Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Totenkindly]

Why is it called Bottoms? (The title activates something extremely silly in my brain, so I'd like to know why it's called that.)

Basically, it's at least on two levels -- the bottom or more submissive of the sex partners, and also the bottom rung of the social ladder .... and through the course of the film the bottoms end up becoming tops or at least not being viewed as losers or passives anymore.

 

[Totenkindly]

I watched Oz Perkins' "The Blackcoat's Daughter" to finish off my horror views for October, since I'm kinda burned out.

I like how it feels like a waking nightmare in terms of the tone and sound and ambiance and how the viewer has to piece together what they are seeing. But for a horror film, it accesses a strong emotion at the end that I feel rarely gets explored in horror: Pervasive, agonizing loneliness. As an alternative to hell being a seething cauldron of agonizing flame, I have sometimes viewed hell as being defined by the extreme grief of unending isolation.

If you have seen the film prior:

All the female student characters seem to be isolated, stuck within patterns of religious behavior at their Catholic private school, and there's no real connections permitted it seems. No one really having honest, intimate conversations. Even Rose essentially shuts Kat out, until it's "too late -- you had your chance." So when Kat is told by the demon that her parents will die, it just adds another level of isolation -- if she felt alone before, now she will truly be abandoned and alone -- and the demon is all that she has, which leads her to do dreadful things to foster that relationship.

When the demon is exorcised from her body, her heart is still enmeshed with it -- "Don't go" -- leading her in the end to leave a bloody trail behind her as she heads back to where she experienced connection, with the demon, back at a now-abandoned school where the furnace in which the demon lived is no longer working. It's heart-wrenching to hear her final wails, that she has killed the last two people who were kind to her, to regain a relationship that she can never again have... and now she is truly lost and alone, with literally nothing. Even the demon has abandoned her.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I watched Oz Perkins' "The Blackcoat's Daughter" to finish off my horror views for October, since I'm kinda burned out.

I like how it feels like a waking nightmare in terms of the tone and sound and ambiance and how the viewer has to piece together what they are seeing. But for a horror film, it accesses a strong emotion at the end that I feel rarely gets explored in horror: Pervasive, agonizing loneliness. As an alternative to hell being a seething cauldron of agonizing flame, I have sometimes viewed hell as being defined by the extreme grief of unending isolation.

I could get on board with that. I think it was Jean Paul Satre who said "Hell is other people", but I'm not sure that's true. Or at least, it's not that simple, because solitude is a hard road to walk.

 

[Totenkindly]

I could get on board with that. I think it was Jean Paul Satre who said "Hell is other people", but I'm not sure that's true. Or at least, it's not that simple, because solitude is a hard road to walk.

Well, Sartre meant more that we're kind of trapped in other people's perceptions of ourselves as the object of their gaze, in terms of trying to grasp who we ourselves actually are since we cannot see ourselves from the outside... but it doesn't really change the icy cold of ice-olation.

 

[Tomb1]

Saw Reptile....one of those thousands of movies that consisted of a good plot but with a stockpile of two-dimensional characters.

Rewatched Enter the Dragon on the plane ride from Vegas. The final fight featured a room of mirrors. That idea with the mirrors has definitely been used in future movies. I wouldn't go so far as to say Enter the Dragon is the greatest martial arts film ever...I thought Bruce Lee's earlier stuff was even better....Fists of Fury where he routinely fights like masses of people...busts up a karate studio over "the sick men of asia" insult....even Return of the Dragon with a final fight between Norris and Lee in the Coliseum....I don't think that's ever been duplicated, 2 martial artists of that caliber fighting each other on screen in the final scene of a movie....except in the Game of Death, between Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto.

Rewatched Casino on the plane ride to Vegas. I liked Casino enough to re-watch it, but I give the edge to Goodfellas. Goodfellas had all sorts of crazy surprises around every turn....Joe Pesci kills spider after spider tells him to go eff yourself....that whole Billy Batts "Now go home and get your shinebox" thing...Joe Pesci going off to get made walks into an empty room...henry just casually pulls out a gun and pistol whips the neighbor....Carbone is found frozen in the meat truck. So many memorable scenes....Pileggi and Scorcese had a lot up their sleeve writing that movie it was insane. Casino lacks that element of surprise.

Rewatched State of Grace....I can't believe Gary Oldman never even got an Oscar nomination for that performance. It was crazy sick...one of the best I've seen.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well State of Grace was likely overshadowed by Goodfellas at the time of release, it took its press. Just bad luck of release time, I guess.

