Topic: The Movie Thread

My next stop on the National Film Registry tour was 13 Lakes, a slow cinema piece that sets the camera down and just films these lakes over a period of time. I’ve always been fascinated by water, growing up I used to go out to Loch Lomond all the time and there’s nothing quite like the breeze coming off the water. While yes, on face value this film is just roughly 1:40:00 of nothing, it was quietly engrossing to take a step back and appreciate nature. It’s a sobering thought to realise that this is a crucial turning point for humans and these lakes might not be around much longer, and perhaps this is why this film has been preserved. If you’re easily distracted, this probably isn’t the film for you but I suffer from ADHD and still got something from it so who knows? Maybe you would have a completely different take on it but hey, that’s probably what the filmmaker was going for!

@LN78 Oh has that been confirmed now? I was watching something about that on YouTube about that a few days ago. Yeah that is a bummer, they are obviously going to out em on Disney+. I watched the latest Pirates of the Caribbean in 4k on the service as the only the standard blu ray was available through my rental service, so looks like it has already started.

I hear the 4K Midsommar is supposed to be a thing of beauty, not just the AV quality but the packaging also.

Ordered my next set of Blu-Rays:

• The Wizard - Essentially a 2 hour long commercial for late 80's/early 90's era Nintendo, it's probably not a very good movie in the objective sense, but it's one I've always enjoyed for the campiness of it all.
• Rebirth of Mothra I, II, & III - A 90's Mothra centric trilogy. I've never actually seen any of these I believe, but I enjoy the Godzilla movies from this era so I figured I'd bite, especially since it's a collection.
• Tomorrow Never Dies - The next Bond film in line.
• Aliens - Watched Alien sometime last year, so I figured it's finally time to follow up.

@RR529 The Wizard is hilarious but I have a soft spot for it. Aliens is a different kind of movie than Alien but I honestly love both of them just as much as each other but for different reasons. Tomorrow Never Dies is... interesting at least. Great picks overall! Game over man, game over!

@RR529 Tomorrow Never Dies is honestly a bit better in my opinion than a lot of people give it credit for. Most people just say GoldenEye was the only good Brosnan Bond but even if TND isn't as good as that film, It's actually pretty solid tbh

@TheFrenchiestFry, @nessisonett, yeah, I've heard at least one of the Brosnan Bonds is supposed to be really terrible, but I'm not really sure which one it is, so it'll be fun finding out when I get to it (especially if I end up liking it for whatever reason).

@RR529 Ah yes. That one. You’ll know when you get to it, believe me, from the dulcet tones of Madonna 😂😂

@RR529 Yeah you're about two films away from the bad one

Let's just say there's a reason they were quick to reboot the series with Casino Royale after Brosnan was finished with the role

Last night I saw the new Guy Ritchie film The Gentlemen with Matthew McConaughey and Charlie Hunnam. It's probably his best film in years. Extremely funny and probably one of the best shot films of the year so far. Colin Farrell as the Coach was also a scene stealer.

I have the house to myself until 2021 due to getting a very welcome email that uni will be from home for the entirety of semester 1 so naturally I watched a couple of movies!

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea from 1916 is unfortunately a movie that doesn’t quite hold up. The underwater scenes are filmed beautifully and the special effects are fairly impressive though. The Nautilus is sleek and fast, really pushing the boundaries of filmmaking back then, The makeup back then was applied by the actors so I can blame the dude that played Captain Nemo for the abomination that was the blackface with white eyeliner and turban. I’m not going to judge the century-old movie for its racism because that was pretty common but it was a bit icky when Nemo delivered gifts to the crew of the Abraham Lincoln and then told the sole black crew member to go cook and clean. The main issue is that the intertitles treat the audience like absolute morons. “Captain Nemo and the crew exit the Nautilus” then shows Captain Nemo and the crew exiting the Nautilus. “Captain Nemo dies” then Captain Nemo inexplicably keels over and dies. Apologies for spoiling a 104 year old movie but it’s just too ridiculous to make up. It also randomly includes elements from The Mysterious Island. Just don’t watch this movie, it’s pretty rubbish!

