Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[The Cat]

Still a great performance....Just a sexy man playing the role in the blockbuster hollywood movie. Go figure.

 

[The Cat]

Also im moving this to movies. Patrick Stewart can go other places than Star Trek Jules. American Dad proved that.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My dear, you've set your gaze upon the quintessential frontier type. Note the lean silhouette... eyes closed by the sun, though sharp as a hawk. He's got the look of both predator and prey.
That is not the visage of an ugly lump of a man.​

Would you say he possesses a certain rugged masculinity?

 

[The Cat]

Would you say he possesses a certain rugged masculinity?

I would say he's a pretty sexy man. I'm not sure what exactly a certain rugged sense of masculinity means apart from just a round about almost in denial way of saying fuckable. I think my favorite role of his is in Hail Caesar!

 

[Totenkindly]

Did we have a Dune thread? It would fit best there. But definitely this is an improvement.

I really like Thanos as Gurney within V's film, but since I've been reading the book, the character seems to have changed drastically -- all the "poetic/fun" stuff was stomped out of him, he seems less bardsy and more angry warrior in the new films. I haven't seen Lynch's Dune for many years but I suspect Stewart and the writing leaned more into the character as per the book page. I feel more for him in V's version overall, the book version doesn't sit as well with me, but just saying as far as an adaptation goes, Stewart might be closer.

I would say he's a pretty sexy man. I'm not sure what exactly a certain rugged sense of masculinity means apart from just a round about almost in denial way of saying fuckable. I think my favorite role of his is in Hail Caesar!

What, you didn't have the hots for him in The Goonies?

It's just weird now. We could have been upperclassmen in high school together -- a celebrity who is actually my age. Geez, there are quite a number of decent ones now. We finally took over!

Anyway, the rugged masculine thing hasn't always been a pull on me, I like some sensitivity and quiet strength vs just rugged looks. I've seen a ton of Brolin movies I guess over the years. While I'm not a Thanos groupie, .his more thoughtful manner in Infinity War actually piqued my interest among some of the roles Brolin has done. (Not Stupid Bloodthirsty Thanos, though -- bleh.)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I would say he's a pretty sexy man. I'm not sure what exactly a certain rugged sense of masculinity means apart from just a round about almost in denial way of saying fuckable. I think my favorite role of his is in Hail Caesar!

Give that man a billboard.

 

[The Cat]

Did we have a Dune thread? It would fit best there. But definitely this is an improvement.

I really like Thanos as Gurney within V's film, but since I've been reading the book, the character seems to have changed drastically -- all the "poetic/fun" stuff was stomped out of him, he seems less bardsy and more angry warrior in the new films. I haven't seen Lynch's Dune for many years but I suspect Stewart and the writing leaned more into the character as per the book page. I feel more for him in V's version overall, the book version doesn't sit as well with me, but just saying as far as an adaptation goes, Stewart might be closer.

I havent had a chance to really look, but I didnt see one at a glance.

 

[The Cat]

Did we have a Dune thread? It would fit best there. But definitely this is an improvement.

I really like Thanos as Gurney within V's film, but since I've been reading the book, the character seems to have changed drastically -- all the "poetic/fun" stuff was stomped out of him, he seems less bardsy and more angry warrior in the new films. I haven't seen Lynch's Dune for many years but I suspect Stewart and the writing leaned more into the character as per the book page. I feel more for him in V's version overall, the book version doesn't sit as well with me, but just saying as far as an adaptation goes, Stewart might be closer.

The perfect actor to portray book halleck would have been r lee ermy or Ian Bannen

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

This movie apparently blows, but the intro is really cool:

 

[Totenkindly]

This movie apparently blows, but the intro is really cool:

I kinda .... liked it? But more as a "spectacle film." It had some really inventive set pieces and that's what I liked.

But god, Cara Delevingne is a terrible actress, or at least she was when she did that film and the first Suicide Squad film. She really dragged down Valerian. (Dane DeHaan is typically a decent actor.)

