|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Nov 23, 2018 23:12:01 GMT -5
Rowling would have been better off saying "No, I didn't really write any minority characters, I didn't trust myself to write them well" or even "I didn't think about it" instead of "LOL DUMBLDOR GAY"
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Nov 24, 2018 7:46:18 GMT -5
Funny thing with Dumbeldore tho: I read the books way past the hype train, already knowing she said that she always had him being gay as part of his unsaid backstory in her head. And his realtionship to Grindelwald makes a lot of sense and takes a way more interesting turn if you know he has/had feelings for him. I do think it is still better that way than just not making him gay at all. It's just too bad she's an utter coward and doesn't actually state it in-media, not even in Beasts, despite wanting to get praised for it.
|
|
|
Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Nov 25, 2018 4:57:14 GMT -5
I watched the 2nd fantastic beasts film the other day. Found it really boring and plodding. Johnny Depp thankfully didn't do his usual "Look I was Jack Sparrow!" silly clown act, but he didn't really seem to do anything...aside from pull super powers out of his ass, like just willing magical blue flames that could whip around and incinerate people. I find it a bit jarring as previously to this, the series tended to be quite good about giving magic rules. There were set spells and even the bad ones were explained and had magic words you needed to say. But apparently Grindlewald (VALD? it's weird they allow different characters to say his name differently) can just do whatever he wants. Like the magic blue flames of magic death. or just changing his appearance whenever he wants.
The 1st film was enjoyable, but I think that's because it didn't have sequel or trilogy baggage hanging over its head. This one did, and it really did feel like I was looking ahead to its sequels instead of just telling an interesting story. Frankly, I found myself getting really bored many times during it, enough so that I doubt I'll bother with any further sequels.
|
|
|
Post by Snake on Nov 26, 2018 12:01:42 GMT -5
Crying Freeman
A US B-movie live-action adaptation of the manga and anime. Starring Mark Dacascos, who impressively moves very well, and is able to climb up on a door. This is only the 2nd movie where I recognized Rae Dawn Chong, who played support to Arnold/John Matrix in Commando. Her part doesn't go very far.
And while some things are changed up to adapt it to a US audience, most of the main details are faithful. It's not a great movie, cheesy at times. But there are some moments that capture the anime/manga flavor pretty well. It feels mostly PG-13 for what was a pretty graphic seinen manga, save for one scene of nudity.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Nov 26, 2018 15:29:19 GMT -5
Crying FreemanA US B-movie live-action adaptation of the manga and anime. Starring Mark Dacascos, who impressively moves very well, and is able to climb up on a door. This is only the 2nd movie where I recognized Rae Dawn Chong, who played support to Arnold/John Matrix in Commando. Her part doesn't go very far. And while some things are changed up to adapt it to a US audience, most of the main details are faithful. It's not a great movie, cheesy at times. But there are some moments that capture the anime/manga flavor pretty well. It feels mostly PG-13 for what was a pretty graphic seinen manga, save for one scene of nudity. It's even more international than that; it's a France-Canada-Japan co-production, with US actors. The director was French (he also made the Silent Hill movie nobody likes), and it was shot in British Columbia (Canada). All this for a B-movie.
|
|
|
Post by Snake on Nov 26, 2018 16:16:00 GMT -5
Talk about ambitious on a low-budget. I see, that would explain why they chose to "set" some of the events in Vancouver.
Wow, I actually liked Silent Hill. I think its one of the better game-to-movie adaptations.
|
|
|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Nov 28, 2018 23:55:59 GMT -5
I liked Silent Hill as well. I think part of the problem is that people wanted it to be Silent Hill 2, and it's not. But Silent Hill 2 is the only Silent Hill 2.
As it's own thing, it works well enough and fits more or less into the Silent Hill universe. People forget that the plots to 1 and 3 weren't exactly masterful either. They were GOOD, but still pretty standard "evil cult takes over a town" with a little extra cleverness.
I actually liked the movie sequel a lot, too, though it was pretty much panned even by people who liked the original.
So maybe I just have bad taste.
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Nov 29, 2018 2:10:56 GMT -5
You only have half bad taste. The first Silent Hill is fine, the second movie is pretty bad tho (and at first I thought that's the one toei meant, even).
|
|
|
Post by GamerL on Nov 29, 2018 3:15:58 GMT -5
I liked Silent Hill as well. I think part of the problem is that people wanted it to be Silent Hill 2, and it's not. But Silent Hill 2 is the only Silent Hill 2. As it's own thing, it works well enough and fits more or less into the Silent Hill universe. People forget that the plots to 1 and 3 weren't exactly masterful either. They were GOOD, but still pretty standard "evil cult takes over a town" with a little extra cleverness. I actually liked the movie sequel a lot, too, though it was pretty much panned even by people who liked the original. So maybe I just have bad taste. I think Silent Hill 3 has a lot of subtext that people miss, the whole game is basically a Japanese critique of western Religion and its practitioners and is fascinating stuff. Claudia is the dangerous zealot, the 100% true believer who is willing to do anything, even murder, in the name of what they believe is righteousness and the mission to bring "Paradise" which in this case is ironically a Hell on Earth. Then Vincent is the post-modern believer, he's genuine but sees it as an inconvenience for life in the present day: "I know the pleasures of this world" And finally Leonard is simply insane, his faith doesn't come from a place of logic. Coming out as the game did in the post-9/11 era it's not hard to see why this was on the developers minds, I also have long had a pet theory that the Japanese find monotheistic Religions to be a bit creepy, since the idea of a singular all powerful deity is so radically different from Shintoism, which is why JRPGs often have God in an antagonistic role. The Silent Hill movie on the other hand I've always thought is just bad, you can be fooled into thinking it's good due to the production values, which are way higher than most video game movies, especially at that time, but the script just sucks. It's one of those "adaptations" that changes every possible thing it could possibly change which just makes the whole thing feel rather pointless.
