Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Paranormal Activity is excruciatingly boring. Somehow it ends up near the top of many lists of found footage horror.

it’s Poltergeist with nanny cams replacing production value

But there was flour with hoof prints! The terror!

 

[Hawk]

I read somewhere that the old TV series "Six Million Dollar Man" was going to be made into a modern theatrical release a few times around 15 years ago.

I always think about that. 6 million in the 80s was a lot different than now. Back then it bought him 2 legs, an arm, and an eye.

Today he would probably get a wheelchair, a decent arm, and an eye patch.

They would have to title it "The 60 Quadrillion Dollar Man".

And then people would think it's about a guy paying off the global debt.

 

[Totenkindly]

I read somewhere that the old TV series "Six Million Dollar Man" was going to be made into a modern theatrical release a few times around 15 years ago.

I always think about that. 6 million in the 80s was a lot different than now. Back then it bought him 2 legs, an arm, and an eye.

Today he would probably get a wheelchair, a decent arm, and an eye patch.

They would have to title it "The 60 Quadrillion Dollar Man".

And then people would think it's about a guy paying off the global debt.

Maybe Elon Musk wants to pay for it.

They actually are releasing all the old SMDM episodes on Bluray now, there was already a DVD box set. The BR is pretty stiff at $190 but you gotta collect that buku money to fix Steve Rogers!

 

[Totenkindly]

Paranormal Activity is excruciatingly boring. Somehow it ends up near the top of many lists of found footage horror.

it’s Poltergeist with nanny cams replacing production value

Eh, I found the first one to have a few great moments, if you are able to handle the extremely slow burn. But yeah, if you're jacked up all the time on more active films, it can seem kind of a dud. The later films, eh. It had its 15 minutes and then flashed out.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I know it's been said by me earlier, but I really love the movie Mandy. Particularly when he goes to the chemist and they let the tiger out of the cage.

I suppose the symbolism is obvious with his tiger shirt, but I think it helps that I just kinda like tigers anyway.

 

[Totenkindly]

I know Dear Evan Hansen really took a lot of hits upon release last fall, so I wasn't expecting much when I watched it. I only kind of knew the general gist but had never seen the show and knew little of the music.

I finished it this afternoon and was confused over [the degree of] some of the criticism.

About the strongest criticism I related to was simply about Ben Platt being obviously too old. There is no getting around this. While it's become common to cast people in the young 20's as high school students, Platt is now a notable number of years beyond that and he shows. You can tell he's wearing makeup, sometimes this makeup does not work, and in any scene with notably younger cast members, he just looks older. The main question I kept asking myself was "If not Platt, then who?" Because despite that, Platt originated the part and he actually is extremely nuanced in the role and knows it inside and out. I mean, the only actor Stephen Spielberg could come up with for Tony in WSS last year was Ansel Elgort (who also is 28 although I guess Tony could be older?) and who just couldn't perform the role satisfactorily and was kind of a drag on the film. Decent actresses seem to be far more plentiful where singing roles are concerned. If you can ignore his age issue, then that's great; if not, it's distracting. He's also a bit too stable as a teenager despite the issues depicted in the film. [Check back to all the old Peter Parker casting arguments and comparisons.]

As far as the rest goes: The rest of the cast is honestly stellar, and there's a reason you cast two Oscar noms/winners in a film (Adams and Moore, although they only get one scene together -- but damn). They can actually all sing sufficiently for the roles too. A great delight was Dever as Zoe, and also Stenberg as Alana -- the latter most of us might remember from years back as Rue from The Hunger Games but she's done some great stuff since.

This actually feels like they transitioned it to film rather than being a stage show they shot (aside from the songs).