 

[Totenkindly]

Dude, just make the films you care about... and if that's more than ten, so be it.

 

[Red Herring]

Being notoriously late to the party, I only recently got to watch Oppenheimer on a long distance flight. I watched it back to back with The Zone of Interest which made for an interesting combination.

I found Oppenheimer entertaining but not fully convincing. It is trying to be epic, the production value is definitely there, Cilian Murphy has great charisma and I really like Robert Downey Jr.. There's a lot of interesting faces in the casting. Conti as Einstein didn't convince me because the look and the vibe were wrong and I just can't take Matt Damon seriously in any role, sorry. But the narrative frame (the whole investigation and the political intrigue thing) seemed a bit pointless and unneccessarily twisted. The sex scenes and his whole love life thing seemed gratuitous and unconnected to the rest of the plotline/his life, they just seemed to be thrown in to amplify the HBO vibe. I would have loved to hear a little more on both the scientific and the ethical aspects rather than the affairs and the political maneuvering. My favorite scene is when Strauss is confronted with the question: What if they (Oppenheimer and Einstein back at the lake) hadn't even talked about him at all and he had mentally maneuvered himself into a persecution complex and a revenge plan for nothing? There seemed to be some life wisdom in that.
Overall the movie tries to be too many things (deep and badass, political, philosophical and rock'n'roll) and fails at several of them. I don't regret watching it, but consider it overrated.

The Zone of Interest was an interesting contrast to watch immediately afterwards. It is extremely lowkey and strikes a chord by keeping its emotional distance at all times. Most reviews refer to Hanna Arendt and her concept of the banality of evil at some point and I can definitely see why. This is not a popcorn movie and you probably have to be in the mood or mentally ready for it. Its main idea/message (that the nazis were people and that even "monsters" like Rudolf Höß, the commander of Auschwitz, was a human being with a wife and kids who got up in the morning, had breakfast, brushed his teeth, went to work, did his job, attended business meetings, came home and went to bed, etc) is not exactly new but extremely well implemented. The movie received a lot of praise for its sound which got partially lost on me due to the noise of the airplane, but there are not just the sounds of the camp occasionally reminding you where you are, there are lots of small scenes and details like when Höß comes home and has the servant clean his boots which are drained in blood.
Some have criticized the movie exactly because that message isn't exactly new, but I think given current developments and given how the Third Reich and nazism increasingly turn into popcultural icons and symbols (or political talking points and rhetorical clichés) that are about as real to people as the stormtroopers from Star Wars or the orcs from LOTR I'd say it is a timely reminder. I wish it a wider audience, maybe the Oscar for best international feature helps.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Being notoriously late to the party, I only recently got to watch Oppenheimer on a long distance flight. I watched it back to back with The Zone of Interest which made for an interesting combination.

I found Oppenheimer entertaining but not fully convincing. It is trying to be epic, the production value is definitely there, Cilian Murphy has great charisma and I really like Robert Downey Jr.. There's a lot of interesting faces in the casting. Conti as Einstein didn't convince me because the look and the vibe were wrong and I just can't take Matt Damon seriously in any role, sorry. But the narrative frame (the whole investigation and the political intrigue thing) seemed a bit pointless and unneccessarily twisted. The sex scenes and his whole love life thing seemed gratuitous and unconnected to the rest of the plotline/his life, they just seemed to be thrown in to amplify the HBO vibe.

I think they were trying to say something about mother/father archetypes and do something with the Oedipal complex, hence the professor and the apple at the beginning.

 

[Red Herring]

I think they were trying to say something about mother/father archetypes and do something with the Oedipal complex, hence the professor and the apple at the beginning.

I took that as him being bullied and fantasizing about killing the professor (not really shown as a father figure, in my eyes - yes, a professor could potentially be one but this one wasn't shown in that light at all and their relationship at that point was limited to short moments of bullying) but then resisting that impulse, or rather changing his mind, in the very last moment -> maybe foreshadowing decisions to be made about lethal power ...or just a "fun" anecdote they couldn't resist putting in there even when unconnected. I don't really remember any mother figure in the movie. I also didn't see any parental figures or father/mentor relationships to speak of. Interesting idea though, maybe if I rewatch it at some point with that perspective in mind...

