Movie Reviews 2.0

[Grall]

Stockholm Syndrome.

Hah!

I kinda liked Man of Steel, but overall I felt the ending in particular suffered from the same kind of deus ex machina-like cheats used to let the good guys win in many Star Trek episodes for example. Supes vs. Bats was much, much better in my personal opinion.

In my opinion Guardians of The Galaxy 1 is the best from all the Marvel movies.

I myself have a hard time choosing between Thor (1), Iron Man (1), Avengers (1) and Cap: Winter Soldier. They're all fuggin epic to me and I'd prefer not trying to pick a favorite.

 

[Jupiter]

I liked Thor 1 at that time but the second one was very boring. The crash between Thor 1 and 2 was even worse than the one between Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2.

Back then Marvel were at least fresh but now everything is the same for me.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Whedon was an auto-proclaimed activist for feminism (to the point of making photoshoots with Anita sarkeesian) because he supposedly was a fan of his wife whom he "respected" so much.

Wife came out last year saying it was all a front to compensate for the fact that he cheated on her regularly throughout the years, with the typical cycle of being caught, confessing, promising to change, taking advantage of his position to fuck more women in the studios, rinse, repeat.

Okay, the two bolded parts do make him a hypocrite, especially the latter.

I still consider him more twat than hypocrite, but if my deliberation is between those two adjectives, he's clearly fucked up.

I still liked his work over the years though, especially Buffy!

I just read that he co-wrote Justice League, prior to being tasked with salvaging it as director. Most of my problems with the film are at the script level.

Maybe he wrote something of the same calibre this time, and executives applied greater scrutiny?

 

[Grall]

I liked Thor 1 at that time but the second one was very boring.

Thor 2 had things I liked a lot about it - the dynamics between Thor and Loki most notably, and the ambiguous way it ends. The badguy was really boring though. All badguys who just want to destroy everything because of...well, no reason really - are super boring. And the way they stopped him was tremendously dumb too, seriously, what's wrong with superheroes just duking it out and beating the other guy to a pulp?

Placing gizmos and pushing a button to win is fucking stupid, and even more so in a superhero movie. That knocked off quite a chunk of my personal enjoyment, honestly... Still, I'd give it a weak 7, for the other things in it which I did like.

GoG 2 was a lot more boring in comparison, IMO.

 

[Bludd]

Superhero movies are a dime a dozen nowadays and only Deadpool is interesting because it is marginally different.

Mehhhhhhhhhh, I'd much rather watch Annihilation, the new film by the creator of Ex Machina.

 

[BRiT]

I read that it was a pretty bad movie despite good acting and being based off a solid story (Annihilation). https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/02/annihilation-is-a-gorgeous-movie-that-went-terribly-wrong/

 

[Bludd]

I read that it was a pretty bad movie despite good acting and being based off a solid story (Annihilation). https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/02/annihilation-is-a-gorgeous-movie-that-went-terribly-wrong/

87% on Rotten Tomatoes and 80 on Metacritic

 

[Jupiter]

My favorite movies of 2017 were Blade Runner 2049 and Alien Covenant which have so much depth for a blockbuster movie that I had to watch them twice to understand the majority of them.

One could watch these videos where I found the first and the fifth just a few minutes ago.

Funnily enough I saw Westworld two weeks ago which I also count among my favourite series. Blade Runner 2049, Alien Covenant and Westworld are all about AI or what does it mean to be human. ^^

 

[eloic]

Yesterday, Life and mother!.

I loved the first one.

The second one left me feeling ill. I still feel weird, this morning. I felt anguished from beginning to end. It was crazy and twisted!

Spoiler

Today I knew that it was an allegory of God and the Earth... Oh, well, even though I come from a very religious background and I know very well the Bible, myself, I failed to realize this. Maybe it was because I was so absorbed by my own feelings and I wasn't understanding shit... At the end of the movie I asked myself if it represented the unconditional love of a (abused?) woman.

Very well done, and the acting was superb, but it's one of the worst movies I've ever watched.

 

[Malo]

I think mother! did exactly what it was intended to do if that's how you felt about it. The fact that it had that kind of effect on you can't make it one of the worst movies you've ever watched. Not all movies are Disney formula.

