Movies

Max Sterling said:
We rented Black Widow this weekend. It was fine. Better than every recent DC movie I've seen. David Harbour and Florence Pugh were the best parts of the movie, Taskmaster was the worst part... aside from Black Widow apparently being invulnerable to everything.

I'd wait until it's included on D+ in October if you're on the fence about seeing it.
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I also enjoyed it, but wouldn't rank it in the top half of MCU films. It also would have been better had it been made back before Infinity War... or even earlier, but 🤷‍♂️...
 
Indymisanthrope said:
There's an appeal to the idea, someone who can match the fighting style of anyone they study...

But how do you convey that visually? They telegraph it a bit with the shield and by the introduction scene including analysis footage of Hawkeye but to general audiences, how do you show this character's mastery of fighting styles without first establishing what these fighting styles *are*? If the movies don't give you a clear fighting "vocabulary" for the characters, then it's hard to tell if Taskmaster is a perfect mimic, or just good at fighting, like a cut-rate Winter Soldier.

The whole concept is probably better suited to something like a martial arts movie where different fighting styles are already woven into the language of the film. But even then, the more screentime you have to devote to explaining what Taskmaster is doing, the less time you have to actually show what Taskmaster is doing and advance the plot.

I did like the attention to detail that even though Taskmaster is clearly shown as being skilled with the shield, the shield itself is inferior to Captain America's.
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Certainly a valid criticism of the way this version of the character was presented.
I was hoping that they would use the whole "Red Guardian has been in prison this whole time and there isn't any footage of him fighting" to give him an upper hand (aside from his super strength/speed) but they didn't do that. Or maybe even have Taskmaster handily end one of the main characters with a signature Widow move or something to give some weight to their strengths. But they didn't do that either. In the comics one of the only people who can defeat the Taskmaster in hand to hand is Deadpool, as he's too unpredictable, but Taskmaster is a very different version in the comics. I just felt like they underutilized the character and then explained away their abilities with technology, which in an already crazy Marvel Universe seemed unnecessary.
 
Old was a fun time at the movies, a pretty decent two-hour Twilight Zone episode. I really like Shyamalan's insistence on showy camera work and blunt dialogue delivered as unconvincingly as possible. I don't quite get what people find so infuriating about his movies; maybe there's a self-serious "auteur" edge put on his name, but in a world where most popular film is overloaded with explanations, rules, and empty overtures towards "gritty, adult storytelling," watching movies by a filmmaker actively playing with their audience is a rare thing.

Realistically, movie was a B-minus, but I found it absolutely entertaining.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I really like Shyamalan's insistence on showy camera work and blunt dialogue delivered as unconvincingly as possible.
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Basically the only reason The Happening is so fascinating to me. It’s so bad it’s good and the only explanation I can think of is he asked the actors to deliver lines as if they were a sociopath that was constantly experiencing a brain hemorrhage.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I don't quite get what people find so infuriating about his movies;
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For me it’s his incessant need to overly explain everything. He treats his audience like they’re a bunch of children with ADD and if your going to make plot twists/reveals as your calling card you better not make them so forced and obvious. He would rather be seen as “clever auteur” than make good movies.

Every movie he has made would have worked much better as a hour long episode of the Twilight Zone. And even then Rod Sterling woulda probably had to step in and prod him to leave some of the mystery up to the audience for interpretation.

Also, I REALLY hated Signs. The ham-fisted spiritualism was bad enough but the idea that an advanced race of alien beings would travel down to a planet that is 70% water; a substance so prevalent that it literally rains down from the sky regularly, and didn’t realize that substance was poisonous to them… it’s so fucking stupid. “Swing Away” FFS that movie makes me angry just thinking about it.
 
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TenderLovingKiller® said:
Also, I REALLY hated Signs. The ham-fisted spiritualism was bad enough but the idea that an advanced race of alien beings would travel down to a planet the is 70% water a substance so prevalent that it literally rains down from the sky regularly but didn’t realize that substance was poisonous to them is so fucking stupid. “Swing Away” FFS that movie made me angry after it was over.
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THIS. So much this. I'm still seething over giving that movie any of my time. Funny enough, that's also how a lot of people seem to feel about The Village, but I quite like that one.

The Happening was dumb af, but I went into that one knowing it would probably end up that way, so I was mostly just disappointed in myself in the end.
 
EvanBenner said:
The Happening was dumb af, but I went into that one knowing it would probably end up that way, so I was mostly just disappointed in myself in the end.
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Funny enough, the better half and I were on vacation this past week and were relaxing the hotel room and this came across the tv. I hadn't seen it in years (intentionally so, I imagine).

And within five minutes I said to my wife, what is up with this fucking dialogue. I feel like there were stage notes to make Wahlberg and Deschanel sound as stupid as possible. Wahlberg sounded like Samberg doing his impression of Wahlberg. The children actors actually delivered there lines halfway decently. But what was going on with the leads?
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
For me it’s his incessant need to overly explain everything. He treats his audience like they’re a bunch of children with ADD and if your going to make plot twists/revels as your calling card you better not make them so forced and obvious. He would rather be seen as “clever auteur” than make good movies.

Every movie he has made would have worked much better as a hour long episode of the Twilight Zone. And even then Rod Sterling woulda probably had to come in and prod him to leave some of the mystery up to the audience for interpretation.

