Seen any good films lately? [3]

Cruz, Cruise...enh...both religious fanatics with a full head of hair well into middle age.  How am I to tell the difference?

Even this one Halfy ?

Well she's different, obviously. Her first name doesn't start with 'T'.

Starship Troopers. 'Nuff said

After Suicide Squad made for three strikes in a row (each successively worse) I told myself that I was done spending money on DCEU movies unless I heard something phenomenal about one. Turns out that the very next one, Wonder Woman, fit that description so I finally went to see it tonight and I really enjoyed it. I hadn't read any detailed reviews so I still had some worries but the movie avoided all of them. Far and away the best DCEU movie so far and one of the better superhero movies (from any continuity) of recent vintage. Still planning on sitting out Justice League unless it's as well-received, though, since that's more of a direct follow-up to BVS and not from the same director as WW.

I too enjoyed it a lot. There were clunky parts that felt out of place and obligatory*, but watching the movie was a pleasant experience.

*

Spoiler:

I find WWI to be a really fascinating historical period so it's nice to see it get more attention in pop culture. I'm also looking forward to Dunkirk next month as well though.

I must admit that I'm more interested in the new Thor film, as well as Murder on the Orient Express. But I do believe I will go see Dunkirk too.

Watched War Of The Planet Of The Apes last week, it was pretty enjoyable and the CGI was astounding at times, but it was definitely the weakest of the three films and I've already forgot half of it, a very thinly sketched human antagonist, severe pacing issues, and a somewhat misleading title that ended with a disappointing climax

Spoiler:

Watched Dunkirk earlier and I'm not sure how I feel about it, on the one hand it was a technical marvel-great editing, cinematography and tension wracked set piece after set piece with an experienced director at his best, the tension starts within minutes and doesn't ease off till the closing minutes, on the other hand it all left me a bit...cold?

Like many of Nolan's films it felt almost too meticulously put together and precise, it was more like a chronologically disjointed documentary rather than a narrative driven film (which may or may not be a problem depending on your point of view-I can see why Nolan did it that way, it it works pretty well, but I just couldn't emotionally involved in the film), most of the characters were mere unnamed cyphers with little to do but react or spout exposition (though there is actually very little dialogue) and although that was an obvious move on Nolan's part (the battle is the real character of the movie, the soldiers just being mere cogs in reacting to and trying to survive it which would be true to life...how could you have much character development over the space of a week?) it was both very hard to confuse them, and very easy to not get emotionally involved in the storyline (and I say that as a Brit, we aren't exactly known for being blubbering outgoing sorts), the soundtrack was overbearing and gave me a headache.

It was a good film, but not necessarily an entertaining movie

Though I'm very glad to see a big budget WW2 movie focusing soley on the British with no hamfisted hollywood cliches or actors forced in

That's a film Id like to see & I liked your review on it Malick

azriel wrote:That's a film Id like to see & I liked your review on it Malick

It's definitely worth watching (on the biggest screen you can, it was shot in IMAX for a good reason   ), and thinking it over I may have been a bit hard on some elements in my short review above, regardless of its structural/character shortcomings it is a very well put together movie (though I did notice one or two glaring continuity errors), I did enjoy it (even if it wasn't that emotionally engaging) and it was very interesting to see how varied the ages of the viewers were in the cinema including more than a few pensioners wouldn't be surprised if some were the children of Dunkirk veterans (my grandfather served with the R.E.M.E in WW2 and once made a vague reference to landing in France (the only time I ever heard him talk about his war service), he would have been too young to fight at Dunkirk but may have been involved with the D-Day landings), I already knew quite a bit about the battle.

I've watched lots of World War 2 films so perhaps I was just used to something different/putting my own biases onto the film, it's one of those movies I'd have to watch twice to really get a good sense of how I feel about it...

7/10 for now i.m.o.

I have plans with my sister to go see Dunkirk on the true IMAX screen at the Maryland Science Center on Saturday. Will read your thoughts on it full after that, malick.

In the meantime I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming tonight and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I saw bits of the first two Raimi films when they were new-ish, but didn't watch them all the way through until earlier in this year. Enjoyed those too, though I didn't love them to the extent that some people I know do. I'm not sure where I'd rank Homecoming in relation but I think it was a worthy addition to the MCU. Tom Holland, Jacob Batalon, and Michael Keaton were all really good as was the impressive supporting cast they put together.

Saw Valerian and the thousand something or other last night. What a waste of money. I'm not complaining about the money I spent so much as the money spent on special effects that could have gone to a much more worthy cause. Sure, the movie looks fine, but the movie, which tried to have heart, just didn't. Even Avatar was more emotionally moving.

I'm not sure if I can blame this on screenplay or direction, because Luc Besson did both, and I loved the Fifth Element. Like (was it Eldo?) I have to blame it on the one remaining difference between the two films: the actors. There are only a few actors in their early 20's who can carry a lead, and this film had two who couldn't. Not that they are incompetent, they do quite well as secondary characters. But they haven't developed the experience to carry a film of this scope.

Oh, and going back to Wonder Woman, it was good until they made the choice to go for the epic final duel. Yawn, been there, done that. They could easily have cut it out and improved the movie. Except for that it was pretty good.

Dunkirk was great. Different from your typical WW2 movies, and takes a while to shake off after you've watched it. Not one I'd watch again in a hurry - not because it was bad, but because of the impressions.

halfwise wrote:Oh, and going back to Wonder Woman, it was good until they made the choice to go for the epic final duel.  Yawn, been there, done that.  They could easily have cut it out and improved the movie.  Except for that it was pretty good.