 

[Totenkindly]

Finally got to see Joy Ride (2023) -- and a rollicking good time was had by all. The only minute I didn't like was a kind of forced reconciliation at the end that needed a bit more time to feel authentic to me. What's really funny is that a major plot twist 3/4 of the way through is actually true and I kicked myself for not noticing as a viewer because once it's revealed, I was like, "Yeah, I totally see it now." But there was also a really sweet unexpected 5 minutes in the last quarter of the film, including a casting I wasn't aware of, and it was very touching.

I dunno, I just appreciated a film where women really cut lose with no awkwardness. A lot of this film is totally nuts.

Stephanie Hsu is really a treasure. I mean, they were all decent, but she was the most effortless to me because I have seen her elsewhere and know her range better.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well, Sartre meant more that we're kind of trapped in other people's perceptions of ourselves as the object of their gaze, in terms of trying to grasp who we ourselves actually are since we cannot see ourselves from the outside... but it doesn't really change the icy cold of ice-olation.

Oh, that's way more interesting then they way I've always thought of it. If someone says I'm a bad person, then I start wondering if I'm actually a bad person. Is that right? Does it apply to something like that?

 

[Totenkindly]

Oh, that's way more interesting then they way I've always thought of it. If someone says I'm a bad person, then I start wondering if I'm actually a bad person. Is that right? Does it apply to something like that?

Kind of.

Imagine that you cannot see yourself except by looking in a mirror of some kind.
Now imagine there are no mirrors that you can see yourself in ... except other people.
Now realize that every mirror/person you are seeing yourself in is also trying to see who they are through the mirrors of the other people around you, also doing the same.
Every person is reflecting others the way they want to see that other and/or in a way to get something particular back from those others.

tl;dr -- We're all objectifying each other and it's easy to lose any true sense of self + also feel very frustrated and not get what we think we want, maybe even lose sense of what we want.

Weirdly, it can kind of mesh with our more traditional understanding of heaven and hell as selflessness and selfishness.
Basically if we stop trying to manipulate others to get something back from them / stop caring about our own reflections, the distortion lessens, perhaps?

I think it's kind of funny how The Good Place riffs off this too.

 

[Totenkindly]

Leave it to Disney to take away the wrong thing from this.

Jonathan Majors MCU Recasting Update Given in New Report

Jonathan Majors‘ future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains up in the air, but according to a new report from Variety, Marvel Studios may have already been looking to pivot away from him. In a new report looking into Marvel Studios, Variety reported that, “regardless of” the legal issues...

www.yahoo.com

Jonathan Majors‘ future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains up in the air, but according to a new report from Variety, Marvel Studios may have already been looking to pivot away from him.

In a new report looking into Marvel Studios, Variety reported that, “regardless of” the legal issues Majors is facing, the company had reportedly already been considering moving away from him being a major focus in the MCU after the poor box office results of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which earned just over $470 million at the box office, a low figure for Marvel.

“A studio source notes that regardless of the actor’s legal issues, Marvel already had considered moving away from a Majors-led phase because of the box office performance of Quantumania, which will struggle to make a profit,” reads part of the report. “‘It gave people pause given that ‘Quantumania’ didn’t exactly land,’ the source says.”

Kang was the only thing of any value in that film. The rest of the film sucked overall. If not for Kang, my rating would have been even lower.

Get better writers and directors, and coordinate better between your tv show and film storylines.

EDIT:

Marvel in Disarray: New Report Says ‘She-Hulk’ Episodes Cost $25 Million, Doctor Doom Floated as Kang Replacement, and More

"The Marvels" underwent reshoots and a rare test screening, "Blade" keeps changing, and the studio has floated reviving original Avengers heroes.

www.yahoo.com

...Marvel has allegedly contemplated replacing Jonathan Majors’ Kang character with a new villain, pivoting to the comics baddie Dr. Doom, according to a new report....

...The report says at least one single episode of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” cost as much as $25 million to produce, which rivals epics such as “Game of Thrones,” and that visual effects improvements were added into the show after it and other MCU series had already begun streaming on Disney+...

...“Blade” starring Mahershala Ali, which has gone through numerous writers and was shut down because of the writers strike weeks before production was slated to begin. One version of the script reportedly saw Ali’s character relegated to the fourth lead behind several female characters, with the story being heavy on life lessons...

The piece concludes by saying that the studio has considered reviving the original “Avengers” characters, including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow

but that it has not committed to such a plan. Instead, with the writers strike concluded, the piece claims that the studio has begun talking with writers about how to bring the X-Men into the MCU fold, characters Marvel and Disney acquired from Fox in 2017.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Kind of.

Imagine that you cannot see yourself except by looking in a mirror of some kind.
Now imagine there are no mirrors that you can see yourself in ... except other people.
Now realize that every mirror/person you are seeing yourself in is also trying to see who they are through the mirrors of the other people around you, also doing the same.
Every person is reflecting others the way they want to see that other and/or in a way to get something particular back from those others.

