Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Knight of Cups is so obviously misnamed, they ought to be calling it, 'Night of Crap', as in that's what you'll have if...

you know this sounded better in my head. For real tho, movie sucks (said by a Malick stan, now apologist).

[helios]

Apparently, one of Lex Luthor's dastardly plans involves a jar of piss.

[Huff]

Oh man really liked the new new Star Wars. Ali wanted was a fun ride and it delivered. I even think the Death Star part tres worked since it was less about blowing it up (since we all know they would) and more about the gang vs kylo.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Lots of time on the plane. Time to catch up on the Craig Bond films.

- Casino Royale - I loved it, even despite the cheese
- Quantum of Solace - It was OK.

[chronovore]

Quantum of Solace was a letdown after Casino Royale, but SPECTRE makes QoS look like high art.

[Human Snorenado]

Some people on my fb newsfeed are saying positive things about this and I'm thinking about having them committed

[Madrun Badrun]

[VomKriege]

Knight of Cups is so obviously misnamed, they ought to be calling it, 'Night of Crap', as in that's what you'll have if...

you know this sounded better in my head. For real tho, movie sucks (said by a Malick stan, now apologist).

Bu bu nature shots !?

[Bebpo]

Batman v Superman - loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool


Look, there's a couple of good scenes, but there's so much bad/cringe stuff and the move is such a huge fucking mess.  Trying to cram what should be movie #8 in the DC Cinematic Universe in at movie #1.5 just does.not.work.  There's no impact, no emotional stakes, there's nothing because everything's just being introduced instead of coming together after 5 years of DC movies in the same universe.  And some of the scenes are so, so bad they would not work in any universe.  Also pretty terrible acting.  Movie also shows how Superman does not work in a DC Cinematic Universe because he's insanely OP compared to anyone else.

Best stuff is basically just the Man of Steel 2 Superman action scenes.  Snyder's take on how fast and powerful Superman should be to the naked eye is still interesting, unique and cool.  So basically if there was no Batman or anyone else and it wast just Man of Steel 2 it might've been an alright movie.  But DC UNIVERSE THE MOVIE #1 is a bad, bad film.  Zack Snyder lost any directing style he once had; even the directing is super bland. 

[Human Snorenado]

Batman v Superman: 8/10. Better than a lot of superhero films.

I'm glad I already have you on ignore, this aggression will not stand.

[Rahxephon91]

Well Batman V Superman was an interesting failure.

[Bebpo]

wtf

I'm a huge Snyder apologist.  Outside of Sucker Punch which is the worst film ever, I don't think he's made a bad movie.  I even liked Man of Steel even if it wasn't super great and was the beginning of Snyder losing his unique directing style that made his movies good.  But BvS is a BAD MOVIE.  It's not as bad as Sucker Punch but it's about halfway to Sucker Punch on the incoherent total fucking mess of a movie scale.  Hell there's a dream sequence that's straight out of Sucker Punch, complete with pseudo-dreamscape-nazis.  So.Bad.  Everything not Superman beating up people is pretty awful. 

[mormapope]

Thinking about it, Dawn of the Dead (2004) wasn't that good. It had none of the camp or social awareness of Romero's good zombie movies. First 1/3 is excellent. Second 1/3 is okay, last leg of the movie is sorta shit. When the hick security dudes get locked up is when the movie starts to nosedive.

I mean, 28 days later came out a couple years before. I'd say that was the modern peak of zombie movies or media to this day.

I think Zack Snyder might've been a great director for videogame movies. He always blows his load over action or gore.

[mormapope]

Its the movie that made fast zombies popular from that point on, and there was more than enough restraint when it came to how many zombies were on screen. All the C tier zombie movies in the past 15 years that have fast zombies, there will be dozens or a hundred zombies on screen. At that point there's no fear.

What the fuck can one or a few armed individuals do with a mob of fast zombies around them? There's no hope whatsoever, you're fucked from a million different angles. When main characters are able to escape that scenario, all drama and tension legitimacy is lost. I have genuinely thought "well, I'd accept death at that point" in the garbage, million zombies sprinting everywhere movies.

28 Days later has incredibly intense scenes where one or two zombies is fucking terrifying. There's hope, there's a chance of not getting fucked, but the room for failure combined with that glimmer of hope is what creates tension, fear.

 While I think Dawn of the Dead is okay, World War Z is a dog turd garbage fire in comparison.

[mormapope]

Dawn of the Dead's (2004) biggest misstep was the soundtrack sucked a lot of ass compared to the original. I got confused of which version is which for the soundtrack, since the European version has a different soundtrack and was edited differently/had different scenes.




 

EDIT: European version has the Goblin soundtrack. Theatrical US version has a mix of Goblin's work and the weird, funhouse stuff.

