Topic: The Movie Thread

@colonelkilgore @Voltan I couldn’t get into the F&F movies. Their popularity has been one of the great mysteries of the universe, as far as I’m concerned. 😜
But I gave up after the …second movie?, maybe third? It’s all very forgettable in my mind. So perhaps I abandoned ship just when they were getting good. If I jumped in at F&F9 (or F&F5 for that matter) would I be lost? In other words, do the movies build on each other, narratively speaking?

@Th3solution You can safely skip the 3rd one, it’s the least connected to others one. Going in with the 4th would be probably best from the story perspective but let’s face it, nobody’s watching these for the story.
I think you’d be fine starting with Fast 5 - and if that one doesn’t do it for you, don’t bother with the rest.
Also, I don’t blame you for giving up after the first 2, they’re super boring and I almost did the same (although obviously there are people who would tell you they’re the only ones worth watching)

@Th3solution yeah you’d probably be best off starting from 4 as @Voltan has implied… it was sort of like a semi-reboot if memory serves.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, 4 is where they went from movies about driving cars (with 3 being all about driving cars sideways) to movies about a band criminals-gone-special-forces who just happen to use cars on their missions
It was just the first step though and 5 is much better.

Finished watching A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). Overall, I thought it was a good movie. I just love the concept of this franchise in general, i.e. being murdered in your dreams, so in that regard the movie was very satisfying to watch. The characters were mostly forgettable, but hey it was still a good movie.

It was a bit weird though to see Katie Cassidy in this movie. She was supposed to be a high school student, but she looked like she was in her mid-twenties and apparently she was back in 2010, lol.

Watched the eternals and it was awful, easily the worst Marvel film ever, more boring and bland than 1st Thor movie film and far too long for no reason they could have done all that in 90 minutes. What a waste of 2 and half hours.

The end credit bit features some truly bad CGI that can only be described as amateurish at best.

@InvaderJim I think it’s definitely a toss up between Eternals, Thor 2 and Iron Man 2 and 3 for the worst Marvel movie. Funnily enough it felt like a movie that Zack Snyder would have made several years ago and was dug up by Feige and utterly destroyed. Which is eerily similar to exactly what they did with the original comics as Kirby came back to Marvel and essentially copied his New Gods work from DC.

Finally got around to watching the new Dune on HBOMax.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. First off, I found the 80’s film to also be a little weird and not particularly enjoyable. And I never felt compelled to read the books as a result.

In this new movie, the end result was the same for me as was the older movie — the telling of a classic Sci-Fi book that seems to lend itself to a very poor film adaptation. There were aspects of the movie that were really well done, but it failed to really hold my attention. It has this weird combination of long sections of slow methodical art-house theatrical treatment of a Sci-Fi story, coupled with long sections of excessive and empty feeling action. It has several grade A actors, all of which seem to be mailing in their forgettable performances and the newcomer — Timothee Hal Chalamet — outshines them all on screen. He’s actually quite good as the protagonist. And visually the movie looks really sharp and the production value is high, but I couldn’t get into the story or really understand it very well. The first 30 minutes it seems to be making sense and setting up a good world and storyline, and then it just gets more confusing and convoluted and as a result I really didn’t end up invested in the characters or the outcome.

While watching the movie I kept thinking of Blade Runner 2049 and how the movie has a similar feel and tone, and only found out after the fact that it’s the same director, Dennis Villanueve. For some reason his style worked miles better in Blade Runner. Dune feels like a boring slog by comparison.

@RogerRoger Yeah, if you have a love for the source material then it might resonate better with you. The story is probably really good, and I’m sure they tried to break the first book into two movies so as to flesh out its confusing narrative more clearly, but instead we got a lot of unnecessary action scenes some really cool quiet introspective 2001 A Space Odyssey style cinematography, and still not enough exposition or character development.

@Th3solution @RogerRoger I enjoyed the film, I read the book maybe a year or so ago so they have pretty much stayed faithful to the source material. That was the disappointing part that it ended just as the story gets good. Pretty much all set up in part 1, so part 2 should be pretty special and it's been greenlit for an October 2023 release so there is hope that it could be the best fantasy book adaptation since LotR. But it won't be to everyone's taste as there were a few people who walked out of the screening I attended. Very slow film but that's deliberate!

Quite Place Part II. Solid horror sequel which should receive praise for not being rubbish. Well directed with solid performances all round, especially the two young stars. And Cillian Murphy who really needs be in more stuff. Great opening too. Slightly preferred the first film.