You know how when you have mirrors facing each other they stretch into infinity? I'm remind of this, except with more distortion.

tl;dr -- We're all objectifying each other and it's easy to lose any true sense of self + also feel very frustrated and not get what we think we want, maybe even lose sense of what we want.

Weirdly, it can kind of mesh with our more traditional understanding of heaven and hell as selflessness and selfishness.
Basically if we stop trying to manipulate others to get something back from them / stop caring about our own reflections, the distortion lessens, perhaps?

I think it's kind of funny how The Good Place riffs off this too.

I don't think I've gotten there yet. That's another series I need to finish.

 

[The Cat]

I could get on board with that. I think it was Jean Paul Satre who said "Hell is other people", but I'm not sure that's true. Or at least, it's not that simple, because solitude is a hard road to walk.

Hell is realizing that Osmosis Jones is the reality and we're all cosmically just the cells and a bunch of pills inside a body of existence of something much bigger and more incomprehensible than we're truly able to live comfortably with.

 

[Totenkindly]

Hell is realizing that Osmosis Jones is the reality and we're all cosmically just the cells and a bunch of pills inside a body of existence of something much bigger and more incomprehensible than we're truly able to live comfortably with.

​

what kind of sick and twisted individual have you become

 

[Totenkindly]

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

... Shooting on HD 3-D at 48 frames per second - twice the frame rate for most movies - provided extra challenges for the team because "everything looks extra sharp". Elven men, who are not supposed to have facial hair, were showing up with five o'clock shadow halfway through the day and required touch-ups with face and body foundation.

To achieve the elves' flawless skin, King applied the foundation with makeup brushes. Making up Blanchett is easy, he says, because she has very good skin. "She doesn't have pores, which is very handy. Beautiful velvet skin makes life a lot easier."

Blanchett, he says, is also the most fantastic person to work with.

"For her high profile and everything else she does, she is one of the most down-to-earth actors I have met. She is divine," he says. "And Lee Pace, who plays Thranduil the Elven king. He's a male version of Cate Blanchett - beautiful, enthusiastic and fantastic. He gets what everyone is trying to do. He's an elf with attitude. He has this fantastic icy stare but, as soon as the cameras stop, he's such a nice guy. It's the elves you see in the end, they are perfect beings..."

Lol those elven guys need as much MAC as the elven gals....

I kinda adored Lee Pace in "The Hobbit," he was one of the better parts and seemed to hit Thranduil perfectly. He's done such a variety of roles over the years. It's not really in vogue any longer for cisgens to play trans characters in films [note: Pace came out as queer a few years back, dating men and women, and his spouse is a man, so...?], but back in the dark ages (his very first film role) he played Calpernia Adams in "Soldier's Girl" and just did a really amazing job. Some of the writing of that film is too melodramatic, but he and Troy Garity were great. Looking at it, it was clear how sensitively and nuanced Pace could handle a role and he's borne this out over the years. I guess I could make a joke that playing Calpernia meant he could play an elf one day no problem...

 

[The Cat]

what kind of sick and twisted individual have you become

I think a white blood cell.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Has he even seen that movie? Some real gold in the comments section of that thread.

The main takeaway is he’s such a phony. Dude has claimed to be a major science fiction buff yet doesn’t seem to have seen a film that’s basically science fiction fan 101 required viewing. This is worse than Obama’s “Jedi Mind Meld” gaffe

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 29662

The need to make a series of movies starring this specific goat continues to grow. And his name is Charlie. Amazing.

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 29663


Has he even seen that movie? Some real gold in the comments section of that thread.

The main takeaway is he’s such a phony. Dude has claimed to be a major science fiction buff yet doesn’t seem to have seen a film that’s basically science fiction fan 101 required viewing. This is worse than Obama’s “Jedi Mind Meld” gaffe

What do you want to bet, he does not know what the Void comp test is? At least Mark dreams of electric sheep.

 

[Totenkindly]

The need to make a series of movies starring this specific goat continues to grow. And his name is Charlie. Amazing.

Step aside, Azrael and Cthulhu!
Move your fat asses, Thanos and Kang!
Go jump in a deep hole, Pinhead and Freddy!

You have been out-terrorized by an ebony goat of some slippery notoriety

I AM TOTES CUCKOO FOR THE CHARLIEVERSE

Has he even seen that movie? Some real gold in the comments section of that thread.

The main takeaway is he’s such a phony. Dude has claimed to be a major science fiction buff yet doesn’t seem to have seen a film that’s basically science fiction fan 101 required viewing. This is worse than Obama’s “Jedi Mind Meld” gaffe

He's such a dipshit poser -- a total disgrace to authentic geeks everywhere.