[Mupepe]

Dawn Of The Dead 2004 is traaaaaash. Been saying this forever and I still stand by that. It's the definition of a garbage 00's remake that does away with everything that made the original movie stand out.

Uhhh... You're thinking of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake.

[Mandark]

Something is obviously wrong with the way WB operates. Marvel paid like shit for years, yet they could still attract talent like Shane Black, Joss Whedon, the Russos, and Edgar Wright.

Who does WB attract? Fucking Snyder, David Ayer, and David Goddamn Goyer. That's the biggest tell to me that WB internally must be a mess of petty politics and subterfuge. With Marvel, I can easily see Feige holding absolute control and cutting all that shit out whenever he sees it.

Nolan must have been some kind of legendary fluke in the system.

I don't think it's surprising they were able to get those guys.  Look at where they were career-wise when they signed on.  Whedon ran one successful show in the 90's before having Dollhouse and Firefly cancelled.  Edgar Wright made some movies that got good reviews and didn't make much money.  Shane Black was in an extended career hangover post-Last Action Hero.  These guys were not going to be that hard to get (and this is from someone who loves Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the Wright/Pegg/Frost movies).

Pains me to say it, but Snyder might've been considered a bigger deal, or someone with more of a track record for directing big comic book adaptations.

Also, you can't use Edgar Wright as an example of Marvel being more functional than DC when he left the project.

[TakingBackSunday]

Antman still felt very much like a Wright movie, however

[Tasty]

My point was that Marvel could recognize and attract talent, which WB functionally can't seem to do.

If they're looking at box office pull over critical reception, that just proves my point even further.

[Human Snorenado]

Ehhhhhh. Antman felt like a movie where you could tell Edgar Wright had his fingerprints on parts of the script, mostly involving Luis and the other roommates. The end product, while enjoyable, didn't feel like an Edgar Wright movie to me.

[Tasty]

[Stoney Mason]

I didn't like Dawn of the Dead remake but that's a personal opinion thing. I still think it was highly flawed as a movie but I could also see why other people liked it. It has a great opening setup followed by a mostly mediocre movie.

It's a perfect example though of Synder. It's all bombast with very little deeper meaning compared to the original and that's him in a nutshell.

I still think 300 is his best movie because while its flashy and trashy, it feels most comfortable with itself.

[Great Rumbler]

In a lot of movies that make no sense on a plot level, the person will say, "I am going to rob this fruit store," and you can quibble about why a person would rob a fruit store, but the characters in the movie accept it and go about robbing the fruit store and we go along with it. They have conviction and authenticity and they really try to rob that fruit store good, even if we in the audience think they are being ridiculous for robbing a fruit store, because when it really works, it doesn't matter. In Batman v Superman the characters say, "I am going to rob this fruit store," and then go into the fruit store, throw fruit in the air, paint the walls with fruit, pay for the fruit, use the fruit as puppets in improv comedy, have a dance party with the fruit, build a home in the fruit store, burn the fruit store down, exit the smoldering husk of the fruit store and announce, "I robbed the vegetable store."

[Steve Contra]

I watched Minority Report for thee nth time on a plane the other day.  More and more convinced it's Spielberg's best movie.

[Great Rumbler]

I didn't really like the ending of Minority Report, everything else was pretty dope, though.

[Human Snorenado]

Some quality hate in this review

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2016/03/batman-v-superman-but-its-actually-glengarry-glen-ross-and-they-fight-over-the-good-leads

The best thing about this film is the ending. And not the substance of the ending, which makes no sense; it's the existence of the ending because it means I am no longer stuck in that theater watching this awful movie. And yet even this is a letdown! The ending carries the explicit threat that this saga will never be over. Warner Brothers has gone all in on this version of the DC characters for their own comic universe. Next will be Suicide Squad and then Wonder Woman and then Justice League. These movies will apparently all be terrible, but we'll see them anyway because that's life.

[Tasty]

Very bad. Profoundly bad. This movie is exhaustingly, catastrophically bad. It is a failure on every single level. The story is bad. The direction is bad. The music somehow manages to be bad. The acting is at best serviceable and at worst, in one egregious case, unwatchable. The sensation of watching this film is pain. The amount of pain may vary depending on your particular tastes, but some measure of pain is the promise of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Looooollll

And people said I was being "too pessimistic" for preemptively shitting on this film because Snyder.

[Mupepe]

It can't be that bad. It seems like more internet overreaction. I mean, they're making it seem like something as awful as that movie Australia.

[Joe Molotov]

I get the feeling that people would have liked this movie if it had come out in 2006 instead of 2016. It's like "Hey, we put three different heroes in the same movie, is that not enough? Are you not entertained?"

