Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/OppenheimerFilm/status/1604634869404880896

[Cauliflower Of Love]

If there's one thing we won't understand, it's what people are saying in that film.

[Tasty]

Cillian Murphy

[Potato]

As long as the runtime is less than 2:30 I'll see it. More than that and I'm not interested.

[Himu]

I will watch anything Nolan makes and masturbate to his haters tears as lube.

[Bebpo]

Black Adam was...surprisingly ok? It suffers from what a lot of superhero flicks do in that it's trying to be like 3 movies worth of story in two hours so everything and everyone is underdeveloped, but otherwise the writing was decently self-aware and I thought the dialogue was pretty good for a comic movie. Like between the writing and the Rock's comedic timing (not a Rock fan, but he's got that timing for sure), there's some really funny bits that land. Pierce Brosnan is like 90% great until he gets sappy towards the end.

It does a better job handling a "super hero that kills" character than I would've expected from modern DC filmmaking. It's not serious like Wolverine, or satire like Deadpool, but it still executes it fairly well in a Shazam-like PG-13 manner.

Probably wouldn't pay to see it, but was entertaining enough to sit through on HBO. I actually wouldn't have minded if they had gone ahead with the sequel. But oh well.

[MMaRsu]

Tom is so fucking cool

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Black Adam was...surprisingly ok? It suffers from what a lot of superhero flicks do in that it's trying to be like 3 movies worth of story in two hours so everything and everyone is underdeveloped, but otherwise the writing was decently self-aware and I thought the dialogue was pretty good for a comic movie. Like between the writing and the Rock's comedic timing (not a Rock fan, but he's got that timing for sure), there's some really funny bits that land. Pierce Brosnan is like 90% great until he gets sappy towards the end.

It does a better job handling a "super hero that kills" character than I would've expected from modern DC filmmaking. It's not serious like Wolverine, or satire like Deadpool, but it still executes it fairly well in a Shazam-like PG-13 manner.

Probably wouldn't pay to see it, but was entertaining enough to sit through on HBO. I actually wouldn't have minded if they had gone ahead with the sequel. But oh well.

Black adam was better thatn 90 percent of MCU and most action movies.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/NicholasPascar5/status/1604635996880003073

Gunn is cleaning house

The Rock out, Cavill out, Gadot out.

Rumor has it Jason Mamoa is getting a new character and he's in talks with Batfleck about directing a film.

[Tasty]

Aaaaand Batman continues to be in his own protected little bubble (as he should be).

[Cauliflower Of Love]

placing bets for arianne grande

[Polident Hive]

Tom is so fucking cool

Cruise linking up with McQuarrie has been gold. To tie it to comic shit talk, McQuarrie almost did a Superman with Cavill.

Think McQuarrie’s Way of the Gun was a huge flop and why it took a decade and Tom Cruise to direct again. But great movie. One of the best opening scenes.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1605322145768165376

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1605322145768165376

too bad he wasnt white like ryan reynolds

[Bebpo]

Lot of major directors having some mild misses lately at RT. Wonder if it's the covid-era film making effect:

Baumbach - White Noise - 63%
Mendes - Empire of Light - 44%
Chazelle - Babylon - 59%
Arnofsky - The Whale - 63%
Inarritu - Bardo - 57%

Some still good though

Johnson - Glass Onion - 93%
Spielberg - The Fablemans - 91%
Del Toro - Pinnochio - 97%
McDonagh - Banshees of Ineshiren - 97%
Guadagnino - Bones and All - 82%


I mean RT ain't the end all be all of quality. But still, seems like a lot of quality directors put out pretty meh stuff.

[Pissy F Benny]

Just seems to be following industry trends tbh. It seems like the only film widely enjoyed this year was Top Gun

I don't think I've heard of any of those films tbh besides the Whale, how many were for made for streamers? Cos that seems like a common problem to someone who doesn't follow thing overly close.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1606064046888738816

 

[Madrun Badrun]

Glass Onion was excellent.  Shame it couldn't have come out last year to better capture the zeitgeist.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I liked the meta of stating how dumb and simple the plot was and then it actually being pretty smart, especially with clues/foreshadowing that are not explicitly resolved like the no smoking alarms not just being an eccentric billionaire thing but because the house it hydrogen-fueled.

