Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[FatalT]

Motoko Kusanagi is mai waifu.

Honestly I prefer Mira 

[D3RANG3D]

Idontknowher.gif

[Momo]

[D3RANG3D]

[FatalT]

Idontknowher.gif

Same exact person, just Scarlett Johansson instead 😏

[D3RANG3D]

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

So damn many sequels flood the marketplace every year, so its a bit of a welcome surprise when one comes out that actually justifies itself and actually feels like a more mature work than its predecessor. So this years award for unlikely mediation on aging, misspent youth, and the traps of nostalgia go to T2: Trainspotting. But perhaps it shouldn't be quite so surprising, as the hard and fast life that's lived (and refrenced constantly) from the first film would inevitably give way to some sort of a seriously meloncholic middle age, should one survive that long. Its not all sad reflections on the past though, as Danny Boyle's now more refined style looms large and the prankish and distinctly British humor of the first film return as well. The original Trainspotting was a heavier film than it was given credit for, kind of appropriete that its followup pulls that same trick.

Kong: Skull Island has spectacular special effects, a great cast, a unique setting, is technically well made (no shakycam, thanks), and is still not great. So it successfully avoids many of the pitfalls of many a giant budget spectacle, but being a better breed of a shallow mediocrity doesn't make it much more admirable. And this is a shallow film thats playacting at making any sort of actual statement, it would have been better off not even having the Vietnam parallels if they're only going to bately engage woth them. I didn't hate the film, just took little joy from it. There was a pre-teen who exited the theater, babbling excitedly about what he'd  just seen and the possibilty of future films such as it. I wish I could have had his viewing experience. My inner ten year old liked The Great Wall much better.

[fizzel]

Saw GITS last night. Film is legit, a decent western adaptation of anime finally.

The shutdown of the white washing whiners also was particularly delicious.

[chronovore]

After saving it for a couple of years, building it up too far in my head, I watched the Lost in La Mancha documentary about Terry Gilliam's attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in Spain. Apparently they started at a disadvantage because his previous film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, had flopped – despite a history of moneymaking films, Hollywood's fickle nature meant that Terry would be making the most expensive exclusively-European funded film to-date, which was still less money than Terry should have had to make the scale of film he'd hoped to make. Then things start to go wrong on a scale that makes it look like God himself is against the production.

Great movie, I recommend it.

[benjipwns]

Khechari10 hours ago
I think 'Justice League' is making a bold statement about how cliche the use of color in films has become since the end of the black and white era.  It's a bandwagon that they refuse to get on, and I applaud them for it.  Same goes for using lighting.  Everyone uses lighting nowadays.  Finally someone has the guts to stand up and make a movie where I can't see what the fuck is going on.

[benjipwns]

garnier fructis

[benjipwns]

Haim Saban detailed that he and Lionsgate already have a six-movie [Power Rangers] story arc.

[Momo]

Hopefully it's 6 movies where they kill off a power ranger in increasingly brutal ways.

[Rahxephon91]

So I liked Ghost in the Shell. Now I don't think it's a good movie. I don't even know who could enjoy it other then a fan.

See I enjoyed it really because of seeing how much imagery they lifted from the anime. Just so much little things brought to life. It was incredible in that regard.

But honestly the story is really boring and so boiler plate. Not to say the original movie is any better. It's not, but the original movie is more of a mood and idea piece brought to life with really good direction. Do you really care about the conflict between Section 6 and 9. Batou's little rundown of at the end summarizes how little you should be intersted. It's quick and about a bunch of names you don't care about. The plot there was just an excuse to bring up intersting ideas and scenes. The Puppet Master case it self serves to look into the Major's idenity crisis, but it's not about her past. Rather well can I even be called alive if I strip away maybe shallow things that define human?

