‘the fuck’ weird video gamey in the process, as previously seen in the Hobbit. The production values themselves also appeared to have taken a hit on CG, since they needed in far more scenes of the movie (so less money per CG effect). Of course, being inside the capital for most of the movie made the sets likely more expensive by default, and that this ‘works’ to some degree at all is at least appealing. I wouldn’t mind terribly to rewatch the series as a sci-fi setting, but I wouldn’t rewatch it for the story. It does have a charming design to its technology at least. Thankfully, the untimely passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman is tactfully not a factor in this and he has a graceful exit. For that, thinking back to Halloween 6, the movie has my sincerest gratitude.
22. Victor Frankenstein (2015)
From the black: line: “You know this tale”. And hard cut to credits right there.
I don’t know why Max Landis and other current writers now think it’s cool to do the ending at the start, but I’m going to call this Max Landis-syndrome from now on, because he does it in every damn movie (his three first spec scripts that is), and there is literally no reason to sit through the movie after that. Somewhat unsurprisingly with this hindsight, Victor Frankenstein has had one of (if not the) worst wide openings of all time, which at least made the movie win at something I guess. But that might have been because nobody knew it existed or why they should care about a different story that somehow still goes to the same end. Or at least that’s what Landis might argue. The reality is that if we know the ending, we’re just bored all the way until the movie’s logic is forced to catch up to the writer writing himself into a corner. We’ll get to this again later on. It’s okay for 30 minutes of television, but it shouldn’t be in a 90+ minute movie.
At any rate, I did get something from Victor Frankenstein and that was the presentation of the biology drawings and the pleasantly dense set design of mainly Victor’s apartment. There is stuff everywhere, it looks like mad science + real science stuff, it’s great. The story could have worked well, if it wasn’t for a super awkward ‘TV edit’ of fading to black in the middle of a scene because they felt they still needed to do the monster. That monster itself looks good, but that segment should not have been forced on the movie.
23. Black Dynamite (2009).
Can you dig it? I can dig it. Great comedy, all the way to the top. Dynamite! Dy-na-mite!
24. 10 cloverfield Lane (2016)
Okay movie, great performances, good directing debut, really shitty fourth act.
I also think it was actually started as a Portal project. In 2014 producer Abrams was apparently still in talks with Valve to make (a) Half-Life and Portal movie(s), the director has only made a Portal fan short, the script was called The Cellar (Portal and HL take place underground), and the eventual monsters resemble the Half-Life ‘anus dogs’ and the curve of Glados. Oh, and a near copy-paste case of ‘the cake is a lie’ within the movie that actually makes no sense whatsoever in the diegetic context. That was where it went from good to ‘connect the dots’ writing. Of course, with a first time film maker and fan of the HL series that is to be expected, but I get the feeling this was started as that and then during development became what it is now with ‘Cloverfield’ being in the title just being a selling ploy. Great start, but still somewhat unexpectedly disappointing. I would definitely watch the director’s next film though, without any doubt.
25. Batman v superman (2016)
Or: how to learned to stop worrying about being bad at everything when movies like this can get made and make money (kind of, I guess). Whether it’s Wonder Woman ‘getting hard’ from being punched by a troll, Max Luthor having a nonsense plot with music that doesn’t fit at all (seriously, this movie broke Hans Zimmer, imagine that), a dream sequence that is straight up ‘WHAT?’ , babbling some more about gods, being overstuffed with stuff (take that, Neil Breen), using the worst possible thing as a resolution for the climax (like, really, the same name is supposed to mean anything? Hello, both of these characters are geniuses that would know the statistical probability on that renders it meaningless? Anyone?), and many more things, the only conclusion is: fuck this movie. I can’t think of anything about it that I actually lik- oh wait, I liked Jeremy Irons as Alfred and his cosplay sidekick. But that’s because at that point the movie was still going with a sensible script before the movie went “no I am the screenplay! No, I am the screenplay! No, I AM the screenplay!” on us. There’s like three or four separate screenplays in there all trying to be the real one and them swapping places is just a mess. Jeb!
26. The Comedy (2012)
Not a movie to watch if you’re a 30-something living in your dad’s basement without a suicide hotline on standby, but it’s a wonderful exploration of modern misery nonetheless. I immediately made some notes on it and I’ll just write those out:
“Joy is the strangest of all emotions. We seek it, yet the only time it’s felt is when it finds us. And there are hearts that haven’t felt it in a long time. There is a level of Less Than Zero to Alverson’s The Comedy (2012) in Tim Heidecker’s portrayal of an aging 35 year-old who still hasn’t found a way to deal with the joke that is existence. To anyone else this might feel dishonest, but to detached minds it feels that way. Joy is far away, and the desperation to find it manifests by treating everything as a joke. Maybe if you make enough jokes, the first will make sense at some point. This is his character’s deadpan, yet frantic quest: to find something worth caring about. And the only place that he can find it, or any other character can find it, is by playing with a 3 year-old child: the only mind that makes sense to them, that is (still) relatable to them. Other things, like disease, death, and illness are experienced as external non-events. In this uncaring distanced stance we come to Less Than Zero. These people are, for better or worse, empty children that won’t grow up. Or perhaps more worryingly, cannot due to their lack of getting joy from anything. “
Or the much shorter version: arrested development. At any rate this is an atmosphere structure, more akin to a movie like Nothing Personal (2009) which explored how (and whether) modern people still relate to each other in ways we could call relations. This one, The Comedy, then is more about how and whether we can deal with that world, where nothing is real and nothing matters. I thought it was good at showing that, even it might be a little weird if you’re not used to having to ‘clue in’ on what a movie isn’t telling you. A lot of people seem to find that difficult. I don’t.
27. Zootopia (2016)
The surprise of the year, where ‘oh no it’s an animation’ suddenly turns into a wonderfully dense movie filled with charm in its characters and insane chemistry between its leads. Very unexpected, and one of few movies where I wanted to rewatch it right away. Not a movie for small kids, as the concept of racial politics doesn’t mean anything to them yet, but awesome for adults. This movie came out in the same year Donald Drumpf started his campaign for president, imagine that.
28. Captain Punch: Civil War (2016)
In this movie we learn that repeatedly punching people in the face is a better solution than simply talking to people, even if people get killed. Because AMERICA, fuck you. Sure, there is some attempt to make it seem like the good captain isn’t the cause of his own problems, just like we’re pretending that that funeral wasn’t fucking creepy when the niece and the grandpa who knew her aunt when she was young are basically eye-fucking during it (oh just fuck her on top of the coffin already), but hey, otherwise we wouldn’t get our vetted story beats. So some people get punched, some die, then more people get punched, some former friends get punched but that’s okay we’ll still be friends after that, and a helicopter gets used for some serious flexing exercise. Okay now that last part was actually pretty impressive. And then we’re back to punching people. We also learn that Disney has creepy hologram tech that will make RDJ Iron Man FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and then his parents died. The character’s, not RDJ’s. Hopefully. I don’t know. On to Batman! Because reasons!
