[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 06 January 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

CLOUD ATLAS - All the storylines were at least mildly interesting. Suffered from being predictable, the connections were often unclear. The New Seoul storyline was visually stunning but ultimately i didn't buy the conclusion

Spoiler

because there was nothing about Songmi that convinced me she had anything brilliant to say, and the bits we saw weren't all that impressive

.
Haven't read the book... am curious now but not rushing.

Spoiler

I don't think the point is that Songmi 451 had anything super important or revolutionary to SAY...rather that she represented a level of hubris that society had dipped into which showed a broken, a severely broken human race in which (Can't recall if they did this in the movie, but in the book) we'd become so drawn into ourselves that language begins to drop letters that are seen as extraneous, ignoring their etymology and meaning when they are crafted that way. That's just a small point, but important. We are so busy being technologically RICH, that the idea of troddening on seemingly servant beings (the Sonmi robots) is not only NOT seen as some gross misconduct on the part of the guy who runs the diner...but it's ACCEPTED by the masses. This up to and including the governmental state of NeoSeoul (one of the last inhabited places on the planet at that point BTW...which is why the eventual far flung future stuff seems tropical, cause they came from Korea and didn't get far.) actively CHASING them as villains. She is seen as property, and he is seen as thieving that property. So she isn't some big revolutionary at all...she's the catalyst for a revolution that she knows VERY little about, in which she will become all but a deity in the eyes of descendants. So yeah, she doesn't seem like much, and she really isn't...but is the match important to the eventual bonfire? It is.

That's my take on that bit.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 06 January 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

Abyss, on 06 January 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

CLOUD ATLAS - All the storylines were at least mildly interesting. Suffered from being predictable, the connections were often unclear. The New Seoul storyline was visually stunning but ultimately i didn't buy the conclusion

Spoiler

because there was nothing about Songmi that convinced me she had anything brilliant to say, and the bits we saw weren't all that impressive

.
Haven't read the book... am curious now but not rushing.

Spoiler

I don't think the point is that Songmi 451 had anything super important or revolutionary to SAY...rather that she represented a level of hubris that society had dipped into which showed a broken, a severely broken human race in which (Can't recall if they did this in the movie, but in the book) we'd become so drawn into ourselves that language begins to drop letters that are seen as extraneous, ignoring their etymology and meaning when they are crafted that way. That's just a small point, but important. We are so busy being technologically RICH, that the idea of troddening on seemingly servant beings (the Sonmi robots) is not only NOT seen as some gross misconduct on the part of the guy who runs the diner...but it's ACCEPTED by the masses. This up to and including the governmental state of NeoSeoul (one of the last inhabited places on the planet at that point BTW...which is why the eventual far flung future stuff seems tropical, cause they came from Korea and didn't get far.) actively CHASING them as villains. She is seen as property, and he is seen as thieving that property. So she isn't some big revolutionary at all...she's the catalyst for a revolution that she knows VERY little about, in which she will become all but a deity in the eyes of descendants. So yeah, she doesn't seem like much, and she really isn't...but is the match important to the eventual bonfire? It is.

That's my take on that bit.

Except...

Spoiler

That much is made, in her chat with the investigator, about how she broadcast to the world and the offworld colonies, and that her message was so very important and powerful that the investigator himself was affected by it even before he met her.
The General was willing to sacrifice his entire Union group for her to have the chance to babble into a microphone... and it seems to come out of nowhere... the film gives the viewer no sense of why they were so interested in her. Science Officer Commando guy shows up to rescue her, suggests there was some experiment going on involving the Songmi killed earlier, but all we get isba hints, no explanation.
It's also suggested in the far future timeline that her revolution was responsible for the disconnect between earth and the colonies.


I don't need things spelled out for me, but i thought the film needed at least some thin shred of reason for why she was so important, and we never got it.

One a separate point, Hugh Grant as a bloodthirsty warrior cannibal was damn funny.

[QuickTidal]

Spoiler

Again, I think that was the point though. She isn't what everyone around her purports her to be. At all. She's even baffled by the praise. I think that's the point. She's not remotely important in the grand scheme of things. She's literally a match that lights a flame.

[Jakovasaurus]

Run Run Shaw passes at 107.
http://www.npr.org/t...oryId=260410093

http://www.deadline....l-run-run-shaw/


His production company (Shaw Brothers Studios) made probably my favorite Kung Fu movie of all time, Five Deadly Venoms.

[polishgenius]

So having just watched Cloud Atlas, I'm kind of with Abyss a bit. It's not bad, but it didn't make much of an impression on me. Tbh the

Spoiler

re-incarnation/continuity of the soul stuff, combined with the storytelling trick of following theme and plot thread by skipping from timeline to timeline at relevant points, came of as a less-interesting version of what Hal Duncan did in The Book of All Hours.
Another slight peeve: while most of the characters seem fairly continuous across each age, with greater or lesser variation, Tom Hanks was all over the fucking place. I mean there seemed no relation at all between the Doctor on the ship and Zacry in the future.

Edit: actually, no, I get that now. He changes when he falls in love with Halle Berry in the nuclear storyline.
That's quite neat.

Also: why did everyone in that film fucking mumble so much?

