Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Totenkindly]

I miss when incoherence was languid.

Right. Nowadays it's far more frenetic.

 

[The Cat]

Right. Nowadays it's far more frenetic.

Caught in the grip of Frenetic Incoherence!

The headlines are there if news didnt seem to be a commercial for something I don't want to buy.

 

[The Cat]

Make sure you're sitting down when you're reading this review. This is a good movie. I'd honestly like to see more in this vein. Its a wonderful noir mystery, but mingled with cosmic horror and some decent dark humor it feels at once both real and surreal. What they don't explain but still happens is really engaging. I can feel you reading this review. So good.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, it's got a few old standbys in the cast there: Costas Mandylor (Saw franchise), Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), and William B. "Smoking Man" Davis.

So that would be kind of interesting on its own

 

[The Cat]

Well, it's got a few old standbys in the cast there: Costas Mandylor (Saw franchise), Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), and William B. "Smoking Man" Davis.

So that would be kind of interesting on its own

it really actually is; they play characters that you knowing them will approve of. For me, Matt Frewer really chews up the scenery with a very unique homage to Max Headroom. As a fan of movies and Call of Cthulhu aware person, you'll probably figure out a lot early, but its still a fun ride

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well, it's got a few old standbys in the cast there: Costas Mandylor (Saw franchise), Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), and William B. "Smoking Man" Davis.

So that would be kind of interesting on its own

it really actually is; they play characters that you knowing them will approve of. For me, Matt Frewer really chews up the scenery with a very unique homage to Max Headroom. As a fan of movies and Call of Cthulhu aware person, you'll probably figure out a lot early, but its still a fun ride

Matt Frewer is also in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. This is a movie I loved all the way back in preschool, and actually still holds up.

 

[The Cat]

Matt Frewer is also in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. This is a movie I loved all the way back in preschool, and actually still holds up.

Matt Frewer is magical like that.

 

[Totenkindly]

Saw The Flash today.

I've noticed different buckets of reactions i've had to films. Some films I am enthusiastic about while viewing and that never wanes through rewatches. Others I dislike and that never changes. There are some films (like Oblivion) that I've felt somewhat lukewarm to in initial viewings, then my appreciation grows over time. The Flash falls into the bucket of "feeling like 'hey, this is okay' while viewing, then feeling more lukewarm when I've had time to mull on it."

I think the biggest disappointment is the film is very underwhelming for something that was in production hell for 15-20 years and had a lot of other names attached to it. Afterwards, it's like, "Yeah, this is the movie Muschietti apparently wanted to make, but... that's it? Really?" So many missed opportunities and not really worth the trouble and all the drama that was attached. The writer apparently wrote Bumblebee (which was better than expected -- but hey it was a Transformers film and the bar is super-low) and Birds of Prey, which was also underwhelming and forgettable.

I guess the summary here:

• The writing is average; the story is not that great. So many characters (main and minor) are wasted. There's a LOT that feels underwritten.
• Miller and Keaton are really really good. Despite all Miller's shit that we've had to sit through, he pulls off dual performances and otherwise here, and creates two convincing and distinct versions of the same person (separated by a few years of age) while keeping the continuity with his past work for Snyder. He's very frustrating in his high degree of talent vs his being so idiosyncratic in personality that he's done some pretty shitty things to others in his life. I kinda pegged him though after the first major thing I saw him in at length (We Need to Talk About Kevin).
• Supergirl doesn't actually suck. Sasha Calle is perfectly fine; it's her part that is horribly underwritten, and she's not actually super important in the film. Neither is Zod, really. Which leads me to my next point.
• The trailers all tried to pitch this as an action film and make it sound like a rehash of the Zod assault would be the main focus of the film. It's not. It's all kind of side-dressing. The main thing is Barry (who we know is still young and also sensitive) is still learning how to let go of his mother from when he lost her senselessly as a child. That's the core conflict of the film. That's not bad, and Miller and Verdu are really good together -- but the writing just isn't strong enough to keep everything in context, and it makes the whole third act of the film feel really weak overall and maybe even the whole film feeling irrelevant in many ways.

And that's maybe the main thing. The whole film kind of feels all over the place. I am all for silly banter bits, but I'm ready for all the superhero "multiverse" obsession to go away any day now, and I will also scream if anyone mentions back to the future one more time in a film like this.

Also, the banter can be very funny and Miller is VERY funny in his delivery. However, his delivery often needs the audience to listen carefully and have time to process. The film does not provide that, which is a writer and director problem. I am really fast mentally and I was listening -- and there were so many things I think were ironically funny or just really quirky funny... but literally no one in the theater laughed at them (aside from me, and maybe 1-2 other people). Part of the problem was pacing; the humor style and Miller's performance is such that you need time to think about what he just said to realize it's funny, and by then he's another whole line on in the script. The audience wasn't given time to process and laugh. Keaton is a veteran actor here and knows what works (he has comedy roots), and he was really careful to pace his delivery to the camera so that you can even anticipate what he's going to say and then you're ready to respond to it... and Batman is written as a slower-paced character to boot.