[close]

[Madrun Badrun]

Strange World was good but mostly because I'm a sucker for Lost World settings.

[bork]

Violent Night was good, cheesy fun.  I thought it might just be a more straightly-played "Die Hard with Santa" but it did not take itself seriously at all and worked much better that way.

[Bebpo]

Glass Onion was excellent.  Shame it couldn't have come out last year to better capture the zeitgeist.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I liked the meta of stating how dumb and simple the plot was and then it actually being pretty smart, especially with clues/foreshadowing that are not explicitly resolved like the no smoking alarms not just being an eccentric billionaire thing but because the house it hydrogen-fueled.

[close]

Glass Onion was fun, but the first Knives Out was a good deal better imo.

I thought the first act was fun, but the second act is too much of a retread and I don't think the finale lands very well. I don't think Rian Johnson can make a bad movie, but I'd put this toward the bottom of his films. Hopefully Knives Out 3 is better than just being some popcorn entertainment.

I think in this one the plot was too shallow and the characters too simple and uninteresting compared to the first one. Felt very much "Netflix movie" version of Knives Out. Not that the original was a high brow art film with complexity, but this does feel more flashy and dumbed down for a Netflix audience tbh.

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1607089711100882944

Oh man...

[Bebpo]

If it doesn't have blue people, batman/marvel, dinosuars or tom cruise, why are you releasing movies in the theaters anymore. The audience for those kinds of films left and never came back.

[Polident Hive]

We watched Top Gun Maverick for the holidays. What a perfect dad rock movie for everybody to enjoy. Given that Russians are back on the table, surprised there isn’t a OK yeah the bad guys are probably Russians Cut.

[Potato]

We watched Top Gun Maverick for the holidays. What a perfect dad rock movie for everybody to enjoy. Given that Russians are back on the table, surprised there isn’t a OK yeah the bad guys are probably Russians Cut.

It was very clearly Iran
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/6/3/23151745/top-gun-maverick-enemy-country

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

I quite liked Glass Onion, but am beginning to come to a suspicion that Rian Johnson is;
a) not as funny as he thinks he is
b) likes to intercut things he thinks is funny into parts that don't really need it.

It also falls into the 'satire' trap of, if you want to be making fun of clichés or tropes of a genre, you can't simultaneously make use of those exact same clichés and tropes but played straight.
 

And because I like to make my own film nerd double bills, I followed it up with Gosford Park which still totally fucking holds up

[Bebpo]

The end of Glass Onion is super dumb. Which makes me feel like Johnson got his Netflix paycheck and just made a quick cash-in movie to have fun. Since it's pretty entertaining, nothing wrong with that. But I think with the original Knives Out he had more on the line and put more effort into the script.

The ending where

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our great peaceful detective ends this detective story by giving an angry drunk person a glass of alcohol and a bomb of unknown quantities in an explosive house and says "good luck!"

Without movie magic, that would've ended in a suicide bombing killing her and everyone else in the building.

Yeah...that was dumb as all fuck. And then everyone just conveniently turns on Miles because if they didn't he'd still just get away with everything and there'd be no justice.

Just really flimsy end. Our brilliant detective guy should've come up with a smarter plan in the end but I guess Johnson just thought everyone would rather see the house explode.

[close]

[Transhuman]

The mystery wasn't interesting, and CGI fire looks shit.

[Mupepe]

If it doesn't have blue people, batman/marvel, dinosuars or tom cruise, why are you releasing movies in the theaters anymore. The audience for those kinds of films left and never came back.

It also doesn’t help that the trailer is god fucking awful and gives you no idea of what the film is about. Okay so it some long ass party? What the fuck is the plot? Awful marketing and I wasn’t interested because a personal pet peeve of mine is Hollywood movies about Hollywood.

[Potato]

Watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

Was ok. Don't get the hype honestly.

[Bebpo]

Watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

Was ok. Don't get the hype honestly.

It's great. But as usual people overhype everything that's unique + good to great. It wasn't life-changing, but it's a very good fun movie.

[Nintex]

Glass Onion was a bit of a dud compared to the first Knives Out but it was still an enjoyable mostly because of Craig and Norton. They basically carried the entire thing.
But it very much had the Netflix film vibes that Red Notice and their other content^TM does.

