Topic: The Movie Thread

@LN78 I always found the concept of West Side Story to be odd. Not the Romeo & Juliet homage, rather the dancing, singing gang thugs. 😄 It’s very contradictory.

I haven’t seen this new version, but the old movie is held together by the good love story story and the excellent music. But the dancing and the tone always puzzled me. Granted, it’s been years ago when I saw it.

@LN78 Yeah, I’ll be interested to see it. Musicals have been hit or miss for me. But I’m thinking that with the rise of Lin Manuel Miranda and his influence on theater, movies, and music, that this Spielberg version has got to be juiced up to compete with the pizazz on display in Hamilton, In the Heights, etc. I suspect the dancing and choreography is modernized and much more acrobatic and entertaining than the original, which is where these movies can be really impressive beyond the older classics.

Fast and Furious 9. Very silly. Not even that fun. They’ve kinda jumped past the point where it was daft fun and now is so infuriatingly stupid that it gets in the way. Think the worst offender was a scene in which they drive from London to a country estate in the space of 2 minutes, in which the baddie claims it’s an embassy because he’s a diplomat’s son. Then Interpol show up because that’s what they are, private security for diplomats. In a van with ‘Interpol’ written on the side.

@nessisonett They've fought a tank, a submarine, a cyborg and gone to space. The franchise has definitely gone off the rails.

Also, I don't know how the writers come up with scenes like this.lol Dom is so confident it's as though his done this stunt a million times before.

@WanderingBullet There’s a certain level of enjoyment to be had with stupid popcorn movies. But there’s a line. They’re just slightly creeping towards the Michael Bay side rather than the John Woo side.

Oof, Death on the Nile was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, but it suuuuucked. Terrible pacing, a lame central mystery, poor writing, etc. Even the cinematography lacked any real pop to it. And the set-up totally gives the finger to the sequel hook of the last film, Murder on the Orient Express.

Actually, I went back to watch that previous film afterword, because I remember absolutely loving it, and DotN made me wonder if it was worse than I remembered. But... it wasn't. Orient Express was every bit as witty, engaging, and dramatic as it was on my initial viewing. That film is paced extremely well, does a great job of bringing dimension to a massive cast of personalities (including its lead, Hercule Poirot, who is so much more eccentric and likeable in that first film!), and, visually, again, it pops in a way that the sequel doesn't. The sets are great, there are some fantastic camera shots that do a great job of making the train feel like a cohesive environment, the lighting is on point throughout, etc. The sequel's imagery just looks... flat. My brother-in-law, who I saw it with, compared it to a film from the seventies because of its weird pacing and lack of visual flair, and I can kinda see that. It doesn't look like a modern film.

As mentioned, the mystery is awful in the sequel, which is disappointing given how clever Orient Express' mystery writing turned out to be. And... look, Poirot does actual detective work in the first film. Orient Express gives you several opportunities to see why Poirot regards himself as such a genius. But, like, he doesn't DO anything in DotN until almost the very end. Stuff just happens, and he reacts, and that's the entire film. The "mystery" doesn't even set itself up until more than midway through the film, and it's so lame there's almost nothing you can do to make it interesting. Anyone who has been paying attention will have guessed the solution to the mystery by the time it happens.

Some of this undoubtedly is due to the source material, but Agatha Christie can't be blamed for the numerous filmic failings of DotN.

How do you go from a modern classic to such a disappointing sequel when almost the entire crew from the previous entry seems to have stayed on-board? I don't get it.

@Ralizah Interesting. I’m a huge fan of Christie and while Suchet is the definitive Poirot, the Finney Orient Express is a classic too. But I didn’t really like the Branagh adaptation at all. I just found it quite dull despite being very nicely shot. So I was probably not going to watch the new one, especially since Armie Hammer is playing possibly the most inappropriate character he could have been playing at this point in his career. I’d say watch the Suchet adaptation of Death on the Nile as a comparison but honestly, that isn’t one of my favourite Poirot books anyway.

@LN78 Once some time has passed, I intend to do something similar with WSS, having only seen the Spielberg version.

It got mixed reviews, but I loved every aspect of the 2017 Murder on the Orient Express. Brilliant film all-around. Knives Out is the only comparably excellent mystery film that comes to mind. So it's shocking how incompetent Death on the Nile is in comparison. Once I've put some space between myself and this version, though, I'll definitely check out the older adaptation and see if it's more competent. Although at least part of the problem with that story, if this film adapted it properly, is with the mystery itself. We'll see.

I think we watched a normal DVD copy of Orient Express, although I imagine it looks quite good in 4K!

@nessisonett What would you say is your favorite book in this particular series of stories?

I hadn't read the (apparently quite wild) allegations against Armie Hammer. You're right, though, given the allegations, taking on a role like this seems a bit much.