In the ScarJo movie a lot of that is gone, replaced with a traditional story. One you know and one you could guess from the trailers. It's boring and really told with no style. My friends who saw it with me and no nothing of GiTS hated it and I can't blame them. It's slow and predictable. There's some talk of what it means to be human but it's shallow and as a character piece it kind of fails because while the Major is a possibly good character and Scar Jo really does carry it, I feel the thematic story really wanted to hinge on the Major finding a place in the world. I guess in her conclusion her place is in Section 9, but the supporting cast is'nt developed to help this. They weren't really in the original movie, but SAC gave everyone a role. See they really should have focused on developing the side characters and show how they trust and respect the Major, like in SAC. They should have used Togusa as an important viewpoint character like they do in SAC. USe him to see all the strange stuff and ground it. You also never get the perfect idea that she really is good at this stuff and belongs in section 9. It's a failure in the script to really come together.

Kuse is a boring villain who should have been used to as a counter point. Someone who has been given a new life like the Major but refuses to accept it. Instead he just becomes boring vengeance guy with sympathetic past.

But still like in the original movie, I did like Batou and the Major. It's pretty similar to all anime GiTS where it's clear he has some attraction to her, but also a lot of respect. They did'nt really have his more silly side though.

All in all I think it's a movie that really misses the point of the franchise. There's not a lot of exploration of technology's effect on humanity, beyond some lip service.

But it looked really good, had solid acting, and brought the anime to life.

So I liked it.

[Great Rumbler]

Ghost in the Shell actually ended up being an okay movie. It's definitely not great, but it does enough things right to keep it afloat. First off, the problems I had with it: too much overexplanation, weak and predictable story, some of the issues the movie touches on just don't get enough screen time. I doubt anyone is really surprised by that, it's still ultimately a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster. But the design of the world is sooo good, one of the most fantastic looking future cities since Blade Runner. Whoever was responsible for that deserves a pat on the back. Cinematography was pretty great for the most part, too, with a lot of really great shots and well-done action scenes [very little shakey came from what I remember]. Clint Mansell's soundtrack is stellar, lots of dark and moody synth throughout [no dubstep at all, and the original GitS theme plays over the end credits]. Solid cast, I thought, nobody really gunning for an Oscar but everybody did what they needed to [Beat Takeshi being exceedingly cool, as always]. Another minor thing: outside of The Major, Batou, and Chief Aramaki, most of Section 9 never really got a chance to stand out. With everything the movie tries to pack in, they just didn't have enough time to give them any more.

+Visually stunning, great soundtrack, decent cast, well-shot action scenes
-Predictable story, lots of overplanation, tries to fit too much into its runtime

I will say this, despite not really being good, I'm already hoping for a sequel.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Yeah, that's a great flick. When the storms hit...
Gilliam must have pissed off some diety at some point.

Speaking of great directors and their misfires, the suddenly prolific Terrence Malick bounces back from his awfully darn bad previous film (Knight of Cups) to make Song to Song. I liked it, but it carries all the same weaknesses (and much of the cast)of his insufferable last work, but much less so. This one feels like a mulligan, one that doesn't quite get all the way there but at least doesn't go massively astray. As with pretty much every Malick film, its a near plotless meander about beautiful people being elegantly sad, there's some predictably lovely imagry, many winsome looks, and whispered narration. There's some real chemistry amongst the leads, starkly nice pictures, and some actual emotional hooks here. Malick may never again make a film as rich and powerful as Tree of Life, but the fragile alchemy that he's been increasingly revealing remains fascinating to watch, even when he face plants as he did last year, or just make something that's a bit ragged but still affecting, as he does here.

Life is a dumb movie, made well. Efficient, with a lean script, scenario, and the bare minimum of fuss. It guesses up its 'Monster Aboard a Space Station' plot with great production values (seriously, the effects in this are awesome) and an overqualified cast. With a matching chilly and highly technical filmmaking style to match the clipped, not terribly emotional characters. Yeah, you could call it a direct descendant of Alien (the obvious inspiration), but really its a more refined (amd expensive)version of a B-picture ripoff of such. 2017's closet blood relative to Deepstar Six.

[I'm a Puppy!]

After saving it for a couple of years, building it up too far in my head, I watched the Lost in La Mancha documentary about Terry Gilliam's attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in Spain. Apparently they started at a disadvantage because his previous film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, had flopped – despite a history of moneymaking films, Hollywood's fickle nature meant that Terry would be making the most expensive exclusively-European funded film to-date, which was still less money than Terry should have had to make the scale of film he'd hoped to make. Then things start to go wrong on a scale that makes it look like God himself is against the production.

