Movie Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by sphinxvc, Dec 29, 2015.

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  1. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    I admire many things about Tarantino's writing & directing, but the few things I detest pretty much block me from seeing his work now: frequent, sometimes incessant use of the N word; and perverse cruelty & violence filmed for maximum psychological impact. Per the latter, I passed up the opportunity to see one of my favorite actresses, Jennifer Jason Leigh, brutalized for much of the film. Regardless, I fully acknowledge Tarantino's mastery of cinema as screenwriter & director.

    There were 2 excellent reasons to see VENOM--Tom Hardy & Michelle Williams--but somehow I missed it (probably on deadline for the 1-2 wks this film was on local screens). I'd rather see them both flat-out act absent CGI and prosthetics, but then, gut-bucket creature features have their allure.
     
  2. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    Went to see Captain Marvel proper, really open minded enough to give it a chance.

    But it was just bad. It's the first MCU movie that actually bored me. Even the bad ones like Thor Dark World and Iron Man 2 didn't bore me. It really felt like going through the motions, "let's just hurry up and establish that a woman is going kick Thanos' ass and save everybody"... none of it felt earned. Generic girl power nonsense. What happened to the days of Ripley and Sarah Conner? Actual badasses that didn't need to denigrate men in order to prop themselves up. Movies that were well made. I'm all for equality and representation, but by God you gotta earn that stuff. Otherwise it feels empty to me.

    Only thing I liked was the cat and the banter/chemistry between Carol and Fury was pretty good. But Brie Larson feels miscast. Like she was reading cue cards half the time. Scarlett Johansen could act circles around her.

    I'd say I was disappointed but I'm only a casual fan of these movies.
     
  3. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Watched this last night with a friend. Decent.

    [​IMG]

    I however recommend this first. Less B.S.

     
  4. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    I think you might be projecting a bit here. I thought the movie was good up until the end where they went over the top with the powers
    and not only her but that whole sequence where they fly up to the power source and subsequent battles
    but I feel the same way about iron man or whatever. You kind of box yourself in with a character like Thanos where you’ve given him so much power - all the infinity stones - and he just destroyed half of the life in existence, then you need to come up with some crazy shit to defeat him. If it wasn’t an overpowered Captain Marvel joining the Avengers then it’d be something else.

    I didn’t see that at all. Remember that her character lost her memory in the accident and was taken and trained by the Kree (of Ronan the Accuser fame from GotG, not the most fun loving crew), and they even made a point of showing her trying to learn to repress her emotions to become a true Kree warrior. Second they paired her up with Fury who was totally over the top, and somebody had to be the straight man (or woman). Get away from this movie and the MCU and watch Short Term 12 and tell me Scarlett Johansson is a better actor.
     
  5. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    Oh Brie is a good actress. I'm saying in this particular film she isn't very good. And I'm not the only one who's complained about her acting in this. So I don't feel I'm being unfair. Black Widow > Captain Marvel.

    The thing with Captain Marvel is that it's a bit of a Dues Ex Machina. We know Captain Marvel is going to beat the shit out of Thanos, so where's the surprise? We see it coming from a mile away. I feel like Thanos was such a huge threat and so totally demolished the Avengers, it would've dramatically been more satisfying to see them have to raise their game to defeat him. Not rely on some overpowered last minute shoehorned in character that has had no build up over multiple films like everyone else. You know what tension is? It's Iron Man going toe to toe with Thanos, because he was unmatched. It's like David and Goliath. I'm not terribly interested in overpowered supervillain against overpowered hero. It's boring to me. But we will see how they handle it. I'm curious.
     
  6. Jinxy245

    Jinxy245 Vegan Puss

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    Alright I'll chime in. I've been holding off because this is somewhat of a polarizing movie, and opinions are all over the map. I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing, but that's where we're at.

    I thought it was an adequate enough movie, it didn't bore me, nor did the 'feminine issues' strike me as over the top/overdone. On the contrary, they basically told the story of a character fighting to discover herself. I honestly didn't see the 'generic girl power' stuff myself, except that you honestly can't tell a story of a woman realizing her power(s) in our (or I imagine Kree) society except through the lens of being considered 'less than', or an underdog. I thought they handled it fairly well.

    I do agree that Bree's acting was subdued at best, but it engaged me nonetheless. I can definitely understand finding her dull though.

    The argument can definitely be made with Marvel (comics) changing the storyline to suit the feminine perspective (i.e. making the original Captain Marvel female) but Marvel (comics) has a long history of changing their stories to suit their desires.

