Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The Cabbage Patch Kids are more unsettling to me than the Garbage Pale Kids. I think because the GPKs are honest about being unsettling. The CPK, never move while you're looking at them. like infant weeping angels.

They're both horrifying, but the Cabbage Patch never had a live action movie made about them.

 

[The Cat]

They're both horrifying, but the Cabbage Patch never had a live action movie made about them.

But the Cabbage Patch kids have killed more children.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

But the Cabbage Patch kids have killed more children.

Wasn't there one that tried to eat someone?

 

[Totenkindly]

I really still do recommend the newer Planet of the Apes stuff. (I might also recommend the old ones, but I think I've only seen the first. I probably don't recommend the Tim Burton one, though, lol... I just don't remember enough about it.)

Everyone of the four newest films are morally grey explorations of the propensity for tribalism and the fragile line between peace and war, even within tribes. I just finished Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes today, basically the start of a new series a few hundred years after Caesar with Wes Ball directing, and it was just on par with the first new trilogy. This series is so understated compared to Star Wars but the quality is just so much better. It also actually has decent writing and acting, and a full story/character arc. (Considering Disney bought Fox, I hope they don't eventually fuck this up too.)

It's a film I come away from both hopeful and yet nervous about the state of the world and whether peace long-term can ever be established? It highlights how difficult trust can be, both between two species that have traditionally either suppressed or been suppressed by the other and also within the species themselves. Is it always going to be within us to destroy ourselves? But peace is not simple or without risk.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I really still do recommend the newer Planet of the Apes stuff. (I might also recommend the old ones, but I think I've only seen the first. I probably don't recommend the Tim Burton one, though, lol... I just don't remember enough about it.)

Everyone of the four newest films are morally grey explorations of the propensity for tribalism and the fragile line between peace and war, even within tribes. I just finished Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes today, basically the start of a new series a few hundred years after Caesar with Wes Ball directing, and it was just on par with the first new trilogy. This series is so understated compared to Star Wars but the quality is just so much better. It also actually has decent writing and acting, and a full story/character arc. (Considering Disney bought Fox, I hope they don't eventually fuck this up too.)

The trailers for Kingdom had me intrigued. I was interested to see how the apes interact with and interpret the artifacts and survivors of humanity.

It's a film I come away from both hopeful and yet nervous about the state of the world and whether peace long-term can ever be established? It highlights how difficult trust can be, both between two species that have traditionally either suppressed or been suppressed by the other and also within the species themselves. Is it always going to be within us to destroy ourselves? But peace is not simple or without risk.

Well, all you need for war to break out again is for someone to decide that they could gain something by resuming the fight. Peace is fragile.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I still love Donnie Darko even though I'm in my mid-50's.

I love the way it makes me feel when I watch it. There's this sweet dreamy sense of loneliness and longing and a semi-bittersweet ending that somehow still feels positive but sad especially considering the last frames. It's like the words "Cellar Door," they just roll off your tongue with such grace and ease and also feel mysterious.

I like how raw some of it is, emotionally.

I like that it is so damn quotable. Like, SO many freaking lines can be quoted from that film, not just the quirky funny ones. ("I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to Sparklemotion!" or that whole conversation around "fuck-ass" at the dinner table in the beginning, that STILL makes me laugh.) But also, "Every living creature dies alone." It's profound in its simplicity -- and that the search for God seems so meaningless if we die alone no matter what. That's not the only insightful line, it just seems peppered with them.

I like how it has so many cast members that went on to become much bigger names or were names. The Gyllenhaal's. Seth Rogan. Jenna Malone. Daveigh Chase. Jolene Purdy. And people who were already known like Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, Beth Grant, Holmes Osborne, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore.

I like the original version better than the director's cut overall, which picks an interpretation for you and explains too much (IMO). I really like how the original cut leaves it unclear how much is science fiction vs Donnie's psychosis.

I like that it has a better cover of a Tears for Fears song than the original version.

And I really love the scene where Donnie is feeling so lost and alone on his bed, and he asks his mother, "How's it feel to have a wacko as a son?" and despite the gulf and friction between them, Mary McDonnell just puts her hand on his shoulder and says with such gentle love and affection and in total sincerity, "it feels wonderful." it is one of the best line deliveries in a film I've ever heard in my life and I will never forget it or how it made me feel to hear it.

Honestly, despite all the cool time trappings, it's a film more about how it feels to be lost and alone and somehow finding not just peace but feeling like even with inevitable loss at hand like you still have a place and you belong.

It always seemed to me like a rebuttal to the America of the time, even though it's set in the 80s and production was finished when 9/11 happened (which also meant it didn't get much of a theatrical release, which was planned for fall 2001; the studio got nervous about a movie that features a jet engine falling into a building), and I've always liked that. There is the scene with Drew Barrymore leaving the classroom after being fired; she has a flag with her things and the flag means something very specific in that context that seems significant. The confrontations with Beth Grant and Patrick Swayze; they felt to me like they were about something larger. Like, I just love the scene where he's at the assembly and addresses Patrick Swayze, where Donnie he just lays into all Swayze's bullshit and tries to give everyone actual good advice. It's so good.

That Mary McDonnell scene is great.