[Madrun Badrun]

Deadpool was just excellent.

[chronovore]

THE superhero getting outperformed by a low-budget Deadpool

This was also an opportunity for a crossover "Deadpool killed Superman" tag, but hey.

[VomKriege]

Should we shit on Goyer too ? Because honestly his resume ain't much better than Zack, with the same tendency for grimdark.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And that featurette on the Blade Trinity DVD where Goyer interviews himself

[close]

[Mupepe]

I liked it. Editing was definitely a mess. There's a lot of context and motive missing. The Blu Ray release is supposed to have an extra half hour. Hopefully that helps. Wonder Woman is awesome and the action is still far better than the Marvel movies I've managed to sit through.

[Mupepe]

Oh and the rivalry/fight is the least interesting part

[Tasty]

Goyer gets daps for being the comic nerd part of the Nolan trio who told them about various parts of the Bat-mythos, but yeah, I think he's mostly stopped giving a shit.

[Phoenix Dark]

Wasn't Goyer's scrip shit canned?

[Stoney Mason]

Rewatched Force Awakens. Some of it came off better some of it came of worse. Kylo Ren was better for me.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Han Solo death scene was better for me

[close]

On the slightly negative side, the rebooted natured of the project compared to Star Wars was even more apparent to me. Also the final space battle is completely inferior and wedged in compared to how great it was in the original. Still enjoyed it though.

My actual biggest critique is a piece of nerd business in that I think the movie does a really poor of setting up the political situation of what is exactly is going on. When I originally saw it, I was just kind of into the action and individual story beats so that it didn't really bother me. But later when I looked it up, and realized the movie never takes the time to explain it, I was a bit disappointed in that aspect.

[Stoney Mason]

Its not a huge deal for me but yeah its either being a bit arrogant or a bit lazy. Maybe they are saving some of the history lessons for a future movie or maybe they will just do a better job of delineating in the future.

[Mupepe]

I liked it. Editing was definitely a mess. There's a lot of context and motive missing. The Blu Ray release is supposed to have an extra half hour. Hopefully that helps. Wonder Woman is awesome and the action is still far better than the Marvel movies I've managed to sit through.

The fact that they drop what's essentially a teaser trailer in the middle of a narrative crescendo is a pretty awful mistake though. You're like, hype, hype, hype... wait... hype? Should this have been a post-credits scene?

Zack is really great at individual scenes, but he seems to really struggle with connecting scenes together to form a smooth narrative. Watchmen and Man of Steel suffered from this as well.

Yep. Agreed. It's very disjointed. I also don't like that the context of this Batman is completely missing. If you don't know the comic story then you don't get why he's an obsessive, paranoid asshole. He just comes off as unlikeable. They hint at it though so hopefully it's in the extended version. I really think there's a much better movie on the editing room floor.

All the actors play their characters well I thought.

[helios]

Jus tgot back from seeing it and it is complete horseshit. It's so full of awkward dialogue.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does Superman shout out his mom's name instead of mom or mother? I know why the screenwriter wanted it to be said, but there's no motivation for Superman to say his mom's name.

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

Jus tgot back from seeing it and it is complete horseshit. It's so full of awkward dialogue.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does Superman shout out his mom's name instead of mom or mother? I know why the screenwriter wanted it to be said, but there's no motivation for Superman to say his mom's name.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Woah, my mom's name is Martha too! Guess I won't kill you now, Superman. They way my parents got killed in a gutter."

[close]

[helios]

Jus tgot back from seeing it and it is complete horseshit. It's so full of awkward dialogue.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does Superman shout out his mom's name instead of mom or mother? I know why the screenwriter wanted it to be said, but there's no motivation for Superman to say his mom's name.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Woah, my mom's name is Martha too! Guess I won't kill you now, Superman. They way my parents got killed in a gutter."

[close]

We bros now

[chronovore]

It is likely the desire to make Star Wars a transmedia thing, like Disney has done with MARVEL properties, i.e. creating a continuity across TV and movies. Unfortunately they did the explaining in comics and novels, from what I can tell. And the visual dictionary. Like C3PO's red arm is apparently from a comic book, but they even take the time to draw attention to it in the movie.  Basically, yeah, the political exposition is scattershot across too many things, and a movie shouldn't require additional reading.

[chronovore]

Re-watched FURY ROAD last night.  It is still pretty awesome, even on a meager 42" screen. It is really hard to tear one's eyes away from that movie, even for a moment. Somehow I'd forgotten that Max doesn't even tell Furiosa his name until the end. I think there's some symbology about needing each other in that even Immortan Joe and the Bullet Farm and Guzzoline dude all need each other for what they produce, and Max saves Furiosa with his own blood. Everyone needs blood from Max. I dunno, there's something there.

