[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 16 May 2020 - 05:23 PM, said:

Ah, I thought it was some fancy digital release thing

I get them on iTunes.

[Malankazooie]

The Joker. Just superb. I think the people who hate on it were expecting DC/Marvel action, brain numbing eye dazzle movie, while they stuffed popcorn in their faces. Which is confusing because none of the promotion indicated it would be that type of movie. It clearly was always going to be an exploration of criminal mental illness. And damn, Joaquin Phoenix delivers. Sure, it's unsettling, gritty and disturbing, but that is what is being examined over 2 hours. A treatise on the collapse of health care and mental illness treatment.

[Gorefest]

I think the hating was more about the worry that the film would take an unredeemably screwed up and evil character like the Joker and give him a background story which might evoke sympathy or somehow 'legitimise' his character and life choices. Which I dont feel it did, but I understand where the concerns stem from because it is a fine balance on a knife edge. People inherently will feel a sense of identification and/or sympathy with any main character in a film because that is the window through which the story is perceived. Knowing what the Joker will become makes that a very awkward premise.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 17 May 2020 - 12:55 PM

[Macros]

Watched A Dogs Purpose last night.

Yes it's Hella sad in parts, there was trying done, but it's still a happy film, and has a solid uplifting ending. Josh Gad does a pretty good job on the voice of Bailey, and the human stories are well enough managed as well.

Having two dogs that exhibit a lot of the physical goofyness on show as well made it even funnier for us but there's some solid big laughs.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Gorefest, on 17 May 2020 - 12:54 PM, said:

I think the hating was more about the worry that the film would take an unredeemably screwed up and evil character like the Joker and give him a background story which might evoke sympathy or somehow 'legitimise' his character and life choices. Which I dont feel it did, but I understand where the concerns stem from because it is a fine balance on a knife edge. People inherently will feel a sense of identification and/or sympathy with any main character in a film because that is the window through which the story is perceived. Knowing what the Joker will become makes that a very awkward premise.

To be fair I know a couple of people who did come out of watching it claiming it's a great film because it makes you sympathise with the Joker....

Watched The Theory of Everything at the weekend. Cracking film, although very sad. Eddie Redmayne does a phenomenal job.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 18 May 2020 - 07:53 AM

[polishgenius]

Malankazooie, on 17 May 2020 - 03:35 AM, said:

I think the people who hate on it were expecting DC/Marvel action, brain numbing eye dazzle movie, while they stuffed popcorn in their faces.

I haven't seen it yet, but none of the people I know who hate on it (and there's quite a lot) hate on it because they were expecting popcorn fare. It's mostly because they think it's a poor imitation of the Scorsese films it's clearly inspired by, coupled with some of them thinking it did a bad and potentially harmful job of examinging the issues it's examining.

[Malankazooie]

Okay, I need a new movie to watch. Joker was excellent, unless you are expecting neat and tidy action fare to stuff popcorn into your pie hole while going ohhh... ahhhhh, like Avengers Endgame. Then I would say Joker isn't for you, bye Felecia. But I need a new flick to watch now and saw this list of disaster movies. I've seen a few on the list, sure, but thought I get some reccos from you film fr33k5. So hit me.

20 Disaster Movies You Should Absolutely Watch Right Now

[Tsundoku]

Cats.

[Aptorian]

Was it good? Bad? So bad it's good?

[Tsundoku]

Well, it qualifies as a disaster film.

Disclaimer: haven't seen it, won't see it.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 19 May 2020 - 10:21 AM

[QuickTidal]

Rented SONIC THE HEDGEHOG for the kiddos, and it was really quite well done. I think the choice was smart to completely redo the CGI for Sonic from the original trailer...as I think the charm of the character would have been lost in that more humanoid/realistic being. Anyways, the humour was about at the right level for my 4y/o, while not really alienating adults. It was fun and never tries to be anything more than a simple "quest" flick.

[Malankazooie]

No buttholes = disaster
With buttholes = celluloid masterpiece.

The butthole cut is out there. I patiently wait until a brave individual releases that magic to share with the world. A new age of peace and understanding will dawn when that happens.

[QuickTidal]

So, the two PERCY JACKSON flicks are on D+ because both were made under Fox and Disney acquired the IP in the buyout. I recall not liking either much because they were half-well cast (and half poorly cast), but moreover becuase they cut the author (Riordan) out of the loop, ignored advice he did give (against aspects they were changing), and they changed the story up, aged the characters too much, and made a hash of the whole thing...all in a CLEAR attempt to give Fox their Harry Potter franchise (I mean, they hired Chris Columbus to make the first movie; if that's not a bid to get their Harry Potter going, I don't know what is)...but of course they wanted to rush the whole thing and fell flat on their face in the attempt. The movies are quite rightly derided by both casual movie fans and fans of the series.

Anyways, since the books series is being made into a Disney+ TV prestige show now with the full involvement of Rick and Becky Riordan as advisors, I have high hopes that this series (easily my second fave YA series after Harry Potter) will get the adaptation that it deserves (and fans even hope that people who played the kids in the movies like Logan Lerman will play the adult god roles, like Poseidon...a solid idea).