As far as the cringe:

The movie has its cringe moments but they are part of the plot -- namely when Evan gets himself enmeshed into a terrible web of lies. The way people described the plot, it came off as dreadful -- but essentially some of these moments, multiple people are complicit in situations where they are desperately looking for some kind of emotional affirmation. I think the two moments I felt like Evan was 100% to blame was when he wrote false e-mails with a friend outside of proximity of Connor's parents, and when he went on stage with the made-up example of the apple orchard. For the other examples (and how Evan got in this mess), his psychological anxiety/depression issues made it very difficult for him to challenge the other narratives people were imposing on him. (We find out that Connor's mother is far too affirming and always looking for some kind of miracle cure to alleviate pain; Connor's stepdad is unable to engage well; and Connor's sister Zoe is furious at him for all the honest ways he took advantage of her in the past even while deep down she wishes she had had a connection with him. Meanwhile, Evan's single mom for legitimate reasons is always at work, leaving him alone.)

At its midpoint I feel like the film actually could have had something interesting to say about social media's tendency to subsume the actual identities of victims/initiators of tragedies to support someone else's political or social cause. Like, here no one really had a true idea of Connor and who he was, what he was dealing with; he simply gets swiped to be the face of some kind of school/teenage public health message. We all know the entire thing the movement is based on is false, and so does Evan, but everyone else just takes it and goes with it, with Connor as the victim we can no longer save but can commemorate and use to motivate change. We see this all the time in the news when people are killed or even the people who do the killing. It's all spun somehow to achieve someone else's goal.

I was expecting Evan to get a slap on the wrist at the end of the film, based on what people were saying. I did not at all feel that is what happened. Connor's family cut off all ties, each in their own way, with him. His school peers no longer engaged him and he was alone again, the outsider. He lost his change at college and didn't get scholarships. He graduated with only the friend he started the film with. The fact he didn't end up with less is based only on the fact he started with nothing. His mother is the only other person in his life he can count on.

In his isolation, Evan tries to do his own penance. He manages to find a list of books Connor liked, etc., and reads them all to "earn" any knowledge he might have laid claim to. he also does a lot of networking to find out actual valid information about Connor and manages to snag a video of him singing a song he wrote and performed in rehab -- and sends it to the few people who would benefit from that, without explanation. (COnnor's mom was very sad she never heard any of Connor's music.) But Evan I don't think identifies himself or expects anything in return, nor does he get it.

Zoe asks him to meet in the apple orchard at film's end, but they do not get back together nor do they really "make up" IMO. She simply says that she wishes they were "just meeting now" and starting from scratch... but the insinuation is that they are not, and they cannot. He sadly says the same. She doesn't hate him, because she once loved him and she still can somewhat understand him and knows it cost him everything to come clean; so the best she can do is just say she asked him to meet in the orchard because she honestly wanted him to see it. IOW, despite all the shit, and the fact they can't be together and he lost everything else, it doesn't mean something good did not happen through it. The orchard was still able to be reopened and dedicated to Connor as a memory, and maybe give hope to others. Evan is okay with that and has learned how to move on, alone.

I'm not sure if due to his psychological issues he actually would have been able to do this -- is his disorder biological in part, or is it something he can work through despite the horrible stress and abandonment/isolation? In part because of his mom's support? -- but from a pure psychological growth perspective, it seemed a fair outcome.

I am wondering if people who have not experienced crushing alienation and anxiety as Evan did simply cannot understand why he feels so passive and swept along into compliance with other people's desires in this film. As I said, a few things he actively did and is culpable for. Some other things, he and others are simultaneously culpable for. I understand it and the movie was hard to watch at times. You are socially inept, terrified of pushing back again others and don't even know how to do it, the ego structure is so very weak and difficult to accomplish anything. Alana showed an opposite perspective where she experienced deep alienation and worthlessness in her life, but would channel it into pretending to be a great achiever and publicly involved. I can identify with both of them and remember really dark periods where I couldn't even walk through the hallways at an old job in terror someone would walk towards me -- I would regularly immediately change my route so i didn't have to meet another person's gaze or suffer the shame of looking away as to not to. Or in conversations especially with authority just parroting what you think they want to hear or at least something inoffensive and so weak as to not be challengeable. I don't understand it, I just know what it feels like. It's horrible. it leaves you feeling like a weak pathetic zombie in life, a non-person, no one anyone else would ever be interested in or see value in... and it just contributes to the existing isolation. So I understand how he felt swept along in some of the plot due to his inability to effectively challenge what was being believed. But then in other places, he actively went along with it, so... eh.