|
|
|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Nov 29, 2018 3:30:22 GMT -5
I liked Silent Hill as well. I think part of the problem is that people wanted it to be Silent Hill 2, and it's not. But Silent Hill 2 is the only Silent Hill 2. As it's own thing, it works well enough and fits more or less into the Silent Hill universe. People forget that the plots to 1 and 3 weren't exactly masterful either. They were GOOD, but still pretty standard "evil cult takes over a town" with a little extra cleverness. I actually liked the movie sequel a lot, too, though it was pretty much panned even by people who liked the original. So maybe I just have bad taste. I think Silent Hill 3 has a lot of subtext that people miss, the whole game is basically a Japanese critique of western Religion and its practitioners and is fascinating stuff. You know, I hadn't really caught that but now that you mention it, it fits well.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Nov 29, 2018 17:54:14 GMT -5
Eh, I don't know anything about the Silent Hill movies, that was just my impression from old reviews and random comments. "It's great visually but the story sucks." And it's true that the story to the first Silent Hill game wasn't anything special - it did a good job of building up mystery, but when it came down to the revelations I was pretty disappointed. Still a very solid game, but more on account of the atmosphere and gameplay.
|
|
|
Post by GamerL on Nov 29, 2018 23:44:17 GMT -5
Eh, I don't know anything about the Silent Hill movies, that was just my impression from old reviews and random comments. "It's great visually but the story sucks." And it's true that the story to the first Silent Hill game wasn't anything special - it did a good job of building up mystery, but when it came down to the revelations I was pretty disappointed. Still a very solid game, but more on account of the atmosphere and gameplay. You can retroactively be fooled into thinking there's more to the story in the original Silent Hill given how brilliantly everything was expanded on in the second and third games. But when you just focus on the context of the first game yeah, there's not a whole lot to the story after all is said and done, for starters the idea that there's anything supernatural about the town itself is actually introduced in 2, in the first game for all you know everything is only tied into Alessa and Silent Hill is just where the story happens to take place, which is pretty surprising. And 3 fleshes out the cult and makes it a little less faceless and clearer that it's a "cult" and not just Dahlia and a couple of partners in crime. Basically the first game is a little more of a conventional Rosemary's Baby type story, it was from there that it went into weirder and more unique territory. And not everything in SH1 quite jibes with the rest of the series, like the fact that you fight nurses and doctors who are actual people possessed by slug like monsters rather than monsters that just look like nurses, which is an idea the series never used again and things like Harry disappearing and waking up in a different place, which is also contrary to the way the sequels play out. It's sorta like the way Metal Gear 1 and 2 never actually say Big Boss is Snake's father even though that's treated as if it happened in Metal Gear Solid, the continuity for these Konami games could sometimes be loose like that.
|
|
|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Nov 30, 2018 0:11:52 GMT -5
So yea, for those that didn't see it, the movie is largely adapted from SH1, but with inexplicable pyramid head fanservice and a little (lot of) retooling to make it "audience friendly".
|
|
|
Post by jackcaeylin on Dec 4, 2018 15:45:13 GMT -5
I got the possibility to watch the Ip man movies (1 - 3, the Donnie Yen movies). I have mixed feelings about them. At first, I am surprised about the good pacing, strong fight scenes and the consistent story telling. Maybe I am just unlucky with chinese movies, but most of them are just beautiful from a visual point, but everything else were always lacking. Thus, I am surprised about the narrative structure of the trilogy. I am glad, that I watched these movies in cantonese, due to the impression, that the acting of Donnie Yen was great. His reactions about some simple lines are hilarious and memorable.
Now the bad parts: very few fighting scenes had bad edits. I mean, they are great and astounding, but they were, in certain segments, not great edited, but this is a problem of the first 2 movies. The final fights in the second movie were rather dull. I mean, they made them impressive and unique, but they were imcomprehensible/hard to follow to a certain degree. I think I am not alone with that sentiment, since the third movie really improved the fighting choreography. In that regard, I was also surprised about Mike Tyson. I know he is a boxing legend, but I have weird impressions from him due to some events, mostly his weak comedy stuff (Scary Movie, roast of (insert name), Hangover), thus I am glad to see him in a serious role and he was great, but not well utilized, since his screen time was rather small.
Another thing that left a bad taste were the repetitive stuffs of the movies. I mean, every movie had some similar acts and similar characters (an example: a chinese guy working for the evil people, but they were kinda spies and helping IP man), another examples:
1st: guy that wants to defeat Ip man to gain/stabilize reputation (guy from South China, Hong Kong Master, Wing Chun rival)
2nd: (almost)last fights are always an impossible-to-beat foreigner
I guess this is my mistake, because I watched these movies in a row. Besides, the second movie had too much comedy to me, it was rather cartoonish to me, especially the end fight, I could not take the british guy serious, because of his over the top acting.
Yours sincerely
Jack Caeylin
|
|
|
Post by eatersthemanfool on Dec 6, 2018 22:54:49 GMT -5
I watched The Hitman's Bodyguard recently.
Wonderful movie. Complete bullshit. Samuel L. Jackson plays a high-priced hitman who is set to testify against a dictator (Gary Oldman) for war crimes, and Ryan Reynolds plays the bodyguard assigned to protect him. Lots of implausible action.
|
|