Topic: The Movie Thread

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Huh, I did not know that. That actually changes things a lot, because I actually enjoyed the film until a turn in the plot just undermined everything that made it interesting and profound. So it may actually be the source material that is to blame for what I hated about it. I say "may" because it may still be the director who decided to excise/ignore plot threads in the book that would have made the back half of the movie palatable. Damn, now I think I'm going to have to read the book to find out
You may have recommended Gray's works to me, but I couldn't find any of them in my to-read list, so either I missed it or forgot about it, because Lanark sounds interesting and I think I would have added it. Either way, it has been rectified

@JohnnyShoulder @Ravix Nothing as vile as surströmming (nothing can even get close) here in Norway, but we do have some dubious rancid fish "delicacies" that will eat your soul if you're in the same room as them for too long.

As mentioned in my reply to @BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN above, Lanthimos may not be to blame for what I considered an egregious affront to proper storytelling in Poor Things (though I did have other issues with the film as well: The most annoying soundtrack ever devised by man - which would also be an effective interrogation tool - is one, the random and pointless use of a fisheye lens that serves no artistic or narrative purpose is another). Still, those two things alone wouldn't disqualify the film for me entirely, so I may need to give him a chance with his other work. I've heard a few others also praising The Favourite while also expressing a dislike for Poor Things, so I guess I'll give that a go at one point.

If only there was a mnemonic device or rhyme that could help us remember, remember the 5th of November, but alas, I forgot all about it and went to the cinema to see Orwell: 2+2=5 instead. Didn't much care for it, though.

@FuriousMachine @GirlVersusGame I'm going to see 'Predator: Badlands' this coming Saturday in a double bill with Chainsaw man. I don't have an issue with the age rating, so long as the movie is fun.

Will be watching Frankenstein on Friday night at home, disappointed I didn't get to see it on the big screen but looking forward to it all the same.

Going to see ‘Die My Love’ this weekend. I quite like Ramsay’s work and this was filmed in my neck of the woods so it’ll be nice to see the result of everyone’s hard work.

@MightyDemon82 I'm going on Sunday and, yeah, while I would prefer the Predator films to be gnarlier than a PG-13 rating would allow, it's the entertainment value the movie brings that's important. Looking forward to comparing notes with you and @GirlVersusGame when we've all seen it

@FuriousMachine So The Running Man was interesting. It's a lot more like the book than the 1987 movie, which isn't a bad thing if you like the book. It's clear the original made a lot of changes to adapt the book to the screen and a lot of that was probably down to the budget and the limitations of special effects at the time. I think people will like it if they can separate the old one from the new one which is something I struggle to do with remakes and reboots. I definitely enjoyed it, and appreciated how realistic Ben Richards actually was but I still prefer the original and a big part of that is nostalgia. It's always going to affect how I approach reboots, remakes and so on. The event itself probably factors into it too, it was very high energy and I didn't fall asleep like Downtown Abbey.

I also watched A House of Dynamite and yikes I didn't like it at all. I found far too many contradictions in Defcon protocol and that absolutely killed the realism for me. There was zero analysis of the actual launch location (in reality forensic analysis is conducted, it narrows down who shot what from where) The GBI system is more advanced and again in reality you launch multiple to increase the chances of an impact on the target. Their excuse in the movie was that they wanted to hold onto their reserves, protocol states that you do fire multiple in the event of a general attack. Now lets say it was a Russian launch, in reality we now have hypersonic ICBMs that can't be intercepted by the GBI system. They are too fast and have such an unpredictable flight path that it renders the GBI system useless. Delivery time would be about thirty minutes and then it's game over, how they approached negotiations made no sense, that's not how it's done either.

