Films II : The Filminator

[mfnick]

Oppenheimer 

 

I’m not sure how I feel about this. In a lot of ways I thought it was a good watch. But I spent a Hell of a lot of it just confused. Either I’m too thick or it just didn’t really explain or show what Oppenheimer did, what’s so special about what he did compared to the others around him and really what he actually had to do with it. I’m saying this as someone who basically knew absolutely nothing about this story and Oppenheimer until watching this. Maybe I should have had some prior knowledge? 
 

It made some pretty big time jumps too where I felt I missed some important info. Like how do you jump from being a failed student to running an entire class? It’s like I nodded off or something but I don’t think I missed anything. I may just be thick though.

 

Even so, I watched the entire thing and didn’t feel bored which is an accomplishment for a 3 hour film. It has made me buy the book it’s based off too in the hopes of being more educated on the matter as it did pique my interest too. 

[one-armed dwarf]

No, it's a confusing film for sure. It's why I said before it's not one you should break up in chunks cause it's so demanding and you just get lost otherwise.

 

Mostly I think the main important thing was how historical forces made him a hero until it was no longer convenient during the McCarthyism era. Everything is sort of mixed up in his stream of consciousness but also the B&W bits where he's shown from other people's perspectives and the rest is left as an exercise for the viewer to fill in via context. eg you just accept that he became much more balanced later on when he grew up a bit. I mean, relative to when he was running around poisoning apples at least

 

I don't think you need prior knowledge, I don't know anything about Oppenheimer but I just like films which do these weird things with time and scene juxtapositions. It just has a momentum and pressure that keeps building up, it got me back on the Chris Nolan bandwagon after writing him off for a while (did not like Interstellar, Dunkirk annoyed me as well)

[mfnick]

10 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Mostly I think the main important thing was how historical forces made him a hero until it was no longer convenient during the McCarthyism era. Everything is sort of mixed up in his stream of consciousness but also the B&W bits where he's shown from other people's perspectives

Yea that stuff is really interesting.
I don’t mind having to fill in the blanks too but it just threw me a few times just how much of a jump it was and how immediate. 
 

Also fuck Interstellar. One of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Sorry just had to get that off my chest. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I watched Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967). Probably one of the most complicated things I've watched, it's like a really elaborate 2 hour Mr Bean episode. Every frame is like a panel in a comic book with a bunch of visual gags that you can spot or miss out on. The story is pretty loose, it's kinda about how modern society can be discombobulating and driven by a sense of arbitrary procedure. There's a great sequence partway through the film where they are building a restaurant on the same night that it is opening, and tiles are coming off the floor and the ceiling is collapsing. Apparently Tati went bankrupt making this film cause it was so expensive and so particular (only available in 70mm film I think) and kinda hostile to any attempt to consume it in a standard way given its comic-bookeyness, it just feels like a totally different genre

 

In spite of how impressive its construction is I found it difficult to get on with tbh, might be something that clicks more on a later rewatch. It's impossible to imagine a film like this getting made these days with how carefully each scene flows with each other with such complicated sets and tons of extras

 

Dunkey did a great video on it a while back

 

 

[Maf]

“When people think of the Matrix they think originality & fresh. So these are key words we should keep in mind when making Matrix 4”

 

8/10. If it wasn’t for the last action sequence and the A plot getting too convoluted without the cleverness/curiousness of the originals, this was amazing and you couldn’t bring Matrix back any better. There’s absolutely no way to top, match or compete with the originals, so just enough fan service with fuck loads of irreverence, side eye, questioning, naval gazing philosophising of silly ideas combined with meta 4th wall breaks that are so on the nose it’s like the movie is drunk and fell on it’s face is perfect. I’m this close to saying 9/10 but I just got too tired of Keane Reeves holding he’s hands up to make force barriers 

 

Also this girl is perfect and could sell me on anything. 3 more Matrix’s and a video game with her as the lead, please

 

[Maryokutai]

Watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes yesterday (the 2011 reboot). I've never had any contact with this whole universe because I always thought the premise was silly. Which is, of course, a pretty dumb stance to take considering all the other stuff I watch and play.

 

Anyway – I really appreciated the slow pace of this one. It's basically an extremely lengthy prologue, and 80% of the prologue is spent on showing Ceasar's growth (physically and mentally). Which is absolutely the right way to do this sort of thing IMO, because it gives his development a more grounded, believable foundation. In the context of its themes and ideas I thought this part was extremely well executed and it did indeed feel like an animal was growing beyond its species' limitations. It didn't look or feel cartoonish* is what I'm saying, which is always a huge risk with that sort of thing (*they reserved that one for Tom Felton's character). The absolutely fabulous CGI work does a lot of heavy lifting here of course, as does Serkis' still oddly believable ape impression.

 

It's a bit Hollywood at times of course, and the human side of the story is very superficial and uninteresting, though I presume this is by design.

 

(I will say though that these things have very annoying names, I had to filter by release date to find out which one is the first. Will continue with Dawn today. Dawn, the second movie.)

[HandsomeDead]

I've not seen the latest yet but you're in for a treat.  I think it's getting discovered and less underrated now but these films were slept on for how good of a piece of sci-fi they are.

[one-armed dwarf]

I can't get over the scene of Malfoy entering a cage with a chimp and trying to hit him with a stick

 

Does he not know what chimps can do, the face eating and all the other fucked up shit. Dude got off light, lucky for him Cesar just gave him a mild smack

[Maryokutai]

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The virus-spreading scenes certainly hit a bit different after Covid. 