The film also depends on a certain age and/or geek background to understand some of the jokes. This isn't a big joke to "spoil," it's kind of on the nose... but you already know Barry is in an alternate reality, and then someone blurts out about seeing Eric Stoltz in "Back to the Future." I mean, I just immediately laughed, because anyone who actually has studied the background of that film knows how they shot six weeks of film with Stoltz as Marty McFly, then fired him for their first choice Michael J. Fox who was doing Family Ties and agreed to work impossibly long days but was exactly what the film needed. In this reality, apparently Stoltz never got fired. And there were a number of "jokes" like that that would tip you off as a viewer or you'd immediately recognize if you knew anything about film or the genre... but the audience never laughed. Why is the studio insisting that this film had to be pitched at 14-15 year olds, but then it's full of stuff that people in that age bracket wouldn't recognize, and maybe only people who care about film (not your general audience) wouldn't understand?

Another thing -- again, I love silly banter, but for the movie to be worth it, you then have to provide something really profound or substantial to balance the scales, so that it felt worth it and not just frivolous. There's a lot of stuff in this film that felt pointlessly witty but ends up feeling like a stupid waste of time when you only have 160 minutes to tell a story.

There's also not really a conflict that is resolved. Barry just feels like he changes his mind, and he's not really put into a corner where there's a complex sacrifice to be made.

Barry saves his mom, but it changes reality and wipes out much of the Justice League. Zod returns. Despite Barry's efforts, he realizes Zod will always destroy the planet now regardless; it's a crux point -- note that Spiderman handled this "canon moment" concept a lot better. So he decides he needs to put things back and let him mom die. Of course this will change this whole timeline reality and his younger self won't exist, and a bunch of other shit too? For some reason it seems like his younger self will fight him -- which would have actually been interesting and raises the stakes -- but this film has no desire to actually deal with actual conflict or raise the stakes and be fascinating. In the end, young Barry lets super old and twisted Barry kill him instead of Regular Barry, so that Old Barry never existed, thus letting Regular Barry go put things back and let his mom die.

ASide from the battle being underwhelming with Zod -- they could have really invested more in Kara and Zod, for example -- Barry is spared from any actual conflict. He does decide to let his mom die but it's an obvious choice ... because SHE DIES EITHER WAY IN THIS REALITY WHEN ZOD TERRAFORMS EARTH and at least this way only SHE dies. Or wait, if the timeline never existed, was that world always doomed regardless? So confused. In any case, Barry has no real conflict in this film aside from coming to terms with losing his mother as a child, but that was an event that felt kind of contrived to start with. And Young Barry solves any potential conflict between the two of them by essentially killing himself.

Needless to say, this is not good plotting.

I could go on. It's kind of disappointing. It just felt like it should have been more. A lot of the film ends up feeling like it didn't matter. The one spot where I sat up in my seat because I thought I was about to witness the birth of an anti-hero also didn't pan out to anything either. It's enjoyable for an afternoon watch, but I might or might not ever watch it again.

 

[Red Herring]

I did get to watch Asteroid City today (in the oldest movie theater in Hamburg which has been open since 1913).

I have not read any reviews, so the following is merely my take after a first viewing:

First of all, wow, just when you thought Wes Anderson couldn't get any more Wes Anderson-y ... a malevolent interpretation would be that he is becoming a caricature of himself, but I prefer to think he has found his groove and the more means and control and experience he has the more he gets to implement and refine that style. He's more Wes Anderson here than ever before.

It didn't strike me as incoherent and I enjoyed it more than The French Dispatch (which is, of course, deliberately episodic). With the exception of the narrative frame/gimmick of the main story being a midcentury theatre play there is an Aristotelian unity of time and place and plot.

You also get a lot of the usual WA themes such as fatherhood, young love, gifted kids and estrangement within families but even though it's set in 1955 and there is a lot of obvious playing around with aesthetic nostalgia and the promise of escapism - this seems to me like the first WA movie in ages that might actually be dealing with sociopolitical questions of the present.

He opens with a seemingly idylic pastel-colored cream-cake-y 1950s America only to then introduce not just his usual broken families but also memories of war and fear of a new one. Scary new technology. Fear of the future. A world that quickly becomes more and more uncertain. A justified lack of trust in the authorities to do the right thing.

The maybe somewhat banal (but not implausible) take-away seems to be that if this world is to remain a liveable place we have to put our hopes in the young nerds and try to move closer together as human beings.