Great movie, I recommend it.

I actually require those I mentor in Project Management to watch this movie. It's a perfect example of "everything will go wrong"

[Joe Molotov]

I thought Ghost in the Shell was pretty bad, but they really blew me away with that twist at the end:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Motoko lived at the Commune and Kara was the Puppet Master. :eek I wonder if he sounds like Max Headroom in real life, or if that's just more Hollywood magic.

[close]

[chronovore]

After saving it for a couple of years, building it up too far in my head, I watched the Lost in La Mancha documentary about Terry Gilliam's attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in Spain. Apparently they started at a disadvantage because his previous film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, had flopped – despite a history of moneymaking films, Hollywood's fickle nature meant that Terry would be making the most expensive exclusively-European funded film to-date, which was still less money than Terry should have had to make the scale of film he'd hoped to make. Then things start to go wrong on a scale that makes it look like God himself is against the production.

Great movie, I recommend it.

I actually require those I mentor in Project Management to watch this movie. It's a perfect example of "everything will go wrong"

It's definitely a good example of why scheduling should never assume that everything will go as planned. I had one programmer at my last company who, swear to god, never met a single one of his self-set deliverables. He quit to work in AI, and I joked that I appreciate him delaying the arrival of SkyNet.

[bork]

Saw Ghost In The Shell.  I thought it made for a good 'popcorn' movie, otherwise it was just like someone decided to make some scenes from an anime as live-action and then just sort of fill in the gaps in-between.  There was also a lengthy part towards the end where it was kind of...boring?  My wife and I were both getting sleepy.  At least I stayed awake through the whole thing, unlike the Oshii film. 

ScarJo did well enough and I really like the guy who played Batou, although both of them had two straight-up goofy things, unchanged from when I saw the production photos- The Major's lol-haircut and Batou's cybernetic eyes.  They just don't work in real-life and I found it almost distracting.

Beat Takeshi's hair was almost as goofy, and I also found it funny that he spoke Japanese when pretty much nobody else did.  What?  He also came off entirely as "I don't give a shit about this role and want to go home" with his performance, but my wife said that he's always like that. 

Re: the white-washing thing.  I don't think this "shut down anything" with the plot, especially at the end when the plot reveal is that

spoiler (click to show/hide)

a huge corporation kidnapped Japanese people and turn them into white people.  

[close]

  Like...come the fuck on. 

Finally, I get that they were going for the city being a big melting pot and all, and that's fine, but...where the fuck were all the people?  The city was amazingly empty.  Just seemed weird.

Anyway, it was worth what I paid to go see it, which was nothing.  Free movie passes FTW.

[VomKriege]

Kitano being bored or slighty amused by ultraviolence is pretty much his whole acting and directing career.
Though I suspect he probably had the same level of implication than his bit part in Johnny Mnemonic. Who knows ? Maybe he likes cyberpunk ?

[Bebpo]

Ok, so Trainspotting 2 - I don't think I've seen a Danny Boyle film since Sunshine?  (*edit* nm, just looked it up and forgot he did 127 Hours, Slumdog and Steve Jobs since then.  Man totally forgot he did Steve Jobs, which was really good.  That movie had style but it didn't feel very Boyle-ish style)  I like Boyle, and T2 shows once again he hasn't lost his skill as a director at all.  The movie is well directed with a neat use of style that's both throwback to the late 90s T1 hipness, but also restrained enough to not be cringey.  The first half or 2/3rds of the movie is great and was on track to being the second best movie I've seen this year after Sing Street, but then T2 pulls another Sunshine and devolves into being a chase/action/light-thriller popcorn film.  The first half really felt like the movie was going to have some real themes about how the world's changed in 20 years and the people that have been left behind and how growing older has affected these characters.  But then it just sorta ditches everything, has a few goofy chases and standoffs and then ends and just feels style over substance.  It's still a good popcorn sequel, but script could've used some work.

like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

So Renton's character comes back seemingly grown up, then comes back and is really in the dumps, so he joins up with sick boy and does some scams for some money, falls for his gf...ok fine.

