Films II : The Filminator

[OCH]

3 hours ago, radiofloyd said:

Kong steals the movie for sure. Not sure about Naomi Watts, there’s no getting away from the fact that the relationship between her and Kong is ridiculous, and felt ridiculous in all the scenes they were together. But the ending was still effective.  If I had a chance to see it in the cinema I would watch it again.

I saw that at the cinema back in '05. Loved it. Also got a bit choked up at the end when his eye dilates. Which is rarer than a lottery win for me to get emotive watching anything. I see what you mean about the relationship. But it was an improvement over the '76 Kong film, with Jessica Lange. Wherein Kong blatantly gives her "rapey eyes" from time to time

 

Spoiler

 ?

[mmmark]

I just watched US for the first time and its pretty great. Surprised by te division between critical RT score (93) and the audience one (59). You'd have to be blind and deaf and/or racist to score it any lower than 8.

[one-armed dwarf]

Racist? ?

 

I didn't like it much but I dunno about that, for what is worth i would vote for Obama 3 times if I could.

 

Spoiler

Because this is the Internet I have to put /s

 

[OCH]

I thought it was pretty good too. Especially the ending.

[Maryokutai]

I love Jackson's Kong. Well, with the exception of that absolutely disgusting scene with the worms. I never had an issue with the Watts-Kong relationship. Yeah it might be a bit goofy at times and not particularly believable but I think it works in context and respects the originals ideas while also improving on them IMO. I look at it more in the same way as I'd look at Tarzan or Jungle Book as far as the relationships between human and animal goes.

 

@topic, since I recently finished the third season of Camp Cretaceous on Netflix (finally got the name right, yes), I decided to watch Jurassic World again. Last time I saw that was in cinemas back whenever it came out. The first 30-40 minutes are pretty good I think all things considered. After that it turns into a rather forgettable blockbuster until, 30 minutes before the end, it becomes a laughably stupid "we don't know what we're doing" kind of nonsense that throws out any believable logical animal behaviour so far out of the window there's a good chance you can still see it orbiting the planet to this day. A Raptor trying to solo an apex predator ten times its size is the equivalent of our cat trying to go against a full-grown Lion because why wouldn't that be a good idea. Plus the Indominus Rex is just a big walking plothole anyway. It only has heat vision when the plot demands it, it only turns invisible when the plot demands it, its maximum running speed is always just slightly lower than that of the main character it's currently running after etc. Jesus. 

[Maryokutai]

Justice Society: World War II

 

Was looking forward to this and while I did really enjoy the first half, the second half is the worst case of "expectations subverted" since The Last Jedi. I'm not going to say more than that in case anyone here wants to watch it, but it would have been miles better if they had stuck to the initial premise and fleshed out the characters a bit more instead of forcing some weird twist in there that completely reshapes the latter half of the movie for the worse.

 

One reason I was interested in this was the art and animation style and on that front it didn't disappoint, it's really a beautiful movie to look at. I particularly liked Wonder Woman's bulky character design in this, she looks really cool and tough and as the usual JL leaders are absent she also takes the spotlight for all matters Justice Society. No clue why they gave her a Russian accent though.

[OCH]

Shin Godzilla

 

I thought I'd already seen this one years ago? It turns out, no.. I have not. There is a strange duality to this film. Wherein they try to play it straight. Akin to a real life answer to an attack by a monster. The bureaucracy, for one thing. That ultimately generates more problems than solutions. The bit monster movies normally skip over, in favour of some clichéd protagonist or last minute Deus ex machina. To that end the human bits were.. strange, in comparison. Although I watched this through Prime Video and it was dubbed, not subbed. I enjoyed the part they played.

 

 

As for the titular star. I adore the visual designs here! If they sought to lean back towards the horror of the '54 original, this aesthetic definitely works for that. The multi phase nature of this iteration is fascinating to watch. The first close up is very memorable. Meanwhile the best moment in the film, is the first time Shin uses Atomic Breath. When I watched the scene, I thought to myself how impressive it must have been to see it on a cinema screen, for scale. It also brought to mind the dream sequence from Terminator 2, but cranked up a notch.

 

Overall, the dub is awful. I am quietly confident that subtitles is the superior way to view the film. But as someone who couldn't care less what humans do in a monster movie, I loved this one. 9.5/10

[DANGERMAN]

I watched a couple of films last weekend that were a mixed bag.

 

The Unholy, actually starts pretty well. A disgraced, formerly respected journalist is scraping a living writing articles about strange occurrences, while trying to puff up a nonsense story he stumbles on to what may be a miracle. A mute and deaf girl sees Mary Magdaline and is cured, she then begins to channel that power and heal other people, on the condition they believe in, and worship, Mary. 