 

[Polaris]

I always find myself laughing at those movie posters where there are a bunch of characters' heads of wildly varying sizes. In some cases, the largest head has a mouth big enough to swallow the smallest head whole.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

You also get a lot of the usual WA themes such as fatherhood, young love, gifted kids and estrangement within families but even though it's set in 1955 and there is a lot of obvious playing around with aesthetic nostalgia and the promise of escapism - this seems to me like the first WA movie in ages that might actually be dealing with sociopolitical questions of the present.

Really? I feel like Grand Budapest Hotel was addressing the refugee crisis going on in Europe a little bit. I think it seeemed that way to me the first time I saw it.

The French Dispatch I think very highly of, and it has not one but two moments I find sublimely moving.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Air on Amazon prime.

Kind of a throwaway film -- wouldn't say it was deep or insightful, but it did make me laugh a lot and it was enjoyable entertainment. I also appreciate any chance to see Affleck and Damon appear in the same film together.

Chris Messina was hands-down the funniest, it might have been the most amusing thing i've seen him do. He's so damn excitable and Damon's character is purposefully triggering him all the time.

Another case of body changes -- Damon is Jason Bourne but he's also this overweight guy here. Not sure how much was padding vs real (he had a prominent gut), but his face seemed to carry the weight too. I wonder how difficult it is for someone to change their body weight so drastically as they get older. I'm having trouble shedding pounds in my late middle years.

While Viola Davis brought some gravitas to the role of Jordan's mother, this would have been a nice chance to give someone else a prominent role. I do love Davis but I feel like she is too much a go-to nowadays and has become somewhat typecast.

I was a teenager during this whole thing, so I do remember when Nike and Air Jordan's became a thing -- just not old enough to recall the details of that drama or care much about sports. (I still don't, and when I did, it was a few seasons of baseball, and then otherwise mostly just tennis -- so I was familiar with Ashe and the Head racket brand.) I do remember Converse was always around, with Chucky T's (and they're still around, which I think is cool), and Adidas was big especially in tennis, and soon after people started getting shot and their Air Jordan's stolen. Otherwise I never paid much attention.

 

[The Cat]

I watched Bird Box today. I enjoyed the creatures. If such a thing happened in real life, I would be one of the ones who sees them as beautiful. But I like to think Id be more pleasant about getting them to look. But I doubt Id force them, seems like the other guys got that covered, so likeill just be ready to point out the pretty monstersuse me like the birdsall in all it was good film

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Bird box monster, viewer beware, you're in for a scare.

[/ISPOILER]

 

[The Cat]

Bird box monster, viewer beware, you're in for a scare.

View attachment 28926[/ISPOILER]

Silly Rabbit,
You didnt see it did you?
Because if you had, you would know...

It's Beautiful and you NEED to see it. Take your blindfold off!​

​

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Silly Rabbit,
You didnt see it did you?
Because if you had, you would know...

It's Beautiful and you NEED to see it. Take your blindfold off!​

​

Demons to some, angels to others, is that it? I haven't seen the movie. It's hard to say because sometimes something looks lovely, and other times looks kind of oppressive.

 

[The Cat]

Demons to some, angels to others, is that it? I haven't seen the movie. It's hard to say because sometimes something looks lovely, and other times looks kind of oppressive.

Watch the film. Tell me what your perspective would be.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Watch the film. Tell me what your perspective would be.

Do I need to watch it blindfolded?

 

[Totenkindly]

Do I need to watch it blindfolded?

yes.

 

[Tomb1]

Watched Air on Amazon prime.

Kind of a throwaway film -- wouldn't say it was deep or insightful, but it did make me laugh a lot and it was enjoyable entertainment. I also appreciate any chance to see Affleck and Damon appear in the same film together.

Chris Messina was hands-down the funniest, it might have been the most amusing thing i've seen him do. He's so damn excitable and Damon's character is purposefully triggering him all the time.

Another case of body changes -- Damon is Jason Bourne but he's also this overweight guy here. Not sure how much was padding vs real (he had a prominent gut), but his face seemed to carry the weight too. I wonder how difficult it is for someone to change their body weight so drastically as they get older. I'm having trouble shedding pounds in my late middle years.

While Viola Davis brought some gravitas to the role of Jordan's mother, this would have been a nice chance to give someone else a prominent role. I do love Davis but I feel like she is too much a go-to nowadays and has become somewhat typecast.

I was a teenager during this whole thing, so I do remember when Nike and Air Jordan's became a thing -- just not old enough to recall the details of that drama or care much about sports. (I still don't, and when I did, it was a few seasons of baseball, and then otherwise mostly just tennis -- so I was familiar with Ashe and the Head racket brand.) I do remember Converse was always around, with Chucky T's (and they're still around, which I think is cool), and Adidas was big especially in tennis, and soon after people started getting shot and their Air Jordan's stolen. Otherwise I never paid much attention.

I didn't like it. I found it boring. I got the fact that Nike was down on its luck. They didn't need to paint the fact ad nauseam.