Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Red Herring]

@Totenkindly I haven't watched Coda, but from the summaries it sounds like it has a lot in common with this movie.

Do you think that's a fair comparison?

 

[Totenkindly]

@Totenkindly I haven't watched Coda, but from the summaries it sounds like it has a lot in common with this movie.

Do you think that's a fair comparison?

what movie?

 

[Red Herring]

what movie?

The one in the link underneath the words "this movie"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Silence_(1996_film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116692/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

It is a German movie from the 1990s about a family of two death parents and a hearing daughter. The daughter functions as a comunicator for the family but trouble arises when she wants to become a profesional musician.

Beyond Silence (German: Jenseits der Stille) is a 1996 German film directed by Caroline Link. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards.[2]

The film tells the story of Lara, who grows up as the daughter of deaf parents, Martin and Kai. Lara herself is hearing and is fluent in sign language. Even as a young child, she serves as an interpreter for her parents in many situations, such as credit negotiations at the bank as well as her own parent-teacher conference, although not always completely truthfully.

Lara receives a clarinet for Christmas from Clarissa, her father's sister and an enthusiastic musician. Lara discovers the world of music, where her parents cannot follow her. In the years that follow, she is discovered to be a talented clarinet player. When 18-year-old Lara wants to study at a music conservatory in Berlin, the family seems to break apart. Lara finds love in Berlin with a teacher of deaf children.

After Kai is killed in a bicycle accident, Lara's grieving father feels abandoned. Lara bounces from family home, to her aunt's, her uncle's before returning to her childhood home. The ending seems to reconcile it all: Martin tries to understand the love of music that his daughter feels, and the film comes to a careful reunion between him and Lara.

Jenseits der Stille is film about a musically talented girl growing up in a house with deaf parents, and the struggles that ensue from that as she matures. The main character, Lara, has many responsibilities as the only one who can hear in her house. Her mother and father constantly depend on her to assist them with everyday things such as bank meetings and answering the phone. Thus, she falls behind with her schoolwork. Her father detests music, because of a bad childhood experience with his clarinetist sister, Clarissa. Clarissa acts as the antagonist when she encourages Laras musical talent. Laras dreams of perusing the clarinet herself and moving away cause tension with her father, Martin. Despite the fact Martin and Kai have had another child who can assist them, they have always counted on Lara. Lara moves to Berlin, in attempts to enter a conservatory. While there she falls in love and her mother dies, leaving her father devastated. In the midst of sadness, love, and family quarrels, Lara struggles to find who she really is.

 

[Totenkindly]

The one in the link underneath the words "this movie"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Silence_(1996_film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116692/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

It doesn't show anything underneath it, to me, oddly. I can see a hyperlink exists now, but it isn't marked with anything so it looked like straight text on my phone and I couldn't figure out what film you were referring to. So thanks for adding it in this post.

Honestly, the German film sounds far more complex.

CODA is supposedly an adaptation of the French film "La Famille Belier" (2014). I haven't bothered to look that one up.

Here is CODA's plot (my words):

Ruby is the daughter of a non-hearing couple and has an older non-hearing brother. They are fisherman (their private boat) operating off the coast of MA, USA. She goes fishing with them in the morning, then goes to school and often falls asleep in her classroom, then has homework in evenings. She gets a crush on a teenage boy and decides to sign up for choir, despite her best friend criticizing her for it. (Note: Best friend ends up hooking up with Ruby's older brother.)

Despite fleeing opening day of choir when forced to sing a solo, she comes back later to the demanding single-man teacher (who seems to be a Fame-school reject -- not sure how he ended up in a blue-collar fishing town) and says she really wants to sing. [Ruby has a remarkable skill for never really saying what she is thinking, just enough to drive a few of the film's subplots, when a simple sentence or two could have cleared things up.] The teacher decides that Ruby has an exceptional voice, although in the film itself all of the other students in choir have exceptional voices and musical sense, for living in a fishing town where everyone is struggling to get by -- and Ruby's voice actually doesn't sound as good as their voices. He of course pairs her up with her crush, to learn "You're All I Need to Get By" (an oldie but goodie), forcing him to go to Ruby's house to practice... where they end up being interrupted by Ruby's parents loudly doing the deed (because of course they can't tell how loud they are), embarrassing Ruby. Said crush complicates matters when he describes this encounter to a close friend, who tells a lot of people, and the next day Ruby's female peers mock her during lunch publicly, humiliating her and temporarily ruining Ruby's relationship with her crush.