 

[Totenkindly]

Feeling a little bad for Colton Ryan. He gets cast as Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen, then turns around and is picked up as Conrad Roy III in "The Girl from Plainville." I hope he breaks out of this typecasting quickly.

 

[Skimt]

He's not funny, but he is enjoyable to watch in movies like Stranger Than Fiction.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I rewatched the Matrix last year. I don't remember when exactly, but it was before the new film came out (I have some interesting observations about that movie but I'll save it for another time

Something I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about is how good Carrie Anne Moss's performance. She seems cold and aloof at first glance, but if you watch closely, you can see a lot going on under the surface. This is particularly evident in many of the scenes with Neo.

 

[Totenkindly]

I rewatched the Matrix last year. I don't remember when exactly, but it was before the new film came out (I have some interesting observations about that movie but I'll save it for another time

Something I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about is how good Carrie Anne Moss's performance. She seems cold and aloof at first glance, but if you watch closely, you can see a lot going on under the surface. This is particularly evident in many of the scenes with Neo.

It kind of just makes it worse playing against Keanu Reeves; I like Reeves as a human being a great deal, but he struggles with any performance where he has to deliver lines. Moss actually is an instinctive actress and typically plays these kinds of roles where her outside is under fairly tight control but simultaneously conveys a lot of internal depth that "leaks through" in glimpses. i.e., multilayered performance. She pretty was able to do this out of the box, she's quite good. It's something Anthony Hopkins is good at as well, well pretty much how to convey characters who have secrets or an interior life. in a book, the author just tells you what the character is experiencing usually, but in film it has to come through a multi-layered performance.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, Keanu Reeves is pretty much nothing more than a dumb stoner and plays that role in every movie.

 

[Totenkindly]

I forget if I mentioned it but one of the few movies (genre pics) I'm interested in this year is Netflix' The Gray Man since it actually is directed by the Russos and written by McFeeley and company. (Aside from Gunn's stuff, pretty much the peak of MCU for me was CA: The Winter Soldier, and then Infinity War and 2/3 of Endgame.) Once they left at the end of Phase 3, Phase 4 has pretty much sucked.

The cast list for this film is also pretty decent.

The Gray Man (2022 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yeah, Keanu Reeves is pretty much nothing more than a dumb stoner and plays that role in every movie.

Aside from his physical stunt work, one of like two of my favorite performances by him was as Todd in "Parenthood" because he was essentially playing himself and was as funny as hell. (He's really young there, and the hilarious part is that he's playing an older-brother figure to a very young teen Joaquin Phoenix. Damn.)

 

[Totenkindly]

Since my kid had watched all the original Planet of the Ape films, we were watching the final sequel trilogy -- stalled for a few weeks but just watched War for the Planet of the Apes last night. I'm not sure why this series is never talked about, it's almost that it is too deep of a film rather than being pure blockbuster. It has comic relief but also a lot of depth... and we were both laughing because the production quality is insane and far more than needed in most films than this.

• Acting is really great, especially considering some is motion capture. Andy Serkis is obviously a master, but the other actors are great too.
• they make animating a load of apes look so easy you don't even notice that they don't exist. This isn't like uncanny valley like people complained about in Rogue One (which was better than most other uncanny valley films), they actually all look very real even with all the zoom on faces.
• The cinematography is amazing -- like, that's why we kept laughing. Just these absolutely gorgeous shots on 4K involving nature scenes, especially riding across the beach.
• These sequels manage to take elements of all the prior films and weave them into a story line that ends up being a somewhat multiverse-like prequel, it sets up the years where mankind lost their dominance and how this affected the balance of power between man and ape, and it even moves the apes to a locale resembling the first film even if we know they are in different geographical locations. Like, this is how to do a "related" film without just regurgitating everything from other works in a series.
• I forget Giacchino did the music until the credits came up, but multiple times during the film I was like, "Man, this feels so Giacchino." He's really great at juxtapositing unexpected music moods over scenes so it plays off -- here he's doing his thing of having a violent scene overlaid with beautiful / introspective music, which brings an entirely different set of emotions to the fore. He also does this at the end, with what is a sad moment that has a lot of swelling orchestra, then backs way off in a way that makes it all hopeful and beautiful. I know I'm gonna always appreciate his stuff because of emotional memory -- I first got deeply acquainted with him on Lost, so my heart always leaps back to the best moments of that show and the emotions I experienced -- but I usually appreciate his stuff regardless. (and of course, no one will ever forget The Incredibles.)