 

So it's very by numbers, this could be an x-files episode easily enough. However, after a solid enough start it gets incredibly stupid then completely falls apart. I suspect Covid may have halted production at tome point because there's a scene that's clearly missing, instead cutting to a weird slow-Mo green screen shot. It's amazing it got released like this, and it's not the only similar moment. 

 

Wrath Of Man is the reverse in that it starts off terrible. It's a Guy Ritchie film so there's dialogue, it's set in a hub for money vans (armoured vans you see knocking about, pick up the money and go back to base, take the money back out again). There's a scene that's basically Aliens where the marines all wake up, it's so, so bad. 

 

It really picks up though. There's some decent performances, Statham is Statham, and a few of the other cast do a good job fleshing out their characters a bit. The action is always going to be where its at and that's probably why the film improves so much. Of the two films it's easily the one that's worth a watch 

[OCH]

A Quiet Place: Part 2

 

I had a lot of misgivings about a sequel to the 2018 original. As sequels to such films tend to dilute them with unneeded exposition and backstory. Thankfully, aside from a prequel-type prologue for 'Day 1' of the central premise, the mysteries of the first film remain as such here. We follow on the morning after the previous finale. The central cast is mostly unchanged (and equally as compelling) aside from the addition of Cillian Murphy, who is as good as he usually is. 

Ultimately, the set pieces are really strong and I enjoyed it a lot.

It was better than I expected it to be and a shorter too. Definitely didn't overstay it's welcome. 9/10

[one-armed dwarf]

I watched Uncut Gems, pretty stressful lol. I dunno what I think of it, but its part of this trend in modern movies that I hate where they make a lot of dialogue extremely hard to discern. All of Christopher Nolan's films have this issue too, it's really stupid cause I end up turning on subtitles which probably obliterates whatever the silly aesthetic the director is going for, but that's their own stupid fault.

 

Anyway the film was fine, I didn't dislike it except for that. Also it said Dolby Vision on netflix but it didnt' look any different to me from a normal film, so I dunno. I don't think DV makes any difference to movies for me, look the same.

[OCH]

 

 

[mmmark]

I watched something I keep thinking is called mfd but it’s definitely not (it’s MFA (Master of Fine Arts)). The plot revolves around the quite real case of rape at universities in America and no one being punished or owt. But it’s a revenge film not a doc. Anyway so Clint Eastwoods daughter gets raped and starts tracking down other rapists. 
 

Problem is the first kill is she’s just sitting on him while he dies from poisoning, what then needs to happen is an escalation in the murders but instead they get weaker. In fact the rape scene lasted longer than any of the revenge killings. Each kill for some reason means her art improves and she gets naked for no reason.

It has a lot in common with Promising Young Woman but was released earlier in 2017. She even goes and confronts the head person at the uni whose been fudging the sex crime numbers.
 

PYW it isn’t tho. It’s not crap and at 90 minutes it’s not a waste of time but you’d be best watching the other great films shudder has right now. 7/10

 

 

I watched Possessor too. I don’t have much to say about it because I was drunk and someone called me while I was trying to watch it. It looked alright? ? ?/10

[mfnick]

Quiet Place 

 

Was really impressed with that. They managed to pull of the difficult truck of showing the monster and it actually being a great design. Some inconsistencies with how well they could hear and how far away from and which noises they choose to ignore but I was happy enough to let that go as I enjoyed the film so much. 
 

Torque

 

Don’t know why I chose to watch this but God damn that is one of the most stupid films I’ve ever seen. Good fun though.

Special mention to that end 200mph+ chase scene too. Never seen something so shit looking in my life ? worth watching for a laugh. 

 

 

[HandsomeDead]

@mmmark do you have some Shudder recommendations?  I want to watch Psycho Goreman, I think it looks fun, but if I'm gonna sign up for the month I want a few things to watch.

 

I've signed up before a while back and used up my free trial.  I watched Revenge and a few older things but I don't know enough to take advantage of it.

[mmmark]

44 minutes ago, HandsomeDead said:

@mmmark do you have some Shudder recommendations?

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs

Psycho Goreman

Possessor

Street Trash

Tales from the Crypt

Behind the Mask: The rise of Leslie Vernon

Audition

Creepshow

MFA

In Search of Darkness: Part 1&2

Let the Right One In

The Void

Mom and Dad

Baskin

Violation

Host

Alice, Sweet Alice

Black Sheep

Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini

The Baby

 

[radiofloyd]

Let the Right One In is a beautiful film.

[mmmark]

6 hours ago, radiofloyd said:

Let the Right One In is a beautiful film.

One of the best ever ❤️ 

[OCH]

Agreed. That and 30 Days of Night are two of the very best Vampire films. For completely different reasons, for the most part.

[OCH]

 

[Maryokutai]

Now that's something even I would watch as non-fan.

 

I'm glad at least some producers are beginning to realise that live action videogame adaptions aren't usually the right way to go about it, at least if you try to be somewhat close to the source material.