Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[The Cat]

So is The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles no longer canon? Because Indy is a happy, adjusted old man by the early nineties in that timeline.

Everything Disney touches is just such a bummer. I hate how their stench taints everything, including their own original IPs currently being revisited and reimagined

It's still cannon, so are the novels. Disney can't actually take that away from us, same as the old EU from SW. They can say whatever they want, and can highlight whatever shiny new wastes of their money they want, but until they prioritize making art rather than only money buckle up for being forcefed uncanny valley horrors wearing the skin of your childhood for the forseeable future. I'm fairly certain Disney isnt paying writers to write as much as they are algorithms to dictate.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It's still cannon, so are the novels. Disney can't actually take that away from us, same as the old EU from SW. They can say whatever they want, and can highlight whatever shiny new wastes of their money they want, but until they prioritize making art rather than only money buckle up for being forcefed uncanny valley horrors wearing the skin of your childhood for the forseeable future. I'm fairly certain Disney isnt paying writers to write as much as they are algorithms to dictate.

i hope that the videogame Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is also still canon. that one is a direct prequel to Temple of Doom. It features Wu Han (Indy's ill-fated sidekick from the opening to Temple) as a non-playable supporting character. A direct mention of Lao Che is made. The only thing that bothers me about that game and temple coming before Raiders though, is that in Raiders Indy is protrayed as being mr. super skeptic, yet by that point in the timeline he has seen all manner of magical shenanigans in China and India.

Oh and I forgot Fate of Atlantis. that one MUST be canon or I'll stab a bitch

 

[Totenkindly]

So I just finally watched Infinity Pool (2023, Brandon Cronenberg). I still need to see Viral and I did like Possessor better, but it was still a horrifying/amusing watch. (I would say amusing because at times the plotting and turn of events felt so over the top and/or absurd that I would laugh, even though it was just awful stuff. Like, I couldn't really believe my eyes.)

Brandon always does interesting things visually and audially in his films, often to unsettling effect. I feel like his work involves more psychological distortion and scarring despite some intense body distortion/horror plots points in his films. The scifi elements seem to be a device (rather than the focus), with a goal of exploring our own inhumanity or moral/mental degradation as people. The tragedy of a movie like his father's "The Fly" for example was that, despite his body being degraded and deformed into something quite inhumanity, somewhere inside was still a portion of Brundle clinging to his fractured sense of self. Brandon's films are almost the opposite, the technology devices basically exposing the ways in which people have already been corrupt inside or at least sliding into corruption -- so maybe the outer looks okay, but the inner is degrading gradually.

All that being said, despite the great performances and the camera/sound work on this film, I would say the plotting was the least interesting aspect of the film and it feels like it caps off without any real planned resolution in mind. I'm not really clear where James (the protagonist) goes from here or what state he is actually in as a person.

Still as a filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg is definitely worth a watch, carving out new territory. nothing he does will ever be by rote.

 

[The Cat]

i hope that the videogame Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is also still canon. that one is a direct prequel to Temple of Doom. It features Wu Han (Indy's ill-fated sidekick from the opening to Temple) as a non-playable supporting character. A direct mention of Lao Che is made. The only thing that bothers me about that game and temple coming before Raiders though, is that in Raiders Indy is protrayed as being mr. super skeptic, yet by that point in the timeline he has seen all manner of magical shenanigans in China and India.

Oh and I forgot Fate of Atlantis. that one MUST be canon or I'll stab a bitch

"Hermocrates! A friend of Socrates RAWK."

So much of those games are seered into my mind especially fate of atlantis I had a mac in middle school. Lucas Arts games were all I had.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

"Hermocrates! A friend of Socrates RAWK."

So much of those games are seered into my mind especially fate of atlantis I had a mac in middle school. Lucas Arts games were all I had.

The other one that stuck with me was the Star Trek 25th anniversary mac/pc game. I’d intentionally choose options that pissed off aliens and got red shirts killed, just for shits and giggles

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The crazy girls and boys of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin: Ida, Lise, Fritz, Otto and Otto (among others).

