Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Doctor Cringelord]

The Clerks live action Sitcom pilot is just atrocious.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched "Sound of Metal" on Amazon Prime, sweet little film that is more of a character study, about a metal drummer who loses his hearing -- but it ends up really being about him dealing with it and reevaluating his approach to life. I didn't even recognize Olivia Cooke at first (this film serves her better than Ready Player One did). It's also got involved from a number of actors from the deaf community. The audio editing/sound production is great, and the film will switch often between what everyone hears versus what he is hearing, so it feels very real. It's also interesting because the protagonist isn't very introspective (reminiscent of Andrew from Whiplash) -- how does a non-introspective character act/stress when forced to introspect by circumstance? Not easily, at first.

Also, all the characters are imperfect and human. There's some touching moments between Ruben and Joe, the head of the deaf addict home.

It's weird, but the tone and small scale reminds me a lot of "Leave No Trace" from a year or two back, in terms of all the "quiet" built into the story and the lead character introspecting enough to make heartfelt hard decisions at end to let some things go.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I think Alien 3 is my favorite Alien movie

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

We got the HBO add-on through Amazon Prime. They have all of the Alien films, in both theatrical and special editions or director's cuts. So I've been watching both versions of each and comparing. So far I've gotten through the first 3 and here are my thoughts:

Alien Theatrical Cut vs Director's Cut
This one is interesting, because the Director's Cut is actually slightly shorter, and the differences between the two are a little more subtle than with the second and third films' theatrical and special editions. Ridley Scott himself has said he still considers the Theatrical Cut to be the perfect version of the film, but created the Director's Cut to give people something new and to make Ripley's character a little more prominent early in the film. Taken as a part of the entire series, I think I prefer the DC. But taken as a standalone film, I prefer the theatrical.

The added scene in the DC, in which Ripley finds Dallas and Brett being "eggmorphed" is also fascinating for two reasons. First, I think it suggests a possible emotional connection between Ripley and Dallas. This is very subtly hinted at in the theatrical cut, but the film never really explores it. Of course I'm probably just reading into things, and her strong emotional reaction to finding Dallas in a state of extreme pain could simply be a general reaction to the horror of the situation. Second, it suggests an interesting feature in the xenomorph's life cycle. I don't think this contradicts the later films' emphasis on a Queen Xenomorph. I think eggmorphing is a "backup" reproduction process this species can implement in the absence of a Queen to lay the eggs.


Aliens Theatrical Cut vs Special Edition
The special edition adds a lot and is a vast improvement over the theatrical cut. While the TC is a lean, mean action film, the SE really adds a lot to Ripley's backstory and overall arc in the series. The added scene about her daughter makes her relationship with Newt and her protective nature make a lot more sense. There's also subtle additions that really emphasize her relationship to Hicks and Bishop. The addition of the scenes with the automated sentry guns kind of explains why the xenos didn't just go in right for the kill, and also shows them as being a little more than just rage-filled monsters. They are an intelligent, social species capable of learning and adapting. This is not quite as apparent in the Theatrical cut.


Alien 3 Theatrical Cut vs "Assembly Cut"

I've always had mixed thoughts on this film. Seeing the Special Edition (AKA Assembly Cut) has given me a newfound appreciation for the film. Of any film in the series, I think the differences between this one's theatrical and assembly cut are the most obvious and jarring. There are quite a few scenes added that expand on her relationship with various characters like Dillon and the doctor. Her feelings about Newt are expanded on as well. The prisoners are given actual character development, so I care about them more than I do in the TC, where most are barely, if ever introduced or expanded upon before being gratuitously killed.

I know the killing of Newt and Hicks is a serious point of contention for many fans, but I think it makes Ripley's overall arc in the series so much better and more tragic. Her actions and growth in Alien 3 would not be possible without their deaths. All she knows is loss at this point. She is more determined than ever to prevent others from experiencing similar loss at the hands of the beast. Sorry, I'm in the minority, but that's where I stand. I also think it adds to the sense that this species is fucking brutal and doesn't care. It will take anyone and everyone, including Ripley, eventually. Having them survive and/or Ripley survive at the end would have kind of ruined the idea of the Xenomorph as a grave threat to anyone and everyone. Sure, Ripley ultimately succeeds, but at great cost to almost everyone who mattered to her, including herself and most of her new friends in this film.