    The comics themselves & her powers have changed considerably since their inception. From the original 'Nega Bands' that originally channeled his/her energy to the "WarBird" character that Carrol Danvers had assumed, Marvel is constantly shifting the story around. Heck I'm curious if the Kree/Scrull storyline will change at all, since neither race was portrayed as benevolent or peaceful in the comics.

    And I really hope it doesn't boil down to Capt. Marvel kicking Thanos' but across the galaxy as this would not only be inaccurate, it would be a total disservice to just about the entire Marvel universe. She's powerful, but not that powerful. Thanos' accumulated power having the Infinity Gauntlet is maybe a step down from Galactus or the Watchers if you're familiar with them.

    Not my favorite Marvel movie by a long shot, but alright...obviously used for backstory leading up to Endgame. Which may be why they relied more heavily on humor than in some other franchises (excpt Deadpool & GOTG I think. FWIW, I did enjoy the Flurkin & Nick Fury backstory.)
     
  7. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    I’m with you there, the more outlandish they go the harder it is to suspend disbelief.

    I think the power source in the cat will probably feature somehow, CM was just an ordinary person who was infused with some of its power, what if Thor and the other Avengers got juiced up instead.
     
  8. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    What I love about Ripley and Sarah Conner is gender wasn't addressed. They were just strong people who happened to be women and just did their thing. There was no "the man is holding me down" or "we can do it better than the boys" theme going on like you had in Captain Marvel. Even though they often did things better than men they didn't gloat about it. That stuff just annoys the shit out of me because it plays into the whole victim culture that we've become embroiled in recently. I hear it from blacks too. The white man is to blame for my problems., Yada yada.

    James Cameron railed against this stuff and was roasted on social media for it. If anyone's an authority on female empowerment it's him.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    All psyched to see Bohemian Rhapsody but came away disappointed. I am actually old enough to remember Live Aid to see it as a kid on TV. That was the event of the time if you liked popular music. The Who, Madonna, Elton John, Phil Collins, Clapton, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, etc. I think I still might have the VHS tape recordings in my parent's house. The end was super weird with the recreation of Queen's performance at Live Aid. Yeah, just super weird seeing this fake almost shot by shot recreation of it. It was like why? With a robotic Freddie Mercury with exaggerated motions. Would have been better if the movie makers had just invented some concert fictional event as a send-off to the moviegoers.
     
  10. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    I only really know Live Aid as the concert that made the Style Council came over about 100x cooler than they actually were but all that concert was filmed, maybe they should have used the end of the movie to show some of the actual concert footage because that’d be about a million times more entertaining than seeing some guys lip synch and pretend to play instruments.
     
  11. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    Curious if you've seen Incredibles 2? I thought they handled that topic wonderfully. A fair bit of the the Super Hero plot is unspectacular but over all I really liked the movie.
     
  12. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    Woooooooow. This is not a good look.

    Lolololol. The authority on female empowerment is a man.
     
  13. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I agree completely. It would not have detracted from the movie at all to end with some real footage of the real Freddie and Queen performing at the real Live Aid. Of course, we know they took some liberties with the facts throughout this movie anyway, for instance Freddie did not find out he had AIDS until a couple years after Live Aid.

    It's not uncommon for biographical movies to deviate from reality sometimes. Still, it had the participation of the other band members in it's production, so even if things were glorified or overstated, it's probably still as good a depiction of his life as you will find anywhere.

    It's a movie, intended to be entertainment and not just a strict historical record. I personally think it succeeded in that.
     
  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Bohemian Rhapsody was an overlit Freddie Mercury TV movie that wrote him off as a catty gay stereotype. I laughed my ass off when he walked out of the AIDS clinic into the light like it was his destiny to horrifically and painfully waste away and die of AIDS. There was no drama, struggle, existential sense of alienation from the world, or even suffering. Instead it was some montage of some gay leprechaun man with fake teeth inspiring arena rock hits by rock star excess like a two hour episode of Behind the Music with re-enactments.

    Basically Queen was a bigger band than Motley Crue so they got a bad Hollywood film while Crue got a bad Netflix show with similar production values and no plot.
     
  15. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    Recent ly I watched Collossal (2016), was fun, didnt expect it due to the weird movie theme. Hataway is hot
    Widows (2018) was alright but forgetable
    The guilty (2018) was great, original theme.


    Hateful Eight was great!
     