So I decided to got back and re-read the series while re-watching the crappy Fox movies on D+, and halfway through book 1 I really now realize how badly they fucked up the movies and how they basically cut off their own foot from the get-go. The rest of this post is a deep dive into the PERCY movies and why they differ from he books and why that's bad, so if you are uninterested, don't click the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

So the movies started off on two wrong feet.

1. They age the characters up too much. The reason Percy starts at age 12 in the books is the exact same reason that Harry Potter beings when he's 11. Because the series is a book a year, and the characters age appropriately per year. Even though the people at Camp Half Blood are not really in a "school" per say....the point is that the characters age a year from book to book. Making Percy and his friends 17 in the FIRST film basically destroys your chances at making the series viably follow the books and not have to happen on on top of itself so the characters don't age out into adulthood too soon. Riordan, after reading the final script, warned the producers about this. They ignored him. So unless the movies all happen one after the other over the course of the one or MAYBE two years...then the series cannot compete at 5 books. This is idiocy. I can also see WHY this happened. Guess what main Producer Karen Rosenfelt's main claim to fame is in the industry. Every. Single. Twilight. Movie. So yeah, she assumed that making the characters be 17ish (mid high school teens as opposed to middle school pre-teens) was the way to capture the audiences she sought. Twilight fans. It was, clearly, a mistake.

2. They jumble the story, and start off telling you a mid-point denouement in the opening scene. In the first film, it opens with the lightning disappearing over Manhattan...then Poseidon (Kevin McKidd; decently cast) coming out of the water and meeting Zeus (Sean Bean) on top of the Empire State building and arguing about who stole the lighting, Zeus accusing his brothers son of doing it, and then demands it back by the summer solstice. This revelation happens mid-book AFTER the reveal that Percy is Poseidon's son (or at least after HE finds out who he is; there are early hints who's son he is for the reader). This scene being the frontispiece to the movie robs that moment of any gravitas later. The whole movie is filled with bits that jump their natural point in the story to occur earlier. Example: Chiron giving Percy Riptide in the opening scene with him fighting the Fury (Mrs. Dodds) robs the entire plot line of getting Percy through training to be able to use a balanced sword like Riptide first. No scene to follow with the Fates snipping his thread. It would be like Harry being given the Nimbus 2000 in the opening scene with Hargid helping him flee the Dursley's and get to Hogwarts. It would be stupid. It's as stupid here with Riptide.

They eliminate whole characters (Clarisse; Ares Daughter) and then blandly filter her into Annabeth's character. They make Luke unlikable from the outset int the film. Luke is not unlikable in the book, he's actually quite charming and normal initially....but the movie lets him be dripping with "rich blonde asshole" vibe instead.

This shit continues throughout the first film and gets worse as it goes on. I once heard a girl on the bus REALLY poorly explain the plot of THE MARTIAN to a friend...to the point where she really was not communicating what it was about at all. She had clearly paid zero attention to it when she watched it. PERCY JACKSON 1 is very much this. It's also not a good film as a result even if you've not read the books.

Nothing happens organically at all. The script is so rushed that every single action sequence is used as an in-story reason to shove Percy and Co. one way or the other without thought.

The second film TRIES a few things to rectify this, by recasting some roles (inexplicably re-casting Nathan Fillion as Hermes [which does not work], and recasting the already miscast Chiron [he was Pierce Brosnan in the first film] with Anthony Stewart Head) and even down to finally making Annabeth's hair blonde (it was Daddario's plain brown in the first film)...but utterly fails to capture the essence of the thing that really makes the second book good (Thalia). The whole story revolves around her, but the movie can't find it in itself to make it about her. They try to hammer Percy & Annabeth into place more solidly, which fails to work because they have no reason to be attached at the hip yet.

Then the 2nd film goes right off the rails by trying to shove elements of book 5 into the story for Book 2. It's asinine, and I often wonder if Karen Rosenfelt KNEW that SEA OF MONSTERS was going to be their only chance to make another PERCY film so she tried to shove finale elements of the series into it to try to sell it better? I don't know. I do know that if CHAMBER OF SECRETS had introduced shit from DEATHLY HALLOWS, people would have been confused and pissed off. I barely made it through my viewing of SEA OF MONSTERS this time as it's SUCH a train wreck of a film.

Anyways, a prestige TV series with Disney sensibilities may be exactly what we need for a PERCY adaptation. I have high hopes. I'll keep re-reading the book series (I've actually never read the sequel book series, so I may get on that later on).

safe to say you can all still skip the 2 Fox PERCY movies. They are garbage. They MIGHT make for decent strung together action sequences...but in every other way they are bad.

[Macros]

QuickTidal, on 08 May 2020 - 07:39 PM, said:

Traveller, on 08 May 2020 - 05:13 PM, said:

Watched Lost in Translation last night, for the first time since I saw it at the cinema.

I loved it all over again. Sofia Coppola really did that perfectly.