Ruby's time conflict is between private practice with her teacher (who is trying to get her an audition at his alma mater music school "because her voice is THAT good") and her family's needs since she is their main liaison in their family occupation. Her family doesn't understand why she likes to sing and of course they cannot hear any of it. There is an issue with the local commerce / buyer of fish, who is already stiffing them on money for their hauls and now is forcing them all to pay a rep to go out with them on hauls to make sure they are complying with regulation. When Ruby blows off a day's trip for her music, it of course happens to be the day the regulator shows up, and she tips off the coast guard that the family (being deaf) is not following regulation and they are slapped with fines they can't pay. So the question is, can Ruby get into music school, and if so, will the family allow her to leave and find a way to carry on without her? And is she finally willing to leave them, after hemming and hawing over it?

Of course, in the end, everything works out perfectly despite the film not really explaining how and/or having magical outcomes to its own trials. The family appreciates Ruby's passion even though they can't hear it, because they see the reactions of everyone else who can. They decide to give her older brother a chance to prove himself, despite being deaf, and work around any complications. Even Ruby and the crush come around and have a nice relationship, even if she's heading off to school.

As a thinking person, I find most of the film's contrivances to be annoying. The good part mainly through the film is the family seeming very normal for being deaf, including having the normal desires and tastes of any human being rather than being put on pedestals. The signing dialogue is pretty great in its unexpectedness, and the film rides on performances rather than writing. The film manages to underscore in the last half hour that they are still a family and trying to support each other even if they live in two worlds (which Ruby bridges). The concert scene has a brilliant moment of perspective from the family, which runs against expectation (one of the film's few ingenuous moments -- now I suspect it was ripped off from the French film, but I'd have to check, because the film plotting is otherwise pretty bad), and there's a very touching scene with Ruby and her dad outside afterwards. And the entire family rushes her off to her audition and sneaks into the audition room, so she starts signing and singing to them, which somehow impresses the judges although her voice ability is clearly not on par with the rest of those trying out (although the film tries to pretend hers is).

I dunno. Kinda still annoyed by the whole thing, including an Adapted Screenplay award. I understand they laboriously went through the old script to 'port it into English language and how to pump it up, but I have trouble thinking it did that good a job compared with Gyllenhaal's conversion of "The Lost Daughter" or Campion's "The Power of the Dog" or even "Dune" which is a hard book to port into film and has already had some semi-failures, so a lot had to be decided in terms of what to save, what to dump, and how to structure it all into two films.

 

[Totenkindly]

I had run across this last week but in less than reputable (aka sketchy) web sites -- but now it has been picked up by most verified sites and refers to statements by his own family, so it seems to be verified now. (I think I actually was hearing rumors last fall but it was hard to discern what was actually going on and its veracity.)

Bruce Willis 'stepping away' from acting because of health condition | CNN

Bruce Willis is suffering from a medical condition that is affecting his cognitive abilities and will be taking a break from acting, his family shared Wednesday.

www.cnn.com

Concerns about Bruce Willis' declining cognitive state swirled around sets in recent years

In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis' well-being.

www.latimes.com

He's starred in some pretty beloved films.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

wow, RLM called it on Bruce Willis.

They were also completely right when they said people will remember Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, etc, rather than the forgettable films he's made in the last few years. In other words, the shit he's done lately will not tarnish his legacy, it will just be a sad footnote akin to Bronson's last few movies.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

wow, RLM called it on Bruce Willis.

They were also completely right when they said people will remember Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, etc, rather than the forgettable films he's made in the last few years. In other words, the shit he's done lately will not tarnish his legacy, it will just be a sad footnote akin to Bronson's last few movies.

What about Hudson Hawk? I learned why the Mona Lisa is making that face from that movie.

 

[Totenkindly]

wow, RLM called it on Bruce Willis.

They were also completely right when they said people will remember Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, etc, rather than the forgettable films he's made in the last few years. In other words, the shit he's done lately will not tarnish his legacy, it will just be a sad footnote akin to Bronson's last few movies.