  16. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Response to the above discussion about Bohemian and Marvel:
    Hollywood Proper almost never gets on trends in a timely manner, and when it does, it almost always bollixes it somehow. This is despite their having noting but the best of intentions (or so I'd like to think). Gender, racial identity, sexuality— all these things they attempt to, or make a token effort to, address in a bid to get people to fund their paychecks.

    ^^^^ Yup.

    What really bites about EVERY one of these pandering movies is that apart from being forced to like them (you're racist/sexist/bigoted if you don't agree that they're the best thing ever!) is that they normalise poorly crafted films and cheapen the selfsame things they claim drives these films. Being LGBT isn't just wanting to sleep with different people or not being comfortable with the body you were born in— in modern society it involves every bit of what Psalmnazar mentions above and then some. Also, while being in a minority can be simplified to "I'm being treated poorly because I look different", the way it's often portrayed in pop media just glosses over all the layers and nuances that come with people not liking you or you not liking yourself because of matters well beyond your control.

    Not a film, but despite the creator saying otherwise Detroit: Become Human is a great game that deals with the issue of racial discrimination (by subbing out racial minorities for androids). Yes its approach is as subtle as a foghorn in your face, but it's better in that regard than most pop films I've seen recently. If Captain Marvel does turn out to be gay as some people have been speculating then I'd be fine with that as long as it's done well and not as egregiously bad as JK Rowling randomly shoehorning stuff into her canon to be more SJW friendly. I'm speaking as a massive Harry Potter fan when I say that that a lot of this is just f'ing ridiculous.

    I've been posting less often cuz I've been remarkably irritable and cynical for a bunch of reasons, didn't mean to drag that here. Sorry.

    Actual movie-related post:

    Saw Possum last night. It's a UK horror film that was very slow to start but had an effective premise and one hell of a tense close that I was genuinely unnerved. Though there are jumpscares, they aren't nearly as cookie cutter or overdone as you'd get in most large-scale horror flicks. Acting is damn good, and you can tell that each of the shots was carefully composed.
     
  17. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    When you've basically created the poster child for the modern "strong female" cinematic character (Sarah Conner) and shephered the other (Ellen Ripley) into an academy award nomination (unheard of for a horror flick) and endless mimicking by other filmmakers who regularly acknowledge it as a kind of gold standard.... Yeah, you are something of an authority.

    Regardless of what's between your legs.
     
  18. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    I2 did a pretty good job of it. But most modern films seem to suffer from hamfisted attempts at implementing sociopolitical themes. It's not that their intention is wrong, they just seem incapable of packaging the message in anything but an us vs. them structure. They're actually creating division, not equality. Some films are better at it, like I2, but there were moments I kind of winced.
     
  19. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    The female empowerment that James Cameron sells may have been groundbreaking back in the late 80s/early 90s (30 years ago!), but it's a neutered form of empowerment. Ripley and Sarah Connor did things that usually only men got to do, but they did so by either assuming "male" responsibilities with the approval of the men in charge (Ripley) or transforming themselves into a caricature of male aggression/violence (Sarah). The short version: women can do the same things men can do, but don't worry men: there's not that many women like this and there's still plenty of room for you at the table.

    I haven't seen Captain Marvel yet, so I don't have anything to say about that character, but if you are looking for a more genuine form of female empowerment, watch Fury Road. Women that upend the traditional gendered power structure, don't need the approval of men to act, and consider men either a resource to be used (Max) or a cancer (everyone else).
     
  20. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    That’s how it works in reality though. Mad Max describes no large human society and the bad guy in Fury Road is closest to cult leaders. Charlize Theron still assumes a male role, kills people, and rips the bad guys face off like it’s Speed with Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper. Speed is a much better movie than Mad Max 4.

    Most women cannot be Catherine the Greats and Margaret Thatchers but if Catherine the Great and Margaret Thatcher did not behave as they did, then they would not have come to rule their societies. Even a woman ruling a modern human society is still ruling that society as she is heading a social system that gives ultimately grants her authority over mass organized violence. Mass human violence is typically committed by young men. A female ruler is assuming a traditionally male role. If that society breaks down, she will not be the psycho on the ground stealing livestock and torching villages. If any ruler cannot control large amounts of pissed off enough young men, bad shit happens.

    If you don’t want to watch movies where women do things that men do, chick flicks are that way. Sure there are dramas and movies like Fargo but most movies are formulaic trash or awful, tensionless pandering trash like Mad Max: Fury Road. You can watch Fargo and then you can either watch something that is the modern version of a Soviet collective farm female tractor driver musical romance for the glory of socialism or you can watch Speed.
     
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