In a nutshell I love Kathryn Bigelow's previous work (Hurt Locker is one of my favorite movies) but after Zero Dark Thirty she drank the koolaid and instead of being true to the reality of ICBM threat prevention she (or her technical advisors) opted for 'could, maybe' instead of portraying a realistic scenario with realistic controls and all it did was drum up unnecessary fear and eye rolling (if you saw through the cracks) The annoying part is people will and most likely have praised it for it's realism but there is so much wrong with what was shown. Unfortunately we do live in a time where the nuclear threat is very real and it's a subject I'm interested in because I'm seeing it from both sides of the fence. Hollywood isn't there to educate, and normally a movie like this wouldn't bother me but there are folks out there who want a reason to fear their neighbour. It's going to be fuel for their fire. They'll believe that 'X Y Z hates us and wants to destroy us'. They had an opportunity to make a really good movie and normally realism doesn't bother me at all, it does when what you portray affects how people view the world that we all have to live in.

@GirlVersusGame I haven't gotten around to the book (yet), so my only experience with the material is the Arnold movie. I was fully aware that this is a new adaptation of the novel, rather than a remake of said movie and I knew that one wasn't particularly faithful to the source material. So, my intent was always to go in and try to divorce this movie as much as possible from the earlier one and we'll see next week how successful I'll be with that.

I saw "House of Dynamite" a bit differently. To me, the nitty gritty details were kind of irrelevant (and I liked that they were intentionally vague on the origin of the missile and the outcome of the whole thing) as the message it wanted to deliver - that we are all living in a house of dynamite that can pop off at pretty much any time for incredibly stupid reasons - was well serviced by the movie Bigelow made. I also liked that it was somewhat successful in conveying the humanity of all the people involved and that in scenarios like this we are frighteningly dependant on fallible people with human emotions and shortcomings making the right choices.

I can absolutely see where you're coming from, though, and when you have detailed insight into how these things work in real life, as you obviously do, it is difficult to not let that sour the experience.
Also, there will be people who will take any excuse to vilify the east and will probably find some tools to do so in this movie, even though the movie keeps the origin and intent of the missile intentionally vague (they should have had it launch from Norway - no less scary and has precedent in history as a rocket launched from Andøya nearly caused all-out war in 1995 - and it would show that we Norwegians mean business! (We don't, really, and would very much prefer to not get involved, if that's okay))

@FuriousMachine Well said! At the moment I'm watching Once Were Warriors (1994) New Zealand was brought up in an article on the site and it reminded me of one of the best stand-out NZ movies I've ever seen. It's dark, disturbing and most definitely depressing but it's also important and powerful. The biggest caution I'd give is avoid it if you can't tolerate domestic violence on the screen. The beatdown he puts on his partner is still to this day one of the most shocking acts of domestic violence I've ever seen in a movie (especially the scene with the mirror) It is from the early 90's though and thus needs to be judged by the standards of society back then, I think people today might mistake it for toxic masculinity. I view it as survival, everyone featured is a victim of their own situation and of the standard of living their afforded. It's also got an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. I might watch the sequel today too.

@GirlVersusGame Is that the one with Temuera Morrison?

@FuriousMachine That's it. It's about a A family descended from Maori, the Dad is an abusive alcoholic, the children have issues of their own. It shines a spotlight on issues like domestic abuse, sexual abuse, suicide and violence but it does it in a very realistic way. It's some of the best acting I've seen come out of New Zealand and it really sticks with you afterwards. It's one of those movies that makes you sit and think about what you just saw, and ultimately remind you that no matter how bad things get in your own life they can always be worse.

@GirlVersusGame I have no idea why, maybe the title, but I've always mistaken that with the war movie with Mel Gibson (the title of which escapes me at the moment). Sounds like this one is one I'll need to see!

EDIT: The Gibson film was "We Were Soldiers", so not a completely unfathomable mix-up, then

@GirlVersusGame A mate of mine who was originally from NZ, but has lived here in the North East of Scotland for almost 30 years now, introduced me to Once were Warriors. Along with other movies from that side of the world like Romper Stomper & Peter Jacksons Bad Taste. I only ever watched it once as a young man in my late teens and it has stayed with me.