@Ralizah My favourite Poirot books are probably Dead Man’s Folly, After The Funeral and Curtain, the final Poirot book. There’s so many Christie books of varying quality but I always found myself drawn to those ones.

@LN78 Fast & Furious is all about family. There needs to be the word "Family" in title at some point like maybe "Fast & Furious: Family 10sion" for the next movie.

House of Gucci. An entire movie adaptation of the ‘when’s a your Dolmio day’ adverts. Bafflingly terrible. Jared Leto might give the worst performance I’ve seen in a movie in a long time.

@LN78 I think even the Shaddap You Face guy would have been more convincing.

Watched Cyrano. The plot itself is a little obnoxious insofar as it's hours of watching these two likable guys fixate on one largely oblivious, underdeveloped, and (IMO) entitled woman, but that comes with the material, I suppose. It's a musical, and... it's competent in that respect. There are no bangers you'll walk out of the theater humming to yourself, but the songs carry the plot and character development reasonably well, so I count it as a success in that regard. Musicals with bad music or that go on too long with their musical numbers really wear on my patience (In the Heights comes to mind).

The film is largely carried by Peter Dinklage's larger-than-life performance as the main character.

@Ralizah I haven’t watched that adaptation yet but I’ve seen Steve Martin’s Roxanne which is a modern(ish) adaptation and I studied the play a few years back. I think it’s probably possible to see all three of Roxane, Christian and Cyrano as fairly selfish or idiotic depending on your perspective. It’s really a play of misunderstandings and lies! Interestingly, I didn’t actually realise this new adaptation was a musical, but it makes sense as the original play is written in verse with a certain rhythm of the lines. Talking of musicals with obnoxious musical numbers, nothing will ever beat Into The Woods for that. Think I lasted about 3 minutes and most of that involved James Corden 😂

@nessisonett Roxanne is a far less interesting personality in this film, based on my fuzzy memories of the play. Also, I don't quite remember De Guiche being quite so explicitly rapey in the original.

@Ralizah De Guiche is probably the most realistic character in the play. I would probably say yeah, he’s always been a bit rapey but more in a sort of ‘I’m charming therefore I’m entitled to you’ way.

@nessisonett He's just a revolting rapist in this film. To the point where he sends her a letter pretty much informing he's on his way over to rape her (which pushes her to hastily marry Christian), and then sings some big number about how he's an entitled rapist .

Turning Red - Pretty cute film. Given that it centered around a group of young teens circa 2002 (the same time I was a young teen) I was able to relate to it in parts (though as a guy I definitely wasn't into boy bands, lol).

Interestingly enough, I read an article the other day that stated that the director was partially inspired by Ranma 1/2 & InuYasha (oh, and Sailor Moon too I guess), which is one reason I was eager to give it a go (the Ranma influence can particularly be felt IMO, what with the coming to grips with an embarrassing transformation that's not much under control). I also watched the making of documentary (which was up on D+ the same day) which was pretty interesting (I usually don't watch such things), and during the brief segment they gave to their anime influences while Sailor Moon was the only series they specifically name dropped, they very explicitly referenced Takahashi & you could see some InuYasha & Ranma memorabilia around that part of the office too.

@LN78 Just a follow up to previous conversation. I did finally get around to watching Spielberg’s West Side Story and agree with what you said. It was really well done overall. Not sure if you watched the original movie adaptation from the 60’s yet (I recall you were motivated to do a comparison), but if my memory serves, this new version is quite a bit grittier. It’s been a few years for me since seeing it, but the hatred between the two gangs is much more palpable this go around. In this version the acting feels far superior, the general tone is darker, and the production value seems higher. Obviously this was always going to be a tragic tale, but it’s much more visceral in this new version than I remember from the other.

I still had that initial recoil from the feeling of dissonance when the gangsters start singing and twirling like an episode of “Dancing with the Stars”, but it quickly feels normalized when the acting is on display. This new version does a great job of making the thugs feel like thugs and very unlikable. I think it did a good job making both sides feel like the villains. I could have seen it go very political, but thought it was handled well as a general cautionary tale against all blind prejudice and racism.

Related, the Spanish and Puerto Rican dialogue is much more authentic feeling than I remember from the older version, which I appreciated. I also enjoyed the fact that the cast was mostly unknowns. Besides Tony, I didn’t recognize any of the others.

Overall it’s quite good and I felt emotionally impacted watching it this time, which I don’t think I did when I watched it before.
The delivery of the line “How many bullets are in here?! How many of you can I kill and still have one left for myself?!” was just gut-wrenching.

@LN78 Oh yeah, no pressure but I’d be interested to see how you get along with it when you do find time to watch it.