Topic: The Movie Thread

@JohnnyShoulder @TheFrenchiestFry Yep, that one’s alright but it toes the line a little too much. The three leads play it very well though, they definitely throw themselves into the role!

@TheFrenchiestFry Thanks! Yeah that is the one. And John Leguizamo was the third main character. I would have never guessed that.

I'd completely forgotten that movie though I remember watching some of it at the time it released out of morbid curiosity. I would have been around 14-15 then, living in a small rural town in West Texas so I can't say open-mindedness was a virtue I possessed then.

Anyway, watched La Llorona last night. Not to be confused with The Curse of La Llorona. I went in expecting a horror movie which it definitely was not. So I was fairly disappointed, though I wouldn't say it's a bad movie. Just wish I'd known it's more a "solemn and gripping tribute to real-life atrocities" as Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com puts it. So just know that going in if anyone decides to watch it.

@RogerRoger @JohnnyShoulder @Th3solution

So watched Midway this evening. Not bad if you ask me. Some of the CGI was fairly atrocious and at times the acting/dialogue was a little dodgy (looking at you Mandy Moore) but I'd agree the movie, for the most part, is measured and authentic in its portrayal of the war in the Pacific (at least from what I could tell). There's definitely some bits that seem overly dramatized but nothing too comically over the top imo.

So while it's not my new favorite war film or anything, I believe yes this movie could benefit from better marketing.

I would say, because they decided to cover so much, it did have a bit of a superficial feel to it. I get what they were going for but I think it might have benefitted from a little less breadth. In spite of the subject matter, it all came off a little glossy to me. Good overview, but hard to feel anything. There's some specifics I could go into (good and bad) but I don't want to spoil any of the cinematic depictions so I'll just leave it at that.

Really enjoyed Bill and Ted Face the Music. If you are a fan of the first two, you will really dig it. Are theaters getting business over in the UK? In the U.S. nobody is really willing to chance it (save for those who think the virus is a hoax). It's a shame, I was pumped for an entire year over Tenet. VOD here I come in several months...

@zupertramp Thanks for tagging me with this, as it's creeping up my watchlist. We've had a good balance of opinions on here, so it'll be interesting to see which way I lean. Cheers!

Today I learned that an American Root Letter movie based on the visual novel is in post-production. Bizarre that it’s gone seemingly unnoticed. Apparently it’s a ‘gritty re-imagining’ which sounds like exactly the sort of mistake that literally every other American version of Japanese media falls into.

Saw 1917 the other night. It was really good. The story they choose to tell fit the continuous shot take really well. This was partially why I was putting off watching it. The only other movie I'd seen that employed this technique the entire film was Russian Ark which I appreciated but it's not a film with a traditional narrative.

But watching Midway sparked a discussion about the differences between WWI and II, and why one gets covered more and on and on, so we ended up checking out 1917.

I'd say it met Tim O'Brien's definition of a true war story, it was beautifully shot, the acting was there across the board and that's, in my opinion, about the best anyone can ask for from a war movie.

@zupertramp Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of the continuous take. I felt it kinda took away from the story they set out to tell by making it feel a bit like a Call of Duty game cutscene. I dunno, the movie does a lot right but I personally just felt the continuous take gave it a bit of a tacky feel. A brilliant movie/documentary sorta thing about WW1 is Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old which colourises old footage and adds voiceovers. It makes it seem real, which I’ve never felt with footage that old.

I watched Pride & Prejudice & Zombies out of curiosity the other night thinking it was going to be a comedy. Ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would and found it melded the two disparate genres in a satisfying way. I've not seen Matt Smith in much but thought he was excellent in it.

@nessisonett That's pretty similar to what were my concerns. I thought it would ultimately take away from the story and come off gimmicky. That didn't turn out to be the case for me but I can see how others might come away not digging it.

Haven't seen that documentary but recall it being mentioned in a recent article where historians were decrying the use of colourisation on old footage. The idea being it can never truly represent the actual colors because those colors weren't ever recorded. We can never know, thus it's inaccurate historically to represent those colors. I think the other side of the argument is what you alluded to whereby coloring b&w footage allows modern viewers to connect to it in a way not previously possible. I don't know how I feel about it all (though part of me feels like the study of history is a lot of filling in the blanks with educated guesses) but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless. In any case I would like to see the documentary.

@zupertramp Yeah, nobody really knows which colours were truly used but I quite like the end product and they put years and years of work into the process. Even though they didn’t use all 100 hours of the footage sent to them by the Imperial War Museum, they restored all of it for free for their archives. It’s interesting because it’s a movie about the soldiers and their experiences, rather than the bigger picture, which many fictional movies are about.

I watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood tonight. It really is a fantastic movie, never too ghoulish with the recreations and quietly compelling. Considering I’m relatively young and from the UK, I don’t have too much knowledge of Mr Rogers but I have seen some of his stuff on YouTube and he’s literally the nicest man ever. I’m probably the cynic looking to find some sort of weakness like Matthew Rhys’ character but it’s hard to find any. I loved the way the movie was filmed, the use of colour is beautiful and it might be one of the best looking movies I’ve seen. I don’t know what kit they used but it captures the look of the period perfectly, especially his show. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to even the most staunch of cynics out there.

@nessisonett Somehow I never watched much Mr. Rogers growing up but he's a staple of my wife's childhood so we'll probably get around to watching that eventually.

Oof, hope he makes a full recovery.

@JohnnyShoulder I saw that. Sad. I mean, who doesn't love Jeff Bridges?

Watched Borat Subsequent Moviefilm the other night and laughed so hard I had an asthma attack.

I just watched Borat Subsequent Moviefilm with my family, and it was... eh.

Compared to Who Is America, which ended some careers and made a laughingstock of some reasonably well-known American politicians with truly amazing setups (I'll never forget how he duped Joe Walsh with that Kinderguardians proposal), it was... tepid. Lukewarm. Maybe the issue is that I went in with the expectation that it'd deliver razor-sharp satire. I would have appreciated a bigger focus on the alt right in this film instead of embarrassing stunts that didn't illuminate anything. The best part of the film was when he roomed with those two QAnon cultists and talked to them.

Also, I'll just say it: he needed the Rudy Giuliani bit to be really devastating, and while it was a bit sketchy, nothing bad enough happened to make it the climax of the film.

@zupertramp I just looked up La Llorona, and it sounds fantastic. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

I was excited for The Curse of La Llorona when it came out, as I've grown tired of cut-and-paste American supernatural horror and was enthused that the filmmakers were looking to explore hispanic supernatural folklore, but the film was mediocre and ended up feeling like cultural appropriation to me. They REALLY should have taken the opportunity to allow the latinx characters to be the stars of the film, instead of killing them so the ghost would have an excuse to harass some random white family. People are always bitching about a lack of "diversity" in films, but Hollywood's money never seems to be where its mouth is in that regard.

Watched The Invisible Man over the weekend. Man, its hella good. It gets a bit coincidental in the last act and some may scoff at the movie logic. But overall, I found it a thrilling and tense watch. The way its shot with the wide and lingering shots makes it feel extra creepy. Brilliant performance by Elizabeth Moss. So much better then the 'Dark Universe' films they tried in the past.

I'll just say it. Cuties wasn't bad at all. In fact the trailer and marketing was incredibly poor on Netflix's part and vastly undermined the deeper messages the film had to convey about how hypersexualization and exploitation of young girls can deeply affect them at a personal, emotional and psychological level, as well as those around them such as their families. It even directly criticizes the Western culture surrounding the eschewed viewpoint on sensitive topics that people have effectively weaponised through the usage of social media, which is exactly why the film ended up in the controversy it did

The ending was also surprisingly heartfelt. It's not the best movie of the year by any means, and I still think it tended to go too far in how the girls were portrayed in a few places, but it's still well shot and really well acted with a difficult to watch, but satisfying plot. 7/10.

I seemed to have stopped getting notifications entirely for this thread.

@TheFrenchiestFry Thanks for the input on Cuties. I've been curious how it handles things as it was getting some heat from even non partisan groups regarding its depictions of young girls (using young actors) so it's nice to hear from a regular person who has actually seen it.

@Ralizah I very much agree with you regarding the new Borat film. I thought it would hit harder than it did and aside from that it wasn't as funny as the first. And yeah the Guliani bit played out way too ambiguously. I can see how maybe Sasha Baron Cohen feels confident what was about to go down, because he was there and I'm sure you get a feel for these things in the moment, but it isn't enough to come across on film. Not for me anyway.

(Also I know I've gone on record against cringe humor and mockumentaries but I give a pass to unscripted stuff like this.)

Okay now for a few updates. Saw The Rental. It was... well honestly I didn't know what to expect and yet it was better than I expected. I'm still kinda deciding but I think yeah, I'd recommend it.

Also watched Horse Girl and even though it wasn't like horrible or anything, I certainly didn't love it. It was basically just meh.

Then there's The Lighthouse. Maybe I'm too dumb or uncultured or whatever but I did not like this movie. I Midsommar-level hated this movie in fact. Acting was on point, there's no denying that but man, what a pointless journey.

And then my favorite movie of the bunch Kajillionaire. I loved the stupid, quirky, and subtle humor and also really, really appreciated the depiction of a certain family dynamic that I obviously can't go into without spoiling plot elements. Also gave me a renewed appreciation for Evan Rachel Wood.