29. Batman: Year One & Under the red hood
Good Batman stories as films? What is this, quality? No awesome Baffleck training montage though. Can I just have two hours of him working out and then five minutes of him punching people in the fucking face? Or maybe flex some helicopters? Please?
Anyway, Year One was decent, but Under the Red Hood was a phenomenal character study of Batman’s set of rules. Another aspect of his character is enlightened by the equally excellent…
30. Batman: the dark knight returns, part 1 & 2
…inspiration for the part of BvS that you actually cared about, but in part 1 shows us what would happen if the Justice League didn’t happen, and neither did Batman Beyond (which was done a decade later, after which this scenario would likely no longer be made), and this other asshole who doesn’t age and crack under pressure, decided he was going to embody AMERICA (again, Fuck You) turning HIM into… the Schoolboy. Coming to a theatre near you: never. You got shitty Snyder vision instead. Swallow that shit, you fucker.
Which is very sad because The Dark Knight Returns is an epic character study of both the B and S that goes straight to the core and doesn’t waste your time on any nonsense ( *cough* piss jar *cough* ). The – spoiler! – fight between B and Him actually makes sense here, has some great parody of politics and the problem of S as the state (as also seen in Red Son, which is yet to be adapted, but should be on the same level of quality as this one for it to work), and has an actual point to make. I was shocked to see how good this is when it was the ‘source’ for a big budget movie. So this actually made BvS a lot worse, because every little building block you need is already. Fucking. There. But then the same happened –imo- with Watchmen, which was very faithful, right until it actually had to get to the point and completely missed it. I’ve already made that post, so just google that one if you need to know why I say that. But at least Watchmen was an valiant effort at an adaptation.
I can understand that Snyder is obviously not embedded in the 80s zeitgeist and that any other director might have made the exact same mistakes or different ones, but come on, talk to a goddamn historian or something. Do research, motherfucker. It’s what every writer does, so why don’t you? I know the answer is “WB won’t give time to do it” though, so yeah... well, there is always Marvel.
31. X-men: apocalypse (2016)
Or at least part of it, since the movie rights are more than a little messy. After the success of Deadpool, you would almost have expected Fox to force an edit onto this movie where he quickly appeared or something, and thankfully that didn’t happen. What did happen was that we got the other big event of the 90s X-men cartoon we all grew up on (ALL OF US), after the epic Sentinel genocide of Days of Future Past, and that is APO-CA-LYPSE!! (read in epic voice). And his performance by Oscar Isaac is great, the other actors are great, there is an epic antagonist whose backstory makes sense with the diegetic events…and somehow it’s still somewhat boring schlock? How?
This movie is a good one to watch in film school as a movie that seems to do everything right and as such should have succeeded. Except there is the subtle matter that the antagonist never threatens a relate-able humanity directly (or in the same frame for that matter, whereas DoFP had the stadium scene where everyone was in the same location, forcing everything together), which leaves us, as clearly –mostly- non-mutant human viewers, with nobody to identify with and experience dread for the antagonist’s plans. What’s interesting is that the cartoon actually had the image of Apocalypse looming over the White House, with the X-Men in front of it. In that case, all the relevant elements (Apocalypse, humans, mutants, state) were together in one frame and the composition of the antagonist hanging over everybody else made the threat and thereby conflict immediately clear. Even if humanity was full of jerks, we could still feel for them as not deserving to be squashed by Apocalypse. In this movie however, there is a very odd disconnect happening where humans and the antagonist never actually meet. Instead we have Magneto and some others interacting with humanity’s worst, but whenever Apocalypse is in the scene, he just turns them to dust and that’s it. There is never any longer interaction between them so we can related to the humans and their willing protectors, even if those are themselves rejected. Instead, we are meant to relate directly to them, which is not how that works. In a comic or cartoon, sure, you can put Xavier in the center and take it from there, but even the cartoon would set up the human factor every time. Because we can’t relate to ‘just superheroes’, which is the same mistake BvS made. It’s frustrating to say it after the glorious Days of Future Past, but X-Men Apocalypse can never reach its heights even when it is the same degree of competence and has no good reason -at first glance- to fail. Yet, through one simple mistake, it does. Story composition on your elements matters. Identification matters. Such a shame.
21. Hunger Games (2015) ehm…..part 4, I guess. It’s mocking me, bird? Or jay? Or something?
In this movie, you can have the bizarre experience of what’s like to see a dozen millionaires watch television, which plays back events that literally are happening right outside the apartment. You would expect one of the stormtroopers to walk in on them and “the plot” to move forward on that gag, but no that’s the actual movie. And to add “tension” to said “plot”, which is the film crew staying in the back while the real revolution takes place somewhere else (YES, that's a thing), there is a segment featuring Leviathans from Supernatural or perhaps the deacon from Prometheus, because those things randomly being in this city isn’t fucking weird at all or anything. And some people die, creatures get blown up and oh hey, they’re just out of the sewer and into the street again, where stormtroopers are waiting for them. Wait, why didn’t they just…. Ah fuck it. And aside from “yeah, but which of us men will our woman choose?” (quite literally a line in the movie. Bechdel test? hahaha) and “don’t trust them” (oh no, I wonder how this will play ouuuuut), there is a literal ‘WHAT’ when the movie decides to have its climax return Lawrence to that same fucking hospital we spend the last movie in. Wow, literal reset to zero progress, time to resolve the actual movie! Thankfully the ever charming Donald Sutherland is there to save and make somewhat interesting what would otherwise be a complete waste of my time, until you get the really creepy “but we haven’t seen her as a housewife yet” part where you hope they won’t do that and then that’s of course exactly what happens. Pffff. And to think this is probably the best of the YA series. To be entirely fair, at least the propaganda angle was legit interesting, but the movie did too little with it to really matter in any way. Primarily however, the awkward distance from the real fight only gets forcefully ‘resolved’ at the end, making the whole thing an exercise in padding a five minute segment of material into a feature movie and getting ‘the fuck’ weird video gamey in the process, as previously seen in the Hobbit. The production values themselves also appeared to have taken a hit on CG, since they needed in far more scenes of the movie (so less money per CG effect). Of course, being inside the capital for most of the movie made the sets likely more expensive by default, and that this ‘works’ to some degree at all is at least appealing. I wouldn’t mind terribly to rewatch the series as a sci-fi setting, but I wouldn’t rewatch it for the story. It does have a charming design to its technology at least. Thankfully, the untimely passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman is tactfully not a factor in this and he has a graceful exit. For that, thinking back to Halloween 6, the movie has my sincerest gratitude.