I'm not a huge fan of superhero movies (and haven't read any comics, apart from Watchmen, which is far from typical of the genre...) but I thoroughly enjoyed Wonder Woman, very likeable believable characters, good dialogue and pacing , solid direction and good acting...though I agree the ending fight was a bit...shit it wasn't necessarily bad, just felt like a formulaic, loud punch 'em up tacked on by the studio, if an ending fight was deemed necessary they could have done something a bit less generic i.m.o...

That said I'll happily give the sequel a shot...though I don't think anyone will convince me to sit though Suicide Squad or Batman vs Superman...

malickfan wrote:

halfwise wrote:Oh, and going back to Wonder Woman, it was good until they made the choice to go for the epic final duel.  Yawn, been there, done that.  They could easily have cut it out and improved the movie.  Except for that it was pretty good.

I'm not a huge fan of superhero movies (and haven't read any comics, apart from Watchmen, which is far from typical of the genre...) but I thoroughly enjoyed Wonder Woman, very likeable believable characters, good dialogue and pacing , solid direction and good acting...though I agree the ending fight was a bit...shit it wasn't necessarily bad, just felt like a formulaic, loud punch 'em up tacked on by the studio, if an ending fight was deemed necessary they could have done something a bit less generic i.m.o...

That said I'll happily give the sequel a shot...though I don't think anyone will convince me to sit though Suicide Squad or Batman vs Superman...

Yeah I agree about the end battle. I don't think they could have ended it with the killing of the bid bad German dude (I almost said Nazi oops haha), although that would have been interesting. But just showing the reveal of Ares without the combat would been a fine ending too, right?

I would have ended it with killing the German Dude and finding nothing happened as a result. That had some poignance which was destroyed by the Ares fight.

Saw Dunkirk today and I thought it was fantastic. I knew going in to expect more of a survival/thriller kind of story than a more traditional war movie (not meant as a knock against other war movies) and I think it was massively successful at that. There was great tension and dread throughout, the music was really effective, and the visuals were stunning. Malickfan mentioned that the characters were sparsely drawn but I didn't find that to be a negative. The movie was very clearly about the visceral experience and letting the characters remain cyphers made it easier to feel immersed in the events on screen, as well as helping to keep the running time down and the pacing intense. The immersion factor was definitely helped by seeing the film on a real IMAX screen that filled almost my entire field of vision. The flying scenes in particular benefitted from this. About half of the film was shot on IMAX 70mm film which I believe is the most of any Nolan film so far. This meant that the aspect ratio kept changing but I didn't find this to be too distracting and my sister apparently didn't notice at all.

For reference, the below chart shows a regular cinema screen on the left, a "LieMAX" screen in the middle, and true IMAX on the right. The vast majority of IMAX-branded screens are actually "LieMAX". You can click on the image to see the full-size version if part of the picture is cut off (though you'll probably have to be signed in for the link to work).

I watched it in standard definition (which was expensive enough, not going to fork out £15-20 for one IMAX showing, no matter the screen size/definition.

Yes it was well made, and yes I get why Nolan wrote the characters like that but frankly I just didn't find it very engaging, an impressive spectacle but a rather cold and introverted movie...

I just found the pounding/ticking score to be too much. The repeated build-up and Inception-style sound-blasting began to dull my senses and overwhelm my interest in the story.

{{Saw Sharknado tonight. It was on the netflix listing and we just couldn't resist. We should have tried harder.
In answer to the question this thread poses it would have to be 'no, no I haven't!'
I like a good bad film- and this one has the prerequisites- an utterly unbelievable and silly plot, an entirely predictable and forgettable script and a cast of actors raging from day time soap standard to shouldn't still be in the profession.
The effects are terrible- I mean home computer hitfilm effects done badly terrible. The editing, cutting and direction are often a hopeless mess with shots not matching, scale of cgi sharks changing angle to angle, just a litany of errors and inconsistencies and amateur hour production.
In sort it should be enjoyably, laughably bad.
But overall I found it lacked the charm for that. Something like Plan 9 From Outer Space is a good bad film not because everything about it is absolutely terrible, which it is, but because no one involved knows that. They are all up there on the silver screen giving their all and their best in what happens to be a ridiculously awful film- and therein lies its charm as a bad film.
Sharknado sets out to be a bad film, it's knowingly a bad film, it nods and winks to itself at how unbelievable it all is, characters talk about how stupid everything is and in doing so shreds itself of any real charm. And when you take the charm out of a bad film all you have left is a bad film. Like this one. }}}

I love old B films I love the old Horror films with their dramatic music & dear old Bela Lugosi with his fantastic, over the top stare straight out from the Silent era.


My favourite actor was Boris Karloff . I adored him. No mater how cheesy some of the Old films were I still smiled but, todays "God awful films" ? No excuse, Easily forgettable rubbish. I guess they can be used by film students as to what not to do ?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Saw Sharknado tonight. It was on the netflix listing and we just couldn't resist. We should have tried harder.
}}}

Well some people liked it!

http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-almost-played-president-sharknado-3-2017-8

When will this guy stop being entertaining? He sort of stopped being entertaining in the election on account of being such a jackass, but now that we're used it, looking back and realizing he was always a jackass is sort of delightful.