Films II : The Filminator

[Nag]

On 26/07/2024 at 17:58, mfnick said:

Deadpool & Wolverine

 

That was fucking awesome!!! Loved every minute. Funny as fuck and fantastic set pieces. 
 

9/10

 

Agreed... genuinely laugh out loud funny in places... brilliant. And surprisingly touching in the end. 

[shinymcshine]

Space Cadet (2024, Amazon Prime)

 

Ridiculous concept and quite predictable, but nonetheless a quite entertaining comedy starring Emma Roberts who, as a Florida bar tender, joins the space program. Doesn't really do much you e not seen before, but it was surprisingly engaging throughout.

[Maryokutai]

For the first time ever, I properly watched Titanic yesterday. Actually wanted to watch it last year, but didn't want to feed any weird sensationalist algorithms at the time. I'd 'seen' it when it came out on VHS back then but was hardly the right demographic for it. And the years after that it was too cool to not have seen it and hate on Leo, as any male millennial driven by jealousy can probably confirm.

 

It's weird to talk about one of the most successful movies of all time like this, but I think it's a genuinely great film. It's not perfect by any means of course, Billy Zane's character is cartoonishly evil at times, some dialogue is beyond cheesy, you could make the point that there's no real glue holding the first and second half together. But looking from the outside at this massive production and realising how much could have gone wrong, it's immensely impressive to see how little did. Exquisite sets, two likeable leads, it's proper cinema made for a mainstream audience, something that kind of disappeared in the mid 2000s. And as I'm older now I also can say that Leo does a really nice job here of portraying this youthful optimist with no worry in the world.

 

[shinymcshine]

Titanic - I recall that came on 2x VHS tapes and you had to switch them around to watch the end half of the movie !

 

https://www.slashfilm.com/1143024/25-years-later-titanics-double-sized-vhs-remains-a-cornerstone-of-popular-culture/

[Nag]

Titanic is a great film... fuck what anyone else thinks.

[shinymcshine]

Problem with super long films (+3 hrs) is when to watch them, as anytime near 8pm it's always a bit like, meh won't get to bed til after 11, so I'll just watch something else.

 

Just have to wait for those rainy Sunday afternoons in autumn/winter.....

[one-armed dwarf]

When the thing with the billionaires blowing themselves up in the bottom of the ocean happened I went down a rabbit hole with Titanic stuff. Watched that scene from the movie over and over where the ship cracks in half and the stern (I think) is sinking like an upside down bottle. There's a video I found online which represents the whole thing with 3d models, the systemic destruction of the ship over the 2 hours or so as it's torn from the side and all its compartments are flooded underneath. The ship was supposed to be 'unsinkable' cause it had these compartments dedicated to taking in a set amount of water but it would still be able to be buoyant. But I think what it was that the nature of the damage to the ship, the fact that it 'grazed' the iceberg, it just maximised the amount of compartments that ended up taking in water and was beyond the engineered tolerance. To the point that a head on collision with the berg, while hugely destructive, might have saved some lives rather than the maneuver that ultimately doomed them cause of the way the thing was engineered

 

It's true they don't make films like that anymore. It is a very broad sort of film with the romance and history stuff but with themes that are much more universal compared with today's blockbusters when it gets into its sort of semi-social critique of post-Victorian times. 

[Maryokutai]

Regarding the runtime, Titanic is actually a movie that's easily splittable in two (pun almost intended). Like the VHS article mentioned it was forcibly set up like that in the olde days for its home release. Seeing how it's a romance with a bit of social commentary that very suddenly turns on its head means you can watch it in two parts without it losing its rhythm I think.

 

Or, you know, just save it up for a Friday evening in August when it's way too hot to go out or sleep.

[Maryokutai]

Saw Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the recent one from this year. It takes places around 300 years after War, which the movie itself only vaguely describes as 'many generations later' and follows a young ape who's part of the Falcon clan, an isolated tribe where everyone who's of age gets his/her own falcon as a companion. It's a bit of an odd setup but it works in context, even though they unfortunately don't do much with this specific idea except for the very beginning and the very end.