I went into mother! with no idea as I hate reading anything about movies before I go into them, especially Aronofsky experiences, Lars Von Trier another example. Sort of figured out what it was meant to be portraying as things became... crazy. I came out of it thinking it's one of the best cinema experiences in a long time.

It's not for everyone and that's ok. I . Just consider what it managed to do to you by the end.

 

[eloic]

Not all movies are Disney formula.

Who told you I expect all movies to be Disney formula?

I think mother! did exactly what it was intended to do if that's how you felt about it. The fact that it had that kind of effect on you can't make it one of the worst movies you've ever watched.
Just consider what it managed to do to you by the end.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say, kind of. Maybe I should have quoted "worst" or used italics on it.

Spoiler

Still, I'm not sure if the plot means "God exists and he's crazy" or "the whole tale about God is so absurd and twisted that it can't be real". What's your opinion on this?

I hate reading anything about movies before I go into them

Me too.

 

[Malo]

Spoiler: Eloyc spoiler

Still, I'm not sure if the plot means "God exists and he's crazy" or "the whole tale about God is so absurd and twisted that it can't be real". What's your opinion on this?

Spoiler: my take

mother! portrays this well imo. What the concept of god and religion brings to an otherwise simple mother earth starts off with an offensive intrusion (adam and eve) and a murder between family and from there only gets gradually more and more utterly insane. God becomes enamored with his followers, ignoring the needs of mother earth and lets the slowly building gathering of followers overtake any kind of good intentions he might have had in partnering with mother earth in the first place. It's basically saying that the god concept grew beyond itself into what the followers deemed it to be and eventually, as you saw in the latter part of the movie, everything goes absolutely insane in religious fervor with god allowing it to happen in his own ecstasy. It's thousands of years of old and new testament into the modern age compressed.

 

[eloic]

Spoiler: my take

mother! portrays this well imo. What the concept of god and religion brings to an otherwise simple mother earth starts off with an offensive intrusion (adam and eve) and a murder between family and from there only gets gradually more and more utterly insane. God becomes enamored with his followers, ignoring the needs of mother earth and lets the slowly building gathering of followers overtake any kind of good intentions he might have had in partnering with mother earth in the first place. It's basically saying that the god concept grew beyond itself into what the followers deemed it to be and eventually, as you saw in the latter part of the movie, everything goes absolutely insane in religious fervor with god allowing it to happen in his own ecstasy. It's thousands of years of old and new testament into the modern age compressed.

Spoiler

At any rate, the allegory is quite inexact at some basic points, so it may be difficult to identify it with the Christian tale. For instance, Adam and Eve are God's children, too. They should be "Jennifer"'s children, too. And I don't get the rinse and repeat ending, since it does not have a parallelism with the OT/NT either.

 

[Lefungus]

I've just seen Black panther, and it's inoffensive, not bad, just not much personality, no rough edges.
There was so much to do to create an african mythology and it's squandered imho.
I'm disappointed in Marvel movies now anyway. Only The first Avengers, Winter Soldier, the first Guardians of the Galaxy & the first Iron Man are worthy.
As I grew up with Thanos, I still have great expectations about Infinity Wars, but Ultron was forgettable.

I'll go watch the Shape of Water this week, which really looks like an Hellboy spin-off with Abe Sapien !
But I will skip the Pacific Rim sequel, not interesting without Del Toro vision.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Fucking hated Mother. If you're gonna watch one film about the director's hard-on for all things

Spoiler

old testament

, go and watch Noah instead. That one actually works as a film and not just as a metaphor. Mother's narration is utter nonsense if you take out all the metaphors and allegories. It basically becomes a nonsensical home invasion movie. Maybe I'm old-school, but I think a film should have a baseline narrative that makes sense. Only then should the metaphors be layered on top. They definitely shouldn't be everything there is to a film.

 

[eloic]

Fucking hated Mother. If you're gonna watch one film about the director's hard-on for all things old testament, go and watch Noah instead. That one actually works as a film and not just as a metaphor. Mother's narration is utter nonsense if you take out all the metaphors and allegories. It basically becomes a nonsensical home invasion movie. Maybe I'm old-school, but I think a film should have a baseline narrative that makes sense. Only then should the metaphors be layered on top. They definitely shouldn't be everything there is to a film.

I feel you. Plus, the metaphor didn't match in some basic points, so... Despite that, I concur with @Malo that the director achieved just what he wanted to achieve with the movie.

