Movie Reviews 2.0

Even more than the Bill and Ted movie ?

 

Yes. Both Tenent and Mulan were highly touted before the entire year went down the drain.

 

I am more interested in Bill and Ted...

 

B&T:FTM was mediocre at best, even when compared to their previous movies.

 

I couldn’t hear jack all. Dialogue was impossible to hear. Needed subtitles imo

 

I watched the trailer. The premise looked moderately interesting, but the music was like taking cheese grater to my scrotum for "Sunday fun".

IMO, of course.

 

Very odd! But I do recall having trouble with Interstellar too, so maybe it's one of those Nolan things? Not understanding wtf the characters are saying adds to the 'mystery'? No?

 

I have a very visual mind so THANK YOU. I mean... how can you even...? Gah...

 

You're... welcome??!

 

Could well be a Nolan thing as Bane was pretty much unintelligible in TDKR. Almost comically so, in fact.

 

https://studentedge.org/article/internet-agrees-on-first-ever-thing-the-sound-mix-in-tenet-is-bad

Tldr; I went in blind. I’ve not been following much of anything except this forum.

If it wasn’t for just wrapping up DARK on Netflix, I wouldn’t have had a chance to recognize what plot points they were spinning with the unrecognizable dialog. So then I had to search online to see if others had the same problem

Internet says: Nolan films; sound mixing = bad; but this was the worst offender.

 

I saw Tenet in both 4K Imax and old school 70 mm. Pretty interesting move, but the sound mixing sucked. I had to put in my ear plugs due to the high volume.

 

Subtitles? Was there something wrong with the sound system at the place you saw it?

I saw it at an IMAX screen, and the sound mixing was typical Nolan i.e. you can hear all of the dialogue in the dialogue scenes, and in action scenes sometimes dialogue will be drowned out for effect.

Was all of the dialogue for the entire movie inaudible for you? That happened to me part way through a viewing of Black Panther: just as the protagonist was speaking to his father in the spirit realm, the dialogue went whisper quiet. At first I thought it was a directorial choice - and it seemed to work, as everyone in the theatre was on the edge of their seat - but when it transitioned past the spirit world scene, the dialogue was still whisper quiet. It then took one brave soul to go and speak to staff and get it fixed. I was not that soul.

I don't think it's pursuit of mystery, so much as it's pursuit of feeling and immersion. The only moments in Interstellar in which I recall there being problems with hearing dialogue were moments in which it was for effect, like the docking scene.

Does anyone really need to hear exactly the choice of words of Matthew McConaughey when he's getting rattled about in a space ship on the verge of destruction? Does that really matter when you can make out his tone amongst everything else vying for your senses? Does choice of words matter when the emotion of the scene is so clear?

I get that plenty of people don't like Nolan's sound mixing, but I've never known the intensity of his sound mixing to strike during expository dialogue, only during action scenes. And I've always thought it was quite clearly intentional and immersive.

 

What do we think of the Dune trailer?

I think its very promising with some caveats.

It looks a lot like Lynches Dune with modern special effects (a good thing IMO!)

Bit iffy about some of the casting choices risking 'its a x star movie' but the same could be said about the Lynch version, yet the big names didn't steal the limelight in that movie. (so hopefully follows Lynch Dune in that)
Interesting there's no Feyd Rautha (announced yet?)

Like the shield & ornithopter effects, don't particularly like the sand worms.
Long spindly teeth gives a baleen whale feel which is perhaps appropriate but feels rather less intimidating imo.
Is it me or the Atreides frigates look a bit too much like Jawa sandcrawlers?

 

Can't wait.

Fundamentally Dune is one of those books which is difficult to nigh-on impossible to adapt to film (not unlike LOTR for example).

The hard-core Dune fans will whinge about stuff regardless, but for me personally so long as the end result is enjoyable, hangs together plot-wise within itself (ie. it's self-consistent) and captures the grandeur of the original novel then that's fine.

I'm not a huge fan of the Lynch version, there were bits of it that were a bit camp (Hi, Sting! *waves*) that kind of spoiled it for me. If Villeneuve avoids that trap then I can't really see him going wrong TBH.

 

Bah, people say that about pretty much any book you can think of. Dune really is one of the most filmable works you can find IMO. A bog-standard "Hero's journey" story with easy location setup (how could you make desert look wrong), quite thoroughly described characters, etc. The trailer looks okay, the TV miniseries felt okay, and most of all, even David Lynch managed to make it feel sufficiently okay even with all his weird crap added on top of it.

 

Could any choice for Feyd Rautha surpass the performance of The Middleman? lol, I loved that show. The Dune miniseries was quite alright, imo, albeit geared for a TV audience that included kids, and Matt Keeslar was a believable Feyd Rautha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Middleman_(TV_series)

https://middleman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Accidental_Occidental_Conception

Scroll down at that link for the many Dune references in that episode.

 

I don't know. I wasn't captivated by this trailer. Meh to: The music, ambiance, the main actor, the effects. And where is the veil of mystery? At least the Lynch version got that right (yes I loved that movie). The complexity in Dune novels is something important and it seems like this is going to be a simplifed version of it. I think I read the novels too many times...

On the other hand I loved the Fundation trailer.

 

well... yes! When I can’t hear someone talk I get quite frustrated, regardless of the situation.

That reminds me, I once saw Matthew McConagonagonagey on the beach in Trancoso, Brazil (aka heaven) with his wife and kids, in the middle of paradise, and I never recovered.

 

I think I heard that story told by the comedian Fluffy (Gabriel Iglesias)...