22. Victor Frankenstein (2015)
From the black: line: “You know this tale”. And hard cut to credits right there.
I don’t know why Max Landis and other current writers now think it’s cool to do the ending at the start, but I’m going to call this Max Landis-syndrome from now on, because he does it in every damn movie (his three first spec scripts that is), and there is literally no reason to sit through the movie after that. Somewhat unsurprisingly with this hindsight, Victor Frankenstein has had one of (if not the) worst wide openings of all time, which at least made the movie win at something I guess. But that might have been because nobody knew it existed or why they should care about a different story that somehow still goes to the same end. Or at least that’s what Landis might argue. The reality is that if we know the ending, we’re just bored all the way until the movie’s logic is forced to catch up to the writer writing himself into a corner. We’ll get to this again later on. It’s okay for 30 minutes of television, but it shouldn’t be in a 90+ minute movie.
At any rate, I did get something from Victor Frankenstein and that was the presentation of the biology drawings and the pleasantly dense set design of mainly Victor’s apartment. There is stuff everywhere, it looks like mad science + real science stuff, it’s great. The story could have worked well, if it wasn’t for a super awkward ‘TV edit’ of fading to black in the middle of a scene because they felt they still needed to do the monster. That monster itself looks good, but that segment should not have been forced on the movie.
23. Black Dynamite (2009).
Can you dig it? I can dig it. Great comedy, all the way to the top. Dynamite! Dy-na-mite!
24. 10 cloverfield Lane (2016)
Okay movie, great performances, good directing debut, really shitty fourth act.
I also think it was actually started as a Portal project. In 2014 producer Abrams was apparently still in talks with Valve to make (a) Half-Life and Portal movie(s), the director has only made a Portal fan short, the script was called The Cellar (Portal and HL take place underground), and the eventual monsters resemble the Half-Life ‘anus dogs’ and the curve of Glados. Oh, and a near copy-paste case of ‘the cake is a lie’ within the movie that actually makes no sense whatsoever in the diegetic context. That was where it went from good to ‘connect the dots’ writing. Of course, with a first time film maker and fan of the HL series that is to be expected, but I get the feeling this was started as that and then during development became what it is now with ‘Cloverfield’ being in the title just being a selling ploy. Great start, but still somewhat unexpectedly disappointing. I would definitely watch the director’s next film though, without any doubt.
25. Batman v superman (2016)
Or: how to learned to stop worrying about being bad at everything when movies like this can get made and make money (kind of, I guess). Whether it’s Wonder Woman ‘getting hard’ from being punched by a troll, Max Luthor having a nonsense plot with music that doesn’t fit at all (seriously, this movie broke Hans Zimmer, imagine that), a dream sequence that is straight up ‘WHAT?’ , babbling some more about gods, being overstuffed with stuff (take that, Neil Breen), using the worst possible thing as a resolution for the climax (like, really, the same name is supposed to mean anything? Hello, both of these characters are geniuses that would know the statistical probability on that renders it meaningless? Anyone?), and many more things, the only conclusion is: fuck this movie. I can’t think of anything about it that I actually lik- oh wait, I liked Jeremy Irons as Alfred and his cosplay sidekick. But that’s because at that point the movie was still going with a sensible script before the movie went “no I am the screenplay! No, I am the screenplay! No, I AM the screenplay!” on us. There’s like three or four separate screenplays in there all trying to be the real one and them swapping places is just a mess. Jeb!
26. The Comedy (2012)
Not a movie to watch if you’re a 30-something living in your dad’s basement without a suicide hotline on standby, but it’s a wonderful exploration of modern misery nonetheless. I immediately made some notes on it and I’ll just write those out:
“Joy is the strangest of all emotions. We seek it, yet the only time it’s felt is when it finds us. And there are hearts that haven’t felt it in a long time. There is a level of Less Than Zero to Alverson’s The Comedy (2012) in Tim Heidecker’s portrayal of an aging 35 year-old who still hasn’t found a way to deal with the joke that is existence. To anyone else this might feel dishonest, but to detached minds it feels that way. Joy is far away, and the desperation to find it manifests by treating everything as a joke. Maybe if you make enough jokes, the first will make sense at some point. This is his character’s deadpan, yet frantic quest: to find something worth caring about. And the only place that he can find it, or any other character can find it, is by playing with a 3 year-old child: the only mind that makes sense to them, that is (still) relatable to them. Other things, like disease, death, and illness are experienced as external non-events. In this uncaring distanced stance we come to Less Than Zero. These people are, for better or worse, empty children that won’t grow up. Or perhaps more worryingly, cannot due to their lack of getting joy from anything. “
Or the much shorter version: arrested development. At any rate this is an atmosphere structure, more akin to a movie like Nothing Personal (2009) which explored how (and whether) modern people still relate to each other in ways we could call relations. This one, The Comedy, then is more about how and whether we can deal with that world, where nothing is real and nothing matters. I thought it was good at showing that, even it might be a little weird if you’re not used to having to ‘clue in’ on what a movie isn’t telling you. A lot of people seem to find that difficult. I don’t.
27. Zootopia (2016)
The surprise of the year, where ‘oh no it’s an animation’ suddenly turns into a wonderfully dense movie filled with charm in its characters and insane chemistry between its leads. Very unexpected, and one of few movies where I wanted to rewatch it right away. Not a movie for small kids, as the concept of racial politics doesn’t mean anything to them yet, but awesome for adults. This movie came out in the same year Donald Drumpf started his campaign for president, imagine that.
28. Captain Punch: Civil War (2016)
In this movie we learn that repeatedly punching people in the face is a better solution than simply talking to people, even if people get killed. Because AMERICA, fuck you. Sure, there is some attempt to make it seem like the good captain isn’t the cause of his own problems, just like we’re pretending that that funeral wasn’t fucking creepy when the niece and the grandpa who knew her aunt when she was young are basically eye-fucking during it (oh just fuck her on top of the coffin already), but hey, otherwise we wouldn’t get our vetted story beats. So some people get punched, some die, then more people get punched, some former friends get punched but that’s okay we’ll still be friends after that, and a helicopter gets used for some serious flexing exercise. Okay now that last part was actually pretty impressive. And then we’re back to punching people. We also learn that Disney has creepy hologram tech that will make RDJ Iron Man FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and then his parents died. The character’s, not RDJ’s. Hopefully. I don’t know. On to Batman! Because reasons!
29. Batman: Year One & Under the red hood
Good Batman stories as films? What is this, quality? No awesome Baffleck training montage though. Can I just have two hours of him working out and then five minutes of him punching people in the fucking face? Or maybe flex some helicopters? Please?