 

The movie itself is of high quality as you'd expect from these at this point. Visually it's absolutely state of the art and I was a bit annoyed that I missed it on the big screen. The time jump also means it's allowed to tackle some new themes, some of them revolving around misinterpretation of a determined ruleset and way of life, which in the ape's case is built on even more unstable ground than in our reality as they have no way of passing down knowledge in written form, which is a minor but important aspect of the movie.

 

Unfortunately the overall narrative feels like it's repeating multiple beats from War, which in combination with the undeserved long runtime makes this less of an elegant story than its three predecessors. It also lacks charismatic leads and villains – they're doing okay for the most part, but they never reach the heights of Ceasar and Kubo. Freya Allan's character is the extreme case here and feels severely underdeveloped and more like walking sequel bait.

 

Overall it's still really well executed, smart sci-fi, but it can't quite live up to the previous trilogy. It does, however, open up multiple new doors and angles for what will inevitably be tackled in a sequel in a couple of years.

[DANGERMAN]

I watched the new A Quiet Place: Day One, and it's ok. There's good character work, I liked both the leads and their relationship, however there's not really any tension. When you think back to the first film, the bit on the bridge or the farmhouse, there's not really any of that here. There's moments with the monsters, you see plenty of them, where it's supposed to be tense, but either because you know how these films work or how quickly the characters learn to deal with the creatures, I just felt a bit passive about the whole thing 

 

I also watched Maxxxine, I think this might be marginally better. It's the 3rd, and seemingly culmination of the X films. It's pretty good, it pulls in that sleazy late 70s early 80s vibe, full of moral panic and the fringe elements of LA society. Maxine is working in porn and gets an opportunity to break out in to horror. It's not the most original thing ever, but it's good at what it tries 

[one-armed dwarf]

I got a boxset of a bunch of Wong Kar Wai's films. I've watched

 

As Tears go By (1988) - a kind of unusual HK gangster film about a guy who has to repeatedly stick his neck out for his 'brother'. I put brother in quotes cause its a bit confusing to me if it's a figure of speech or literal, like 'made man' in the mafia. It should also be mentioned that the gangster plot is intertwined with a romance where he falls in love with his cousin, which I also definitely had some questions about. 

 

Days of Being Wild (1990) - Story about a sort of Lothario type figure who seduces women and treats them cruelly, set in the 60s. It's the most green looking film I've ever seen, and it never ever stops raining. The women he meets become obsessed with him and it's all sort of about the pain of longing for someone like that when it's not such a good thing for you. I'd say I liked this one the least, it was a bit too moody. I think if the version I watched wasn't so green I might have liked it more, a lot of the film's on this set have new colour timings which are controversial

 

Maggie Cheung is in both these films

 

Chungking Express (1994)

 

This forms a sort of thematic duology with Fallen Angels (1995). I like CE more, it was a lovely movie about people longing for connection in this very claustrophobic part of Hong Kong called the Chungking Mansions, which has a huge mix of cultures in it. The narrative is very fragmented but Tony Leung and Faye Wong play the main roles in it for most of it, Leung has been in some Marvel stuff recently I think (edit, played 'Mandarin' in Shang-Chi) and Wong I 'recognised' as the singer for the main theme of Final Fantasy VIII, wasn't aware that she acted as well. Tons of 90s music in it which makes it nostalgic, surprised to hear the Cranberries albeit covered in Cantonese

 

Fallen Angels is a similar sort of thing but mostly set at night, and I read a comment somewhere that compared it to like a 90s music video as a film. Which I agree with, it felt more of an expression of style than anything. It works well enough as a double feature tho and apparently that was the general idea with it. Kinda like a B-sides type of thing

[Maryokutai]

I also watched some underground artsy movie called Lightyear. In context I suppose it actually is almost niche, considering it came and went and nobody ever talked about it again.

 

Basically this is the real but also fictional movie that the Buzz Lightyear toy from Toy Story is supposed to be based on. So if you want to be cynical you could say Disney made a movie based on a toy based on a movie to sell a toy based on a movie based on a toy they sold in 1995.

