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Post by toei on Nov 1, 2019 6:04:29 GMT -5
Apollo Chungus I mean, don't hesitate to start a TV thread if you want to, or see if there's an old one to revive. On the topic of serial vs episodic, I'd say both have their pros and cons. Episodic series are great when the stories are inspired - at 22 or 45 minutes each (minus the commercials), they're like mini-movies, telling nicely concise stories that don't demand a huge time investment. It's surprising how much some of these can accomplish in such a short time. Most of them end up being very formulaic, though, which can become unbearably repetitive after a while. They're definitely not made for binging - those series would give you one episode a week, and often ran for most of the year. Serial storytelling allows writers to really develop themes and characters, but since the duration of series ultimately depend on business factors, popular series often end up being stretched out through contrived twists and turns (I especially dislike the way a lot of series create some big dumb dramatic event at the end of every season to try and hook you with a cliffhanger), or kept alive artificially long after they run out of ideas, while less popular series get cut short before they can tell their story. It's rare to find a series that finds the perfect balance, but there's still a lot of great stuff. Honestly, TV is the one area of pop culture I'd say is better than it used to be compared to the '90s and before.
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Post by windfisch on Nov 1, 2019 6:30:30 GMT -5
Sure, it could be anything - genre, casting choices, even duration time. The points I made earlier were supposed to be mere examples. No no, I mean as far as plot-points and other things revealed before a viewing go. Okay, got you. And yes, I would include those too
I don't necessarily disagree with you, I guess it's just a matter of how often it's an issue to you as opposed to me. And I was actually serious before: If a movie is labeled as a "comedy", you know it's supposed to be funny at some point (or in the olden days you knew the story would end well), which can impact the experience and if you know a movie has a certain amount of runtime left, there's only so much that still could happen.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Nov 4, 2019 4:55:49 GMT -5
and if you know a movie has a certain amount of runtime left, there's only so much that still could happen. Oh yeah, I hate that. Somehow I can never help myself checking the time left when I decided to grab a snack or if I have to go to the bathroom during a movie. That's one advantage of seeing a movie in the theatre. Anyway, I decided to wrap up Halloween with The Exorcist. It's amusing to read the reactions of the audience when the movie came out. It's really not that shocking or gross these days, outside that scene where Regan undergoes the angiography. That still makes me uneasy thinking back to it. Overall, the movie is more atmospheric that scary, and it feels rather classy despite some of the imagery.
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Post by windfisch on Nov 5, 2019 17:50:31 GMT -5
Parasite (2019, Joon-ho Bong)
What an emotional rollercoaster-ride with surprising depth. It's so intense that I almost failed to notice the beautiful cinematography. Absolutely brilliant and a must-see, if you ask me.
(Also a movie I went in blind, which certainly did pay off in this case)
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Post by Woody Alien on Nov 6, 2019 17:32:27 GMT -5
Today I saw Joker for the second time. I saw it with the original audio and subbed and this time the dubbed version. Both were quite good, and as a bonus Arthur Fleck/Joker is voiced by Adriano Giannini AKA the son of Giancarlo Giannini, the actor who dubbed Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's Batman. Cool, huh?
I won't say it's a masterpiece but it's a very good and compelling movie. Phoenix is excellent (I really need to see more of his past films) and I like how they managed to homage 70s and 80s cinematography without really ripping off previous movies outside of some plot references and such. Soundtrack is great as well. I liked also how you don't need to be a huge Bat-fan to be able to enjoy it and how it's much more grounded than usual superhero films that are really starting to bore me at this point.
Little Bruce Wayne climbing down a pole like the 60s Batman was hilarious and an adorable nod to Adam West!
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Nov 7, 2019 8:30:25 GMT -5
Parasite (2019, Joon-ho Bong)
What an emotional rollercoaster-ride with surprising depth. It's so intense that I almost failed to notice the beautiful cinematography. Absolutely brilliant and a must-see, if you ask me.
(Also a movie I went in blind, which certainly did pay off in this case)
I really wanna see that in the theatre. Sadly it isn't coming out yet until the end of this month. Smaller movies like that can take quite a while to show up in theatres in the Netherlands. The Lighthouse isn't being shown until in about 4 months, for example. The Irishman isn't even showing in the main theatre of my city, only in a smaller one.
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Post by windfisch on Nov 7, 2019 18:18:52 GMT -5
Parasite is definitely one to watch in a theatre and well worth the wait.
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Post by windfisch on Nov 8, 2019 19:24:54 GMT -5
Bad Times at the El Royale
It's one of those film noir, Tarrantino-esque crime thrillers, with dark comedic undertones and a story that likes to take twists every now and then. Frankly, I liked it more than the usual Tarrantino-directed movie, because it was slightly less cynical and brought just a little bit more vulnerability and warmth to the table ("humanity", if you will).
Only later did I find out that the director/writer was partly responsible for things like Buffy, Lost, Cabin in the Woods (all "meh" at best) and Daredevil (series). The latter to me is not only garbage in terms of writing and acting, it's also rightwing torture propaganda of the worst kind. So I'm kind of glad I didn't know this beforehand, otherwise I probably would've never watched this film (doing the "seperation of art and artist" in realtime right there). I mean, there are still some questionable elements in El Roayle, like a Vietnam veteran having a heroic moment of redemption, which I found unintentionally funny, reminding me of a similar scene from Hot Shots 2.
But overall it's got many great looking scenes, pacing that kept me on my toes and some strong performances. So I think it's worth watching.
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Post by Snake on Nov 18, 2019 12:24:36 GMT -5
Finally got around to watching Joker.