I didn't even realize he made some of those crappy films with forgettable titles.

Frankly, I kinda moved on after that shitty Glass film came out (I wonder now if the reduced part in the film was due to his issues and/or how that impacted the script) + after I saw the trailer for Death Wish 2018.

yeah, I would say he will be remembered for Pulp Fiction, Die Hard, The Sixth Sense, Moonrise Kingdom, Looper, 12 Monkeys, Sin City, maybe Armageddon.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Little art history lesson for everyone:

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I didn't even realize he made some of those crappy films with forgettable titles.

Frankly, I kinda moved on after that shitty Glass film came out (I wonder now if the reduced part in the film was due to his issues and/or how that impacted the script) + after I saw the trailer for Death Wish 2018.

yeah, I would say he will be remembered for Pulp Fiction, Die Hard, The Sixth Sense, Moonrise Kingdom, Looper, 12 Monkeys, Sin City, maybe Armageddon.

I think Mercury Rising and The Jackal are a couple of hidden gems. Not his best, but pretty solid action thrillers.

 

[Totenkindly]

I think Mercury Rising and The Jackal are a couple of hidden gems. Not his best, but pretty solid action thrillers.

Haven't see them, but Unbreakable too.

And of course Moonlighting, which started him.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Oh oh oh, I liked The Last Boyscout too

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

So Morbius is as awful as it looked, from what I'm hearing.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It must suck to be a character actor in the current industry. I mean you're limited to superhero schlock franchises or you're stuck fighting with the other character actors over the occasional role that pops up for some auteur "indie" director's latest project, but you're screwed if they already have a stable of muses they tend to draw from for their films, as is typical with Tarantino, the two Andersons, Scorcese, the dude who makes neon movies with Ryan Gosling, et al. So I think that's why it must suck to be someone like Leto in this business--all of the good directors already have their preferred muses to perform in their films, so Leto is left taking whatever he thinks is the most interesting superhero movie role. And the actors in DC and Marvel films overall are just hired hands, but if something goes wrong and the film is poorly received, they and not the directors, writers and producers tend to get the brunt of the blame and negative press.

 

[Totenkindly]

I've heard Morbius sucks too, but I generally wouldn't blame Leto for it (not without seeing it and noting whether in fact he sucks). It doesn't seem like a bad casting. Leto is an odd actor in that I think he's actually talented but a large chunk of audience seems to despise him for whatever reason. I haven't quite placed why, unless it's that he can scan as pretentious. (And he tends to get into political/weird casting arguments. Like winning an Oscar for being semi-trans / a crossdresser, while being neither -- at a time when politically that kind of decision was starting to socially sour. Or being a Joker that fans hated, and outstaying his welcome. Etc.)

But he's not actually a bad actor. I even like some of his music (from 30 Seconds to Mars).

Not everyone is ripping on Leto (although too many are headlining him badly) -- the RT article title here sounds more nuanced: "Morbius First Reviews: Jared Leto Does His Best to Lift a Story That Never Takes Flight"

I didn't recognize the director. Turns out his last film was "Life," which was a huge Alien ripoff that was kinda "eh" aside from the cast, until the last 5 minutes with a twist ending that was kind of brilliant although it doesn't justify watching the film. As I read up, Espinosa seems well known for films where the actors are good but the writing, editing, and story suck.

As for the writing team, check out this list of their "accomplishments":

2014	Dracula Untold
2015	The Last Witch Hunter
2016	Gods of Egypt
2017	Power Rangers
2022	Morbius

Did they just stop writing after 2017, or did they get blacklisted for a few years? But with a list like that, did the studio want Morbius to succeed? Leto was the only ace card the film had.

-----

I should go over to Random TV and praise Moon Knight though. Oscar Isaac is a media darling + this show opener actually to me was one of the best Marvel TV series I've seen. The quality and consistency of writing and tone is actually there, compared to about 85% of the other series that just felt B rate as soon as they started. It's even actually hard-edged versus all the other crappy Disney shows that pretend to have assassins and killers and badasses while having really shitty action sequences.

