Topic: The Movie Thread

I thought I might as well finish off Edgar Wrights filmography and watch Scott pilgrim and baby driver.

Scott pilgrims a weird one because I remember loving it when it came out and not so much on a second watch. This will be the third time I've seen it and I think it's growing on me again. It's technically very amazing and the performances are all great, but it's not fun to watch with a clueless audience. I think I was amazed by all the game references when I saw it in the cinema but that part of it isn't amazing a second time around. I can just see the boredom and confusion on the faces of people of whom the references do not mean much to. It's good but I think the concept wears a little thin.

Baby driver is just excellent though, great performances, one of the best soundtracks in film (as well as being brilliantly used and edited). Its got a classic bonnie and Clyde style heist film narrative that's subverted in all the right and meaningful ways. Just a brilliant film. Can't wait for Edgar Wrights next film whatever it is!

@ralphdibny Have you read the Scott Pilgrim comics? I got into them roughly 2008 and they’re just fantastic. The movie falls a little flat for me because they tried to cram 6 incredible graphic novels into one movie. Definitely worth a read.

@nessisonett ah fair enough! Nah I haven't actually, I'd say if anything the movie puts me off. How accurate is the film, like I guess I'm interested in how they derived all the game music and crazy colourful effects and fight scenes from what I assumed was a black and white comic

@ralphdibny The comic is pretty dynamic in the way it portrays fight scenes but solely through the use of lines and shading, as opposed to the colour seen in the movie. The game music was used in the movie as a substitute for the innumerable references and nods to games seen across the series. The characters are developed so much better across the 6 volumes than in the movie which makes sense, there’s a lot more content after all.

@nessisonett fair enough, sounds like it could be worth checking out! I did like most of the exes in the film so I guess it could be cool if their characters were padded out a bit. Not sure if I liked them because of the actors though like Chris Evans and Brandon routh. I think overall that Mary Elizabeth winstead and keiron culkins characters were my favourites though

@ralphdibny I really need to get the coloured version of the comics but they’re just so expensive. It’s crazy to see my first or second edition black and white paperbacks that I got for about £8 in Borders back in the day and then see coloured hardbacks going on Amazon for £20 each. Also interesting that the first book isn’t ‘VS The World’, they must have just preferred that title!

@nessisonett it's the same with manga I think, they do colour versions of Dragonball that are more expensive than the b+w omnibuses. 🤔 Could colour it in yourself though, maybe, probably best not actually lol. I did have a google and the colour Scott pilgrim hardbacks do look nice though, I think there was a set of 3 for £52.99 at blackwells

@nessisonett Being honest I didn't give much thought to their ages, nor how much they aged over the course of the story, while watching the film. Then again I was only kinda paying attention. I can see how weird it all is since you point it out though.

Ah, so I tried to watch Lovers Rock last night, picking it over the others in the Small Axe series because it has a fairly short runtime, and I was wondering, is it supposed to be filmed like it's at 12fps or something? Legitimately wasn't sure if I was having technical issues so I stopped it and watched something else.

@ralphdibny I thought the performances in Baby Driver were just bizarre. The script itself just seemed odd. Everyone behaved in these weird, unbelievable ways. Idk, things hit different for everyone but I just couldn't get behind all of the characters' strange reactions to everything. Hard to explain.

@zupertramp I don’t remember Lovers Rock being in a strange frame rate but then I watched it when it first aired on BBC so it might be different streamed on Amazon. It does have quite a woozy and dream-like atmosphere though and is probably the most optimistic of all the movies in the series.

@zupertramp Same here with Baby Driver. Glad it wasn't just me. Felt a bit gimmicky to me.

@zupertramp @JohnnyShoulder I don't think you're wrong. There's definitely a gimmick in that the whole film is set up like a music video so everything else kind of serves that aesthetic. I think that's why performances can come across as bizarre.

It does kind of remind me of reservoir dogs in that way I suppose. Both kind of share the unbelievable characters that serve the gimmick of the film which in reservoir dogs case was the discontinuous narrative. I think it reminds me of early guy Ritchie too like snatch and lockstock. The characters are almost caricateures

@nessisonett hmm. There was certainly idk, haziness with the focus but it also had this judder to it. Weird. I can't find much on it online regarding the way it was filmed. Makes me think maybe it was something on my end.

@ralphdibny yeah, I could have been taking it all too seriously. It's been known to happen.