It's just so different from the first movie which had characters more grounded in reality with all the family relationships.
Bautista I would say managed to pull off his "Joe Rogan" like parody the best. It feels like they should've gone full comedy instead of halfway like they did.
I guess Netflix wanted something with more entertainment for the holiday season? I dunno.

[Potato]

Glass Onion was a bit of a dud compared to the first Knives Out but it was still an enjoyable mostly because of Craig and Norton. They basically carried the entire thing.
But it very much had the Netflix film vibes that Red Notice and their other content^TM does.

It's just so different from the first movie which had characters more grounded in reality with all the family relationships.
Bautista I would say managed to pull off his "Joe Rogan" like parody the best. It feels like they should've gone full comedy instead of halfway like they did.
I guess Netflix wanted something with more entertainment for the holiday season? I dunno.

That's sequelitis. Take the things that were fun in small doses and make the whole sequel out of them, in turn, ruining the fun. Bonus points if you can turn your character from an everyday Joe into a superhero.

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/StephenSeanFord/status/1607992958489604097

Nolan you mad lad

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

 

Painted backdrops are about one of the oldest film techniques going

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Catching up on some of my Netflix watchlist while I have time off, watched Do Revenge starring the lesbian chick from the most recent few seasons of Stranger Things, and it was extremely good.
Nice little throwback to '90s teen movies (and knowingly so, including a Sarah Michelle Gellar cameo as the head mistress) and veeeeeeeeeeeeeery loosely based on Strangers On A Train in its major conceit was two high school girls who move in different circles secretly being friends and deciding to pull a revenge scheme on each others respective tormentors while keeping themselves ostensibly not responsible.

Its actually a lot more twisty turny and satisfying, and genuinely dark and funny than it sounds. I mean, it's no Heathers or Election, but I'd still recommend it as being good enough to be in a conversation about those films.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://twitter.com/StephenSeanFord/status/1607992958489604097

Nolan you mad lad

Did free hand change it's meaning in the past ten years?

He made a template.

[HaughtyFrank]

Painted backdrops are about one of the oldest film techniques going

I think it's more surprising that he still uses them whereas I imagine most $200million blockbusters would have just had a bluescreen there.

[Tuckers Law]

I’m not too surprised, Nolan always is a fan of physical production wherever possible.  It helps that he’s an actual filmmaker (exposition warts and all) while so many directors these days are really only capable of making Content™️.

[Nintex]

As much as a fan as I am I do feel that in recent years he changed his approach to these things.
For The Dark Knight: "It's more convincing if we blow up an actual hospital instead of using a green screen" and Heath's improv did the rest.

While in recent projects he's been more like: "How can we write this towards a big plane explosion"

[Potato]

Catching up on some of my Netflix watchlist while I have time off, watched Do Revenge starring the lesbian chick from the most recent few seasons of Stranger Things, and it was extremely good.
Nice little throwback to '90s teen movies (and knowingly so, including a Sarah Michelle Gellar cameo as the head mistress) and veeeeeeeeeeeeeery loosely based on Strangers On A Train in its major conceit was two high school girls who move in different circles secretly being friends and deciding to pull a revenge scheme on each others respective tormentors while keeping themselves ostensibly not responsible.

Its actually a lot more twisty turny and satisfying, and genuinely dark and funny than it sounds. I mean, it's no Heathers or Election, but I'd still recommend it as being good enough to be in a conversation about those films.

Watched that a while ago. It was much better than it had any right to be.

[Madrun Badrun]

[Joe Molotov]

Benji, please watch this and report back.

[Pissy F Benny]

I watched the trailer, it looks pretty rad

[HaughtyFrank]

(Image removed from quote.)

Benji, please watch this and report back.

"Based on a true story

that hasn't happened - yet."

 

[Tasty]

Tbf Left Behind is probably the closest Christian media has gotten to something palatable to the masses and thus profitable. It's actually something of a decent narrative and would be awesome to see if headed by say, Nolan. The problem is all conservative writer-directors are either Mel Gibson or Ben Shapiro.