I was taught as a youth that it was mostly Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn, her more than him, actually. And she was anything but enthusiastic about what that discovery was used for, IIRC. But as so often in science that kind of work is seldom done by one lonely genius locked up in a cellar somewhere and more years of work by several people that are exchanging ideas and information.
And it's not like anybody ever took a walk in the woods and thought "hey, you know what, let's try to split atoms!". Fermi had shot recently discovered neutrons at uranium and observed a weird phenomenon of partial destruction. Ida Noddack might have been the first to understand what was happening. Meitner and Hahn then decided to actively work on it. Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch then were the first to publish. Somebody makes an observation, somebody else theorizes on an explanation, yet another one decides to test the theory, etc.

Both Meitner and Noddack were repeatedly suggested for the Nobel Prize ... guess what?

I read some portions of the biographies of some members of that group last night, and it seems that this could also make an interesting movie about that group as well.

What I've read suggests that it was a result of something that was indirectly observed. That is, they didn't imagine it, or see it directly, but rather thought it should exist based on what they had seen. A similar thing happened with black holes. Black holes were surmised to exist but nobody actually saw them until fairly recently (within the last ten years, I'd say?).

Nuclear fission, although it seems to have been in Chemistry, oddly enough. I guess it was thought that splitting an atom was a lot like splitting compounds and should fall under that category.

When I first saw the trailer I had just read Raven Rock by Garrett Graff, some of which dovetails with Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, which I had read previously. It was wild to be seeing a dramatization of things I had just been reading about.

Some of the nuclear tests in the '50s and '60s were nuts. Castle Bravo had a yield 3 times greater than anticipated, with tragic results. And it turned out that testing nukes in space could have a side effect of killing satellites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

I read the article about Starfish Prime, and when it's described, it sounds early beautiful, auroras everywhere like the Northern Lights. Reading that, I'm not surprised there were viewing parties. It seems it didn't just knock out satellites, but telephone communications across Hawaii. Maybe you knew that part, but is surprising to me because it suggests a mind-blowing breadth and depth to the EMP effect.

I also googled Raven Rock to find out what it was, and I'm surprised I've never heard of it. I've lived in Pennsylvania for most of my life, but I've only ever heard of the underground complex in Colorado.

All I ever heard as a kid when he was mentioned was - Oppenheimer was a communist! Nothing about what he accomplished which was incredible. But since we are basically going to relive McCarthyism, it's good timing for this movie.

I suspect McCarthyism will be a big part of this movie. Only part of it will be set during the war. I feel like I'm leaking spoilers but this is history , after all.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I haven't seen very much of that show, but it's my understanding that the old Indy was actually removed from video releases back when Lucas was in charge, perhaps because he planned to do an old Indy movie of his own.

The new movie probably sucks but my dad wants to go see it so I'll go if it will be able to get him out of the house.

They tend to be depressing, these nostalgic sequels. I'm not sure why that is.

I liked Last Jedi in part because it was the only one that gave the character it was killing off an epic, heroic showdown, and when it did this I didn't find it depressing, and it was what everyone expects Luke to be.

Solo's death is him reaching out to his son, and then his son stabbing him in the heart. I have two problems with this:

1. It's pretty dark and I understand Harrison Ford is sick of his character, but as I said above, there are better ways to kill off a classic character.
2. This means we don't see the gang get back together. Not once. I was excited about the chance of seeing them all together on screen, and we're robbed of this. "Ruin" Johnson actually understood in his movie that people actually wanted to see this more than they wanted to see x-wings and tie-fighters go at it again.

Leia's death is even worse, because it makes it clear that they had no idea what to do with Carrie Fisher's death, and rather than just take the time to come up with something else that works., we get this dogshit. This is exactly what they did in the episode of the Simpsons when they were making the Fallout Boy movie and Rainier Wolfcastle was injured because the googles do nothing. I never thought I'd see a filmmaker unironically try it in my favorite sci-fi series.

