Seen any good films lately? [3]

The trailer gave the impression it was just an excuse to have fun with a bunch of horror movie tropes. If that's all it is, I'm satisfied.

No, it's not making fun of horror tropes. It's a film with a certain level of meta-awareness. There's a group of people watching the movie along with you, and the movie keeps showing this group, mostly tourist types, standing around in the desert watching the events unfold through binoculars. The actual tire, the main character I guess, has supernatural abilities as well as auto-locomotion. And the movie is mostly about that tire rolling around and doing stuff like making birds explode.

Watched Black Panther. Average was hoping for better.

So I'm deathly excited: in two months Lawrence of Arabia will be shown in one of the "wonder theaters" that dates back to the early 20th century.


google virtual tour

I sure as heck will not be missing this!

Gorgeous !!!!!

Must be some kind of anniversary eh?

I'm just watching Paddington 2 with my mom and dad. It's fun, and well-written, with a large cast. From our dear previous Doctor to Brendan Gleeson to Joanna Lumley, seems like everyone and their mother got a part.

haven't seen Paddington 1. How do the two compare?

They are equally enjoyable.

The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer - watched both last night (well, rewatched The Lobster) - you're either going to shake your head or just hate them, or you'll love them. I won't even try to recap any of them, they just have to be watched, preferably with no prior knowledge. Enjoy

I watched "Justice League" yesterday. Aquaman tempted me & I thought it was going to be fun. Thought was the word.

Spoiler:

To quote my learned friend above, "" you're either going to shake your head or just hate them, or you'll love them. I won't even try to recap any of them, they just have to be watched, preferably with no prior knowledge. Enjoy ""

{{{ Thanks Azriel- I can save my crabbit for something more worthwhile and never watch that!   }}

Crabbit is a wonderful thing

Had a marathon with the girlfriend recently, The Dark Crystal, Legend, Howl's Moving Castle, The Fountain, The Prestige, Casino Royale and Back To The Future 1+2, seen most of them before, but goo fun all of them, The Dark Crystal and Legend were both new to me, I found the storylines to both somewhat derivative and muddled, but the production values and art design made up for it somewhat.

I enjoyed The Prestige, good film. And The Legend ? terrific Devil in it ! Tim Curry was fantastic

The Fountain eh? I have difficulty enjoying that film.

as its too hot to go outside I have been on a sci-fi and dystopian world movie run,
I am Legend
Oblivion
Contact
Gravity
Interstellar
Cell
Pitch Black
Cloud Atlas
Arrival
War of the Worlds
Promethius Alien Covenant

I liked Gravity, Arrival and Pitch Black the best, I am legend made me cry, and strangely quite like Tom Cruise in Oblivion and War of the Worlds.

{{Careful Figg, Speilbergs War of the Worlds make me exceptionally crabbit!!   You might trigger a crabbit rant! }}

azriel wrote:I enjoyed The Prestige, good film. And The Legend ? terrific Devil in it ! Tim Curry was fantastic

the only thing I didn't like about The Prestige was the stunning lack of conservation of mass/energy: creating a new human being is equivalent to the energy of a million nuclear bombs.

Tim Curry is always great and I wish he had been used in more films (his turn as Richelieu in one of the Three Musketeers films is delicious). But one of the things I didn't like about Legend is how Hell seems to have low ceilings. It felt cramped and wrong. Hell should feel cavernous, not like a tight basement.

halfwise wrote: But one of the things I didn't like about Legend is how Hell seems to have low ceilings.  It felt cramped and wrong.  Hell should feel cavernous, not like a tight basement.

It probably depends on which elevator button you press. Dante mapped the levels pretty well in his guidebook, but he may have simply forgotten to mention the basement.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Careful Figg, Speilbergs War of the Worlds make me exceptionally crabbit!!   You might trigger a crabbit rant! }}

you mean it was made in UShobbitlandia and not like Wiltshire or somewhere?

{{OOh you had to poke the crabbit didn't you?!!!! Its cowardly, utterly despicably shamelessly cowardly.
They took two of the books main characters and amalgamated them into Tony Robbins in a cellar, a dull, simple character there to solely serve a base threat script purpose.
The two characters they amalgamated, the artillerymen and the vicar were important, spent lengthy periods with the main character and were used in the book to criticise and comment on society, its structures and norms, and the other to poke holes in religious thinking.
A massive chunk of the entire heart, point and purpose of the narrative is shoddily cast aside in favour of shite. Empty, nothing to say, smelly old left over shite.

And the book gives us a fantastic high stakes action scene at sea between the iron clad warship the Thunderchild and three tripods as the ferry with some of our characters aboard tries to escape, only the Thunderchild stands between them and roars into action guns a blazing. Speilberg gives us a sinking ferry. Why? Wells gave you a cinematic, tailor made action scene and you did that to it? What is wrong with you these days Spielberg? 

Oh and giving the main character a family to drag about instead of a wife to try to reunite with, then having that terrible arc with his son which makes no sense and is totally undermined anyway by the ending and his impossible and stupid survival. So yeah that's shit too.

I like the Tripods and the motorway scene in the car is a spectacular piece of cinematography- in fact there is a lot of great effects and editing and cinematography wasted on this empty pile of spectacle and shit. }}}}}

Spielberg can be an amazing mix of directorial greatness and candy-ass.  He managed to make it clear to the end of Schindler's List without directorial intrusiveness, only to show the family artfully posed at the gravesite, ruining it all.  Miles of open space and they're all huddled together to fit nicely in screen.  Cut that one 30 second scene and you have an unblemished film.

{{Its not just the usual sentimentl American sweetness and happy ending its the cowardice really gets me. Its like he combed through the books story finding every hint of commentary, social satire and especially the negative view of religious thinking and put a big red line through it all- and what did he replace it with- a background lame arsed 9/11 vibe thats just sort of there n the aesthetics but has no impact on anything and nothing interesting to say about it beyond, look its a bitlike 9/11 only even worse, and the film as a result has absolutely nothing to say.
Wells arguable with WoW did for scifi what Tolkien would do for fantasy- he laid a template and that template was using sci-fi to make social/political/religious commentary on the present. Instead of updating and finding new ways to use the narrative to do what the original did Spielberg just wimped out and left a hollow shell of a film that  looks incredible but is as empty as my last buckie bottle (and I sooked the bottom of it with a straw!) }}}

My favourite bit of the WOTWs was when the tripods first come up out of the ground and start vapourising everyone, it kind of went downhill from there.

It is a powerful sequence!