[Mupepe]

Saw that Speak No Evil movie on Shudder. I know it’s supposed to be satire but I hate it so much. So so much. It’s too much that it’s infuriating.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

They literally just sit there while their daughters tongue is cut out and stand there next to a pile of rocks while the murderous couple throws rocks at them to kill them.

[close]

It’s too goddamn on the nose.

[HardcoreRetro]

*Looks up at that movie*

"A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness."

Sound like the Danish family couldn't handle some Dutch directness.

[Joe Molotov]

Tbf Left Behind is probably the closest Christian media has gotten to something palatable to the masses and thus profitable. It's actually something of a decent narrative and would be awesome to see if headed by say, Nolan. The problem is all conservative writer-directors are either Mel Gibson or Ben Shapiro.

Yeah, the books were everywhere in the mid-90's. I never read any of them, but I did watch the original movie with Kirk Cameron.

[Mupepe]

*Looks up at that movie*

"A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness."

Sound like the Danish family couldn't handle some Dutch directness.

That is pretty much what they say at one point actually

[Bebpo]

Struggling to get through White Noise. Can understand the RT scores and they even seem kind of high.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, that was really bad. Only film I've given a 1 star out of 4 in a few years.

Read the book summary and some reviews. Really feel like it just did not adapt as a film well. Maybe someone else could've adapted it better, just feels like a big miss by Baumbach.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://deadline.com/2023/01/jeremy-renner-in-critical-but-stable-condition-after-weather-related-accident-while-plowing-snow-1235209718/

[Quaker]

https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1607089711100882944

Oh man...

Watched this yesterday as my 1st movie of 2023. Kind of loved it. It's a totally corny, sprawling "the magic of cinema" movie, except utterly depraved and high on cocaine(think Wolf of Wall Street). Brad Pitt kind of doesn't quite have the gravitas to sell his role(he's a little too close to his Inglorious Basterds character) but Margot Robbie is awesome. And I think it has gratuitous use of every bodily fluid except for menstrual fluid?

Andrex, you need to watch this in the theatres. There's an extended scene in the last hour that plays like the firecracker scene in Boogie Nights, but instead of Alfred Molina it has this really great cameo/stunt casting that I'm so glad I wasn't spoiled on(don't spoil it for yourself by looking at the cast list!). Oh, and that whole scene has superficial Lost Highway/Blue Velvet vibes(except it's pretty straight-forward).

(FWIW, I loved Whiplash and First Man and would've like La La Land better if Ryan Gosling's character wasn't such a dweeb.)

[Joe Molotov]

I want to see Babylon and the consensus that it’s a big sloppy mess only strengthens my resolve.

[Bebpo]

I re-watched Mad Max Fury Road yesterday now that I've watched the original trilogy.

It's still good and all. The pros being that it's a long cool chase sequence with some funny lines and some nice shots, the cons being that it's a long cool chase sequence and not much character or story stuff and there's some weird shots and fades in there.

The whole franchise is really solid outside Beyond Thunderdome which is awful after the beginning stuff. I think I prefer Mad Max one the most. It's the only movie where Max has kind of a character arc. I also thought it had the best cinematography, including the best car stuff. I liked the characters, the bad guy gang going to pick up the coffin of the night rider is kind of goofy endearing as are some of the bits with the villain and the other gang characters. The police chief with his spider thread tattoo. It's just this really bizarre low budget sorta post-apocalypse but mostly just weird film and I dig it a lot for that.



For the modern what Mad Max is known for with the post-apocalypse sand car action, Fury Road is definitely the best. The Road Warrior might've been great in its day, but post-Fury Road it's pretty dated, but does have its moments like when the kid throws the boomerang or when LORD HUMONGOUS gets his nighttime torture montage.

Although Fury Road not having the Black V8 is a strike against it. Probably why I like the car stuff the most in the first film (even though he doesn't have the V8 for most of it). And why I liked the Mad Max game. Cool car.

[Bebpo]

I've been finally getting to Watchmen TV, I'm about midway through it and it's been making me want to revisit Watchmen to refresh. Haven't read the comic or seen the movie since 2009.

Also I'd only seen the theatrical cut. So I sat down last night and tonight and watched the 3.5 hour Watchmen - The Ultimate Cut which has the animated Tales of the Black Freighter mixed in.