Then he goes to the trainspotting spot, and after a short little spat with sick boy suddenly does Heroin for the first time in 20 years and then there's some chases and he runs around and escapes, they lose all their money and goes back to just being a loser living with his parents again.  The end.  ? wtf.  Like it feels like several HOURS of plot is missing in Renton's character arc.  Is he supposed to be so desperate with no direction that he gets pulled back into the world of drugs and violence and ends up in his old room doing drugs as he's fallen back to who he was 20 years ago?  Is he supposed to have come back and close to the edge of falling back into old habits but has gained wisdom and makes better choices?  Everything that happens to Renton in the movie feels like he's being moved around for plot convenience and not because his character actually develops in any direction.  Like the scene where he comes back and says he's got nothing, no kids, a divorce happening, losing his job, so he's got nothing else to do and he'll follow sick boy's plan is short and totally undersold; it never really feels like Renton is in the dumps.

[close]

I dunno, I haven't seen Trainspotting since the first year or two after it came out, so I don't remember much but I thought that the movie and the novel both had some things to say about the generation at the time.  T2 just feels like it lacks any depth that the first may have had.  Still would recommend seeing it, but like Sunshine it isn't this great movie that it should've been.

[VomKriege]

Yeah I didn't see a ton of his films but Boyle recently struck me as having the 90-00 Spielberg syndrome of having pretty terrible endings. Which is a shame, because the dude is obviously pretty talented otherwise.

[I'm a Puppy!]

I'll say it. I thought Ghost in the Shell was a perfectly fine movie, not great, but fine. I thought it did what Hollywood had to do and remove the dense psychobabble from the source material and give it something that pedestrian audiences could ingest while setting up the characters and the world. The animation was a mixed bag especially with some of the critical scenes devolving into a "oh that's badly animated".

On the whole whitewashing thing, I think given the way the movie's plot goes it actually could have lead to some really interesting discussions

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What does it mean when a corporation can set your race? Do you really expect a white company to build a robot that isn't white. What does that mean? Given that the white race is seen as the most powerful one currently, what happens when some company finds a way to alter the genes to make people look whiter? We already do it in hair and makeup, why do we think it's going to be any different with new technologies?

[close]

Instead it will devolve into x character isn't japanese so therefore this movie is Hitler.

Sorta funny to see the difference between this and the Ghostbuster's movie. Sorta polar opposites.


Also, Kitano was great as always. His whole "I don't even know why I'm here." kind of acting is in full force. And if it were anyone but Kitano I think I'd be like "WTF?" But it's Kitano and even in his own movies it's his MO. An MO I personally find hilariously entertaining.

[ToxicAdam]

GitS bombed at the box office (19 million). Kind of surprised.

[Joe Molotov]

I'm wondering how much of the 44% RT score has to do with the whitewashing backlash. Is this really a 44% film if you replace Scarlett with an otherwise identical Japanese actress?

Yes. It's an I, Robot tier movie.

[ToxicAdam]

I wonder if to the average person it looked like just another 'Lucy' movie. A movie most people found kind of ridiculous.  That's still pretty fresh in people's minds.

[Mr. Gundam]

I love SAC, like the original movie, am pretty indifferent to Innocence and found Arise boring.

I'll end up seeing this at some point.

[I'm a Puppy!]

I'm wondering how much of the 44% RT score has to do with the whitewashing backlash. Is this really a 44% film if you replace Scarlett with an otherwise identical Japanese actress?

Yes. It's an I, Robot tier movie.

I don't know if I buy that. That'd put it in "boss baby" territory and this isn't THAT bad. It's just not a "wow" movie. Having a Japanese actress wouldn't have changed a thing though.  And I'm not entirely sure that the poor showing was because of the vocal minority out there ranting about the race stuff, in the end they are just that, a vocal minority. I think it's just not a great time for a movie and it's not going to stand up to Gaurdians of the Galaxy 2 and the summer blockbusters. I suspect it'll do well in the rental/streaming market with a series or sequel upcoming.

