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.

@StitchJones you see, @FuriousMachine is our Sensei, our mentor. So it is a common thing to see that as a far better defined reflection of ourselves 🧐

Sometimes people can be eerily similar in some ways here, though. Like yesterday I suddenly discovered 2 people that listen to Underøath, completely out of nowhere after I had just looked at my own Spotify playlist with Underøath on it. And it was before i'd posted that or mentioned them in any way. Spooky.

I'll give that article a read some time @FuriousMachine and weirdly 2 of my Warner Brothers releases showed up today. Need to tag in @Werehog for this.

mostly survived and looking good. I think one of the steels has a slightly split plastic spine so it feels a little loose and may fully snap at some point, though 😬 I have seen some images of when people have recieved snapped cases.

and now I have the matching LotR steels added to that tin based collection 😛

I realised Warner Brothers makes up a third or more of all my 4k movies, I don't know if that is good or bad 😅 but perhaps I am already well prepared for the worst.

@FuriousMachine @GirlVersusGame I don't mean to insert myself into you two's conversation, but I'm with Furious. I'm from the Northeast part of the US. Whenever I see we are getting any kind of dangerous level of snow I start getting agita bad. Don't get me wrong, when it first falls and if its a certain kind of snow (air temp matters) it adheres to the trees in a way where it looks very tranquil and like it was painted on. Its looks amazing. But as Furious said, it isn't worth the mess and all turns as black as a Death metal video in a day. It was nice when we were kids to get out of school, but now its nothing but a hassle. However, I have no clue what's happening here lately. We have not had any kind of snow past a couple inches in well over 6yrs now. That is ultra rare for here. We are due for a monster. Its not a matter of if, its a matter of when.

@StitchJones Insert away, I've probably done it multiple times without noticing myself. I think I like it because it's just part of home. Most people I've talked to in England do not want -15 or -20 but when it's that cold it sticks different and doesn't get as dirty perhaps. I know what you mean, the slush? and the black-ice. I do need to swing back into day light soon, I've been getting maybe three or four hours of sunlight and because I go out most nights it becomes a kind of permanent night. When you saw a monster you mean a snow storm?

@GirlVersusGame No significant snow here in well over 6yrs. So we are due for a monster snow storm. Just a matter of time. To be quite honest, I love the winter .I absolutely despise summer. And where I live, I'm in the minority. Everyone here despises winter, needs the summer to live so it seems and needs to be at the beach every day. I hate all of that. I love the cold, hate the heat. I also love when we change the clocks back and it gets dark very early. Everyone else despises that here too. I love it.

@Ravix

@Werehog when Furious takes delivery we should assemble and acknowledge our joy and stupidity with a solemn bow or a chant of 'Long live the tin!'

@FuriousMachine Hopefully you'll be able to see it somehow. The anime O-Ren Ishii back story was even better with the extra scenes. House of Blue Leaves fight was also incredibly fun in colour with even more limbs and heads being lopped off.

I ended up watching my niece tonight, my sister got last minute tickets to Jimmy Carr as an early birthday gift for my brother-in-law. So we went to see "Zootropolis 2" which I thought was excellent. Loved all the film references I caught. Will definitely have to watch it again.

After that I let her stay up late to watch
"The Goonies" can't beat those 80's movies.

@StitchJones hehehe, biologically it would be a stretch, but I can be the proverbial "brutha from anotha mutha" (though I do have relatives in Minnesota - well, we lost touch, so not sure if they're still there or have moved elsewhere - so who knows? )
But yeah, I am sometimes truly baffled by critics fawning over certain movies or directors. Some times it is easy to understand why they enjoy a movie, even if I didn't agree, but in some cases, such as this, I truly cannot see why the hyperbole is warranted. There seems to be a few directors where there is a common understanding that everything they do is pure gold, no matter what, when, to my mind, that isn't necessarily always the case.

I don't feel those monikers are really earned or even close to accurate and I'm pretty sure there aren't that many on here that would argue with that. However, it pleasantly tickles my oversized ego, so I'll allow it

Passed customs on Friday! It will be dumped in a place where it's a bit of a hassle for me to get it, but it should be firmly on my shelf and comfortably in my backlog some time this week

@FuriousMachine fingers crossed you do get it okay, then🤞

Peace be with you, sensei 🙏 Let many an ego be inflated, and many a film remain discovered, collected, shelved. Oh yeah, maybe watched some time too, hardly the point though, is it.