In 2009 I liked Snyder's Watchmen. I respected that he didn't care about making it work as a well paced movie and just did a pretty authentic (outside the ending change) adaptation of the graphic novel. Watching it now, especially after now having seen the first four eps of HBO's Watchmen...Snyder's Watchmen doesn't hold up that well.

The story, thanks to the source material, is still good. Patrick Wilson is great (when has he ever been bad in a movie?), some of the slo-mo music video scenes are still neat like the opening. Some of the bits are still hilarious like the Hallelujah fuck scene. Visually it's alright, but comparing it to Snyder's Justice League Cut, he's definitely grown a lot style-wise as a director and his visual style is more a mixed bag in this.

What doesn't hold up so well is the acting and dialogue and line delivery is pretty stiff. Also the Ultimate Cut is way worse. The Tale of the Black Freighter doesn't really add much (plus it's ugly western animation style) and just makes the pace even worse, and the music is pretty eh, especially compared to Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross's score in the HBO show which I'm digging and feels like Reznor's NIN Ghosts album.

One thing that really stood out re-watching Watchmen now is that Snyder's Watchmen would've worked so much better as a TV series in the modern prestige TV era. It's structured in a way that would work well episodically with all the character's backstories which would be their own ep. The movie basically feels like a TV show scrunched into a 3 hour+ movie. It feels too long and still kinda rushed.

Anyhow, it was still enjoyable since I like the story, and it did refresh some points which is what I was looking for going into the back half of the HBO sequel, but if Watchmen wasn't a good movie in 2009, I think it's gotten even worse in the modern day.

[Nintex]

I've always been a fan of the movie and I prefer the Directors Cut as Snyder movies need that breathing space. However some of the montage stuff seemed more interesting than what actually happened in the movie itself.
Overall I think it released too soon, Super Hero movies weren't as big when it came out and after all the wars and piss filters that were trending at the time people really wanted more color in their entertainment.
Now that I think about it, it even predates Game of Thrones which was really the breakthrough of more 'bleak', 'depressing' and 'mature' fantasy entertainment for a wider audience.

Had it dropped a decade later it would've been received much better and wouldn't have been in direct competition with Nolan's Batman trilogy either. Snyder's work seems to be more popular now than ever before.
It also helps that Disney is doing the exact opposite, making comedy films starring super heroes as opposed to drama and action.

Sounds like they went overboard with the Watchmen ultimate cut though. Mixing in the animated movie doesn't seem like a very good idea.
Although the ending was a bit sloppy I really enjoyed the Watchmen TV show too.

It's pretty cool that sometimes you discover that in hindsight a piece of media like Watchmen, Anchorman, Lord of the Rings or Bladerunner was just way ahead of its time.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

I've been finally getting to Watchmen TV, I'm about midway through it and it's been making me want to revisit Watchmen to refresh. Haven't read the comic or seen the movie since 2009.
...
In 2009 I liked Snyder's Watchmen. I respected that he didn't care about making it work as a well paced movie and just did a pretty authentic (outside the ending change) adaptation of the graphic novel. Watching it now, especially after now having seen the first four eps of HBO's Watchmen...Snyder's Watchmen doesn't hold up that well.

The Watchmen TV show falls off so hard in order to resolve the plot points that it has created that need resolving, that I have a feeling you are going to swing back around to Snyders Watchmen being an excellent example of a comic book adaptation.

[Polident Hive]

Was listening to some conversations with Snyder about Watchmen, I was about to say last year, but back in 2021. Pretty interesting about what didn’t come together. Like the XBLA video game tie ins, they had ambitious plans behind a video game tie in that didn’t manifest. Cut the difference between a satire of licensed games and of transmedia. Lot of trying to mine the comic movie market of the time. Even the trailer song was an alternate track from Batman and Robin.

By far the most unfortunate consequence of timing was Tom Cruise having to pass on Ozymandias. Right as he was hiring comedians to do PR work after the Oprah and Scientology stuff. How Tropic Thunder came to be. At the time, and really until this day, Cruise backed away from controversial roles. Once Mission Impossible is done, and after he does that movie in space, he can do those roles again. Think PTA has asked him a few times.

Basically, what Will Smith will be doing for the next decade. Soon they’re gonna announce another Independence Day movie that retcons the sequel.