3:10 To Yuma is a Western I’ve always meant to watch and now I can say I have! It’s really quite good, more of a psychological thriller in its execution. It is based on an Elmore Leonard story after all so I had high hopes. Glenn Ford is brilliant in his role as a charismatic bandit, you can’t help but root for him even though he’s definitely a baddie. It’s also surprisingly dark for the time period, I didn’t expect to see a hanging and a pretty gruesome one at that. One thing I noticed having just binged Justified, also based on an Elmore Leonard story, is that a whole episode is basically an adaptation of this which was a cool surprise. I haven’t seen the remake but I’ve heard mixed things so might watch it eventually. Definitely a good movie that stands the test of time though!

@RogerRoger I mean at least Everything or Nothing ended up happening so in a way Brosnan got some form of closure over the role. It is a shame he was kicked off so abruptly considering the hurdles Eon Productions went through to even try and get ahold of him since at one point he was meant to replace Moore in the role before Dalton got the part

@RogerRoger Its better to like good movies and hate bad movies, than to hate good movies and like bad movies.

I'm sure people on here are quite capable of forming their own opinions without letting the popular view cloud their judgement. Some of my favourite movies are ones where I've had low or zero expectations beforehand and ended up really enjoying them. We all have our guilty pleasures and shouldn't have to explain why we like certain things, but it is interesting to see polarising views. It would be pretty boring if we all just agreed with each other.

I’ve been following the discussion peripherally, and despite not being a huge Bond fan (I think I’ve seen most of them except some of the oldest entries from Connery and Lazenby) I was thinking about films that I initially thought were great a long time ago and then didn’t hold up well to a rewatch, and also those that I didn’t enjoy at first but held up better watching it again later.

For the former — one example that comes to mind is Back to the Future. When I watched this as a kid, I thought it was brilliant. I would have considered it one of the best films of the era, and many would still agree with that. However, I rewatched it a year ago or so and it was much more steeped in 80’s schtick and cheese than I remember. The acting was sort of all over the place (MJF was great, but otherwise the supporting cast was not as good as I remember) and the tone wasn’t as consistent for me as an adult. Some of this is my own perception, but some of it is just the cracks in the Zemeckis foundation show through easier several years later. I had a similar experience with Forrest Gump. When I tried to rewatch it I barely was able to finish it, and I remember thinking it was pretty good before. But Best Picture Award material? I would beg to differ there.

As far as a movie that I didn’t like but got better the second time (and third, and fourth...) the best example I can think of is Napolean Dynamite. And I’m not sure if the humor translates to cultures outside the U.S. but I thought it was so stupid the first time I saw it, and only rewatched it with friends because they encouraged me and I grew to appreciate the dumb humor. Maybe some of that is that subliminal power of suggestion that you all are talking about where I enjoyed it simply because my friends enjoyed it. I guess that’s why sit-coms have laugh tracks too — we think it’s funny because the show prompts us to. But regardless, I now have watched Napolean Dynamite several times and it seems to get funnier and more enjoyable each time (I’m embarrassed to admit) 😂

I honestly didn’t like Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction or The Shawshank Redemption. It’s like the trifecta of adored 90s movies that I just couldn’t get on with.

I didn't get on with...

• The Avengers
• Back to the Future
• E.T.
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• The Godfather
• The Last Starfighter
• Moonlight
• The NeverEnding Story
• Poltergeist
• The Princess Bride
• Tron
• Vertigo (Hitchcock's best film is Rear Window; fite me)
• Weird Science (I'll actually go further, and say this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen)

I also happen to think The Shining, while not terrible, is also not the masterpiece it's shined up to be.

As for myself, I've watched a number of excellent films recently. Just saw Regarding Henry for the first time, and really appreciated that film. Shawshank and The Green Mile are both excellent as well (although the latter is... racially problematic, IMO, and I tend not to care too much about that sort of thing in my movies; it's really awkward to watch today).

I also watched an old indie Western called The Shooting, and it was... horrible. It's an hour and a half of watching the world's most unlikable cast wander around the desert acting like sociopaths the entire time. The plot also feels... I want to call it absurdist. It's slow and pointless. I guess Jack Nicholson was a good fit for the film, though, and I have to sort of admire how bleak the ending is.