(By contrast, I have no idea why Harrison Ford is appearing as a force ghost to Kylo Ren, but it's by far the best scene in the movie and Ford acts the hell of it)

I didn’t realistically expect a movie with all of the original gang in a big epic adventure, but just one or two scenes of them all reunited would have been nice. Having Lando and Han trade light hearted banter and insults would have been fun. That said, Luke’s “where’s Han” line in Last Jedi is really sad and worth it. It hits the feels and shows how much they loved each other in an effective and believable way. But there was no good reason to avoid a reunion scene with ever original actor willing and able to return for TFA. Delaying Lando’s comeback to the last film was unforgivable. Ford could have filmed scenes to be used in TLJ if he was only willing to return for limited shooting. That death could have worked just as well in TLJ

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I’m kind of surprised there hasn’t been another attempt at adapting the Remo Williams series of novels. The 1985 film is laughable and cheesy, although Fred Ward is the man, but I think with e right vision someone could produce a really faithful, more serious adaptation of the books.

 

[SD45T-2]

I read the article about Starfish Prime, and when it's described, it sounds early beautiful, auroras everywhere like the Northern Lights. Reading that, I'm not surprised there were viewing parties. It seems it didn't just knock out satellites, but telephone communications across Hawaii. Maybe you knew that part, but is surprising to me because it suggests a mind-blowing breadth and depth to the EMP effect.

Yeah, it sounds like an amazing light show but the side effects must have been a headache.

I also googled Raven Rock to find out what it was, and I'm surprised I've never heard of it. I've lived in Pennsylvania for most of my life, but I've only ever heard of the underground complex in Colorado.

The book doesn't just cover Raven Rock; it has Cheyenne Mountain, the Greenbrier, the Diefenbunker in Canada, the creation of FEMA, and continuity of government generally. Command and Control is good but kind of unwieldy in the it's trying to tell three narratives simultaneously: the development of the US nuclear program, the history of Strategic Air Command, and the 1980 Damascus incident.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, it sounds like an amazing light show but the side effects must have been a headache.

The book doesn't just cover Raven Rock; it has Cheyenne Mountain, the Greenbrier, the Diefenbunker in Canada, the creation of FEMA, and continuity of government generally. Command and Control is good but kind of unwieldy in the it's trying to tell three narratives simultaneously: the development of the US nuclear program, the history of Strategic Air Command, and the 1980 Damascus incident.

The Diefenbunker is apparently now a hotel, which actually doesn't surprise me. They turn pretty much anything into a hotel or apartments these days. I know of an old mill in Delaware that was converted to luxury apartments. Then again, I probably would live in an old mill if I could afford it. If I didn't have a zillion other things to read, I would probably look at the Raven Rock book; I'm interested in these secretive underground installations because they're things I don't expect to be real.

I think Switzerland has an elaborate network of complexes like this. I just found an article: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/societ...n-underground-world-of-swiss-bunkers/42395820

 

[Totenkindly]

Rewatched Mission Impossible 1, 3, and 6 over the last few weeks and rewatched 5 two months back or so.

Then saw Mission Impossible 7: Dead Reckoning Part 1 today. I'd give it a 4/5 and not because it's a first part film. It's got a ton of really banging action sequences, they really are pretty spectacular.

However, much of the early part feels like nothing but action, so it's feeling kind of hollow. And then, if you're going to bump a major beloved character, you need to make it feel like (1) you're not just clearing the floor to introduce other characters and (2) you actually give them a character arc / plotline where their death feels like it's part of that and makes sense. Or it should feel agonizing where you're not really sure what's going to happen, but this just felt all boringly plotted out.

It's not like this kind of character arc can't be done, and to be honest my favorite films in the series are 3, 5, and 6 because they were willing to dig more into character arcs. I like my action films to have a center. [Like, in Edge of Tomorrow, both Cage and Vrataski have their own character arcs -- Cage is a coward with no fighting skill who learns to be brave, while Rita has her own reasons for wanting to succeed and the end of her arc feels like a completion. Meanwhile, they have this situation where they are both becoming attached to each other as people, while NOT wanting to be attached because they know it will inevitably end up in loss for one or both of them. That's what makes Edge of Tomorrow better than just a regular action film. Or similar with Terminator 2 -- you get the whole arc of John learning to be a leader after being kind of a waste, the Terminator learning what it means to be human even if he can never be, and Sarah regaining her lost humanity after becoming in effect a human terminator out of necessity. Or Ripley and Newt in Aliens -- Ripley is compensating for failing her promises to her own daughter who she has now lost, proving she is still a good mother, and Newt is learning how to trust again after losing her family and going through terrible horrors...]