To me, GitS as a hollywood movie was always a hard sell. The built-in audience is never going to be happy with what you produce (as we can see here) and the general public will not know/understand the material. Honestly, I never thought it would be a blockbuster. But like I said, for what it had to be for Hollywood, I think it's fine.

[Great Rumbler]

I could see GitS pulling in pretty good numbers in China, maybe Japan, too.

[toku]

[Valkyrie]

Finally got around to watch Arrival. Alien invasion is one if my favorite Sci-Fi genres, and I thought the movie was good. Maybe I've seen too much travel Sci-Fi, but a lot Of the plot  was very predictable, which made it less enjoyable than I would have hoped. But I personally still think it's above average, and would definitely recommend it to others who like Alien invasion movies. It's pretty interesting too, since it contains some cool details on gravity and other details.

[fistfulofmetal]

I enjoyed Arrival but I was a bit disappointed by a few aspects of it:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the language decoding aspect to be super interesting and they sort of... gloss over it. I would have loved a version that spend another 45 minutes having them figure out their language. When the move moved to weird timey wimey stuff I lost interest a bit.

[close]

[Valkyrie]

I enjoyed Arrival but I was a bit disappointed by a few aspects of it:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the language decoding aspect to be super interesting and they sort of... gloss over it. I would have loved a version that spend another 45 minutes having them figure out their language. When the move moved to weird timey wimey stuff I lost interest a bit.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Agreed, I find decryption very interesting (ala movies like Da Vinci code) both in movies and general. So it being about alien language made it even more cool, but I also felt she learned it way too fast. I think it kind of "sucked" that she was able to talk that directly with the aliens, and that early on. Dunno, I wish it was more indirect and foreign, due to the nature of it all.

[close]

[toku]

I enjoyed Arrival but I was a bit disappointed by a few aspects of it:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the language decoding aspect to be super interesting and they sort of... gloss over it. I would have loved a version that spend another 45 minutes having them figure out their language. When the move moved to weird timey wimey stuff I lost interest a bit.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Agreed, I find decryption very interesting (ala movies like Da Vinci code) both in movies and general. So it being about alien language made it even more cool, but I also felt she learned it way too fast. I think it kind of "sucked" that she was able to talk that directly with the aliens, and that early on. Dunno, I wish it was more indirect and foreign, due to the nature of it all.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I looked at it less like she was learning a new language, and more an entirely new way of thinking.

[close]

[CatsCatsCats]

Anyone seen Ghost in the Shell yet? Any good?

[Great Rumbler]

Anyone seen Ghost in the Shell yet? Any good?

At best, it's merely okay.

[chronovore]

I enjoyed Arrival but I was a bit disappointed by a few aspects of it:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the language decoding aspect to be super interesting and they sort of... gloss over it. I would have loved a version that spend another 45 minutes having them figure out their language. When the move moved to weird timey wimey stuff I lost interest a bit.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Agreed, I find decryption very interesting (ala movies like Da Vinci code) both in movies and general. So it being about alien language made it even more cool, but I also felt she learned it way too fast. I think it kind of "sucked" that she was able to talk that directly with the aliens, and that early on. Dunno, I wish it was more indirect and foreign, due to the nature of it all.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I looked at it less like she was learning a new language, and more an entirely new way of thinking.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not just that, but the effect of the thought modality itself could affect her actual forward-chronological learning pace.

[close]

And puh-lease don't step with the DaVinci code comparisons. At least Arrival was internally consistent and arguably coherent. Dan Brown is the greatest unintentional literary comedian of our era.

[D3RANG3D]

Tropic Thunder, this movie would leave social studies warriors literally shook if it came out today.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those fake movie previews. 

[close]

[chronovore]

Tropic Thunder, this movie would leave social studies warriors literally shook if it came out today.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those fake movie previews. 

[close]

The movie gets better on repeated viewings.

[Purrp Skirrp]

[chronovore]

Tropic Thunder, this movie would leave social studies warriors literally shook if it came out today.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those fake movie previews. 

[close]

What do you mean you people?

What do you mean you people?

SO GOOD.

