Movies, Movies, Movies!

JC's The Thing.

Best line: "I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"

 

I just watched Nolan's The Prestige again. It was incredibly interesting until the last 30 minutes when it broke all internal logic. Spoilers ahead, but it was based in reality (of sorts), in that every magic trick was grounded in reality. Then it broke that bond of trust with the audience by introducing the supernatural. It was so contrary, so incongruous that the first time I watched it I was searching for the rational explanation, but there was none, there was only a deus ex machina in the final act. It destroyed the film for me.

 

Sorry to put this in a separate post, but also, the new Star Wars film are so bland, so ordinary and so paint-by-numbers, that they prove only one thing: People are suckers for brand recognition.

 

I dunno, I think that sometimes you want to give that new restaurant down the street a try. You know, the one that's run by folks whose country you couldn't find on a map? Your waiter is going to have to explain how to eat the food to you, and you won't be sure if some of the dishes are meat or vegetable or neither, and it might end up tasting terrible, but it'll definitely be an adventure.

But other times, you just want the comfort of a grilled cheese sandwich and a can of tomato soup, and the people at Disney are doing an excellent job of that with the new Star Wars movies

 

Thank you for the response. I would say that The Force Awakens hits all the beats of A New Hope, but with the none of the heart. Rey is a Mary-Sue (only enjoyable because of an excellent performance) in a manner that Luke was not, he tried, he trained, he failed, he lost a hand. The repetition of the Death Star is just lazy. Kylo Ren is inept so becomes impotent as an antagonist. The death of Solo is horribly realised and has no emotional punch as a result. I would literally categorise it as placing a caviar label on a twinky, and pretending it is no longer a twinky.

 

The Space Between Us - OK, predictable, teen born on Mars was a slight twist on standard story line.

Before I Fall - Not to my taste at all, bored me, I fast forwarded it to the end. It's a mix of Mean Girls and Groundhog Day.

Alone in Berlin - I enjoyed it, may not be for everyone. WWII resistance by a German couple after their only son dies in the war.

 

Good points. He has a great cinematographer. He is a visual story-teller and his plotting and character development is lacking.

There is another director who has similar strengths and weaknesses, namely Snyder, but Snyder has a ten year old's sensibility for what is cool, which makes his action sequences (and dialogue) cringe worthy, and the connective tissue incoherent. In conclusion, Nolan is vastly better than Snyder

 

Some of his scripts have issues but I think even Inception has a decent emotional core to it. I couldn't help but hope for Dicaprio's character to be reunited with his kids.

 

I am becoming used to being controversial (on this site) so I should not give warning, but here is warning none-the-less. Dicaprio is a one-beat actor. That one angsty facial expression he pulls in every film post his Scorcese collaborations is awful. How did he ever win an Oscar? It was a pity-award that was wholly undeserved. Dam, in the year he won he was the second best actor in his own film (to Hardy). I find him almost as unwatchable as Jennifer Lawrence (who always strikes me as a child playing at dress-up). Sorry, rant over.

 

Do you think? We are talking about several directors and several films.

 

Well, we agree and disagree. We disagree emphatically on DiCraprio having any range, but, we agree that the film lacks an emotional core.

 

Contemplating watching Looper again. I'm going to overdose on sci-fi at this rate if I'm not careful, and have no creative juice left in the tank for my novel. I think inspiration should be taken in moderation.

 

Oh my good God! How did this news escape me??

Wish they'd found someone other than Ryan Gosling, but my goosepimples had goosepimples when I saw Harrison Ford!

 

I was going to send you a message about that when I saw the trailer the other day, @OurJud, but I figured you had already known.

 

Nope! I find this happens a lot these days. I was in the supermarket the other day and saw Alien Covenant on the shelves. I didn't even know it existed let alone had reached the DVD shelves.

 

Yeah, there's a reason it went to disc so quickly. I'm hoping the same thing doesn't happen with Blade Runner. It seems that lately a lot of the sequels and reboots seem to be more of a disappointment than anything else.

 

So Scott didn't learn anything from the mess that was Prometheus then?

 

Scott's old. His brain is learning-proof. New information has not entered it in twenty years at least. Russell Crowe probably had something to do with that.

 

It's interesting how Blade Runner begat Ghost in the Shell (original manga series as well as both movies), and now ends up looking like GITS.







I've read that the advertising imagery in Blade Runner was based on the Dotonbori area of Osaka as well:

 

Watched A Scanner Darkly last night and really wish they hadn't opted for rotoscope. I found it nothing but a distraction from what might have been a decent film.

 

I ended up watching a lot of movies last week.

Opening Night was the kind of entertaining-enough trash that I enjoy but forgot a couple hours later, and had to look up the name of. Then I tried to watch Antibirth, but not even loving Natasha Lyonne could get me through fifteen minutes of it. I love schlock, but I just couldn't do it. After that I checked out Final Girl, and while it's not perfect, it's exactly the kind of thing I like - I was engaged the whole time, really dug the visual style, and when it was over I wanted more.

Another night I watched the second and third Berserk movies, having watched the first a month or so ago, before they were on netflix. It's a franchise I've been wanting to get into for a while and I've been completely captivated by the movies - gotta find a way to watch the show / read the manga now. I do think that the events of the third movie felt a bit out of place and inadequately built up to, but it genuinely didn't hurt my enjoyment of it - I take it that things were supposed to be sudden and startling, rather than it being bad writing.

Maybe I'll get around to knocking some more off my queue this week.