The Assembly Cut is also a visually stunning work, lots of great cinematography and visual symbolism in this movie, some really nice added shots that help set up the new world, and easily the prettiest film in the series to look at. This film has a visual aesthetic that I describe as rundown cyberpunk meets future-gothic. The prison is a once state-of-the-art facility fallen into disrepair that now presents more as cathredalesque. The film does a good job of showing the prison as both large and looming--and claustrophobic and inescapable. Many sets remind me of ancient catacombs, or abandoned temples. The prisoners' shaved heads and devotion to religion adds to that sense of Ripley being stranded in an ancient temple. I need to watch this again to get a fuller impression. It was easy to dismiss this movie because at the time I originally saw it, I just wanted more of Aliens, I wanted high tech space guns and lots of xenos. But another Aliens (which they sort of tried with Resurrection) would have sucked, in hindsight.


I will get to Resurrection, eventually, but overall, I think it's a fun popcorn film and little more. I still consider the first 3 a true trilogy with an arc and a resolution that is pretty final and unalterable. Resurrection feels like a well-polished, high budget "what if" piece of fanfiction to me. I don't consider these films a quadrilogy. Hell, Ripley isn't even really Ripley, but a clone, and technically a new character. Resurrection is an epilogue, postscript, or bonus episode, at best.

 

[Totenkindly]

Here's the cast of Disney's live-action 'Little Mermaid' remake and who they're playing



Yet another Disney live-action atrocity in the making. Don't miss Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle!

 

[Totenkindly]

Alien Theatrical Cut vs Director's Cut
This one is interesting, because the Director's Cut is actually slightly shorter, and the differences between the two are a little more subtle than with the second and third films' theatrical and special editions. Ridley Scott himself has said he still considers the Theatrical Cut to be the perfect version of the film, but created the Director's Cut to give people something new and to make Ripley's character a little more prominent early in the film. Taken as a part of the entire series, I think I prefer the DC. But taken as a standalone film, I prefer the theatrical.

Yeah, I'm mixed on it. I think they cut footage from a lot of the earlier part of the film to make up for later scenes added, so it removes some of the long ambiance shots -- which I think are a strength of the TC. However, I like the added conflict between Lambert and Ripley (it's character building) + I don't have a problem with the eggmorph thing either, honestly. The xenomorph is nothing if not adaptable. And it's just creepy. Maybe it's just me, but people being transformed as raw material against their will is part of the unsettling draw of body horror. X-Men did their whole spin on that in the comics with The Brood species (it was pretty clearly drawn from Alien) and even with Dave Cockrum being the artist -- the art wasn't that edgy -- it was still pretty horrible.

Aliens Theatrical Cut vs Special Edition
The special edition adds a lot and is a vast improvement over the theatrical cut. While the TC is a lean, mean action film, the SE really adds a lot to Ripley's backstory and overall arc in the series. The added scene about her daughter makes her relationship with Newt and her protective nature make a lot more sense. There's also subtle additions that really emphasize her relationship to Hicks and Bishop. The addition of the scenes with the automated sentry guns kind of explains why the xenos didn't just go in right for the kill, and also shows them as being a little more than just rage-filled monsters. They are an intelligent, social species capable of learning and adapting. This is not quite as apparent in the Theatrical cut.

In most major aspects, the DC is far better -- as you note, the whole subplot of her failing her actual daughter, so this is why she attaches to Newt so quickly.

The only thing I remember not liking is the "pre-story" of Newt's family. Like, I don't hate it -- but basically it removes some of the spookiness of the facility just going offline without an explanation why. I liked that aura of mystery, where they are slowly trying to piece together what happened. It was too explicit. In that sense, it works as a bridge element (not knowing happened) between the scary/tense elements of the first film and the shift to more of an action story later in A2.

But all the other additions were useful. This is often the case with Cameron's films (including Avatar and Terminator 2 and even The Abyss). He cuts scenes mostly for theatrical release time reasons, but they are all helpful -- which shows you the resilience of most of his scripts, in that you can cut good material for time and yet still have a strong story left for the TC.

I don't really have thoughts about A3 right now, it's been years since I've seen a version of it and there were multiple versions, with all the studio interference.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

The only thing I remember not liking is the "pre-story" of Newt's family. Like, I don't hate it -- but basically it removes some of the spookiness of the facility just going offline without an explanation why. I liked that aura of mystery, where they are slowly trying to piece together what happened. It was too explicit. In that sense, it works as a bridge element (not knowing happened) between the scary/tense elements of the first film and the shift to more of an action story later in A2.

Yeah, that addition did feel a little hokey to me. I'd have left that scene out and just made it a bonus feature on the DVD/Bluray

But all the other additions were useful. This is often the case with Cameron's films (including Avatar and Terminator 2 and even The Abyss). He cuts scenes mostly for theatrical release time reasons, but they are all helpful -- which shows you the resilience of most of his scripts, in that you can cut good material for time and yet still have a strong story left for the TC.