Anyway, Year One was decent, but Under the Red Hood was a phenomenal character study of Batman’s set of rules. Another aspect of his character is enlightened by the equally excellent…
30. Batman: the dark knight returns, part 1 & 2
…inspiration for the part of BvS that you actually cared about, but in part 1 shows us what would happen if the Justice League didn’t happen, and neither did Batman Beyond (which was done a decade later, after which this scenario would likely no longer be made), and this other asshole who doesn’t age and crack under pressure, decided he was going to embody AMERICA (again, Fuck You) turning HIM into… the Schoolboy. Coming to a theatre near you: never. You got shitty Snyder vision instead. Swallow that shit, you fucker.
Which is very sad because The Dark Knight Returns is an epic character study of both the B and S that goes straight to the core and doesn’t waste your time on any nonsense ( *cough* piss jar *cough* ). The – spoiler! – fight between B and Him actually makes sense here, has some great parody of politics and the problem of S as the state (as also seen in Red Son, which is yet to be adapted, but should be on the same level of quality as this one for it to work), and has an actual point to make. I was shocked to see how good this is when it was the ‘source’ for a big budget movie. So this actually made BvS a lot worse, because every little building block you need is already. Fucking. There. But then the same happened –imo- with Watchmen, which was very faithful, right until it actually had to get to the point and completely missed it. I’ve already made that post, so just google that one if you need to know why I say that. But at least Watchmen was an valiant effort at an adaptation.
I can understand that Snyder is obviously not embedded in the 80s zeitgeist and that any other director might have made the exact same mistakes or different ones, but come on, talk to a goddamn historian or something. Do research, motherfucker. It’s what every writer does, so why don’t you? I know the answer is “WB won’t give time to do it” though, so yeah... well, there is always Marvel.
31. X-men: apocalypse (2016)
Or at least part of it, since the movie rights are more than a little messy. After the success of Deadpool, you would almost have expected Fox to force an edit onto this movie where he quickly appeared or something, and thankfully that didn’t happen. What did happen was that we got the other big event of the 90s X-men cartoon we all grew up on (ALL OF US), after the epic Sentinel genocide of Days of Future Past, and that is APO-CA-LYPSE!! (read in epic voice). And his performance by Oscar Isaac is great, the other actors are great, there is an epic antagonist whose backstory makes sense with the diegetic events…and somehow it’s still somewhat boring schlock? How?
This movie is a good one to watch in film school as a movie that seems to do everything right and as such should have succeeded. Except there is the subtle matter that the antagonist never threatens a relate-able humanity directly (or in the same frame for that matter, whereas DoFP had the stadium scene where everyone was in the same location, forcing everything together), which leaves us, as clearly –mostly- non-mutant human viewers, with nobody to identify with and experience dread for the antagonist’s plans. What’s interesting is that the cartoon actually had the image of Apocalypse looming over the White House, with the X-Men in front of it. In that case, all the relevant elements (Apocalypse, humans, mutants, state) were together in one frame and the composition of the antagonist hanging over everybody else made the threat and thereby conflict immediately clear. Even if humanity was full of jerks, we could still feel for them as not deserving to be squashed by Apocalypse. In this movie however, there is a very odd disconnect happening where humans and the antagonist never actually meet. Instead we have Magneto and some others interacting with humanity’s worst, but whenever Apocalypse is in the scene, he just turns them to dust and that’s it. There is never any longer interaction between them so we can related to the humans and their willing protectors, even if those are themselves rejected. Instead, we are meant to relate directly to them, which is not how that works. In a comic or cartoon, sure, you can put Xavier in the center and take it from there, but even the cartoon would set up the human factor every time. Because we can’t relate to ‘just superheroes’, which is the same mistake BvS made. It’s frustrating to say it after the glorious Days of Future Past, but X-Men Apocalypse can never reach its heights even when it is the same degree of competence and has no good reason -at first glance- to fail. Yet, through one simple mistake, it does. Story composition on your elements matters. Identification matters. Such a shame.
True Savior
Member
Bedevilled - Jang Cheol-soo
The setting of the entire thing is pure gruesome which takes away some of the suspense of it. It's the horrific events that surround this rural community and their behavior towards women that leaves an impression, but being so radical in showing everything the revenge is too satisfying for the audience, even when another character is caught in the middle of the entire thing. More brutal than skillful.
The setting of the entire thing is pure gruesome which takes away some of the suspense of it. It's the horrific events that surround this rural community and their behavior towards women that leaves an impression, but being so radical in showing everything the revenge is too satisfying for the audience, even when another character is caught in the middle of the entire thing. More brutal than skillful.
The Nice Guys
The trailer looked like fun so decided to watch it. There are some pacing problems, but the performances and humor pulled me through the movie.
I liked it, but the plot was not that engaging, it was very predictable. But Shane Black also made Iron Man 3, so...
Ryan Gosling always entertains me and Russel Crowe is getting fat. There was chemistry between them, but it was going nowhere for the plot.
The trailer looked like fun so decided to watch it. There are some pacing problems, but the performances and humor pulled me through the movie.
I liked it, but the plot was not that engaging, it was very predictable. But Shane Black also made Iron Man 3, so...
Ryan Gosling always entertains me and Russel Crowe is getting fat. There was chemistry between them, but it was going nowhere for the plot.
Fancy Clown
Member
Yeah it seems like something I would like more than I actually did. I can't overstate how gorgeous the movie is though. The location by the water was something else.
Ghost_Messiah
Member
The Road: There was a recent thread about this in the OT that encouraged me to give this a re-watch. Wow, what a movie. It's bleak, depressing and heart breaking but also very moving and emotive. The relationship between the Father and Son is fantastic. You believe that they're connected and related. Great performance from the child actor and Viggo Mortensen is on-point too. Incredible acting. I thought that the juxtaposition of flashbacks with the bleak modern day plot was really excellent and even though this was my second time watching this I really enjoyed it.
I'd give it five stars out five. Highly recommended.
I'd give it five stars out five. Highly recommended.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Meiko Kaji is all the substance any movie ever needs tbh.
Fancy Clown
Member
I can get behind this. Maybe the best eyes I've ever seen. Her death glares had me feelin some type of way.
Messofanego
Banned
I love The Comedy. Surprisingly, not many movies that examine what it is to be a detached millenial hipster from the inside out.
His film last year, Entertainment, is even better. Rick Alverson has this fantastic skill in bringing out dramatic and affecting performances out of comedian actors. Which reminds me, I need to check out that Sarah Silverman movie I Smile Back, just for her performance.
American Ultra hit Hulu which I've been wanting to see so this was a no brainer. I went in cold other than a few posts in here every so often. Much like Fight Club and From Dusk Till Dawn, what you think this is about at the start is nothing like how it ends up. Unlike those movies this somehow doesn't reach the heights of awesome those do. I think it's because this tries to be both serious and funny at the same time and doesn't really succeed at either. I did enjoy this quite a bit but doubt I will remember this for too long.