I love the scene with the ridiculous smurf conversation. Who doesn't? And then there's the part about feces being "baby mice." So good.

The time travel thing; the reason why I said that was because I remember my college roommate was watching it with some friends. This got me excited, and made me think that they like this movie and that "Oh, these people are ok." And then it turned out he didn't like the movie that much, although he'd seen it before. He was dismissive about the time travel plot, like there wasn't that much to it, and as though it was the only element of the movie. And so, I didn't express any enthusiasm in the movie, and didn't sit down and watch it. I did something else. We didn't get along, but to be fair, I don't really do roommates. (I wanted to add some context for the time travel thing.)

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

What would It's A Wonderful Life be like if George Bailey was a bachelor with no friends?

 

[The Cat]

What would It's A Wonderful Life be like if George Bailey was a bachelor with no friends?

It's a typical life.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

 

[Totenkindly]

Happy Skynet Self-Awareness Day!!

 

[Totenkindly]

ALIENS news clip

what the f -- ROFLMAO -- " Glad we brought our young kid because this could be true and all, because SCIENCE and the like"

The six-year-old boy with the superman shirt is awesome, he was all in for this. He's not much younger than I was at the time.

edit: "Parents with kids aren't leaving the theater. At $4 a ticket, maybe they feel they have too much invested." Now THERE is the real horror.


edit2: "[popularity of Alien] ...Or maybe Americans are becoming more and more immune to obsessive behaviors."
Oh yeah, that xenomorph better get to therapy, his need to eat humans seems to suggest some kind of personality disorder.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I liked Ready Player One.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought RPO was a bunch of missed opportunities and even undermined itself at times, although the Overlook Hotel bit was inspired.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I thought RPO was a bunch of missed opportunities and even undermined itself at times, although the Overlook Hotel bit was inspired.

I'm not sure why I liked it. Maybe I just liked that they saved the day through the power of teamwork or something. Very low bar, I know.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh, I know why I liked it. It's very embarrassing:

It was about a nerdy, geeky person saving the day by being a nerdy, geeky person. Specifically, they did it by knowing lots of trivia about useless bullshit of no consequence! Plus there was the power of teamwork!

I must go hide myself in shame, now.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I need to rewatch this.

 

[The Cat]

I need to rewatch this.

This has one of my favorite lines in a movie.
15000 years ago people knew the earth was the center of the universe
500 years ago people knew the earth was flat
15 minutes ago you knew that humans were alone on this planet
Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

This has one of my favorite lines in a movie.
15000 years ago people knew the earth was the center of the universe
500 years ago people knew the earth was flat
15 minutes ago you knew that humans were alone on this planet
Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

I like the distinction between a person and people. It scans as accurate.

 

[The Cat]

I like the distinction between a person and people. It scans as accurate.

Depending on who you talk to MIB is soft disclosure, getting people ready to handle the truth which is out there...

 

[Totenkindly]

I really liked the animated Watchmen Chapter 1 that dropped this week on 4K bluray. (the second part will come out probably around Christmas?) It moves perhaps a little too briskly but I feel like it's pretty authentic to the book not just in the lines and scenes, but has its own flow that works on the screen and it "feels" right. Maybe the voice acting could have been directed a bit better to really wring out all the emotion, but it still lands. It even includes the Black Freighter side story.

One thing I like is that it's even more clear why Laurie falls for Dan, it's like they're both the people who want a "normal" life even if they kind of miss being superheroes on some level. But they always were the "everyman" characters of the story.

I'm not sure I like Rorshach going all "Batman" cliche voice, but then again what was he supposed to sound like? In the book, you don't necessarily "hear" the voices of the characters as voices, they are distinct personalities, but in a film you now have the audible quotient. Obviously Rorshach IS the counterpart of Batman in Moore's world, with his sleuthing and particular physical skill set and how he terrorizes the underworld. (That's a great scene realized here, by the way -- when Rorshach walks into the dive bar and everyone stops talking, pulls back, and the bartender almost begs him to leave and they don't want trouble. They're all terrified of him. (And then he proceeds to do this thing with that guy's hand who makes the mistake of cracking a joke about him.) It's fun to watch his facial patterns change in real time.

They did a lot of the scenes decently, like when the Comedian tells Ozymandias none of the superhero antics matter because the nukes are gonna fly and he'll be the "smartest man on the cinder." It's an important moment.

They did the Dr. Manhattan backstory in this first half. The second half they'll include the bit with Rorshach's back story. Since it is animated, they are going to go full comic in terms of the endgame (rather than Snyder's alterations) -- I noticed a "missing" sign up for Max whassisname, the writer. So that should be pretty cool.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the second half.

EDIT: So there are things that are oddly weird or funny nowadays since this was written in happen in the 80's and reflects different time periods from the '40-80's. But nowadays we're 40 years past that.

For example, Rorshach fires his grappling hook to Blake's apartment just like in the book, and climbs right up the wall. This seems ludicrous nowadays when you think about it -- along with "Why didn't they board up the shattered window that is the scene of a police investigation??" SO that's odd from the book AND from this adaptation. Or like how the police leave the Smiley button with blood on it lying in the gutter (so Rorshach can get it), when they should have collected it as evidence. The only thing that balances this is that the detectives talk about not really wanting to investigate this case and letting it draft away.