 

[The Cat]

Since my kid had watched all the original Planet of the Ape films, we were watching the final sequel trilogy -- stalled for a few weeks but just watched War for the Planet of the Apes last night. I'm not sure why this series is never talked about, it's almost that it is too deep of a film rather than being pure blockbuster. It has comic relief but also a lot of depth... and we were both laughing because the production quality is insane and far more than needed in most films than this.

• Acting is really great, especially considering some is motion capture. Andy Serkis is obviously a master, but the other actors are great too.
• they make animating a load of apes look so easy you don't even notice that they don't exist. This isn't like uncanny valley like people complained about in Rogue One (which was better than most other uncanny valley films), they actually all look very real even with all the zoom on faces.
• The cinematography is amazing -- like, that's why we kept laughing. Just these absolutely gorgeous shots on 4K involving nature scenes, especially riding across the beach.
• These sequels manage to take elements of all the prior films and weave them into a story line that ends up being a somewhat multiverse-like prequel, it sets up the years where mankind lost their dominance and how this affected the balance of power between man and ape, and it even moves the apes to a locale resembling the first film even if we know they are in different geographical locations. Like, this is how to do a "related" film without just regurgitating everything from other works in a series.
• I forget Giacchino did the music until the credits came up, but multiple times during the film I was like, "Man, this feels so Giacchino." He's really great at juxtapositing unexpected music moods over scenes so it plays off -- here he's doing his thing of having a violent scene overlaid with beautiful / introspective music, which brings an entirely different set of emotions to the fore. He also does this at the end, with what is a sad moment that has a lot of swelling orchestra, then backs way off in a way that makes it all hopeful and beautiful. I know I'm gonna always appreciate his stuff because of emotional memory -- I first got deeply acquainted with him on Lost, so my heart always leaps back to the best moments of that show and the emotions I experienced -- but I usually appreciate his stuff regardless. (and of course, no one will ever forget The Incredibles.)

Ive always felt that people not wanting to talk about planet of the apes is what leads to planet of the apes.

 

[Totenkindly]

The 25 Most Horrifying Non-Horror Movies in Cinema History

Despite the name, “horror movies” are not always necessarily the ones that most horrify their viewers. After all, the appeal of horror films usually isn

www.tasteofcinema.com

 

[Polaris]

I watched the new Jurassic film earlier today. My favorite part of the movie was probably the guy who played the head of the company Biosyn. His acting was so bad that, in some cases, it bordered on being downright hilarious. My favorite (minor spoiler) was the moment when his character loses his cool and starts attacking a rotatable chair.

 

[Totenkindly]

I watched the new Jurassic film earlier today. My favorite part of the movie was probably the guy who played the head of the company Biosyn. His acting was so bad that, in some cases, it bordered on being downright hilarious. My favorite (minor spoiler) was the moment when his character loses his cool and starts attacking a rotatable chair.

lol.. i am gonna see it tomorrow morning. I am keeping my expectations low so I can just enjoy it for what it is, it sounds like it might be pretty funny.

 

[Polaris]

lol.. i am gonna see it tomorrow morning. I am keeping my expectations low so I can just enjoy it for what it is, it sounds like it might be pretty funny.

I would say you're right to keep your expectations low. It doesn't have a lot going for it beyond the action scenes, which I thought were for the most part fairly well done.

 

[Totenkindly]

I would say you're right to keep your expectations low. It doesn't have a lot going for it beyond the action scenes, which I thought were for the most part fairly well done.

Got back a little bit ago. Totally agree, lol. And I wasn't disappointed because my expectations were low.

Basically Jurassic World Dominion is fun to watch because of the dinosaurs, and a few action sequences are well done and enjoyable even if I knew how they'd end up. (I liked the motorcycle chase, it was filmed very kinetically.)