Baroquemantic
Member
Love (Gaspar Noe)
Umm, well, I really liked it, and the music was fantastic, but the ending kinda sucks. I guess it hints at Murphy
or something?
Umm, well, I really liked it, and the music was fantastic, but the ending kinda sucks. I guess it hints at Murphy
committing suicide
Ghost_Messiah
Member
I watched American Ultra too recently and loved it. An underrated and overlooked gem that should have performed better. It's a good film.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Under the Cherry Moon - Virtually unwatchable. One of those big terrible movies that could've only happened when you're one of the biggest cross-media pop culture sensations in the world and nobody could tell you no. Even if you never directed a movie before or understand even the basic tenants of cinema language.
It has a really dope soundtrack by Prince, and really gorgeous photography by Michael Ballhaus of all people. And if you somehow made it through the whole film, the credits hs this great Prince song "Mountains" with Prince wearing this amazing outfit.
Dont let morbid curiosity get the better of you like it did me. Just listen to Parade if you have to.
Now to go watch Graffiti Bridge.
It has a really dope soundtrack by Prince, and really gorgeous photography by Michael Ballhaus of all people. And if you somehow made it through the whole film, the credits hs this great Prince song "Mountains" with Prince wearing this amazing outfit.
Dont let morbid curiosity get the better of you like it did me. Just listen to Parade if you have to.
Now to go watch Graffiti Bridge.
Turbo Kid
This is by far the biggest surprise I've got this year, made me proud of Québec/Canada cinema like never before. The actors were great, the music made by music group ''The Matos'' was insane good. I was surprise that this movie is like a American Version of Japaneses Gore movie like Tokyo Gore Police whit a Post Apocalyptic style of Mad-max mix with Kung Fury, pretty weird indeed but everything work so well. I'm shock how much i like this movie after just one view. This is a freaking Hidden Gem, best blind purchased i made on a BR since i can't remember when. Go watch this movie !!
Baroquemantic
Member
Turbo Kid was really awesome.
Under the Cherry Moon - Virtually unwatchable. One of those big terrible movies that could've only happened when you're one of the biggest cross-media pop culture sensations in the world and nobody could tell you no. Even if you never directed a movie before or understand even the basic tenants of cinema language.
It has a really dope soundtrack by Prince, and really gorgeous photography by Michael Ballhaus of all people. And if you somehow made it through the whole film, the credits hs this great Prince song "Mountains" with Prince wearing this amazing outfit.
Dont let morbid curiosity get the better of you like it did me. Just listen to Parade if you have to.
Now to go watch Graffiti Bridge.
I remember when Nathan Rabin reviewed both of these films for My Year of Flops. Considering what he wrote about the latter film, I suspect that you're going to be in for a world of hurt.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Once upon a time in America
Been meaning to watch this for a long time. At first I was like "fuck me" when I realized how long it was (over 4 hours), but actually watching it, nothing felt out of place or unnecessary and not once was I bored. A masterpiece if there ever was one, on the same level as the Godfathers films. Now I'm eager to watch the other two "once upon a time" films by Leone. The man was clearly a genius based on the Dollars trilogy alone, but this movie had much more depth and character development to it.
I can't believe so many of his films were cut short without his permission for their original American release. You'd think the studios would've learned their lesson after the first time that release bombed at the box office.
Been meaning to watch this for a long time. At first I was like "fuck me" when I realized how long it was (over 4 hours), but actually watching it, nothing felt out of place or unnecessary and not once was I bored. A masterpiece if there ever was one, on the same level as the Godfathers films. Now I'm eager to watch the other two "once upon a time" films by Leone. The man was clearly a genius based on the Dollars trilogy alone, but this movie had much more depth and character development to it.
I can't believe so many of his films were cut short without his permission for their original American release. You'd think the studios would've learned their lesson after the first time that release bombed at the box office.
Bad News Bears (1976)
Holy crap what a classic. It's been years since I've seen this movie and it holds up and then some. Every single thing works and still holds up after 40 years. It's so damn authentic. "Yankees you can take that trophy and apology and shove it straight up your ass" Misfits won.
Something Wild
Another movie I haven't seen in a while and again it holds up. The tone shift at about the halfway point is still incredible. Easily my favorite Demme movie. Ray Liotta is terrifying and electric in every scene he's in.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm setting you free"
"Maybe I don't want to be free"
"Maybe you're not"
Both these films are lighting in a bottle type of flicks.
Holy crap what a classic. It's been years since I've seen this movie and it holds up and then some. Every single thing works and still holds up after 40 years. It's so damn authentic. "Yankees you can take that trophy and apology and shove it straight up your ass" Misfits won.
Something Wild
Another movie I haven't seen in a while and again it holds up. The tone shift at about the halfway point is still incredible. Easily my favorite Demme movie. Ray Liotta is terrifying and electric in every scene he's in.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm setting you free"
"Maybe I don't want to be free"
"Maybe you're not"
Both these films are lighting in a bottle type of flicks.
Fancy Clown
Member
After a string of somnolence inducing duds at the theater, it was nice to get back on track with a good movie with Hell or High Water. It's feels fairly derivative of No Country for Old Men style neo-westerns, but it quickly won me over with its own brand of dark humor and warm characters. The movie may be gritty, violent, and intense, but what separates it from No Country is that it represses some of the unrelenting nihilism and provides a story with a lot of heart, and bit of hope. It's quite well shot too. And while it's never as stunning as a Roger Deakin's shot movie, the camera is used admirably. The very first shot of the movie is a long circular panning shot that cleverly sets up the world the film inhabits and and the people who inhabit that world. The film is also filled to the brim with commentary on race relations, corporate takeovers of small town america, guns, and other topical concerns, which while not the most subtle, do ground the movie in a very tangible setting and does a good job of flavoring the film. If you're in the mood for some Texas boys sipping on beers, landscape shots, gruff cusp of retirement sheriffs, bank robberies, sudden violence, and twangy southern accents, you could certainly do a lot worse than this.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
yep
Graffiti Bridge: So yeah, remember when I said Under the Cherry Moon was virtually unwatchable? This is actually unwatchable. I had to take a break halfway through and the movie's only 90 minutes long. There is nothing resembling a character in this film as Prince becomes infatuated with another beautiful woman he was fucking behind-the-scenes who recites terrible, awful, no-good poetry. The entire movie seems to take place in those giant Fly Girl sets from In Living Color, so it doesnt even have the sense of place Cherry Moon and its cinematography were able to conjure up.
There's one redeemable aspect, which is that soundtrack of course. Dont ever let a nigga tell you Prince wasnt a musical genius and probably the greatest recording artist of his generation. There are a lot of great stuff here; funky guitars, sexy soulful ballads, great pop songs like the huge hit "Thieves in the Temple". And Prince Protege Tevin Campbell probably had the best song with "Round and Round"
But you can find all this music and visual imagery on youtube without having to sit through this movie. Including Prince dancing in a pair of assless chaps because he's the GOAT. With the most DOUCHEBAG facial hair humanly possible
I really wanted to see his Leningrad movie made.
