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Random Movie Thoughts Thread

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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People are going to call me insane for this, but I think I like The Golden Child more than Big Trouble in Little China. Eddie Murphy made me laugh more than Kurt Russell. And Charles Dance!

Seems I'm not alone.

https://monkeysfightingrobots.co/ho...d-is-better-than-big-trouble-in-little-china/

That same year, just five month later, there was The Golden Child. The Eddie Murphy vehicle – right in the height of Murphy’s powers in Hollywood – dealt with an everyman being swept up in Eastern mysticism and magic, tasked to save a young boy in the face of evil forces. While they aren’t the same story, The Golden Child and Big Trouble in Little China share more than a kindred spirit. Themes, protagonists, and antagonists all feel similar, and some of the sets could easily transfer from one shoot to the other. Both films are lighthearted, adventurous tales of “every-men” in over their heads and up against supernatural forces. And, yes, both are a little racist. Yet, only one is celebrated, while the other – The Golden Child – is chided, dismissed as forgettable drivel.

I found the movie much better than its reputation.
 
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Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Totenkindly

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I foresee The Eternals being a major box-office bomb.

No one knows the characters, they're fairly obscure to mass audiences.
No one cares about the characters nor do they seem relevant to current MCU plotting.
There's not a large attachment to the actors involved. (Most are not well known, except for Jolie and then maybe Madden + Harington due to GoT, and then Chan.)
And there's a pandemic still in play.

Frankly, much of the Marvel stuff that has come out since Endgame has been middling at best (Wandavision might be the best, aside from the mostly predictable finale) and more often muddling than not.

Also, the Inhumans was a total disaster that has been completely forgotten after a few years. It was also badly written, but would people have cared anyway?

I'm mildly interested in seeing what Chloe Zhao does, since she's a serious filmmaker (and pulled in Best Director last year for Nomadland), so how does this play out in an MCU setting? But I'm not sure how many movie goers care about that and I probably won't even see it in the theater regardless.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I foresee The Eternals being a major box-office bomb.

No one knows the characters, they're fairly obscure to mass audiences.
No one cares about the characters nor do they seem relevant to current MCU plotting.
There's not a large attachment to the actors involved. (Most are not well known, except for Jolie and then maybe Madden + Harington due to GoT, and then Chan.)
And there's a pandemic still in play.

Frankly, much of the Marvel stuff that has come out since Endgame has been middling at best (Wandavision might be the best, aside from the mostly predictable finale) and more often muddling than not.

Also, the Inhumans was a total disaster that has been completely forgotten after a few years. It was also badly written, but would people have cared anyway?

I'm mildly interested in seeing what Chloe Zhao does, since she's a serious filmmaker (and pulled in Best Director last year for Nomadland), so how does this play out in an MCU setting? But I'm not sure how many movie goers care about that and I probably won't even see it in the theater regardless.
What about The New Mutants?
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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yeah, that kinda died on the vine as well, after production and release hell.

It ended up being kind of forgettable. If it had been tied in better to the X-men? Dunno.
I feel like the release of it was delayed for years, and this was before Covid. I think the only X-men adjacent thing (which is what I'm calling the Eternals, although that may not be accurate) I've seen since Days of Future Passed is Legion, which I love... visually the look of it is so unique, a bit like if Wes Anderson made a comic book movie. And of course I'll give anything with Aubrey Plaza a fair shake.

I haven't seen New Mutants but I've heard people rip it to shreds on The Flophouse or How Did This Get Made or We Hate Movies. One of those. I think it was probably the Flophouse, one of them was a fan of the comic and felt they really did the scientist character dirty.
 

Totenkindly

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I haven't seen New Mutants but I've heard people rip it to shreds on The Flophouse or How Did This Get Made or We Hate Movies. One of those. I think it was probably the Flophouse, one of them was a fan of the comic and felt they really did the scientist character dirty.
Yeah, the Demon Bear arc was a neat idea but the film never really does the story justice.

As far as the doc:

 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Watched Forbidden Planet. I was struck by how much of a proto-Star Trek this was (the original series of course). Of course certain things about it are dated but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I also like whenever a movie has a robot that doesn't turn on its creators, so I liked that aspect, as well, despite the fact that Robbie cuts an imposing figure.

I think the overall "message" is still pretty timely, and that aspect of it was of course, very Star Trek.

There were also a few things about the aesthetic that reminded me of Star Wars... like the unusual shapes of the Krell hallways and the narrow catwalks over bottomless hallways. The Krell facility is vaguely reminiscent of the Death Star interiors.
 
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Totenkindly

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Watched The Village again. Hadn't watched it for years. My son loves it still, I kind of am "meh" on it. One thing I totally forget (or didn't recognize in 2004) is how well-known much of the cast is. It's crazy, looking at it now.

We both think Shyamalan's a big dork, he really about ruins his own ending by sticking himself in and commenting on the story needlessly. He's a guy who really needs to learn how to get out of his own way when he directs a film.

I agree that the music is wonderful. Pinning a lot of issues on the village idiot is really tasteless, though. The film has a few great scenes in it, though, including some of the early stuff with "those not to be named." Deakins can take credit for the beautiful coloring and framing/cinematography.

My favorite scene is when Phoenix and Howard are sitting on the porch, and she's laying into him a bit for not speaking his mind, and he finally responds. They are just really great.

(That should be "Ivy and Lucius" btw.)
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Hidden Figures was a good movie, but like most historical dramas it was full of inaccuracies. I am a bit perplexed by the scene where the Kevin Costner character makes a big deal out of smashing up the bathroom sign for the whites only bathroom. The problem there is that NASA had already integrated those facilities by that point in time. So I have this sneaking suspicion that scene was written to create another "white savior" moment on film.
 