There's what feels like a few retcons of character arcs. One villain suddenly seems to be written as a hero. The plot is kind of stitched together and we've already seen this movie multiple times before, except now it has the old series and the new series leads all in the same film.

I think the silliest thing is the end, where because they resolved the dual plotlines (each group of characters was pursuing one), now that supposedly resolves the dinosaur problem and everything is hunky-dory. like, NOTHING has changed since the beginning of the film -- how are people gonna live with dinosaurs when they are rampaging through some of the cities or in small towns? Like, what??

Lots of call-backs to Jurassic Park and some to Jurassic World, and of course everyone's famous dinosaur who has appeared in at least 2-3 other films shows up again in the epic conclusion, dayum, it's like a superhero.

But I actually was okay with all this, aside from being disappointed that they didn't do something original, because I was knew going into it that it wasn't going to be anything better.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Falling Down (1993) finally. Not sure it aged that well, compared to all the crap going on here.

I'll have to say, it's one of the better directed/shot of Schumacher's films. I normally find his films have an edge of garishness; this one stays anchored in reality visually and is actually shot well. Michael Douglas also is fearless and doesn't care in the least whether you like him after this film. Main supporting cast is decent. I don't really fault the cinematography and filming, or the acting.

There's one issue I don't like about the script (well, an obvious one, and maybe some others); it's feels extremely front-loaded. Everyone D-Fens meets in the first half or more of the film tends to be an asshole. Later, when we see some of these people from other perspective, they seem nicer. It's not clear whether we are literally witnessing them or just seeing them through D-Fens' eyes because Schumacher doesn't suggest it's anything other than a literal portrayal. If these interactions were meant to be more subjective rather than objective, then Schumacher failed at that -- but it's hard to take them as anything but literal. And it's like everyone he runs into is really aggressive/obnoxious, so then he responds in kind and takes it up a notch. It feels like the writer is trying to justify at least his initial response. However, his response always goes much further than the equivalent.

• Guy charges him too much in his opinion for a can of soda, so he trashes the man's store because the owner is Korean and insinuated he was a thief -- because he was behaving like a thief.
• Hangs out in gang area and gets into fight with two hispanics who want him out, over a briefcase we find out has only a lunch in it. Breaks one of their arms. Later they try to gun him own in the street, wreck their car, and he takes their guns and shoots one of the survivors in the leg on purpose. Everyone is scared of him, which confuses him.
• Gets to fast food place 3 minutes too late for breakfast but demands breakfast, ends up holding entire restaurant at machine-gun point while demanding breakfast, then decides to get lunch anyway, then bitches about the hamburger. Everyone is scared of him, which he is confused by or feels a bit apologetic over but never really embraces.
• Shocked that a neo-nazi listening to his journey on police scanner sides with him again gays, minorities, etc., manages to offend him, then murders the guy who is physically threatening him.
• etc

The film is really shifty on the way it seems to waver on whether D-fens is a hero or villain. Some of these scenes paint him as a victim, but the initial conflict always seems a little over the top that triggers him (like, are people really this abrasive and obnoxious to strangers?) and then he always takes it further. As the end gets closer to what seems like an inevitable meetup with his estranged family (who has been trying to get police protection), he seems to be painted as more of the aggressor.

The film is trying to juxtapose this with another white guy, Robert Duvall's policeman who is attempting to retire on the same day but is swept into this ongoing incident. He slowly pieces it all together. The film tries to compare the two and their responses; both are becoming "obsolete," both seem rather passive and are abused/bullied or not taken seriously, both deal with wives / ex-wives who are calling the shots, both have "lost" a kid. In the end, the detective takes a more active approach in his own life and is portrayed overall as the "hero," kind of showing that responses to one's difficulties determine one's moral character, versus the more passive self-victimizing approach that lashes out while blaming others. Still, the analogy isn't perfect, and it's not clear how to deal with the sullen aggressive, "blame others for my unhappiness" person. Both need to utilize active engagement of life to get out of the hole they are in, but one does so by just reaffirming his own boundaries, the other destroys the boundaries and just redirects the threats he feels against other people.