Reading about the opening alone gives me chills:
Rhomega Beta
Member
Turner and Hooch: The dog is the real star here. Really, the best scene is him destroying the house while Scott Turner is out. There's the scene where Turner shows Hooch around the house, or the stakeout scene. The climax isn't as interesting. The love interest isn't as interesting (except when Hooch is trying to shag her collie.)
Fancy Clown
Member
Holy shit
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
My god that would have been unimaginably expensive before the days of CG.
As i understand it, he had the Russian government back him up big time.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Hmmm.. In that case it might have been possible. This was before the soviet collapse so they may have been able to get away with shutting down half the city and bringing in sizable chunks of the army to make it work.
Would have been a sight to behold!
Sausage Party - well, never let them say originality is dead. We don't get many R-rated animated films, but this certainly gets the most out of it, and one imagines the animators (one whom is primarily known for work on Thomas the Tank Engine) had fun letting loose, particularly
The sense of humour is mostly "mature" in the juvenile sense, but it's very funny.
Pete's Dragon - this may actually be my favourite film of the year so far. It's pretty much everything a live action family film should be, and I particularly admire its willingness to let scenes be quiet rather than cramming them with jokes and quick cuts. Daniel Hart's score is one of my favourites in recent times.
in the gigantic food orgy that functions as the film's denouement.
Pete's Dragon - this may actually be my favourite film of the year so far. It's pretty much everything a live action family film should be, and I particularly admire its willingness to let scenes be quiet rather than cramming them with jokes and quick cuts. Daniel Hart's score is one of my favourites in recent times.
True Savior
Member
You guys should watch some Russian epics. The grandiose level of some of their productions are breathtaking. You can't not be impressed by Bondarchuk movies. Battles filmed with helicopters and aerial lifts, and thousands of extras.
I'd love to see a bluray of his War and Peace someday.
Can't even find the dvd at a normal price.
The version we got is completely butchered with dubbing that goes on and off, and some parts not even subtitled.
Death Metalist
Member
My all time favorite. It's that time again where we talk about how heart-achingly amazing the soundtrack is. The film paints such a grand picture of Noodles's life that it's hard not to get lost into it, It's strange how there is still beauty to be found in there between the horrible things he did or someone else did in his life. Once Upon A Time In The West certainly won't disappoint, I prefer In America but damn if in The West ain't a goddamn masterpiece. There's a closeup shot in their that's one for the ages and the soundtrack is haunting as well.
Here's Siskel & Ebert's review of Once Upon A Time In America.
True Savior
Member
It needs to be said. The opening of Once Upon a Time in America is too annoying. Like, i get it. I get it. But it's too damn annoying. Can't handle it.
I'm also not the biggest fan of the movie as a whole. Always wanted to love it, but i can't. It's probably my least favorite Leone movie (along Fistful of Dollars).
I'm also not the biggest fan of the movie as a whole. Always wanted to love it, but i can't. It's probably my least favorite Leone movie (along Fistful of Dollars).
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
You mean because of
the telephone ringing?
go to the phone to call the police
Edit: Plus it's completely integral to the story and of course contrasts with the ending.
True Savior
Member
I don't deny the ingenuity of it, but holy crap the ringing sound it way too unpleasant, loud and long.
Question for you guys: I just watched Ozu's Equinox Flower, his first movie in color, and it was amazing. It reminded me of when I watched Kurosawa's Kagemusha, his first color movie, and how great that was. The way these directors use color as a brand new story telling tool is great.
Any other interesting directors-first-color-movie movies?
Any other interesting directors-first-color-movie movies?
Does Kubrick get to say that he had two debuts? Spartacus was his first film in color, but that was a director-for-hire gig that he didn't have full control over. 2001: A Space Odyssey... well, I think that film speaks for itself quite well.
Puck Beaverton
Banned
I've always liked the The Immortal Story. Pretty sure Welles hated color so seeing how nice that film turned out is funny.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Ah, Welles. Small update on the list to catch up on:
Also, small addendum to 'Xmen: Apocalypse': the one that showed it had problems and really bothered me, was that most of the time, they're standing around. Like really just standing there. Did they blow their entire budget of Quicksilver's glorious speedster scene? Frustrating movie, but at least crazy Hugh Jackman is still a thing. Have fun in those woods, man. I'm going to miss him in X-men movies.
32. Mission Impossible: Rogue nation (2015)
Onwards then to Cruise Missiles being in an action plot! Ehm… because that’s kind of all I remember about it now. I know it’s well written since I noted that while I was watching it, but now that I’m trying to remember the actual plot I can’t remember it for the life of me. Okay, set pieces then: water thing is awesome, Simon Pegg getting dragged off is awesome (that’s a gif that needs to happen, lads), particular thing with the committee and Renner is awesome, because setup, payoff, and good writing to connect them. There is a mirror thing between scenes, and a strong female character who isn’t just there to be a love interest, and the red-haired scientist guy from Prometheus as the villain, who I thought was fun. Yet the plot still eludes my recall. God, did I get wiped? Did I go to Mars? Eh, whatever, it was an amusing action movie that worked to keep my interest on the merits of the story, not arbitrary twists like double face-masks. Damn you, Kaz! On a side note, along with Ben Affleck tying the writer of Argo to his projects, Tom Cruise trying McQuarrie to his projects seems to be a new thing for actors to ensure the writing for their parts is good: instead of relying on studio luck, they bring their own guy that they already know can write. Otherwise, you might wind up with…
33. Gods of Egypt (2016)
GOOODS! OF! EEEEEGYYYPT! (read in Mel Brooks voice) Or at least, if you go in on it like Marc Kermode has done in his own glorious way (that vulture). But for once, I have to disagree with Kermode and every other critic as well and side with director Alex Royas. Dis gonna be gud, right?