Yes. Aliens TC is still a solid movie with great characters and a plot that works and doesn't lose too much, but the SE adds a little more world and character building and doesn't feel overlong.

I don't really have thoughts about A3 right now, it's been years since I've seen a version of it and there were multiple versions, with all the studio interference.

I'm not sure but I think the cut on HBO is the assembly cut. I think the TC is just a mess, they tried to water it down into a briskly paced action horror film, but it just lost too many important plot elements and a lot of useful characterization. I had a hard time caring about any of the characters in the TC. And I don't think the added scenes hurt the pacing. It feels more like, I guess a horror drama, so having it move a little slower doesn't really hurt the film, it allows it to breathe, and it allows the viewer to care more about what Ripley and the other characters are experiencing. It's a thinking person's horror film with the longer cut, although I'd say that Alien and Aliens are also thinking person's horror movies. We also see more of Ripley reacting to the pains of the chestburster inside her body wiggling around, so I think that kind of raises the body horror factor a bit. I think the added dramatic scenes in the AC also make Hicks' and Newt's deaths feel less cheap and hollow. I admit the TC does make their deaths feel kind of pointless, like they're just brushed aside and quickly forgotten about to get on with the action.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I also like how different all of the Alien films musical scores are. Goldsmith's Alien score is avant garde and otherworldly, Horner's Aliens score is emotional and bombastic, Goldenthal's Alien 3 score is dark, operatic and moody, and Frizzel's Alien Resurrection score is somewhere between all of the above.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched "Pieces of a Woman" on Netflix.

Vanessa Kirby is great, she makes so many interesting choices on how to approach a scene -- I never quite knew where she'd come from.

The plotting itself (after the really great opening) was less interesting, it was really more of a series of character sketches... and especially the last 15 minutes just seemed to be inert.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I did not expect to see Samuel L. Jackson in Goodfellas. To be fair, it's not a big role.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Although the AvP films aren’t great overall, I really liked Lance Henrickson’s performance as Charles Bishop Weyland. When I saw Prometheus, I was initially annoyed at what seemed to be a retcon with the introduction of Peter Weyland as the founder of Weyland Corp. That said, neither film necessarily cancel one another out if you think about it. Charles very well could be Peter’s father. AvP is set in 2004, but Prometheus establishes Weyland Corp was founded in 2012. Technically, the Weyland Industries we hear of in AvP could’ve been a defunct company by the time Peter followed in his father’s footsteps and founded his own similarly named tech firm in 2012. I doubt that Ridley Scott was too interested in respecting the canonicity of a popcorn crossover series, but nothing in Prometheus explicitly contradicts those films, and I still like to think of them and the Predator films being part of the same cinematic universe as the Prometheus and Alien films.


This is one of my favorite YouTube channels, Alien Theory:

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

BTW, that Lance Henricksen autobiography Not Bad For A Human is a fun read.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched "Haywire" again on Netflix, for the heck of it. Soderbergh film (2011) with Gina Carano as black ops mercenary who of course gets double-crossed and has to extract herself.

This is more back in Carano's heyday, when she was actively training and fighting, and it shows. She's actually really great in terms of her action sequences in this film, and the various fights she gets in -- but most people aren't really aware of it because Soderbergh doesn't dress it up like many action pics would (Soderbergh typically rules more from the head and cuts superfluous fluff in his films, they come in pretty clean and precise) and Carano makes it all look much easier than it actually is. It reminds me of that line from "The Prestige" where Cutter is comparing Angier and Borden's magician abilities: "Borden's a wonderful magician, he's just a dreadful showman."

It's a good thing that she was a great fighter because she's generally a lousy actress -- she's beauty in motion (about the only female action hero I thought was convincing in their fight sequences, who was not a female martial artist / fighter of some kind, was Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde -- Theron typically works her ass off to get into shape and learn those kinds of things, immersed in her roles, and typically picks decent films) but she honestly can't deliver lines well, even years later now that she's broken into the MCU and Star Wars universes. I feel a bit bad in saying it, but out of the two of them Rousey might actually be the better actress in terms of comfort and range.

She also was in training while this film was being made (back in 2011) and it really shows, she's lean and honed and capable of intense drag-down fights with both a range of moves and props, and her non-nonsense style actually underplays her, she might have been served better by dressing it up a bit. While she's done one or two quick throw-downs on "The Mandalorian," fans of that show haven't really seen what she was capable of when she was actually in her prime; her weight and no longer really being in training seems to have limited her action range and what they have her do on that show.