 

The movie tries to be proper sci-fi tackling certain existential themes (it's Interstellar, The Martian and a little Star Trek all in one) while also being a digestible space-faring fantasy for the younger audience. Interestingly for a Pixar film, it completely botches the balance between these two. From my perspective, the most intriguing parts of the narrative feel either underdeveloped or under-explained, resulting in unsatisfying characters arcs and plot holes. And for the younger audience I don't really see anything here they might find interesting enough to get them through the runtime of over 100 minutes. And the fact that almost every obstacle the characters face results from the clumsiness of Buzz' utterly incompetent teammates gets old really quick.

 

It's not without its merits though. The more sombre sci-fi look is very accomplished, the first 30 minutes make for a really interesting setup and the cat doll is excellent (and probably the only piece of this adults and kids can agree on). It also has an IMO genuinely good scene showcasing one character's astrophobia.

 

I didn't hate it, but I can see why it didn't light the world on fire. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Watched this mad one called Sword of Doom (1966). A bit of a darker samurai film with a right horrid fucker played by Tatsuya Nakadai, one of the famous dudes in these types of films. Kind of a Darth Vader or Sephiroth type corrupted samurai character who just loves murder, can't get enough of it, really gets him going

 

So there's a bit of a revenge plot when he kills this person's brother (this is sort of just the setup to everything so not really a spoiler), who swears vengeance. This intended hero figure gets tutored by the other samurai film great, Toshiro Mifune. It's all very Star Wars, very Luke Skywalker and Kenobi.

 

There's a bit in the middle which is really boring tho which is setting up all these odd plots and characters which feel barely relevant, and I really struggled to stay engaged with these bits

 

and then.. the film just ends in the weirdest non-conclusive way. WTF? Then I look it up and it was supposed to be a trilogy but didn't do well enough to make the next two. Fuck man, what a tease. It's like if Star Wars ended before they reached the Death Star.

 

Still an effectively mad ending though, even if it wasn't intended to be an ending. Some great visuals during the action bits, but it's definitely not one of my faves.

[Maf]

Harsh, but funny

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

This film reeks of trying to get in on the ground floor of what they think the next 'trend' in blockbusters is going to be. 

 

I don't think it will be video game films, too many of them are so superhero coded that they already seem dated and playing catchup while comic films are in the process of relaunching audience interest. DC are doing Joker II as a musical, Marvel are doing a highly interesting pivot out of a bad direction that just makes you want to see how it goes and then these chucklefucks are doing a GOTG ripoff 10 years late

[DANGERMAN]

I could actually see it doing fairly well tbh. Whatever the quality of the games, they seem to find an audience, so I wouldn't be surprised if this did too 

 

I mean, the Uncharted movie made money and it's appalling 

[Maf]

I don’t think this has much to do with the source material and more bad filmmaking. Borderlands should be a really loose and malleable franchise. As long as they get the look and names right, it should be quite free to make what they want.
 

Essentially it’s just Mad Max but everyone’s an idiot. They should have probably done a Mad Max spoof and called it Borderlands 

[Maryokutai]

I just wonder if this is Blanchett's League of the Extraordinary Gentleman or if she really knew what she was getting into and did it anyway. I hope by the time the dust has settled and the apparent awfulness of the movie has become common knowledge we'll get to hear her thoughts on it, because I just can't wrap my head around that casting at all.

[one-armed dwarf]

She apparently did the filming for this before doing Tár, so I guess this has been a lengthy enough gestation for this film. Apparently her justification for it (getting ahead with her excuses I guess lol) is that she was sick of lockdown and picked any job so she had work. Which imo makes some sense

 

Also from what I read Deadpool 3 is also a Mad Max parody, so timing is even more ill for this by that. 

 

edit 4 percent currently on RT https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/borderlands

 

Saw this also

https://www.thegamer.com/the-borderlands-movie-struggling-to-sell-tickets/

 

sorry

 

[Nag]

I know I shouldn't read too much in to early preview tweets but Alien: Romulus is getting great reactions so far... I'm really looking forward to this next Friday.