Okay, so, little bit of TMI here: I am a crazy person. Which means I was once big on what is now “conspiracy” stuff, with UFO’s, Planet X, ancient alien astronaut, that stuff. Okay….. why am I telling you this? Because this movie is quite literally a variant of the ancient alien astronaut theory (yes, that's a thing), it even has a name: Annunaki. Or rather, that’s supposed to the collective name for a bunch of Planet X three meter tall superhumans who made us humans (like I said, crazy person. I did warn you), based on quack readings of Sumerian clay tablets, Egyptian hieroglyphs and anything else that will confirm the ideas its proponents already have (like not realizing that people didn’t have perspective in drawings and couldn’t very well draw the pharaoh on lower eye-level than servants, so they made the image of one sitting down bigger, leading to the ‘three meter tall when standing up’ thing). And for years, this barely disguised Intelligent Design plot has been suggested for a movie script but it was never popular enough because crazy. So what changed? Video games. They started to use it for Assassin’s Creed 2 (if that’s part of the movie, oh boy are the critics going to love ripping that one a new asshole), Halo 3 used it to explain the Reclaimer aspect of humanity, and I’m sure I missed a few. Then, Prometheus also used it as a literal Intelligent Design plot (which is the primary reason it’s crap, and that’s from the first script too, before anyone blames Lindelof) meaning it’s literally open season for anyone willing to use that crap. Enter the writers of such epics as Dracula Untold, The last Witch Hunter, and I’m sure a lot of other fantasy hack concepts. And I get to say ‘hack’ because I literally had one on this too so that’s how I know. I’m sure they wrote it as an Annunaki thing first, then realized nobody knew wtf that is, and rewrote it as ‘Gods of Egypt’, which has a catchier title…. and caused all of its problems. Royas saw ‘Egypt’ in the title and as an Egyptian himself probably wanted in to make it more comic-booky (much like hieroglyphs are juxtaposed art, so that makes sense), or was hired as the fall guy, it’s impossible to tell.
Anyway, because that myth crap is a Western-Europe thing and has NOTHING to do with actual Egypt, you can literally hire anyone you want for it. It’s a white people thing, you hire white people for it, easy. And then the trailer plays and it’s suddenly “whitewashing!” all over the place. Huh? Why? Because people read Egypt and immediately assume it’s the actual place, not a fictionalized comic book place that has elements from it, but nothing else. Aside from that, the trailer appeared to have bad acting and bad graphics / effects because it never communicated that this was supposed to be a comic book movie, much like another movie that came out this year with terrible trailers. If it had, it might have had a cult following like so many terrible ‘superhero’ movies already have *cough* Marvel *cough*. The one thing the trailer didn’t show, is actually the heart of the movie, and that is that it is about the Afterlife, not just CGI things hitting things. And if it had removed the voice-over at the start and cut off the end (seriously, five minutes in Final Cut, and suddenly it’s a real movie), this would actually have been a decent adventure movie… with some great schlock in between.
Now, I’m not going to lie and say it suddenly isn’t terrible. It is. The editing on the action segments in particular goes nuts on how many cuts it takes on just one punch. Yeah, that’s right, one punch with cuts in it. Why? I don’t know! But somehow the whole is not as bad in context when you get what it’s actually trying to do, and where it got it from. Basically, you have to be that one crazy person who happens to know all this shit. Hi! Also, Gerard Butler saw ‘gods’ in the title and wanted in, god bless, because this is the fun he’s had in years. Sure, it’s terrible, but goddamn, I forgot Butler could smile.
WORTH IT
(if you like entertaining bad movies that could have been something, unlike some horribly bad movies that came out this summer. Oh, we are gonna get to those pieces of shit, just you wait )
34. Paul (2012)
A Pegg and Frost collaboration with Seth Rogen as the cg alien of the title, Paul. The two British guys are touring all the American ‘ufo lore’ locations when they encounter Paul, leading to a lot of funky shenanigans. Charming throughout, with lots of nerdy references worked into the story, of course. It’s not on the level of Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but it’s a fun movie nonetheless. And culture shock jokes, like: “if your cops don’t have guns, how do they shoot people?”
35. First Blood (1982)
Now this an example of a movie where the movie clearly has a ‘wrapper’ around the movie they made, because the test audiences actually improved the movie. The start of the movie is John Rambo asking someone about a Vietnam buddy of his, but it turns out he died, and Rambo is saddened but not depressed. But on the next scene, he suddenly is and the movie goes from there, all the way to the end. The ending is great, but originally the movie started on the second scene to fit the theme with that ending. Sometimes test audiences do good things. It’s a good movie now. Cool stories on the production too (Kirk Douglas in particular), look them up for fun.
That said, every stunt looks like a potential lethal accident waiting to happen. It may have been a horrific incident, but the Twilight Zone incident did save a lot of lives afterwards.
Also, small addendum to 'Xmen: Apocalypse': the one that showed it had problems and really bothered me, was that most of the time, they're standing around. Like really just standing there. Did they blow their entire budget of Quicksilver's glorious speedster scene? Frustrating movie, but at least crazy Hugh Jackman is still a thing. Have fun in those woods, man. I'm going to miss him in X-men movies.
32. Mission Impossible: Rogue nation (2015)
Onwards then to Cruise Missiles being in an action plot! Ehm… because that’s kind of all I remember about it now. I know it’s well written since I noted that while I was watching it, but now that I’m trying to remember the actual plot I can’t remember it for the life of me. Okay, set pieces then: water thing is awesome, Simon Pegg getting dragged off is awesome (that’s a gif that needs to happen, lads), particular thing with the committee and Renner is awesome, because setup, payoff, and good writing to connect them. There is a mirror thing between scenes, and a strong female character who isn’t just there to be a love interest, and the red-haired scientist guy from Prometheus as the villain, who I thought was fun. Yet the plot still eludes my recall. God, did I get wiped? Did I go to Mars? Eh, whatever, it was an amusing action movie that worked to keep my interest on the merits of the story, not arbitrary twists like double face-masks. Damn you, Kaz! On a side note, along with Ben Affleck tying the writer of Argo to his projects, Tom Cruise trying McQuarrie to his projects seems to be a new thing for actors to ensure the writing for their parts is good: instead of relying on studio luck, they bring their own guy that they already know can write. Otherwise, you might wind up with…
33. Gods of Egypt (2016)
GOOODS! OF! EEEEEGYYYPT! (read in Mel Brooks voice) Or at least, if you go in on it like Marc Kermode has done in his own glorious way (that vulture). But for once, I have to disagree with Kermode and every other critic as well and side with director Alex Royas. Dis gonna be gud, right?
Okay, so, little bit of TMI here: I am a crazy person. Which means I was once big on what is now “conspiracy” stuff, with UFO’s, Planet X, ancient alien astronaut, that stuff. Okay….. why am I telling you this? Because this movie is quite literally a variant of the ancient alien astronaut theory (yes, that's a thing), it even has a name: Annunaki. Or rather, that’s supposed to the collective name for a bunch of Planet X three meter tall superhumans who made us humans (like I said, crazy person. I did warn you), based on quack readings of Sumerian clay tablets, Egyptian hieroglyphs and anything else that will confirm the ideas its proponents already have (like not realizing that people didn’t have perspective in drawings and couldn’t very well draw the pharaoh on lower eye-level than servants, so they made the image of one sitting down bigger, leading to the ‘three meter tall when standing up’ thing). And for years, this barely disguised Intelligent Design plot has been suggested for a movie script but it was never popular enough because crazy. So what changed? Video games. They started to use it for Assassin’s Creed 2 (if that’s part of the movie, oh boy are the critics going to love ripping that one a new asshole), Halo 3 used it to explain the Reclaimer aspect of humanity, and I’m sure I missed a few. Then, Prometheus also used it as a literal Intelligent Design plot (which is the primary reason it’s crap, and that’s from the first script too, before anyone blames Lindelof) meaning it’s literally open season for anyone willing to use that crap. Enter the writers of such epics as Dracula Untold, The last Witch Hunter, and I’m sure a lot of other fantasy hack concepts. And I get to say ‘hack’ because I literally had one on this too so that’s how I know. I’m sure they wrote it as an Annunaki thing first, then realized nobody knew wtf that is, and rewrote it as ‘Gods of Egypt’, which has a catchier title…. and caused all of its problems. Royas saw ‘Egypt’ in the title and as an Egyptian himself probably wanted in to make it more comic-booky (much like hieroglyphs are juxtaposed art, so that makes sense), or was hired as the fall guy, it’s impossible to tell.