Anyway, I feel like Luther and Cruise at least get some character work later in the film, but some others just aren't done justice. Nothing like the end of either the 5 or 6 films, and they were also by McQuarrie (he had help writing this script, though, and I'm like... eh? Maybe that's a problem?)

I was happy with the plotting in one respect -- I knew exactly (as a writer) what should have been behind some of the antagonist forces in this film, despite Hunt and Co not figuring it right away, and then the story actually went there. So hooray, that made me happy.

Oh, yeah, Pom Klementieff was actually pretty great, and she also looked great. She had to play into goofball comedy in GotG, and I've seen her play campy bad guys in a few B films, but here she's kind of intimidating and cool, the same way when Dave Batista walks out in Spectre and you're like "holy shit." I guess that's ironic too, since they were paired up in Guardians typically.


EDIT:

The Mission: Impossible Franchise Can’t Seem to Figure Out Women

Dead Reckoning Part One passes the Bechdel Test, but the treatment of its female characters is once again problematic. The Mission: Impossible Franchise Can’t Seem to Figure Out Women Liz Shannon Miller

www.yahoo.com

 

[Stigmata]

Me in 2006: Fight club is a cool film about brotherhood and not allowing modernity dull our innate masculinity

Me in 2023: Fight Club is about the dangers of toxic masculinity while showcasing how otherwise normal men get radicalized by cult of personality leaders and the path that leads to them eventually engaging in stochastic terrorism. GET. ME. OFF. THIS. RIDEEEEEEE

 

[The Cat]

Me in 2006: Fight club is a cool film about brotherhood and not allowing modernity dull our innate masculinity

Me in 2023: Fight Club is about the dangers of toxic masculinity while showcasing how otherwise normal men get radicalized by cult of personality leaders and the path that leads to them eventually engaging in stochastic terrorism. GET. ME. OFF. THIS. RIDEEEEEEE

Me in 2006: Wow this is somehow a very relatable story, even though I don't like fighting. Poor guy seems exhausted, uncertain of how to be himself. Why is Tyler Durden so sexy, Marla Singer is attractive, I love her style, her wit, she makes me laugh, but I don't know how comfortable I'd be with her intimately.

Me in2023: So fightclub is about being queer and how repression manifests destructively. They're not fighting, they're fucking and the narrator is hiding that from the reader because they're still in the closet.

The time in between:

 

[Totenkindly]

Yaaaassssss

 

[Totenkindly]

The battle is real.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yaaaassssss

View attachment 29033

I prefer this one:

 

[Totenkindly]

I prefer this one:

 

[ceecee]

The battle is real.

View attachment 29034

We're thinking about going to the drive in tonight for Barbie.

 

[Totenkindly]

I got an IMAX ticket to Opp for tomorrow, most were sold out. I will definitely see Barbie.

 

[ceecee]

We're thinking about going to the drive in tonight for Barbie.

No spoilers here but I thought it was wonderful. I haven't seen a Greta Gerwig movie I didn't like and I think Barbie may be the best yet. Margo Robbie was perfectly cast but I think Ryan Gosling was too (also a scene stealer). Simu Liu plays a really funny shit-talking Ken but Issa Rae was great as President Barbie. So funny and I give the movie a lot of credit - the heavy topics were not accusatory or in your face. GG took a more satirical approach, it worked. Was it "woke"? Sure, if your definition is a human, compassionate approach to real problems. I laugh thinking about Ben Shapiro cringing at the use of the word "patriarchy" but I have a feeling GG may have wrote a few things in the script for this purpose exactly. Which is hilarious.

There was a protest of sorts but it wasn't right by the theater, it was in an area we have seen protests several times (usually religious) so I didn't pay that much attention. Glad we went to the drive in, lots of kids (not really sure why the PG-13 rating) and very classic drive in junk food. We'll see Opp at the IMAX at some point.