Also, I REALLY hated Signs. The ham-fisted spiritualism was bad enough but the idea that an advanced race of alien beings would travel down to a planet the is 70% water a substance so prevalent that it literally rains down from the sky regularly but didn’t realize that substance was poisonous to them is so fucking stupid. “Swing Away” FFS that movie made me angry after it was over.
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Funny enough, I watched Signs while locked in last summer as the air outside was too smoky from forest fires; it's a weird milieu for watching a movie about people stuck inside watching the news and grasping to find out what's going on across the world.

But yeah, I can't argue with any of these problems; they're all baked into his style, for better or worse, and I guess I'm trying to pull for the concept that if you plant your tongue in your cheek and just accept what's put in front of you at face value, they're for the better. He's got an imagination, and I can't fault him for it being a slightly dopey imagination. I recently described Glass as a superhero movie that grabs you by the lapels, shakes you, and shouts "why do you like superhero movies so much?" over and over for two hours; he likes to be convoluted and blunt at the same time.

It does feel like the bloom came off the rose for most people with Signs and moreso with The Village, and people said "he's starting to get bad." But I think he's always been kinda bad, and the more movies he does post-After-Earth, the more he seems keyed into that being an actual, distinctive style, yet I don't hear about these recent movies when people drag him. True, if you hated the spiritualism of Signs, the "my kids are growing up too fast" parental angst of Old isn't going to do it any better for you because it's equally ham-fisted. Though he does abandon the navelgazing for the more immediate questions, like "what is happening on this beach?" and "is something happening with time on this beach?". And the logic is similarly pat and shaky, leaving questions like why isn't there a fuckton of bones left on the beach?
 
Selaws said:
Just watched Pig.

Such a great film, I don't really know what I was expecting but it wasn't that. Really enjoyed it and I can see myself watching it again for sure.
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I forgot it was Nic Cage after like 30 minutes in, great performance by him (first good non-wacky Cage performance since... "Joe"?) It's not a perfect film but it's the kind of film that should be made much more often than it is. Super glad it's getting buzz.
 
Selaws said:
Yeah completely agree. He really suited the role and I like how mysterious of a character he was. Much better than a cheesy background flashback or a side-character saying "OMG thats.......from......born......etc".
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My wife liked it but she wanted to know the significance of the pig (like how he got it; e.g. John Wick the dog was a gift from the deceased wife) or how the wife died.

But I contest that the outlines and shadows, rather than a full picture gives emotional heft; since emotions are often outlines and shadows universal to us all and then expressed through particulars. Whether he got the pig from the wife, right after he died, or he got it years later didn't matter. It became the focal point for any love he had left in his tank. He didn't need it for anything other than something - the only thing - left to love in the world.

Same with the wife. Whether she died from a long illness, an accident, a crime, etc., etc., etc...he was broken from that loss and in that case a loss is a loss is a loss regardless of the particulars. We aren't told and I think for the better.

Plus it gives more weight to his intersection with the son/truffle dealer and the father/rare food king. The emotions he is able to elicit from himself and with them that may have long been dormant and almost the extremes food can have between deprivation to satisfaction to gluttony/greed did better to bounce around in an amorphous, unexplained universe, IMO.

EDIT: just to tag the wife @MsLoganHenney since we watched it together and she might like to join the discussion/give her thoughts
 
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PadishahEmperorDiaperBaby said:
My wife liked it but she wanted to know the significance of the pig (like how he got it; e.g. John Wick the dog was a gift from the deceased wife) or how the wife died.

But I contest that the outlines and shadows, rather than a full picture gives emotional heft; since emotions are often outlines and shadows universal to us all and then expressed through particulars. Whether he got the pig from the wife, right after he died, or he got it years later didn't matter. It became the focal point for any love he had left in his tank. He didn't need it for anything other than something - the only thing - left to love in the world.

Same with the wife. Whether she died from a long illness, an accident, a crime, etc., etc., etc...he was broken from that loss and in that case a loss is a loss is a loss regardless of the particulars. We aren't told and I think for the better.

Plus it gives more weight to his intersection with the son/truffle dealer and the father/rare food king. The emotions he is able to elicit from himself and with them that may have long been dormant and almost the extremes food can have between deprivation to satisfaction to gluttony/greed did better to bounce around in an amorphous, unexplained universe, IMO.
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I completely agree. I actually think that the pig could have been anything at all, it's more the fact that he poured his emotions into this one entity after his wife passed away. I think this is kind of confirmed when
he tells Amir that he doesn't need the pig to find the truffles and that he can do it himself using the trees
. Gives that extra weight to the story and almost turns it into something else compeltely.
 
Selaws said:
he tells Amir that he doesn't need the pig to find the truffles and that he can do it himself using the trees
.
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Right, which also - and maybe I'm giving it more depth and credit than it was going for - gives more weight to purpose and meaning in life.
Like, how the pig collaborated with him and had a sense of purpose on truffle hunts although he didn't need the pig. Parallel to how Amir wanted to do what his father did. A father who, really, just treated him like shit; and who would set him up with a relaxed job/living. But he wanted to do what his father did. Even if his father set up roadblocks and didn't think he had the stones.
 
PadishahEmperorDiaperBaby said:
Right, which also - and maybe I'm giving it more depth and credit than it was going for - gives more weight to purpose and meaning in life.
Like, how the pig collaborated with him and had a sense of purpose on truffle hunts although he didn't need the pig. Parallel to how Amir wanted to do what his father did. A father who, really, just treated him like shit; and who would set him up with a relaxed job/living. But he wanted to do what his father did. Even if his father set up roadblocks and didn't think he had the stones.
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Oooh I like this!! Good shout!
 
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