Anyway, because that myth crap is a Western-Europe thing and has NOTHING to do with actual Egypt, you can literally hire anyone you want for it. It’s a white people thing, you hire white people for it, easy. And then the trailer plays and it’s suddenly “whitewashing!” all over the place. Huh? Why? Because people read Egypt and immediately assume it’s the actual place, not a fictionalized comic book place that has elements from it, but nothing else. Aside from that, the trailer appeared to have bad acting and bad graphics / effects because it never communicated that this was supposed to be a comic book movie, much like another movie that came out this year with terrible trailers. If it had, it might have had a cult following like so many terrible ‘superhero’ movies already have *cough* Marvel *cough*. The one thing the trailer didn’t show, is actually the heart of the movie, and that is that it is about the Afterlife, not just CGI things hitting things. And if it had removed the voice-over at the start and cut off the end (seriously, five minutes in Final Cut, and suddenly it’s a real movie), this would actually have been a decent adventure movie… with some great schlock in between.
Now, I’m not going to lie and say it suddenly isn’t terrible. It is. The editing on the action segments in particular goes nuts on how many cuts it takes on just one punch. Yeah, that’s right, one punch with cuts in it. Why? I don’t know! But somehow the whole is not as bad in context when you get what it’s actually trying to do, and where it got it from. Basically, you have to be that one crazy person who happens to know all this shit. Hi! Also, Gerard Butler saw ‘gods’ in the title and wanted in, god bless, because this is the fun he’s had in years. Sure, it’s terrible, but goddamn, I forgot Butler could smile.
WORTH IT
(if you like entertaining bad movies that could have been something, unlike some horribly bad movies that came out this summer. Oh, we are gonna get to those pieces of shit, just you wait )
34. Paul (2012)
A Pegg and Frost collaboration with Seth Rogen as the cg alien of the title, Paul. The two British guys are touring all the American ‘ufo lore’ locations when they encounter Paul, leading to a lot of funky shenanigans. Charming throughout, with lots of nerdy references worked into the story, of course. It’s not on the level of Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but it’s a fun movie nonetheless. And culture shock jokes, like: “if your cops don’t have guns, how do they shoot people?”
35. First Blood (1982)
Now this an example of a movie where the movie clearly has a ‘wrapper’ around the movie they made, because the test audiences actually improved the movie. The start of the movie is John Rambo asking someone about a Vietnam buddy of his, but it turns out he died, and Rambo is saddened but not depressed. But on the next scene, he suddenly is and the movie goes from there, all the way to the end. The ending is great, but originally the movie started on the second scene to fit the theme with that ending. Sometimes test audiences do good things. It’s a good movie now. Cool stories on the production too (Kirk Douglas in particular), look them up for fun.
That said, every stunt looks like a potential lethal accident waiting to happen. It may have been a horrific incident, but the Twilight Zone incident did save a lot of lives afterwards.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
The Witch - great cinematography, good everything else. Period accents unintelligible through much of it.
Green Room: Good, but didn't think it was great. It's very good at making characters and situations realistic and the tension is really held during build-up scenes and confrontations, but I don't think the movie will have much of a lasting impression on me. Sometimes it was just plain boring when nothing was really happening. Even the small characters moments it has scattered here and there didn't do it for me. The action itself though was VERY effective and super gross. Overall, I prefer Blue Ruin, and 10 Cloverfield Lane is still my choice for best "escape the room" movie of 2016.
Messofanego
Banned
Great study of paranoid schizophrenia. Really sad stuff.
AlteredBeast
Fork 'em, Sparky!
Well, Sausage Party's last 10 minutes make the whole thing kind of incredible. I was still laughing leaving the theater, i think. 
Prof. Bathtub
Member
Disciples of the 36th Chamber
If you're going to acquaint somebody with the Shaw Bros movies, this works better as a follow-up to 36th Chamber than "Return". Gorden Lau reprises his role, and there's no scaffold-fu malarky to confuse newbies. Anyway, Hsiao Ho is the lead here, I really enjoyed the acrobatics and humor he displayed earlier in My Young Auntie, and which he continues in this film.
Like "Return", it's comedic take on the Shaolin structure. Though it differs because the protagonist doesn't really seem to need training, as he's nigh-invulnerable from the start. That's no issue, since Hsiao Ho plays a good charismatic troublemaker, and the action incidents are evenly dispersed. The climactic battle really packed the Shaw-Scope with a crowd of fighters and breaks out the wire-jumps. Lau Kar-leung's choreography might be staccato, but he excels at credibly pitting one fighter against many.
I guess that's it for what Netflix can offer in terms of Lau Kar-leung. I still need to see Mad Monkey Kung Fu, Legendary Weapons of China, Dirty Ho and Lady is the Boss.
If you're going to acquaint somebody with the Shaw Bros movies, this works better as a follow-up to 36th Chamber than "Return". Gorden Lau reprises his role, and there's no scaffold-fu malarky to confuse newbies. Anyway, Hsiao Ho is the lead here, I really enjoyed the acrobatics and humor he displayed earlier in My Young Auntie, and which he continues in this film.
Like "Return", it's comedic take on the Shaolin structure. Though it differs because the protagonist doesn't really seem to need training, as he's nigh-invulnerable from the start. That's no issue, since Hsiao Ho plays a good charismatic troublemaker, and the action incidents are evenly dispersed. The climactic battle really packed the Shaw-Scope with a crowd of fighters and breaks out the wire-jumps. Lau Kar-leung's choreography might be staccato, but he excels at credibly pitting one fighter against many.
I guess that's it for what Netflix can offer in terms of Lau Kar-leung. I still need to see Mad Monkey Kung Fu, Legendary Weapons of China, Dirty Ho and Lady is the Boss.
Yeah, was thinking the same thing. Let's just say he got some practice in with Spartacus..
Looks good, added to the list. Thanks!
- Status