Watched the new Dune last night. That's almost three hours of my life I'll never get back. Bloated, self-serious to a fault, and a very flat tone to it. Also, it's one of those films where everyone is whispering most of the time. I feel like it was trying to be moody and capture a sense of mysticism, but if that's what it was going for, it disappointed.

I did get a good laugh when we first see the base of the villains in this film, though. Their civilization (or what we see of it) has a cartoonishly macabre vibe to it. All it was missing was skulls and nazis.

@Ralizah Good to see I’m not the only one who was underwhelmed by Dune. I agree with your assessment. Had you seen the older film from the 80’s? It also had a weird tone to it. I can’t imagine the books give off a vibe that would require such a moodiness in order to bring it to the screen, but I could be wrong. I’m surprised at how popular the books have been, if so.

Contrasting The Lord of the Rings film adaptation — a book series with a very slow tone and contemplative deep narrative that likes to veer off into wanton pondering but Peter Jackson was able to catch the essence and gravity of the message, yet not make it seem so self-serious and boring.

As I mentioned before, the directing style worked well for Villanueve’s Blade Runner 2049. But here with Dune it felt trapped in its own overindulgence.

@Th3solution This is actually my first experience with Dune. Although I watched it with a family member who helpfully explained some of intricacies of that universe. Which is another thing: this doesn't feel like a film designed to introduce people to a universe. It doesn't explain itself well.

I was kinda wondering the same thing about the books. I've owned the first novel since forever, but now I'm questioning if I even want to read it at this point.

I actually completely forgot this was the Blade Runner 2049 director! And Sicario. And Arrival. He's directed several films I really, really like, but, I agree, for whatever reason, his style was a mismatch with this material. Blade Runner is meant to moody and mysterious. That tone also fit well with the material in Arrival, to the point where I actually liked it a lot more than the original novella it was based on. And Sicario's gritty realism was cool given the deconstructive nature of the material.

Overindulgent is a good word for this. The directorial style detracted massively from the experience for me. Looking up scenes from the Lynch adaptation just now, I have to wonder how much inspiration this version took from it, considering that one also seems to have been over-stylized and featured an excess of moody whispering throughout.

@RogerRoger The first half hour of Soul is absolutely superb and then it went from one of my favourite Pixar movies to become one of my least favourites. I hated 22 with every fibre of my being. It also funnelled the plot towards a typical Pixar ‘let’s go on an adventure’ structure which is apparently the only movie they can make these days. It’s so frustrating because the opening sections are great. I’m glad you got more out of it than I did 😂

@RogerRoger No love for WALL-E, Toy Story or Ratatouille then 😂

@RogerRoger I'm the same with any kind of Disney, Pixar, Illumination etc film. Onward is probably my favourite out of the ones you mentioned, but I've not seen em all.

My fave similar films of recent times are Kubo and the Two Strings, Zootropolis/Zootopia, The Mitchells vs. the Machines.

@RogerRoger Soul is a great one. Of the four you have left, I’d rank them:
1) Brave, 2) Luca, 3) Onward, 4) Toy Story 4.

TS4 isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputation is though. I think it’s just that TS3 was so good that most people felt the Toy Story arc would have been best left on a high note.

As far as favorite of all Pixar… I mean, it’s tough to beat Up. And Monsters, Inc. is in the running.

Toy Story 4 is the best one I think. And I love all of the other movies. The films grow up with you if you are the right age and each one seems appropriately poignant for that exact stage in your life.

I think the best example I can give to demonstrate this is in the first (possibly second) film. There is a bit where Woody loses his hat for a while. I just couldn't deal with it as a kid, the idea of being incomplete or losing something so integral to yourself. It was a great relief to me when he got that back.

Fast forward to Toy Story 4 and he literally gives up his voice box and draw string. I don't think there is a better way to demonstrate the difference between childhood and adult outlooks. Sometimes you just gotta give stuff up and move on, either for your own or somebody else's benefit. Just dealing with and accepting change and loss while also appreciating what you gain.

But yeah, easily my favourite Pixar series and even one of my favourite Disney series and frankly just one of my favourite film series anyway. I love Toy Story, it's awesome!

@RogerRoger I honestly had the same reservations. When 4 got announced, I just thought "why?". 3 was a brilliant end!

But I'm so glad they made it. It's been some time since I've watched those films so I'd fail to go into more detail about the different ways they hit me in the feels but it is definitely one of my favourite film series and none of the 4 films are a dud in my opinion!