 

I think the first half was really good in the way it portrayed how both 'factions' dealt with the aftermath and the contrast of how one is thriving and one is suffering, which is obviously the current status quo on our planet but turned on its head. Those 'first contact' moments between apes and humans were really well executed as was the overall portrayal of how the apes work as a community. For the most part it's still very believable in the context of its universe I think, even to the point where they barely use speech among themselves as long as they don't have to address a large group.

 

In the second half it becomes a bit predictable and trope-heavy though IMO. I'm not saying it's bad or that I didn't like it, but it wasn't as engaging or engrossing as in the beginning. It also does that thing again where a blatantly one-dimensionally bad/evil person gets the plot rolling and I think they could have done a better job with that.

 

Pretty good overall though. There's also one scene where the CGI/mocap really shines:

Spoiler

When Koba pretends to be just a normal chimpanzee and his movements and antics look so real it makes the sudden switch to his evolved behavior incredibly unnerving.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Dogtooth (2009) - Fun for the whole family 👍😺✂️

[Maryokutai]

War for the Planet of the Apes. Great conclusion to this trilogy. I don't know if there's a word for it, but I appreciate how much the scope and impact has evolved throughout these three films without the narrative losing access to its foundations. If you see Spider-Man fighting some random dude who's trying to rob a bank and three movies later he's in space punching Thanos, there's no real cognitive link there for you to hang onto. It's like taking a plane but closing your eyes after boarding until you're up in the air. This doesn't happen here, which I find remarkable considering the scale it eventually arrives at.

 

It's a really nice ending as well, which makes me question the existence of the sequel a bit. But it got good reviews, and it does seem like their end goal is moving as close to the starting point of the 60's movie (which I haven't seen) as possible. They're still showing Kingdom in cinemas near me, so maybe I'll hop in to see at least that one on the big screen.

 

Somehow related, but has anyone watched the Tim Burton adaptation from 2001? Looking around online it seems like people absolutely hate it, but I wonder if it might just have come out at the wrong time and been sold to the wrong audience, or if it's just genuinely awful.

[one-armed dwarf]

I saw that when it came out, the Apes film with Marky Mark that is (I think I also saw War, but unfortunately it blends together with the Gary Oldman film for me so not sure). All I remember of the 2001 film is a really dumb ending, think most would say the Charlton Heston one is the one to go for but not seen that yet. But I remember the Marky Mark one being pretty bad but that's a 23 year old memory I'm relying on.

 

edit if this is your new fixation, then the classic Apes films are like a 5 film saga that get pretty weird and crazy apparently, much moreso than the modern trilogy from what I heard. They sound super interesting, I want to get the boxset of them at some point.

 

I rewatched Alien (1979), cause of all the Romulus stuff and also I think it was long enough that I had begun to forget bits of it. Also I had it on 4k UHD and wanted to see that conversion (it's really good). A thing I forgot is that the funtime at dinner scene happens a full 55 minutes into the film, violently interrupting what had been to that point a very methodical albeit mundane sci fi mystery. There's your mystery solved, it's all over the salad and pasta. But that's what makes a great horror film, the slow building up and layering of character and plot devices. The anticipation, climax, escalating layers of new horror as the creature adapts. 

 

It's also why past Aliens the films don't work for me. Can't play the same trick twice.

 

edit the other thing that works really well, how it uses grotesque sound effects to imply many of the death sequences. It's a way to get around obvious limitations with how the creature is represented and imagination fill the gap in with something much worse

 

*The deleted scene where the alien turns survivors into eggs is an excellent bit of body horror, but I understand why it couldn't fit in the film. The self destruct sequence is already activated at that point after all

[Pikman]

I want to re-watch Alien as I love that film but... I'm too scared 😅

I saw the Tim Burton one, it's nothing special/not worth the time IMO.

[one-armed dwarf]

No need to be scared, he's just a cuddly guy who wants some hugs

 

[Pikman]

Ha, there you go
I don't love the feeling after watching a scary film, navigating the house in the dark, waiting to be murdered 😅

[Maryokutai]

Guess I'll avoid the Wahlberg movie then. I don't like watching him too much anyway. I might try to check out the original movies at some point but I'm a bit weary about whether or not they can be taken seriously from today's standpoint. We'll see I guess – they're all on D+ by the way if someone is reading this and thinking about getting their ape quota filled.

[mfnick]

Godzilla Minus One

 

Yep, that was excellent just as everyone said it was.

 

However, the ending was a bit shit.

Spoiler

Noriko should not have survived and made no sense IMO. Thought that was bullshit and disappointed they did that. 

Apart from that though, top film. 

 

[Nag]

I think I would've enjoyed it more if the main guy wasn't such a wet fart....

[Pikman]

I watched it with our son, we both had a great time

[one-armed dwarf]

I watched Miller's Crossing (1990), starring Gabriel Byrne with a deep Dooblin accent, which is refreshing to have in any film with an Irish actor playing the lead role, just using his normal accent. I'd seen bits of it before, the famous scene in the woods and I weirdly remember its main theme being used for a Last Guardian trailer at some point (which I can't find now).

 

Anyway it's a typical enough Coen Brother's neo noir, set in 20s prohibition era New York where there's a power struggle between Irish and Italian mobs. The cops are crooked and the elections are fixed and the distribution of power tilts back and forth through the film, tho the mob bosses are oddly unsuited and strangely gullible people that make you wonder how they got to be bosses. It's got this kind of gentle comedic edge to it, despite being dark. It's not uproarious funny or anything but it can be funny in a weirdly ironic way with its take on noir. At the end it wasn't particularly clear why Byrne's character made certain choices but I guess that's the enigma that makes it interesting to revisit. John Turturro also plays a very pathetic role, very effectively

 

This came out the same year as Goodfellas I think and got sort of shoved aside by it I think.