[Valkyrie]

I enjoyed Arrival but I was a bit disappointed by a few aspects of it:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found the language decoding aspect to be super interesting and they sort of... gloss over it. I would have loved a version that spend another 45 minutes having them figure out their language. When the move moved to weird timey wimey stuff I lost interest a bit.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Agreed, I find decryption very interesting (ala movies like Da Vinci code) both in movies and general. So it being about alien language made it even more cool, but I also felt she learned it way too fast. I think it kind of "sucked" that she was able to talk that directly with the aliens, and that early on. Dunno, I wish it was more indirect and foreign, due to the nature of it all.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I looked at it less like she was learning a new language, and more an entirely new way of thinking.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not just that, but the effect of the thought modality itself could affect her actual forward-chronological learning pace.

[close]

And puh-lease don't step with the DaVinci code comparisons. At least Arrival was internally consistent and arguably coherent. Dan Brown is the greatest unintentional literary comedian of our era.

Wasn't comprimg them as movies, I just said I like deciphering/decrypt movies like that one too

[Purrp Skirrp]

[Momo]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle presents

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Olivier Assayas delivers a genre muddled eventual thriller with Personal Shopper, which I liked, but seems to be deliberately rambling through a discursive narrative. Its a Kristen Stewart showcase, where she's in a ghost story, crappy fashion job, exploration of grief, and a Hitchcockian thriller. Its a weird mix of pieces, where the protagionist is as likely to spend time clothes shopping as she is talking about her dead brother or engaging in standard issue thriller shenanigans. But as different as all the pieces are, and each seperate piece could be its own movie somewhat easily, but they somehow compliment each other. Its a busy movie with a languid tone and pace with a fairly compact running time. Recommended if you've got a taste for the bougie discontent/danger movies that the French manufacture on the regular.

Why, why did I spend so much of my life until recently having never seen Crippled Avengers? Even its title is a gleefully efficient affront to syntax. The rest of the movie combines the very best looking cheap violence possible with frequent and astounding displays of gymnastic skill and dream logic plotting. Its so much fun to watch that I couldn't be bothered to activate the critical subsectionss of my brain, watching a guy loose a fight to the death because of his need to pull of as many sweet flipsmand sommersaults as possible will do that to you.

[Bebpo]

I had some time to kill in LA because traffic, and saw Life and it was TERRIBLE.  Like this is probably the dumbest sci-fi movie I've ever seen.  And it's essentially just Alien and brings nothing to the genre.  As Hyperzonewasawesome says it's a stupid B-movie slasher flick.  Like the closest movie to me would be Jason X played totally straight.

The actors/actresses are all completely wasted, they do nothing except run, shout, close doors, and die horribly.  I'm a Gyllenhaal fan and he's wasted here and doesn't get to do anything here. 

The problem is the movie is played straight and it's just SO DUMB.  The entire movie I was 

Every.single.event / plot movement only happens because someone does something idiotic.  It's like non-stop dumb decisions.  Even at the end when the remaining characters were coming up with the FINAL PLAN I was like "are you fucking kidding me?  This is the DUMBEST IDEA EVER"; it's basically a movie about the worlds dumbest astronauts.

And unlike Alien, there's no likeable, intelligent character to get behind and root for. 

And then the ending is just a nail on the coffin for a totally awful sci-fi flick.  I have no idea how this movie got financed.  Why did they think making Alien again but dumber would be worth anything?

Life is a dumb movie, made well. Efficient, with a lean script, scenario, and the bare minimum of fuss. It guesses up its 'Monster Aboard a Space Station' plot with great production values (seriously, the effects in this are awesome) and an overqualified cast. With a matching chilly and highly technical filmmaking style to match the clipped, not terribly emotional characters. Yeah, you could call it a direct descendant of Alien (the obvious inspiration), but really its a more refined (amd expensive)version of a B-picture ripoff of such. 2017's closet blood relative to Deepstar Six.

Yes, it was well directed/cinematography/etc..., but I just don't see how anyone can find it enjoyable if they like sci-fi at all.  I mean stuff like Jupiter's Ascending is super dumb, but entertaining sci-fi, Jason X is super dumb kids making dumb decisions and getting killed in space, but it's campy and fun.  LIFE is totally dry & serious and I didn't find it fun because it asked me to take it serious and I tried to but couldn't stop rolling my eyes.