[Tasty]

 

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

dudes, Remember is legit. Sure, you could make a downer movie about the tragedies of aging, the ones that we will all face someday with our inevitable decay over time (Amour, for example), or you could make that same movie and have the main character also be hunting a similarly aged Nazi, and it could be in turn hilarious, tragic, and thrilling. Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer, wonderfully doddering) is this year's frailest assassin, a dementia riddled man who can still get around well enough and has a strong purpose and drive, but only when he can remember it, without his notes or when he gets distracted he remarkably transforms into a lost little boy. Its also, rather slyly, about how our memories and conception of self play into who we are at any given point. Its a serious film that's has a tight thriller plot and set pieces. Its a crazy balancing act that shouldn't work as well as it does, especially from the up til now has been Atom Egoyan (I guess he's back). And it bears repeating just how damn good Christopher Plummer is in this, grounding a movie about a nonagenarian assassin and making the whole outragious thing not only work, but work beautifully. See it in a theater so those magnificent close ups register even louder then the gunshots that the main character is in no way qualified to deliver.

[Tasty]

Hey that's the guy from TGWTDT

[Steve Contra]

Holy shit Interstellar is bad.  I blame TVC for telling me it was bad, but not telling just how bad it was.

[Human Snorenado]

Shits all over DC so bad

 

[chronovore]

Should we shit on Goyer too ? Because honestly his resume ain't much better than Zack, with the same tendency for grimdark.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And that featurette on the Blade Trinity DVD where Goyer interviews himself

[close]

Oh, man that spoiler'd interview with himself was just so, so, so (so) bad. The man desperately misreads his own importance. And, of course, he's interviewing himself, congratulating himself, on the entry which broke the franchise's back. The man needs to be last receiver on the Human Centipede totem pole.

[chronovore]

Holy shit Interstellar is bad.  I blame TVC for telling me it was bad, but not telling just how bad it was.

I really enjoyed it. What parts of it didn't you like?

[Tasty]

I just looked that up thinking "there's no way that's a real thing" an lo and behold

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

If I ever meet David Goyer in person I'm totally going to geek out on him about Jean Claude Van Damme's Death Warrant (sole credited writer) and then ask him about nothing else.

"Who gives a shit about Batman, I wanna talk about how you factor a barely intelligible Belgian into your writing process."

[VomKriege]

dudes, Remember is legit. Sure, you could make a downer movie about the tragedies of aging, the ones that we will all face someday with our inevitable decay over time (Amour, for example), or you could make that same movie and have the main character also be hunting a similarly aged Nazi, and it could be in turn hilarious, tragic, and thrilling. Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer, wonderfully doddering) is this year's frailest assassin, a dementia riddled man who can still get around well enough and has a strong purpose and drive, but only when he can remember it, without his notes or when he gets distracted he remarkably transforms into a lost little boy. Its also, rather slyly, about how our memories and conception of self play into who we are at any given point. Its a serious film that's has a tight thriller plot and set pieces. Its a crazy balancing act that shouldn't work as well as it does, especially from the up til now has been Atom Egoyan (I guess he's back). And it bears repeating just how damn good Christopher Plummer is in this, grounding a movie about a nonagenarian assassin and making the whole outragious thing not only work, but work beautifully. See it in a theater so those magnificent close ups register even louder then the gunshots that the main character is in no way qualified to deliver.

Sounds good but the synopsis do kind of remind me of a 2004 belgian movie, De zaak Alzheimer (English titles : The Memory of a Killer / The Alzheimer case). Any relation by any chance ?

[seagrams hotsauce]

Interstellar is fine. The only really offensive part of it is Hans Zimmer's 'tribute' to Philip Glass

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Sounds good but the synopsis do kind of remind me of a 2004 belgian movie, De zaak Alzheimer (English titles : The Memory of a Killer / The Alzheimer case). Any relation by any chance ?

Yes, I've seen that film. No, there's no relation, and this is way better.

That film was really more a conventional hitman-movie with a unconventional lead, but it really only played lip service to its titular effect. If this movie bears a resemblence to anything, its a non-chronologically fractured spin on Memento.

also of note, but a digression, Dean Norris from Breaking Bad has a great part in this.

[VomKriege]

Yeah, the belgian film was a bit by the numbers. I imagine the Egoyan film is more akin to the Limey or something like that.

Glad to see Plummer and Landau (Thought he was dead to be honest.) getting work.

[mormapope]

Been waiting for this review, this is so good

[Great Rumbler]

$420 million worldwide opening, so get ready for a decade of Snyder.

[Joe Molotov]

Get rekt, Deadpool. DA GAWD is back.