@Ralizah I pretty much agree with most of those other than Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller and Vertigo. I like Rear Window as well but Rope is the best Hitchcock movie. Avengers is a weird one because I loved it at the time and for years after but I rewatched it recently and boy, it does not hold up. You can so tell the Joss Whedon influence on a movie and I just think movies have come a long way since 2012, which is why Justice League has that same distinct outdated vibe.

@nessisonett I don't think Joss Whedon has done good work since the early 00's. As a massive Buffy TV show fan, it brings me no pleasure to say that. None of his movies have been particularly good (and despite his massive geek cred years ago, Marvel movies all have that sort of quippy style of character banter that he popularized, so his predictable screenplay for The Avengers really had nothing going for it, IMO), and he failed to break back into TV as well.

Honestly, I also think a lot of his best ideas for his TV shows were "adapted" from anime he watched (I will never not believe that he's not extremely familiar with Sailor Moon, Devil Hunter Yohko, Outlaw Star, and Gunslinger Girl, at the very least).

@Ralizah I’ll second (or third) that sentiment regarded E.T. and Tron. I can appreciate what each did for film art at the time, but both do feel dated now.

@LN78 @RogerRoger I’ll be curious to hear how your respective Back to the Future rewatches go. You’re right that the make-up jobs for making the characters appear younger and then older does jar most notably and it pulls you out of the experience. It feels kind of like your watching a school play at times. Biff especially just looks and feels out of place, both as a schoolboy and as an adult. Anyways — I won’t taint your experience too much by my criticism beforehand, and to be sure, there are wonderfully iconic moments that certainly stand the test of time (no pun intended) like the opening sequence in the mall parking lot. There is definitely some enjoyment to be had with the film and if you take it for the 80’s hyperbolic fun that it’s intended to be then it is still worth watching for sure.

@RogerRoger Definitely. It was revolutionary in a number of ways. It was one of the first big shows to popularize arc-based TV storytelling in the U.S., for one thing, paving the way for more complex, long form serialized dramas in the 00's. I think its early seasons 'High School as Hell' metaphor, and its exploration of teenage life more generally, were really well-realized. Particularly... ah, I won't get into spoilers, but let's just say that the way it handles boyfriends, sex, and disillusionment is perfect. It also grows up with its viewers, following its cast of close friends into early adulthood as the characters graduate from high school, go to college, get jobs, and, more generally, get sort of lost in life. And, again, like everything else in the show, there's always a pitch-perfect supernatural storyline or plot device to explore those themes and ideas.

The concept itself is a great translation of the Magical Girl Warrior idea into a form that many Westerners would find relatable (not so much the frilly dresses or girly special attacks, but certainly the exploration of women's issues, women's empowerment, and, on a much more universal level, the idea of struggling with one's destiny). Like Sailor Moon, it caught on because it pitched itself into a landscape starving for relatable female heroes, and, unlike today, where a lot of self-consciously feminist TV and comics writers are afraid to write really complex female heroes, the Buffy writers really fleshed her out and, yes, allowed her to stumble and fall at times.

And it wasn't the first show to feature a gay character, but it was a big deal when a major cultural hit like Buffy allowed one of its main characters to become involved in a long-standing, loving, stable, and realistic lesbian relationship.

There are, of course, a number of episodes that just... they weren't good at the time, and they're worse now. And some metaphors and storylines do fall flat. But I still think it holds up as primo television, and is a fascinating saga overall.

Also, I want to mention that, if you end up liking Buffy, there was a crossover show called Angel that followed a number of major characters after they departed in the third season, and it's also very well worth watching in its own right. There are a few crossovers between the two shows, although both can be appreciated as their own thing.

I think anyone who wants to understand the transition of TV dramas from the episodic classics of yesteryear to the morally complex serials of today need to watch both Buffy and The Sopranos.

@Ralizah Wow, you’ve almost sold me on watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have never had much interest but it sounds quite solid. I think I’ve always been put off by her being called “Buffy.” If it was “Linda the Vampire Slayer” then I might not have dismissed it as much. 😂