[thisismyusername]

Rogue One really wasn't that good. I feel like Whitta and whoever co-wrote with him wanted to throw so many planets in just for the sake of FX that they kinda forgot that they needed to make characters I wanted to care about. Outside of the Blind Monk and his protector, I couldn't give a shit about Mads, his daughter, and the rest of the rebels taking the Death Star plans.

[Bebpo]

You know, the more I think about it, the less I think Life is B-movie monster slasher played straight and the closer it is to a torture porn film in space.  I mean the way the director treats the characters by brutalizing and killing them in horrific ways seems like the whole point of the film is the director having fun torturing the characters.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean you have hand shattered, death by tentacles eating your internal organs, death by drowning in toxic coolant, and then that ending.  One character drifting off into space to run out of oxygen and die alone, the other cocooned in a state beyond death.

[close]

[Mupepe]

Ghost in the Shell is terrible. A coworker also kept arguing with me that it was the sequel to Lucy 

Terrible f'ing moving though.

Disclaimer: I've never sat through the entire original either.

[Mupepe]

Becky G has got a phat booty and that made her interesting

[Great Rumbler]

Joe and I watched Your Name. since it finally got a baka gaijin release. The theater even had the subtitled version, which was nice.

Anyway, I was going to write something more here, but the paragraph I wrote felt so bland. It's a beautiful and incredible movie, go see it in a movie theater while you have the chance.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I've kind of fallen out of contemporary anime (save every Ghibli release). I've seen two of Makoto Shinkai's previous works and actively disliked them, so I come to Your Name with surprising (to me) praise and a qualified recommendation. I would say its worth seeing just on the basis of its technical achievements alone, its a friggin visual stunner. And Shinkai has thankfully dialed down the preciousness of his some how paranormally obstructed lovers (that's every film of his, right?). The characters are mostly inoffensive, the plot is compelling, and they really animated the hell out of this thing. I liked it, I don't understand how this thing became the a runaway JPN box office champ, but its a perfectly fine film.

The Devotion of Suspect X is a murder mystery about dueling math geniuses on each side of a crime. Its a good mystery when its not getting bogged down in sentimentaliy. Perhaps the already made Japanese or Korean versions of this story are better.

[CatsCatsCats]

just watched Arrival without any spoilers and

spoiler (click to show/hide)

cried like a babby

[close]

[chronovore]

just watched Arrival without any spoilers and

spoiler (click to show/hide)

cried like a babby

[close]

[Junpei the Tracer!]

Split was pretty lit.

[CatsCatsCats]

Yo that was a fun movie get a grip

[Shuri]

Rogue One 

Biggest letdown in a long time.

It felt like an expensive fan film. The pacing was super weird. The soundtrack was  . The story went in 129 directions at once and was full of holes. Vader's suit looked bootleg, even his proportions were wrong.

They manage to make space battles boring in this one.

The Empire dude in white was the less threatening bad guy ever. His suit looked super cheap. I think they were going for a Christopher Waltz in Inglorious Bastards thing for him, but it failed terribly.  I give them bonus points for Peter Cushing's 3d model, it was a nice try. Leai's 3d model felt off. There was such a lack of aliens in this one. Admiral Ackbar's cousin and his buddy looked like videogames cutscenes.

The characters were so uninteresting. Even the black robot was lame. He had no personality, nothing stood out.

Everything about the movie felt low budget.

Vader's attack at the end was very cool and made me realise that he should had been the bad guy for the entire movie instead of the dude in white.

I never want to watch it again.

[chronovore]

I agree that the pacing was off, and that Vader's physical proportions seemed somehow suspect. I disagree with everything else. This was the story of a different set of characters with their own trials and pathologies. Krennic was a pretty standard Imperial, but including his arc meant the story could balance resolving his story with The Dirty Dozen rebels.


 I watched Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride, seeing it on the way through after having tried to watch it I will times before.  It is a beautiful film, with excellent character design, and a couple of interesting notes on class. Unfortunately, the songs are uneven and largely forgettable, and the story itself lacks punch.

[chronovore]

https://twitter.com/MarvelStudios/status/851419840241782784