@zupertramp not at all! Like you said, different films just click for different people. There's loads of really popular films that I just find quite boring.

I think a lot of it is tongue in cheek though. Without being too pretentious about it, I'd say that the self awareness works to highlight the more "real" moments of the film like the relationships. In that the rhythmic editing and actions the actors make will get disrupted by moments of romance, sadness or intimidation so they stand out more. Sorry I ended up being pretentious about it lol.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/croods-a-new-age-beats-tene...

I watched the Jason segel Muppets movie just now, so good. So very very good (I can't find a happy tear emoji)

Might try Muppets most wanted later, I've never seen it but I don't have high hopes because of the lack of Jason segel

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I just finished it and it is way better than I thought it would be. Still nowhere near as good as the "first" one (though technically the 7th as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew would say 😂).

Im not generally a fan of Ricky Gervais except for Extras and The Office (Extras is actually one of my favourite TV shows) but he actually did pretty well with his number in this film. I actually didn't think this one was going to be a musical so I'm glad it was!

It had plenty of other actors in actual roles and cameos too which kind of takes the focus off Gervais anyway. Tina Fey and Ty Burrell being obvious highlights.

I think because I thought it was going to be pony, it allowed me to be pleasantly surprised by it! Both films are on iPlayer until Monday I think

The other day I watched Klaus on Netflix, which is an animated origin story of Father Christmas. It's sweet and funny, and the animation style is quite attractive.

So, Wonder Woman ‘84...

The short version is that I liked it. For fans of DC or of the superhero genre in general, there is a lot to like here.
I don’t think it quite reaches the heights of the genre’s best movies, but it’s far from its worst.

As far as acting, Gal Gadot and Christopher Pine continue to be great, the new characters also do well, with special shout-out to Pedro Pascal.

Most of my complaints would be related to the pacing. I do appreciate that the director has gone for a more character centered approach and dialed back the bombastic and exhausting action sequences that have run amok in the latest DC and Marvel films (and really almost all the action hero and Sci-Fi movies in recent years). The ease with which special effects and computer assisted graphical renditions can be shoved into scene after scene has made some movies so tiresomely full of visual spectacle that it ironically has made them actually more boring (see DC’s Aquaman as a prime example). Joker showed what could really be done when they slow down the story telling process and let the characterization shine. WW84 doesn’t get even close to being the type of character study that Joker was, but it treads a decent middle ground where it has less action and the character development is given a little room to breathe. There’s still plenty of cool fighting choreography and Wonder Woman jumping, kicking, flipping, lassoing, and just being an all around superhero however. It’s just that the flow was not as smooth as I would have liked.

So unfortunately, the script and storyline is a little disjointed even though there was obvious care to focus on the villain’s motivation and schemes. Some of the movie logic just doesn’t make sense, and how the fantastical things work within its world is poorly explained, in my opinion. There is just a lot of suspension of disbelief that you have to submit to in order for you to enjoy the film. Most fantasy and fictional stories with supernatural and superpowered beings require you to not question how things work too closely or it all starts to all fall apart, but it seems a little more egregious here.

Nevertheless, if you can get past the “Huh? How does that work?” and if you don’t mind a lot more moments of quieter character development between your explosions and bullet dodging, then it’s well worth the 2.5 hour investment to see DC’s latest installment.

I do think that DC has an interesting problem on their hands though. With my recent experience with the polar opposite Joker and Birds of Prey, we now have this and it all seems like the DC cinematic universe is not sure what it wants to be. The upcoming Batman film will be a real watershed project to see if they want to keep things gritty, go after the Marvel goofiness and camp, try to walk the fine line between both, or do something else entirely.

@Th3solution From what we have seen so far of The Batman, I will be very surprised if it turns out to be goofy.

@JohnnyShoulder That’s probably the right choice. The attempt at focusing heavily on humor was a disaster in Birds of Prey. The comedic relief in Justice League, mostly provided by Flash, was hit-or-miss ...mostly miss. I remember thinking it was a poor attempt at copying Peter Parker. So keeping things dark is likely to work better for the franchise. As much as I personally liked the Nolan Batfilms, I do think they really have to separate the new movie somehow, so as not to few like a Nolan knockoff. Obviously Pattinson is going to bring his own interpretation, but I wonder if it can be as groundbreakingly distinctive as Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker was from Leger, Leto, and Nicholson’s.