Movies

Bull Shannon said:
Wait, 4DX throws you out of your seat?
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Agreed; while I think this was the most successful Godzilla movie at foregrounding human characters and giving personal stakes to an impersonal monster (Godzilla is already a metaphor for trauma, but in this movie he felt like an actual personification of one specific person's trauma), the human story was a little rote and melodramatic.

When it comes to the end:
I'm curious what didn't land with folks. I don't disagree it was a bit clumsy and rote, but I felt like the ejector seat, while fumbled with a Hudsucker-esque flashback, had thematic importance in terms of the Japanese army not providing ejector seats for pilots tying in to the endeavors of the people rescuing us. I guess it was convenient that everyone survives but the reunion at the end got to me.

An interesting tidbit I read was that the director, while wanting to do a sequel, didn't write the end with a sequel in mind so much as they wanted the audience to feel like the story and characters keep going. Very Back to the Future esque...at least until they made BTTF 2.
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I can't get spoiler tags up from my phone. But it was specifically the part you call convenient.
 
Bull Shannon said:
When it comes to the end:
I'm curious what didn't land with folks. I don't disagree it was a bit clumsy and rote, but I felt like the ejector seat, while fumbled with a Hudsucker-esque flashback, had thematic importance in terms of the Japanese army not providing ejector seats for pilots tying in to the endeavors of the people rescuing us. I guess it was convenient that everyone survives but the reunion at the end got to me.

An interesting tidbit I read was that the director, while wanting to do a sequel, didn't write the end with a sequel in mind so much as they wanted the audience to feel like the story and characters keep going. Very Back to the Future esque...at least until they made BTTF 2.
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God, I love the Coens.
The Denmarkian Wonder said:
The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three

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Hey, a masterpiece!
 
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I saw Godzilla Minus One yesterday. I did enjoy it quite a bit. The destruction scenes are pretty remarkable, and I liked the human story underneath it all. But the hype I’ve seen was so crazily high that it just couldn’t possibly live up to that. It’s good, but I don’t know that I looooved it.
 
Bennnnn said:
I saw Godzilla Minus One yesterday. I did enjoy it quite a bit. The destruction scenes are pretty remarkable, and I liked the human story underneath it all. But the hype I’ve seen was so crazily high that it just couldn’t possibly live up to that. It’s good, but I don’t know that I looooved it.
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Yeah. It was good! It's a crowd pleaser! But I think the excitement is a liiiiiiittle much.

Very happy to see it and Miyazaki atop the box office though. That rules.
 
I am gonna go to the movies this afternoon for my birthday and my first inclination was to go to the IMax and see with The Boy and The Heron or Godzilla Minus One either seems like it would be something that would really work towards getting the most out of what IMax has to offer.

Then I noticed the smaller theater near me is showing Die Hard for $6 bucks a ticket and while I am sure seeing either of those Japanese blockbusters would be worth the $20 tix (plus $8 bridge toll) I think I am going with Die Hard.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
What'd you guys think? Mr. Robot is a top 3 TV drama of all-time in my book and I like Homecoming a lot as well so my expectations were quite high.

Here's the review I left on Letterbox (with a 3.5/5 score):

Leave the World Behind is primarily an exercise in themes and tone.

The film does a phenomenal job of seeping you in a creeping sense of dread and paranoia. It's also gorgeously shot and features superb sound design and performances.

Unfortunately, the film goes the route of overtly explaining the puzzle instead of leaving the audience with just enough pieces to come to their own conclusions. And by doing so, some of Leave the World Behind's themes become muddled.

If Sam Esmail had made a few tweaks in the editing room, he could have had a cult classic with an iconic ending shot on his hands. Instead, Leave the World Behind is merely a fun ride that also mildly disappoints considering the standards set by Mr. Robot and Homecoming.

Still, I'll be first in line for whatever he does next.
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I think your critiques are fair, but they didn't bother me. Given that the Obamas produced it, I suspect they did not want there to be any ambiguity in the message they want to achieve with it. Perhaps the flaw is that movies which try to toe the line between intelligent audiences and those who want everything spoon fed, end up not fully pleasing either. But as a compromise I think this one pulled that off better than many who try.
 
Hemotep said:
I think your critiques are fair, but they didn't bother me. Given that the Obamas produced it, I suspect they did not want there to be any ambiguity in the message they want to achieve with it. Perhaps the flaw is that movies which try to toe the line between intelligent audiences and those who want everything spoon fed, end up not fully pleasing either. But as a compromise I think this one pulled that off better than many who try.
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Well stated.

