Topic: The Movie Thread

@StitchJones I saw it on the big screen back in early October and wrote this about the experience:

One Battle After Another (Cinema): Why this is hailed as the best movie of the year and a masterpiece confounds me. It is a perfectly fine movie, with some good turns by DiCaprio and Penn in particular, but the satire doesn't work all that well in my opinion and I fail to see anything truly special about it. I think I actually may have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't been bombarded by critics hailing it as something truly special beforehand, something I don't think the film delivered on. It is also easily 30-40 minutes too long and could have benefitted from a slight trim. I loved the "car chase", though, putting it in quotes because of the sheer originality of the sequence. Very well done. Good movie, not a masterpiece, IMO (I liked "Caught Stealing" better).

I've never been a huge fan of Paul T. Anderson - in fact, I used to dislike his movies quite a bit until I found out that I was confusing his movies with Wes Anderson's. When I discovered my error I realised I had seen very few of PTA's movies, though what I had seen hadn't made any lasting impression. So I went in thinking I may have missed out on a true master director all these years, mainly due to the massive almost worshipful praise heaped on the movie by critics everywhere and came out severely underwhelmed.

@MightyDemon82 I've read that it is a magnificent piece of cinema and that the changes made to accommodate the merge are brilliant (and makes O-Ren Ishii's revenge story almost as powerful as The Bride's). Unfortunately, looks like there are no current plans to bring the epic cut to Norwegian cinemas, much to my consternation

@GirlVersusGame I'm having a bit of trouble following your posts sometimes, I'm not always sure when you're quoting others or when it's your own text, so I'm not 100% sure if it was you who asked if I would go see a movie at the cinema if I had a "private cinema" at my house" or not. Either way, I would like to think I would. I have a pretty sweet A/V setup that, while not "cinema scoped", is more than satisfactory for my movie viewing, but as I said, it's also the act of going out to see a movie that is part of the attraction. And when I say "seeing it on the big screen", I actually mean all the trappings associated with a good movie theatre as well. Though, to be honest, if I ever were to have a "home cinema" rivalling the theatres I like to go to, I would probably be filthy rich and a filthy rich FuriousMachine would most likely live in luxury and somewhat seclusion near a tropical beach somewhere, so who knows if he'd find the will to leave the beach to go to a cinema

@FuriousMachine I'm having a bit of trouble following your posts sometimes, I'm not always sure when you're quoting others or when it's your own text.

• That's something I do try to avoid and it definitely happens, that's why I hit the edit button so much and even then it looks off. I don't use English that often, my French and Albanian are better than my English. I do still practice it daily though, most of the people around me don't use it all that often either. So perhaps if it's more in a listening capacity and I'm bypassing first person (myself) I can't explain it, I just know it happens. It's interesting how people always choose the beach or the island, I always think of it as the most visible border of the map, the horizon is so prominent. Sort of like the Truman Show when he reaches the limits of 'the world'. And yet people seem to always choose the option with the most visible horizon, it's just interesting. Maybe they want that reinforcement of seclusion, the 'it's just me and my book'. With Truman he didn't know any better, he didn't see the day/night cycle, the set-dressing, he just saw life. I've never seen a movie like it since. I see it as an allegory for Plato's cave with the final exit being his 'true birth'. He doesn't fall off the map, he loses nothing because it wasn't real to begin with, he gains himself and with that complete autonomy.

@GirlVersusGame Your English is excellent, so that's not the problem, it's more about the format of your posts where it's not always clear what is a quote from someone else and what is not. In the example above, I would read the first part (following the @) as a reply from you to me, it isn't clear that it is in fact a quote from something I wrote (I did of course recognise it as such because I originally wrote it, but when others are quoted it is not as clear).

As for the beach, I just want to be left (mostly) alone in a bright and sunny place where there is no snow, nothing deeper than that

Movieweb is a frustrating site, full of click-bait and articles that target search engines rather than people and listicles up the wazoo, but every now and then they publish some really insightful and interesting articles that make them impossible to completely ignore.

This is one such article, commenting on the Netflix buyout of WB and why it is so bad for cinema

A highly recommended read

@FuriousMachine Thank you, that actually means a lot. It's funny I find comfort in the snow and in the darkness not the other way around.

@GirlVersusGame I like snow too, but only on postcards and not outside my window
(winter here is rarely the "pretty snow" as seen in Hollywood movies, but grey, polluted slop that covers a lethal layer of ice, making a simple trip to the store a potentially deadly affair... I also hate being cold, so winter has nothing for me anymore. A friend has a cabin up in the mountains and that is a different prospect all together; then I quite like the snow and dark - once we're inside in front of a roaring fireplace, that is)

@FuriousMachine Were we separated at birth or something hahaha lol. We seem to have the same views on things here on the board, music, instruments, society/life views, now movies. Its like your post you left on this movie, were words pulled directly from my mind after I saw it for myself. I had to know if it was just me, which was a possibility. As I stated at the start, I rented it for $20 which I never, ever do. That's too pricey. But it was Thanksgiving weekend and I splurged, but that insane amount of praise that was put on this movie edged me on as well.

I forget the exact words used in the trailer for this, but it something like "a generational masterpiece"...."greatest film in last 2 decades".....super hype driven and really freakin' bold to be talking that kind of game. If they really thought this movie was "generationally epic", I would hate to watch a movie that they would label bad.

I'm with you, it was a solid movie, solid performances. The concept was kind of unique, not done a ton in other films, but wasn't so far outside the box and so creative where you have to leave the writer props. But man I was let down. And like you said, maybe I got too hyped up by the masses and was destined to be let down. I actually watched it twice, cause you get that window after renting on prime. I thought maybe it was like Pulp Fiction....the kind of movie that you really need to watch more then once. But no, the 2nd time and I still felt the same.