Topic: The Movie Thread

@Gremio108 Haha! I heard that it was rather disturbing lol. xD

@ReanSchwarzer7 Really, really good film, and there are a few actors in it who put in career-best performances, but for the love of all that is holy don't watch it if you're squeamish

@JohnnyShoulder Go in with low expectations and you'll be alright.

I can't imagine just how bad the CG will come across on Blu Ray though...

@Gremio108 I hadn't heard of it.

Bit of a Google: "Adventure · Four men set out in the Wild West to rescue a group of captives from cannibalistic cave dwellers."

Sounds like a blast! I'll watch that!

@KALofKRYPTON Yeah I'd definitely recommend it. For me Kurt Russell hasn't been this good since The Thing, that's how good he is in it. Richard Jenkins is in it too, he's always excellent.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts actually. Maybe we can start a support group...

@Gremio108 Ha!
I'm pretty desensitized to ultra violence to be fair.

Bone Tomahawk wow that really hit for 6. It certainly doesn't hold back on showing the gore!

@KALofKRYPTON My mate who lent it to me said the cgi was a bit dodge.

@JohnnyShoulder The awful moustache removal is the worst of it - the altered tone towards the end is odd, and while mostly looking really good, there are a couple of GamesMaster looking moments on Cyborg.

Ha ha my mate said the same thing about the tache.

I now get @Rudy_Manchego profile pic lol

@JohnnyShoulder Ha yeah I googled it after watching JL and this just seemed perfect!

@RogerRoger I think with the best Star Wars, ESB (obviously) - Lucas actually wasn't around all that much. I think he was having some sort of breakdown or trouble with his marriage. Irwin Kirschner (also directed RoboCop 2 - a great sequel that also gets unnecessarily derided) directed with aplomb - and I doubt Lucas would've done a better job.

My point about being surround by 'yes men' is the problem with Lucas and Star Wars. For ANH at least - the constraints were largely budgetary, though I really think the whole thing became far more of a collaborative effort than anyone realises.
My friends and I used to joke that Rick McCallum must've spent most of his time telling Lucas how much of what he was trying to do was crap or unfilmable and reigning him in. Certainly, a lot of his original idea were really, really awful. If you can, try and track down the Starkiller comics produced from the original Star Wars story.
A director's cut used to get produced when the studio and a director didn't really see eye to eye. Sometimes that cut would be what the director wanted and other times not (Blade Runner and the Donner cut of Superman 2 spring to mind for the latter).
Lucas just kept on adding bits. Adding bits for very little reason other than he could, because he became so rich and retained ownership that no-one would say no.

The prequels highlight my points very well. Lucas can come up with a decent enough story idea, but he is a terrible writer and worse director. Without the worry of a budget or anyone to disagree, the prequel trilogy is what we got.
There are innumerable (formerly expanded universe) stories that could've, and would've made better films than what Lucas insisted on. Too pig-headed to accept anything but his own ideas though.

I recall being almost disgusted at the behind the scenes stuff on the prequel DVDs showing the prop room and production designers. Hundreds of examples of concept work and lightsaber hilts laid out and he just descended from on high and 'rubber stamped' the ones he liked. That is not directorial vision or crafting a world you're desperate to bring people in to - it's paint by numbers.

As is the majority of added SE content.
Anakin being young as a force ghost. Terrible - his last act to save Luke was his redemption. Younger Anakin fell - he was Darth Vader.

Yub Nub worked. The 'victory' at Endor was just that - at Endor, on the moon with some Ewoks. Without even the presence of the majority of the Imperial fleet or the legions upon legions of Storm Troopers, officers and otherwise stable Imperial worlds. The entire rebel fleet was there, without even the foggiest of how to begin deconstruction of the Empire. It's one of TFAs biggest problems too - that a republic was immediately formed and the remaining Empire forces just withdrew after Endor is really daft.

The images of Coruscant and Naboo in celebration are naive in the extreme - and bring the childish sensibilities of the prequels in to the original trilogy.

Everything has to connected, everyone has to be connected! It's laziness and ineptitude masquerading as fan service.

Another chunk of text!

Watch RoboCop! And RoboCop 2.
I very much grew up with both and they were rather formative for me, these and many others certainly drenched me with a rather dark sense of humour.
You may have seen or read various things about the RoboCop remake; it's not a bad film, but just doesn't need to exist. The first is sharp, dark, satirical and rather prophetic. The juxtaposition of man and machine then really was something special, the remake loses that - as well as the satire and creepily accurate foreshadowing of modern society and economy. It's both a big, dumb action film and an intelligent, witty, social commentary.
The sequel could never hope to surpass it, but it's a fine film.