Totenkindly

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Hidden Figures was a good movie, but like most historical dramas it was full of inaccuracies. I am a bit perplexed by the scene where the Kevin Costner character makes a big deal out of smashing up the bathroom sign for the whites only bathroom. The problem there is that NASA had already integrated those facilities by that point in time. So I have this sneaking suspicion that scene was written to create another "white savior" moment on film.

Admittedly, Costner was perfectly positioned due to past savior experience.

Realistically, it doesn't need to be a "white savior" role in the sense of making white people look good. It's also just as likely that (1) it was meant to just create a dramatic, yet funny moment in the film and (2) acknowledged that it's difficult for marginalized groups to make progress unless people with power in the system happen to proactively support them (which is not a bad thing to encourage -- training people to use their privilege to help others without it!) Since the setting was America struggling with civil rights, that just happens to be a white male in that time period.

I do think it highlights an issue with all of these films representing "historical events," though, especially if they are generally reasonable looking rather than melodramatic -- our culture is so ill-educated on even our own history that people take events and details in a film as what actually happened rather than realizing some of it might be embellished or change as a semi-fictional account. People don't have the knowledge or thinking skills developed to recognize what they are seeing might not be truthful in some ways.
 

Totenkindly

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James Bond is not a codename. That's a stupid theory and I wish people would stop talking about it.

Yeah, lots of reasons why that isn't true -- in addition to Skyfall doing its darndest to lay that to bed by even showing the tombstone of both of Bond's parents (who were, of course, both Bonds).
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Yeah, lots of reasons why that isn't true -- in addition to Skyfall doing its darndest to lay that to bed by even showing the tombstone of both of Bond's parents (who were, of course, both Bonds).
The continuity throughout the series may seem nonexistent, but it’s definitely there. I really loved that twinge of pain on Moore’s face when Barbara Bach brings up his dead wife in The Spy Who Loved Me. Not to mention a similar reference to her in License to Kill. I think the writers and producers purposely kept the continuity loose and vague but it’s there. Plus it’s clear in Goldeneye that Brosnan Bond is the same dude based on things 006 and M say

in my own head canon, each actor exists in their own continuity. I prefer to pretend I am watching different Bonds from the multiverse. They are all Bond, yet they are still different agents, if that makes sense.
 

Totenkindly

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The continuity throughout the series may seem nonexistent, but it’s definitely there. I really loved that twinge of pain on Moore’s face when Barbara Bach brings up his dead wife in The Spy Who Loved Me. Not too mention a similar reference to her in License to Kill. I think the writers and producers purposely kept the continuity loose and vague but it’s there.

in my own head canon, each actor exists in their own continuity. I prefer to pretend I am watching different Bonds from the multiverse.

That probably is one of the most sensible ways to do it. Because it's "kind of the same Bond" but "not really because of things outside the story -- i.e., new actor, new support cast, new creation team." Kind of like comic book continuity or any kind of serialized story telling spanning years and even decades, where you kind of have to reinvent the main characters to have new stories to tell.
 

Totenkindly

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Jamie Clayton? Srsly?

How slim is this budget?
 

Totenkindly

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V/H/S 94 -- it was on Shudder, so I figured why not. At this point, I am gonna have to consider this "found footage" series to be "comedy-horror" though. My son and I found little to be scary, although a bit was uncomfortable and we laughed repeatedly at how absurd it was... so it was enjoyable on that level. Probably the craziest segment was the one by Timo Tjahjanto, who did another infamous VHS segment back in the second film (?) about the cult -- typically lots of blood and craziness and wild action shots, which this segment about a mad scientist merging machine and human also embodies. The first segment about the Rat Man was also amusing from the sheer craziness of it. You do need a fairly strong stomach / detachment at times.

I do miss the moments when the series managed (despite all the segment misfires) to occasionally produce something with real pathos -- I'm thinking primarily the segment in V/H/S about the succubus, or in V/H/S 2 about the guy with the helmet cam who gets turned into a rage zombie. Occasionally the segments were able to evoke an emotional response. Now they are mostly just eh, like one-off trial stories by upcoming wannabes.

The framing story of course is complete garbage. This is one area that V/H/S has never ever been good at. Is this because they just create the frame without knowing what the segments actually are, so there can be no sense of connection between everything? But they seem to even be the worst of the worst.

One Cut of the Dead -- This was just, frankly, great. One of the funnest, funniest, creative things I've seen in Asian horror. It's not even scary, it's just fun as heck. If you watch the first 20-30 minutes and think some of it feels a bit B rate, there's a reason for that, and you should just persevere to the end because the second half of the film enlightens the first. But I find this film endearing. And literally all of the characters have mini-arcs, they actually feel like real people even if not super fleshed out. It is just so fun, and funny.
 
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Doctor Cringelord

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That first V/H/S is up there with Creepshow 1 and 2 as classic anthology horror for me. I liked Ti West's short best and found it most chilling and realistic of them all, though the succubus part was pretty fun and crazy. West is good at establishing unease and his felt the most "slice of life" to me.

V/H/S Viral was just meh, I'd agree it lacked in the emotional weight of some of the segments from the first 2 movies and instead went for wow factor. The only segment I found memorable was Bone Storm with the mexican skeleton cult. I liked the slumber party alien attack in V/H/S/2. I had trouble remembering which segments were from which films and had to look them up again. No surprise most of the strongest came in the first film. I agree the connecting segments were poorly done. They felt gimmicky. Just have a silly host or narrator like every other anthology horror series seems to have.
 

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Gotta love Ti West's cameo in Wingard's You're Next. I imagine he agreed to be in his buddy's film on the condition he be given a particularly gruesome death scene
 
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