It really is a beautifully made movie. I can see why young teenagers would be critical, because of the pacing of the first half of the film. It really does strike me as something of an art film, the way it's written, the way the scenes play out. It evokes a lot of emotion, about a guy that descends into chaotic bursts of violence. And all because this mentality abused and broken guy keeps getting shit on by the people around Gotham City. The fashion sensibility and mood, with what seems like glimpses of old school porn theaters, all feels very 1970's. There is some sense of parallel to Scorsese's Taxi Driver, with this mal-adjusted anti-hero who has to tough his life out without friends, role-models, or companions; and it was great to see Robert De Niro be on the other side of social standing in Joker. The most hilarious scenes to me are also the darkest and most violent. Especially the moment with his co-workers.
Also unique are the portrayals of Thomas Wayne, and who I assume would be Alfred. Thomas Wayne particularly comes off as a very cold, and kind of abrasive as a personality. Joaquin Phoenix does an excellent job depicting a kind of emotionally depressed Joker. Where he really excels is in his physical movements, his gestures and body language. His posture, his fidgeting, from his trembling legs while sitting to his clumsy movements speaks volumes over any verbalization. His performance is A+++. But as Joker goes, my impression of this realistically grounded reality is that he isn't a criminal mastermind. I get the impression that a lot of what happens around him is mostly by impulsiveness and circumstance, than cold calculation. Arthur Fleck Joker is a mentally disturbed, tragic, average joe acting out in retaliation. Quite different from the Jack Napier Joker: ruthlessly intelligent, seemingly motivated by profit but really just sowing destruction and chaos for shits and giggles.
As such, while I really do enjoy the movie for what it is, I don't get the sense of Arthur Fleck Joker being an equal adversary to Batman.
My other visceral response to the movie is that I get a different conveyance of "social justice." Not social justice in the "woke" dichotomy of extreme leftist VS progressive/classical left, center-left, libertarian, conservative, right. It is more like, social justice in the sense of how Arthur Fleck is retaliating against those who forcefully use and abuse him. He is constantly stepped on, and it really is so sad and depressing. Eventually, his way of coping, besides the nervous laughter are explosive outbursts of returning his anguish.
My impression is that movie is very smart, and very thoughtful. It creates a lot of human perspective for comic book villain origin story.
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Post by alexmate on Nov 19, 2019 17:25:19 GMT -5
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
EarlyDario Argento Giallo horror film. All the criticisms are true, slow pacing, confusing plot, surprisingly low gore count and some truly disgusting scenes of a cat being hung and one in a freezer (blatantly taxidermy models). The film is just dull, the Ennio Morricone score is great though and redeems this mediocre entry in the "master of horror's" cannon. Blu Ray picture is superb and sounds great, has some added scenes from what look like a workprint or unmastered source, but only a few seconds.
Rating: 6 (don't bother unless you are a fan)
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Post by kaoru on Dec 2, 2019 2:33:40 GMT -5
Tom of Finland (2017). A dramatisation of the life of Touko Laaksonen, one of the most famous porn artists. Often a bit short and hasty, because it has to cover around 50 years from him serving in the war in the 40s up to his death in the early 90s. Still pretty interesting. It's so easy to look as his hyper-sexualised drawings and find them almost a bit silly now. One tends to forget that he started drawing them when their posession could get you incarcerated. Or that they became an image first of a new prideful and open life for the community back in the flower power years and later a will to survive when the AIDS crisis happened.
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Post by Woody Alien on Dec 15, 2019 18:01:55 GMT -5
The other day I wanted to watch something strange so, thanks to a subreddit that lists full movies available on Youtube, I watched Tobe Hooper's Invaders From Mars, the 1986 remake of a famous 50s sci-fi movie. It's fairly well-made but nothing special, I was disappointed in it but then I realized that, while still not great, it was made to be intentionally cheesy, hokey and reminiscent of those old B-movies about alien invasions and such. Some things in it are really too dumb and bizarre to not be at least partly made with the intention to be comedic. The Martians are goofy-looking but still well made and kinda creepy and the acting is (has to be) intentionally stilted and exaggerated in several points.
I wonder if the finale with the marines storming the Martian underground base has been one of the inspirations for Metal Slug 3's final part of the final stage? Some of the bio-mechanic alien architecture even looks a bit similar.
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Post by windfisch on Dec 18, 2019 16:22:03 GMT -5
Usually I don't believe in Rotten Tomatoes scores. But in the case of Star Wars 9, currently sitting at 58%, I'll make an exception. Those are early reviews, meaning mostly written by embedded, heavily catered to and thus easily susceptible journalists. If you can barely manage to get slightly more than half of those to like your movie, that's not a good sign.
Of course it could also be the case of a movie being too artistic and too subtle for mainstream appeal...somehow written and directed by, uhm, JJ Abrams.
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Post by lurker on Dec 18, 2019 17:04:16 GMT -5
Usually I don't believe in Rotten Tomatoes scores. But in the case of Star Wars 9, currently sitting at 58%, I'll make an exception. Those are early reviews, meaning mostly written by embedded, heavily catered to and thus easily susceptible journalists. If you can barely manage to get slightly more than half of those to like your movie, that's not a good sign. Of course it could also be the case of a movie being too artistic and too subtle for mainstream appeal...somehow written and directed by, uhm, JJ Abrams. Honestly, I just want it to be at "better than Attack of the Clones".
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Post by windfisch on Dec 18, 2019 18:11:47 GMT -5
That's not the highest bar for sure. However compared to Solo, Clones is a masterpiece.
Rise of Skywalker seems to be yet another Force Awakens (fanservice without substance). Personally I'd prefer a proper Last Jedi sequel, but more restrained and better paced than Jedi.
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