So even thought Haywire is kind of emotionally flat (like an action film written by Data), it's a great showcase for the full range of her peak ability toolset on camera, and has a lot of "Wow" moments if you're really paying attention, as well as considering she's typically fighting men in this film (including Tatum, who has a lot of physical heft). The film also is typically stocked by lots of big names (Soderbergh never seems to have problems getting names into his cast) -- Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, and so on.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Watch Prometheus and AvP back to back, it’s almost as if Prometheus ripped off AvP, like Scott watched AvP and thought, “I can do this same movie better”

Obviously very different movies, but the basic premise and setup are the same. The first acts especially are basically the same idea

I have such love-hate for Ridley Scott, perhaps more than any other director

 

[Totenkindly]

I have such love-hate for Ridley Scott, perhaps more than any other director

Srsly, he's frustrating. He's made as many glorious films as he's made shitty ones (or degraded films that should have been great ones).

I do appreciate that he is prolific and works across genres.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Srsly, he's frustrating. He's made as many glorious films as he's made shitty ones (or degraded films that should have been great ones).

I do appreciate that he is prolific and works across genres.

Yeah, he’s like Kubrick in that regard. Maybe more so because Kubrick kind of stuck to 3 or 4 genres at most.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I watched Safety Not Guaranteed. I was very skeptical going in because I wasn't sure how you could build a whole movie out of what is basically a reddit meme. But I found it to be a funny, not mean-spirited, even sweet film that even has some thought-provoking bits about how we related to the past.

I'm even more disappointed we didn't get Duel of the Fates. I think Treverrow might have been able to pull it off and stick the landing by ending the saga with something life-affirming rather than a nonsensical uninspired retread of something that was done better before.

I'm not saying the direction of the movie was mind-blowing, but the film as a whole was pleasant, entertaining, fresh, and interesting. Most importantly, it provided a satisfying conclusion. J.J can do good beginnings and starts, but he's not great at concluding things, and even TFA and his Star Trek films show that (beginning of that movie is pretty good, but the introduction of Starkiller base is not only awful, but unnecessary except for making it hard to do anything interesting with the rest of the trilogy).

The ending of this movie is better than the ending of an Abrams movie I've seen. Some people might disagree, but

I wanted that machine to work.

.


I'm probably going to sound like those annoying "release the Snyder cut" people, but Treverrow never should have been dumped. (Speaking of which,. JUST RELEASE THE DAMN SNYDER CUT ALREADY. I AM SO TIRED OF HAVING STORIES ABOUT IT POSTED TO MY SOCIAL MEDIA. )

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Actually Kubrick movies comprise a unique genre unto themselves. His war films for instance, even FMJ, are unlike any other war films. They’re about the absurdity of war. FMJ, though appearing a gritty war drama, is almost a comedy in disguise. The Shining is like no other horror film.

 

[Totenkindly]

I was shocked to look at tomorrow's releases on bluray/4K and see they are putting out a bluray of "A Serbian Film."
I was even more shocked to see it was already released on bluray ten years ago but I guess was out of print.

Ehhhh......

4K versions of "They Live" and "Prince of Darkness" are coming out too, I just don't know if the movies themselves warrant buying a 4K version if you already have bluray.


------


Rewatched TENET yesterday.

Made more sense than when I saw it in the theater, but it was my second viewing. Also, just to safe, I ended up playing it with the english subtitles since some of the dialogue can be hard to track in spots.

There's still some non-sensical stuff (like Neil's history, but he's too young; or times when people should be going through a turnstile but you never see them coming from the other side; etc.) Like, he couldn't get some of the idea to mesh up.

it still also has the problem of being all head, no heart. Like, okay there's a mental puzzle there trying to decipher what is happening in the film, but why should we even care? I think the most sympathy I had was for Kat, since she was being used by so many people and just wanted freedom from those bindings, but it's hard to care too much about anyone in this film. Sator's just an asshat. The Protagonist is the hero, but... hey we don't even know his name.

I think something I never noticed OR had completely forgotten was that Aaron Taylor-Johnson (I mean, "Kick-Ass" for god's sake) is playing Ives, the head of one of the tenet squads and one of the more important secondary characters. he doesn't look like a boy anymore in this film, he definitely looks like a man, with an accent I didn't know he could do, and under the beard and crop top I didn't recognize him at all until I found out it was him, and then I could totally see it. Weird. That might have been one of the better tricks of the film.