 

[Totenkindly]

The Zone of Interest is either on Hulu or Max and I plan to watch it very soon -- it's one of the big films I wanted to watch before the Oscars but it wasn't on regular streaming services before then. I agree that Oppenheimer was way overrated. I mean, I can live with it being Best Picture compared to schlocky films like CODA from a few years ago. But I was strangely unmoved for much of it and found Strauss far more interesting a character than some of the more prominent scientific figures (and it drove me to do some reading about him after the film). Aside from Emily Blunt's five minute scene where Oppenheimer was grilled, she and Pugh were criminally underused, and Pugh's character was just not well-written. There are multiple other Nolan films I consider to be better -- like, most of them -- in terms of story telling and story cohesion.

---

I feel bad mentioning Rebel Moon Part 2 after descriptions of two actually decent films.

I won't go into much length about it because there's little to say that people would not have expected. This piece is two hours long. The first hour is mostly dialogue and setup for the battle sequence. The best past works of the non-Snyder writers on this film are the last two John Wick films, and those films were stronger in writing despite the reality that no one would ever like a John Wick film because of the writing, but more because of the action sequences and kinetic performances. I laughed fairly regularly through the first hour over the schlocky moments. The writing didn't seem to mesh well with Snyder's excesses. Some of the casting is way off (it's hard to watch Cary Elwes in anything where he's not well-directed, as he seems to drop into caricature nowadays). I don't understand why they hire crap writers for films like this.

The last hour (the battle itself) is decent enough if one is into those things. There are some pretty decent moments. But it felt more like a jumble of characters and imagery from older Snyder films or pop culture (like Star Wars).

For me, the high part was Bae Doona, who is an exquisite actress even without a good script. She brings gravitas to the words that come out of her, and can act without words. This is obviously hyperbole, but I texted my son as I was watching her: "her eyes are like deep pools full of haunting echoes and glimmers of sunlight, and her voice even used sparingly is like glimpses of half-realized dreams and half-forgotten memories." It's really disappointing she doesn't get a ton of time in this film, and they did this with Rebel Moon 1 as well, with Ray Fisher's character, who was only in the last 40 minutes or so of that film (if that). Most of the other characters seem so interchangeable. I feel so much when Bae Doona is on the screen, and she does so much with so little. My understanding is she didn't really learn English until she was cast in Cloud Atlas.

Korean Star Doona Bae On Sonmi-451 And Her Crossover Journey To 'Cloud Atlas'

You'll hear much of the movie stars and familiar faces that pop up again and again in Tom Tykwer and Lana and Andy Wachowski's sprawling, ambitious Cloud Atlas, from Tom Hanks to Halle Berry to frequent Wachowski Starship performer Hugo Weaving. But the beating heart of the film belongs to...

www.yahoo.com

she also had one of the most bad-ass backstories of any of these characters:

She was from a fishing village which was overrun by troops and much of her family killed. We watch as she lops off her own hands with her ancestral weapons so she can affix the mechanical hands to the stumps and wield these fiery blades of vengeance to spill the blood of the ravagers and similar. from anyone else, this could potentially come off as camp, but Bae makes it resonate. She's essentially a sith demon ronin.

I will probably watch the "fixed" versions in August if it seems significantly different, because these two films were near the bottom of Snyder's output IMO. If the later version is just adding violence and swear words, though, versus a significant restructure, that will be a waste. Again, the pattern is pretty clear -- Snyder might have talented (if quirky/excessive) visuals and putting together a film, but whether it's any good will always depend on the script and dialogue. This story just feels like a clusterf*ck with a lot of things jumbled in.

I actually have never watched The Seven Samurai but I think I picked it up this past year on bluray. That will now go on my list as a film to watch for itself and so I can recognize any homages to it.

 

[Totenkindly]