@RogerRoger I'm in shock with some of the films you've not seen!

@RogerRoger Any opportunity for a film rant! I also don't sleep very much, sadly.

Oh yeah, make no mistake - RoboCop is a very violent film, with a couple of quite gory scenes. Go for the theatrical cut to omit a couple of the extended and differently framed gorier scenes.

I remember getting my hands on the amazing unrated Criterion Collection DVD of the Director's Cut many, many years ago (for £50 no less!) and seeing an extended boardroom scene for the first time. While I really do consider myself pretty desensitised and not at all squeamish, I really thought I might throw up just then. The intended context of the scene was to be so drawn out that it was ridiculous and thereby funny, which it is - but so very, very brutal.

@JohnnyShoulder @RogerRoger It often surprises me that films that are so integral to my life, character, humour and friendships are completely missing from the lives of others.

I'll bet most here have never even heard of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!

Isle of Dogs: Interesting film. The story is set-up like a kind of modern day fairytale (the Grimms' Fairy Tales, not the sanitized Disney versions), and follows an alternate history (and more than slightly dystopian) Japan that is controlled by a dog-hating clan. The current leader of this clan, Mayor Kobayashi, rules Megasaki City (which seems to be portrayed as the capital of Japan in this story) and exiles all of the city's dogs to an inhospitable and trash-filled island after a canine-borne disease breaks out. The Mayor's young ward sets off to this island to find his dog Spots and is helped on his journey by a ragtag group of dogs, including the cynical Chief.

Life is harsh on trash island, and the canines trapped in this place endure massive suffering, but the grim subject matter of the film somehow manages to never overwhelm the narrative, which often finds a kind of twisted humor in the strangest of places. The film's narrative is somewhat complex for a film of this type, oscillating between the boy's odyssey to find his missing dog and the efforts of a foreign exchange student on the mainland who is trying to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that goes all the way up to Mayor Kobayashi.

The real reason to see this film, though, is its fantastical, surreal, and sometimes overwhelming aesthetic. This is the best use of stop-motion animation I've seen since Coraline, and it creates a similarly evocative and nightmarish vision of a Japan that has gone very wrong.

It won't change your life, but if you have the opportunity to see it, I'd take it. Great movie!

Sicario: Another grim movie, we follow an FBI agent, Kate Macer, who finds herself traveling into the heart of darkness when she joins a government task force that is fighting against a powerful Mexican cartel around the city of Ciudad Juárez. She soon finds that she can trust almost nobody around her, especially the mysterious Alejandro Gillick, who is helping to head this task force, and that there are no heroes in this conflict.

This one is violent, methodical, and engaging if you open yourself up to it. Wonderful direction, acting, and cinematography.

@Ralizah Yeah Sicario is awesome. Has the most tense traffic jam commited to film ever.

@JohnnyShoulder Also the most ethically questionable way of getting out of a traffic jam.

@Ralizah There's a very funny 'Every Wes Anderson Movie' trailer going around. Check it out. Hell never do better that The Life Aquatic for me.

Went to see A Quiet Place tonight. I would recommend it. Plenty of genre plot holes if you want to find them, but it is a very enjoyable watch.
It's alsobthe quietest audience I've been amongst at a regular cinema in a good long while!

@KALofKRYPTON Oh, nice! I'm going to see A Quiet Place this weekend. It has been way too long since we got a really decent theatrical horror movie. Hopefully it's not another case of mass overhyping like with The Conjuring (a serviceable film that received a lot of rave reviews for whatever reason) or It Follows (amazing synthwave soundtrack, good central metaphor, but far too much of the film was spent watching these uninteresting teenage hipster characters lounge about).

@Ralizah I generally don't bother with horror any more. Nothing will ever inspire genuine fear in me like Hellraiser, The Entity and Poltergeist did when I always a kid - coupled with the usually awful representations of chatacter and behaviour I'm always left disappointed.

Was curious about A Quiet Place though. As I say - a couple of genre standard plot holes, but - it's a beautifully shot film in places, the sound design and presentation is excellent and brilliant performances all round. What a lot of modern horror lacks I think is the fear of the characters you're on the journey with. They really nail it here.

If you're of the disposition, there are a couple of 'jump scares' that aren't completely telegraphed too.

@KratosMD The lack of imagination really burns sometimes...

Thankfully, Ghostbusters was enough of a cautionary tale that the expected 'all female remake of...' wave didnt really happen.

Let them make it and watch it bomb.