I will say I've been thinking about the film all day.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Also, just finished rewatching all of the Hobbit and LOTR Extended cuts and have come to the conclusion that these films are modern day Shakespeare.
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I rewatched the Hobbit trilogy recently. The Hobbit was about as fine as I remembered, Desolation was a lot MORE fun than I remembered, and I thought Five Armies was a real drag. Should have been two movies directed by Del Toro. What the Tolkien estate took from us!
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Also, just finished rewatching all of the Hobbit and LOTR Extended cuts and have come to the conclusion that these films are modern day Shakespeare.
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Watched the first two extended versions of LOTR last year, and never got back around to Return of the King. That's on the agenda for the the weeks off ahead. Also I have bene curious about The Hobbit. I loved that book maybe more than the whole LOTR. Also loved that creepy animated version from decades ago. But I always heard the movies weren't so good. I think I'm gonna give them all a shot anyway.
 
Bennnnn said:
Watched the first two extended versions of LOTR last year, and never got back around to Return of the King. That's on the agenda for the the weeks off ahead. Also I have bene curious about The Hobbit. I loved that book maybe more than the whole LOTR. Also loved that creepy animated version from decades ago. But I always heard the movies weren't so good. I think I'm gonna give them all a shot anyway.
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I adore The Hobbit (the novel) - the first movie feels closest in spirit, but the whole thing is just too stuffed with extra lore, and the script feels sloppy and sweaty in a way the original trilogy never did, since Jackson was basically flying by the seat of his pants trying to get them made. I really don’t blame him, but still.
 
kvetcha said:
I adore The Hobbit (the novel) - the first movie feels closest in spirit, but the whole thing is just too stuffed with extra lore, and the script feels sloppy and sweaty in a way the original trilogy never did, since Jackson was basically flying by the seat of his pants trying to get them made. I really don’t blame him, but still.
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That’s kinda what I would expect. But I love the original Hobbit story.
 
The Denmarkian Wonder said:
I really, really dislike the Hobbit trilogy lol
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I was kinda in on the first one as a 6/10 but fell off with the second. After marathoning all three extendeds earlier this year I think it’s really only the third movie that feels like a true stinker. All of them are inferior to LotR and are sort of critically broken by the decision to split into a trilogy. Waste of a good cast.

I’ve heard the Tolkien Edit is quite good, might give that a shot at some point.
 
I've only seen the first Hobbit movie and was massively turned off by the injection of lore which serviced the LOTR story and not the immediate Bilbo Baggins story. As a kid I was exposed to The Hobbit early via the book and cartoon, and think I only learned about LOTR in fourth or fifth grade. It was mind-blowing to me: The Hobbit is a (mostly) self-contained treasure hunt, and I found it absolutely wild that an ancillary plot detail was spun out into this massive, consequential epic. Everything the Hobbit movie does works directly against the sense of expansion and higher stakes and flies in the face of The Hobbit being a fable for kids.

As for the Extended Editions, I still have them all but now maintain the theatrical cuts are superior: the added material does little for me beyond appeasing the need for a complete adaptation of the story.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I've only seen the first Hobbit movie and was massively turned off by the injection of lore which serviced the LOTR story and not the immediate Bilbo Baggins story. As a kid I was exposed to The Hobbit early via the book and cartoon, and think I only learned about LOTR in fourth or fifth grade. It was mind-blowing to me: The Hobbit is a (mostly) self-contained treasure hunt, and I found it absolutely wild that an ancillary plot detail was spun out into this massive, consequential epic. Everything the Hobbit movie does works directly against the sense of expansion and higher stakes and flies in the face of The Hobbit being a fable for kids.

As for the Extended Editions, I still have them all but now maintain the theatrical cuts are superior: the added material does little for me beyond appeasing the need for a complete adaptation of the story.
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I was read The Hobbit and saw the cartoon as a kid but I held neither in as high regard as you an others have expressed so maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me. Peter Jackson’s LOTR universe is a place I enjoy being, so while the extended versions might not add much to the movies overall they allow me to spend more time in middle earth with characters I am fond of. This is, to a lesser extent; probably why I also dig the 3 hobbit films. It could have been one movie that stayed true to the source material and might have made for a better single movie overall than any of the 3 films we got but I would have had less time in Middle Earth had we only gotten the one film and in these cases I prefer quantity of quality (especially when I feel like there is isn’t a huge dip in quality overall).
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Feelings about the Amazon series?
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I enjoyed it, not as much as the Peter Jackson movies, a bit of an over-reliance on CGI but that just feels like a the way the industry is going. The first season was a bit scattershot and fragmented but I enjoy the pieces and as long the creators are building to something I will probably stick around and see where it ends up.
 
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