I hope they keep it up for the other episodes.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I've heard Morbius sucks too, but I generally wouldn't blame Leto for it (not without seeing it and noting whether in fact he sucks). It doesn't seem like a bad casting. Leto is an odd actor in that I think he's actually talented but a large chunk of audience seems to despise him for whatever reason. I haven't quite placed why, unless it's that he can scan as pretentious. But he's not a bad actor.

Not everyone is ripping on Leto (although too many are headling him badly) -- the RT article title here sounds more nuanced: "Morbius First Reviews: Jared Leto Does His Best to Lift a Story That Never Takes Flight"

I didn't recognize the director. Turns out his last film was "Life," which was a huge Alien ripoff that was kinda "eh" aside from the cast, until the last 5 minutes with a twist ending that was kind of brilliant although it doesn't justify watching the film. As I read up, Espinosa seems well known for films where the actors are good but the writing, editing, and story suck.

As for the writing team, check out this list of their "accomplishments":

2014	Dracula Untold	Gary Shore
2015	The Last Witch Hunter	Breck Eisner
2016	Gods of Egypt	Alex Proyas
2017	Power Rangers	Dean Israelite	Story only
2022	Morbius	Daniel Espinosa

Yeah, with a list like that, did they want Morbius to succeed? Leto was the only ace card they had.

-----

I should go over to Random TV and praise Moon Knight though. Oscar Isaac is a media darling + this show opener actually to me was one of the best Marvel TV series I've seen. The quality and consistency of writing and tone is actually there, compared to about 85% of the other series that just felt B rate as soon as they started. I hope they keep it up for the other episodes.

Why would Marvel not go for top talent in the production and writing, especially considering it's a lesser known character? Iron Man was not as well known but they put everything into making that a decent movie and now he is beloved. I just get the sense with the latest MCU films that they have fallen into a comfortable assembly line approach and quality control is lacking. They had some vastly popular hits so I hope they aren't just resting on their laurels now, but at the same time I wouldn't be upset if we were witnessing the demise of expanded cinematic universes and the superhero genre as we currently know it


Sorry if my last post seemed accusatory. I wasn't leveling that at anyone in this thread so much as at the type of people who hate on Leto or other actors because they can. I think it's probably what you said about how he "scans". He does kind of come off as slightly smug or pretentious at times, and people just read into it. But I don't think I have ever seen a Leto role that I could say was bad, just some unfortunate roles in overall bad films.

 

[Totenkindly]

Why would Marvel not go for top talent in the production and writing, especially considering it's a lesser known character? Iron Man was not as well known but they put everything into making that a decent movie and now he is beloved. I just get the sense with the latest MCU films that they have fallen into a comfortable assembly line approach and quality control is lacking.


Sorry if my last post seemed accusatory. I wasn't leveling that at anyone in this thread so much as at the type of people who hate on Leto or other actors because they can. I think it's probably what you said about how he "scans". He does kind of come off as slightly smug or pretentious at times, and people just read into it. But I don't think I have ever seen a Leto role that I could say was bad, just some unfortunate roles in overall bad films.

Oh, I know you meant in general. I was agreeing with you and of course with my tendency to edit my posts ten times in the first ten minutes I already added more comments to it, lol.

I haven't decided whether he is clueless about the dangers in certain roles or whether he's just brave enough to not give a shit. He definitely goes all in.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I've heard Morbius sucks too, but I generally wouldn't blame Leto for it (not without seeing it and noting whether in fact he sucks). It doesn't seem like a bad casting. Leto is an odd actor in that I think he's actually talented but a large chunk of audience seems to despise him for whatever reason. I haven't quite placed why, unless it's that he can scan as pretentious. (And he tends to get into political/weird casting arguments. Like winning an Oscar for being semi-trans / a crossdresser, while being neither -- at a time when politically that kind of decision was starting to socially sour. Or being a Joker that fans hated, and outstaying his welcome. Etc.)

I don't mind him as an actor but I think there's quite a lot about him that seems off personally; I think the best you can say is that he's very full of himself. I recall his tantrum about the Joaquim Phoenix joker movie.

He appears to have a cult of 30 Seconds to Mars groupies called Echelon.

 

[Totenkindly]

Are they waiting for their spaceship? Where's the Nikes?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Are they waiting for their spaceship? Where's the Nikes?

I don't know but I've been waiting for accusations to drop for quite some time and apparently yesterday there was some story about underage girls making the rounds.