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 11 January 2014 - 12:52 AM

[Spoilsport Stonny]

polishgenius, on 11 January 2014 - 12:40 AM, said:

So having just watched Cloud Atlas, I'm kind of with Abyss a bit. It's not bad, but it didn't make much of an impression on me. Tbh the

Spoiler

re-incarnation/continuity of the soul stuff, combined with the storytelling trick of following theme and plot thread by skipping from timeline to timeline at relevant points, came of as a less-interesting version of what Hal Duncan did in The Book of All Hours.
Another slight peeve: while most of the characters seem fairly continuous across each age, with greater or lesser variation, Tom Hanks was all over the fucking place. I mean there seemed no relation at all between the Doctor on the ship and Zacry in the future.

Edit: actually, no, I get that now. He changes when he falls in love with Halle Berry in the nuclear storyline.
That's quite neat.

Also: why did everyone in that film fucking mumble so much?

But then he's

Spoiler

a criminal cum celebrity author that tosses a critic off the roof of a building. Was that just a swipe at critics?

EDIT: Loved the hell out of that part btw.

This post has been edited by Spoilsport Stonny: 11 January 2014 - 02:31 AM

[Spoilsport Stonny]

That escape scene was a riot from the moment it started. It was so slapstick and the perfect bit of comic relief in a heavy handed movie about spiritual whatever-the-fuck and some kind of lesson that beer is making me cynical about. I wouldnt say it was a perfect movie, but I enjoyed it. Its one of those films that's like, yeah, it could be better (maybe) but so much of what is churned out these days is complete trash, and at least here it was good script based off of good material telling a good tale with good character with good arcs and good values played by good actors and filmed by good directors and good cinematographers that looked good. A good movie.

[Tiste Simeon]

But was it good though?

[Spoilsport Stonny]

That's a good question.

[Macros]

but is it a good question though?

[HoosierDaddy]

Europa Report gets a solid 7 out of 10 for me. It could have been higher, but I wasn't fond of the mixed timeline or last 15 minutes. Everything else was brilliant, I thought.

Score is probably higher than it should be but I fucking love me some space movies.

[QuickTidal]

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY....meh. The first one was WAY better. This was entertaining...but nothing more...and shows that Pixar CAN indeed get outshined by other companies doing animation (WRECK IT RALPH, FROZEN, and TANGLED are all way better)

[Ukjent]

HoosierDaddy, on 12 January 2014 - 02:59 PM, said:

Europa Report gets a solid 7 out of 10 for me. It could have been higher, but I wasn't fond of the mixed timeline or last 15 minutes. Everything else was brilliant, I thought.

Score is probably higher than it should be but I fucking love me some space movies.

There I have to disagree, 4/10. Was to many logical errors for my part.

[Jakovasaurus]

The Place Beyond the Pines.

Tries to be thee movies in one. Waaaaaaay too long.

[worry]

Drinking Buddies -- Quite good slice-of-lifer with excellent naturalistic performances and plenty of small-scale insight below the surface.

And uh I finally watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I thought it was okay, not a failure, but I did have mixed feelings on the changes from the book. A little late in the game to really get into it though.

[worry]

Just watched From Up on Poppy Hill and thought it was absolutely lovely. Didn't see Earthsea but I know of its disappointing reputation, so this was a realllllly big pleasant surprise. The story was occasionally tonally morose, but it was still an absolute joy to watch from start to finish.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Macros, on 12 January 2014 - 02:47 PM, said:

but is it a good question though?

Good point.

QuickTidal, on 12 January 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY....meh. The first one was WAY better. This was entertaining...but nothing more...and shows that Pixar CAN indeed get outshined by other companies doing animation (WRECK IT RALPH, FROZEN, and TANGLED are all way better)

Have you seen THE CROODS yet? I believe it's Dreamworks. I liked it as much as I liked WRECK IT RALPH, which was a lot. Maybe more. I thought it was fantastic. Watched it with the little ones over the weekend. Also awesome because animated Nick Cage is just as weirdly demonstrative as real world Nick Cage. I wasn't so big on FROZEN. My girls loved it, and so did the missus, but I'm not too keen on the stage musical stuff. That kind of singing just isn't my thing. But its nice that Disney keeps mixing it up. I though BRAVE was excellent. Pixar needs to step it up a bit, I think. They need to build another franchise.

[QuickTidal]

I've not seen THE CROODS yet, but it's on the list...and yeah Pixar DOES need to step its game up...a lot of animation companies that came after it are now doing the same stuff better. They fell behind.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Their website hints that they are working on something new and original that has to do with Dia de los Muertos. Which actually sounds pretty cool. But other than that all I hear are rumors of Cars 3 and Toy story 4 and Finding Nemo 2. Meh. Sequels.

EDIT: Oh and this too. Which also looks interesting.

This post has been edited by Spoilsport Stonny: 13 January 2014 - 04:29 PM

[Jakovasaurus]

American Hustle

Excellent movie. It's reminiscent of Goodfellas, which if you haven't seen you should.

Anyway, American Hustle is deserving of some Oscar love this awards season. Yes, it's that good! Solid performances by Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawarence (she had a small part compared to the others). And loved the bit parts Robert De Niro and Louis C.K. played.

The setting, the music, the wardrobe/fashion, the (oh my!) hair and the narrative were near perfect.