BTW, I think you should have used the spoiler tags for some of the things you said.

 

[Jupiter]

My favorite movies:
• Alien
• Alien: Covenant
• Blade Runner
• Blade Runner 2049
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Interstellar
• Oblivion
• Star Wars: Episode I, III & IV

I'm still thinking about taking the Martian in.


Four years back it was:
• Alien
• Blade Runner
• Brotherhood
• Children Of Men
• Drive
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Oblivion
• Star Wars: Episode I, III & IV
• Sunshine

Some of the best movies to test 20Hz subwoofers are Cloverfield and War of the Worlds.

Yesterday, Life

I rent almost all the movies on disc but Life was one of the few in 2017 I bought after watching the rented disc version.

 

[Malo]

Fucking hated Mother. If you're gonna watch one film about the director's hard-on for all things old testament, go and watch Noah instead. That one actually works as a film and not just as a metaphor. Mother's narration is utter nonsense if you take out all the metaphors and allegories. It basically becomes a nonsensical home invasion movie. Maybe I'm old-school, but I think a film should have a baseline narrative that makes sense. Only then should the metaphors be layered on top. They definitely shouldn't be everything there is to a film.

Yep as I said, it's definitely not for everyone, in fact probably a small portion of viewers probably enjoyed it! Nothing wrong with that at all.

The entire film is an allegory instead of being layered on top of a more grounded narrative and I believe it works really well based on that premise.

Some of the best movies to test 20Hz subwoofers are Cloverfield and War of the Worlds.

Oh yes, War of the Worlds (I assume you mean Tom Cruise modern version) is great for low frequency abuse, but cleanly (if that makes sense). I loved the blaring horn sounds the aliens made.

I'm still thinking about taking the Martian in.

Definitely worth a watch though of course the book was so much better as it could delve into the science much more and there was a lot more detail into the various crazy shit he had to deal with. I did enjoy the movie enough as not complete hollywood bullshit to buy the book.

 

[Picao84]

I've just seen Black Panther and loved it!! I thought it was very well done with quite some depth, whitout getting boring, and a lot of "heart". Felt very genuine and not the usual Marvel popcorn movie style.

I also understand better all the discussion about cultural significance. I agree now its significant, but not because of skin color, not because of a black hero, director, cast, etc. Its significant because its probably the first time we see a piece of fiction joining african culture with a high tech society. It might not be THE perfect society, but hell, none is. Unlike the usual picturing of african culture as primitive, this movie made it look modern without needing to radically transforming it. It was very refreshing!

 

[Grall]

Decided to try streaming a netflix movie to my still quite new Apple TV, and chose Cap: Winter Soldier, and FUGGIN FUG is this a well-crafted action movie or what. I've seen it a lot of times by now and I've ranted about it here before as well, but it still amazes me. They packed a lot of story and action into its running length, and it never feels slow or boring. The SFX is also very well done, and everything feels super well crafted.

I'll even forgive the way Cap's shield miraculously bounces right back into his hand whenever he throws it! Plus, Chris Evans is just so damn buff and heroic-looking, he really gives off the vibe of a real-world comicbook hero, something 1970s to '90s comicbook movies almost never did. I'd mention Tim Burton's Batman here, but I always felt that Michael Keaton was miscast there, he's this super twitchy weird guy, and he's playing Batman...? No, just no. The movie works quite well anyway, but not because of him.

You don't have that issue here though. Same thing with Chris Hemsworth as Thor, also super heroic-looking actor in that role.

Btw, Netflix app on Apple TV is quite nice and smooth-running. Unlike HBO app which is a damn joke and a bad one at that, and buggy too. Very first time I ran it it wonked out and would not work properly; I had to restart the whole Apple TV thingamajig, since there's AFAIK no way to force-quit apps on it. Or if there is I don't know how, because Apple stuff is so "easy to use" that even slightly advanced features have to be hidden away like it is radioactive... Still, other than that the thing works pretty well, as long as you don't try to type any text into it. The on-screen keyboard is the worst I've ever encountered. Maybe BT keyboards can be paired to it? I sure hope so!

Would probably have gone to see Black Panther by now, except I got struck down by the flu on saturday so four whole days gone all to shit since then. Very annoying...