@FuriousMachine I just finished it again and I definitely stand by what I said. I'm going for a walk, that was rough.

@GirlVersusGame Does indeed sound like powerful stuff! I see it's available for rent on various PVOD services here, so will absolutely give it a watch.
Hope you'll have a nice walk

@MightyDemon82 Never got around to "Romper Stomper" either, but the early Peter Jackson movies were a staple in our crowd back then I think "Braindead"/"Dead Alive" is utterly brilliant!

@FuriousMachine Those ones are fantastic as well. "Romper Stomper" like "Once were Warriors" has never really left me after seeing it. Maybe I should watch all those again soon.

@MightyDemon82 Romper Stomper was a weird one. When I first watched it I had no concept for racial hate. I thought it was just a movie and that was that. Years later I was at my first Slayer show and at the time I'd talk to pretty much anyone. I struck up a conversation with a guy and he invited me over to talk to his friends. I didn't know they were skinheads, proper skinheads not posers. It was maybe twenty minutes later that someone came running over, dragged me away and told me how much of a mistake that could have been. They didn't go into specifics and I got on with my night. Here's the thing about Moscow, it's a weird city but it's only weird when you've lived elsewhere. How you are raised depends on what you see and what you are exposed to.

Then we started to see Neo Nazis on the streets, I don't know how well reported the problem is outside of Russia? but it's a serious situation and social media is full of videos of attacks and worse. People can and do get lifted and essentially tortured. It's hard not to think about Romper Stomper or even American History X when you do see or hear about it happening. Now a lot of what I saw back home is happening in the UK. There were three little girls stabbed in Southport and the far right used it as an excuse to bring absolute hell to many parts of England. I'm not saying Romper Stomper caused anyone to do anything, nor did This is England (a really good movie about Skinheads during Thatcher's England) but it's really hard not to think of those movies when you see people de-evolving into absolute chaos. I want to watch Romper Stomper again, and I've wanted to for years but I can never bring myself to do it. Like you said it stuck with you. I think Once Were Warriors hit me harder today than it did the first time.

There's a mocumentary from 2009 that might be worth mentioning. It's called Russia 88. 88 is HH and HH stands for something that I won't repeat. 88 also translates to a very dangerous day in Moscow.

I'll repeat what a review said because I think they sum it up well and better than I can: 'This movie already made a small history by getting banned in Russia. Of course the meaning of "banned" is not the same as it was before, there is no prosecution of the filmmakers nor burning the negatives. It's just not allowed to get screenings in theaters and will not be screened on TV as well, but people will be able to buy it in video stores.

The film is a mockumentary about Nazi underground movement in Russia, the skinheads. You know, fascist swastika, quotes from Mein Kampf, Nazi salutes, hunting and beating "others" on the streets, training camps in the forest, lots of cursing, the usual. The story is told through the video camera, filming "real" people and events, and following group of young working class punks in Moscow in their racist and violent life.

All of it was staged, but the documentary quality of the film successfully creates unpleasant sensation and involves the viewer in the watching experience. And it is very disturbing, some scenes are truly stunning in their rough and gritty feeling'. - So the filming was fake but what it featured isn't. I'd call it realistic.

@GirlVersusGame It sounds like you had a good friend there.

It has been over 20 years since I watched both so I may show them to my wife, she would be more into hard hitting dramas than any other genre I'm into.

I Will look up the mockumentary.

@FuriousMachine The Frighteners is fave early Peter Jackson movie of mine.

@JohnnyShoulder Same here! I think it's my favourite Peter Jackson movie, full stop. There is just something about it all that comes together so beautifully! From that R. Lee cameo and the inclusion of cult classic stalwarts like Jeffrey Combs and Dee Wallace to the brilliant design of the Grim Reaper (who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Ringwraiths that would appear in later movies) and the affable charm of Fox, there is just so much to love there