Her other movies are hit or miss depending on ones taste, but LOST IN TRANSLATION is perfect, and a lot of that has to do with the cast and crew she assembled. Scarlett and Bill are note perfect. Lance Acord's style of guerrilla cinematography fits SO well with a narrative in modern day Japan. Sarah Flack on editing (she often works with Soderbergh) did a stunning job. Soundtrack is Kevin Shields, not a traditional composer or score, but a songwriter so it feels completely organic to the mood (no soaring highs, no super low lows like a traditional film score). Since she wrote it and produced it she had a freedom you don't often see in the film industry. The behind the scenes stuff for this flick is so worth watching to see just how grassroots a lot of the film was with various things happening on the fly and pushed into the film through necessity : The walk across Shibuya square scene nearly didn't happen because they failed to secure a permit to do it from the Tokyo authorities...so Lance walked across with his camera slung low by his hip and shot it handheld. This is why that scene is filmed in that fashion....but now you'd look at it and think it was expertly planned that way because it just works. The restaurant that Scarlett and Bill eat in in Daykinyama (the one they have their bad meeting in) kicked them out becuase it was disrupting business, so she recut the scene...and the abruptness of that actually FITS the narrative of the scene. The hospital waiting room scene is another one...the non-verbal-convo with the older woman is entirely ad-libbed by Bill. I THINK there was dialogue written for him, but the hand gestures got a bigger reaction from the crew, so they kept it.

TL;DR: LOST IN TRANSLATION is one of those lightning in a bottle flicks. Timeless.

Watched it tonight with the Ladyhawk. Colour us both underwhelmed after the hype.

It was fun yeah, but this kind of aimless film isnt our bag at all.

My wife to be demands to know what the fuck Bill whispered to Scar at the end.

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 20 May 2020 - 09:34 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 May 2020 - 07:39 PM, said:

Traveller, on 08 May 2020 - 05:13 PM, said:

Watched Lost in Translation last night, for the first time since I saw it at the cinema.

I loved it all over again. Sofia Coppola really did that perfectly.

Her other movies are hit or miss depending on ones taste, but LOST IN TRANSLATION is perfect, and a lot of that has to do with the cast and crew she assembled. Scarlett and Bill are note perfect. Lance Acord's style of guerrilla cinematography fits SO well with a narrative in modern day Japan. Sarah Flack on editing (she often works with Soderbergh) did a stunning job. Soundtrack is Kevin Shields, not a traditional composer or score, but a songwriter so it feels completely organic to the mood (no soaring highs, no super low lows like a traditional film score). Since she wrote it and produced it she had a freedom you don't often see in the film industry. The behind the scenes stuff for this flick is so worth watching to see just how grassroots a lot of the film was with various things happening on the fly and pushed into the film through necessity : The walk across Shibuya square scene nearly didn't happen because they failed to secure a permit to do it from the Tokyo authorities...so Lance walked across with his camera slung low by his hip and shot it handheld. This is why that scene is filmed in that fashion....but now you'd look at it and think it was expertly planned that way because it just works. The restaurant that Scarlett and Bill eat in in Daykinyama (the one they have their bad meeting in) kicked them out becuase it was disrupting business, so she recut the scene...and the abruptness of that actually FITS the narrative of the scene. The hospital waiting room scene is another one...the non-verbal-convo with the older woman is entirely ad-libbed by Bill. I THINK there was dialogue written for him, but the hand gestures got a bigger reaction from the crew, so they kept it.

TL;DR: LOST IN TRANSLATION is one of those lightning in a bottle flicks. Timeless.

Watched it tonight with the Ladyhawk. Colour us both underwhelmed after the hype.

It was fun yeah, but this kind of aimless film isnt our bag at all.

My wife to be demands to know what the fuck Bill whispered to Scar at the end.

AH. That I can answer.

It was purposely improvised on the spot by Bill as per instructions to do so from Sofia.

What he reportedly whispered was "I have to be leaving, but I won’t let that come between us. OK?”

[Macros]

I'm not sure if this answer will satisfy.

but at least its something

I don't think I'll get picking next movie night

[Gorefest]

Hey, not our fault that your future missus has poor taste in movies. Perhaps a good moment to rethink the relationship?

Next time, suggest "C'est arrive pres de chez vous".

[Aptorian]

Just watched the new Tenet trailer:

https://youtu.be/L3pk_TBkihU

I think that trailer actually diminished my interest in the film. Seems too gimmicky. Like they want to do another Inception but there's just something off about it.

[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 22 May 2020 - 01:00 PM, said:

I think that trailer actually diminished my interest in the film. Seems too gimmicky. Like they want to do another Inception but there's just something off about it.

I agree with Apt (I know!) here. That trailer diminished my interest. The whole "inversion" thing reminds me too much of INCEPTION and it feels like he's chasing replication of that movie with a different angle/gimmick. Down to Pattinson doing his Best Tom Hardy-In-INCEPTION imitation.

And after hating INTERSTELLAR and being lukewarm on DUNKIRK, I'm not all in on Nolan's stuff anymore.

I could be wrong and this could be great, but as it stands I'm "meh"

[polishgenius]

It feels like he came up with this inversion concept but has no idea what story to hang off it. It's not like the two trailers we've seen are teasers that aren't telling us anything, especially that one: we've got loads of info, it just doesn't seem to point to anything coherent.