And watch out for that physical Kill Bill announcement. I mean, if the Star Wars' original cuts are going to be released/shown, then basically anything can happen now, the rules are out of the window.

@MightyDemon82 I googled to see if there were any enthusiast cinemas planning to show it, but there was absolutely zilch, zip, nada here in Norway. I did get a hit on Apple TV, though when clicking through and getting redirected to the Norwegian site, there was no finding "The Whole Bloody Affair", but the hit in itself may be an indication that it won't be an exclusively theatrical release, as QT initially said it would be... and if it comes to streaming, odds are it will be available here as well, so at least I'll get to see it.

I truly loved Zootropolis 2, so much fun! And Gary DeSnake was a treasure (my grandnephew gets the plushie for Christmas, though I truly want it for myself ) I've seen some critics claim that this, compared to the original, was "toothless" and "de-fanged"; applying some military grade puns to claim that the scathing social commentary of the first was missing from the second.
And while they may be right, I would say that it doesn't really matter. The world being what it is these days, having a joyous animated family film that doesn't remind you of everything that's going wrong outside the movie theatre is a good thing, if you ask me.

@Ravix I know, right? I've gazed into my crystal ball and it showed me that a steelbook collectors box containing "Kill Bill vol. 2", "Kill Bill vol. 2", "The Whole Bloody Affair" and "The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge" will be announced the day after I've opened and voided any return option for my vol 1 & 2 steelbooks coming from Amazon.it early next year. So look forward to that

And when you guys say "watching the movies", you mean gazing lovingly at the film sat on the shelf whilst muttering "my precious" or something similar, right? It's not just me, right? Right?

In an earlier post regarding the Netflix buyout of WB, I said I thought Skydance having won the bid would be the better option and while that may be true for theatrical releases, the opposite may be true with regards to physical releases.

I'll let the highly knowledgeable people over at the excellent The Digital Bits explain:

Now, the interesting thing is that Netflix originally had little interest in buying Warner Bros, but they really didn’t want Paramount Skydance to get it. And it seems obvious that this is all about the WB catalog and the streaming business.

Right now, Disney owns their own catalog, plus 20th Century Studios/Fox, Searchlight Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc.

Amazon owns the recent MGM catalog, plus some Orion Pictures, United Artists, etc.

Paramount owns their own catalog, plus they have some rights to Miramax titles, and they own Republic Pictures, live action DreamWorks titles, Skydance, Nickelodeon & MTV.

And Warner Bros. owns their own catalog, plus New Line, Castle Rock, Hanna-Barbera, DC Studios, Turner Entertainment, the classic MGM catalog, HBO, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, and classic films from Orion Pictures, American International Pictures, and Lorimar.

Then of course you have Sony, Lionsgate, and Universal, which each have catalog content of their own that’s not insignificant, but isn’t really relevant to this deal.

Now… Netflix works with many of these studios to license streaming content. But if Paramount were to absorb the Warner Bros. catalogs, they would almost instantly become the biggest content player in Hollywood. And they could make it very difficult or impossible, and/or more expensive, for Netflix to license that content.

So the bottom line is, I don’t think Netflix could afford to let that happen.

Now… this isn’t necessarily over yet. I’m sure the Ellisons and Paramount Skydance are going to push back hard, threaten legal action, and of course they have a very close relationship with the current administration in Washington DC, which is ultimately going to have to approve this merger either way. And it’s entirely possible that should the Ellisons express displeasure in the right ears, the administration could simply choose not to approve the Netflix/WB merger. I mean, at this level of power, money, and influence, everything is transactional and you just never know. [Update: Paramount seems to be considering just such a strategy.]

A lot of people have asked us today what this means for physical media. And the truth is, I don’t think we really know yet. There are already lots of people online rushing to claim that this means the end of the disc business—I think that’s premature. Certainly, very little of what’s been happening in Hollywood since about 2016 (the push to streaming, the decline of the replication business, COVID, and repeated studio mergers and acquisitions) has been good for the disc business, but that’s a topic for a future post.

I do however think that Netflix winning Warner Bros. is probably the lesser of two bad outcomes compared to Paramount Skydance buying the studio. And the reason I say that is because I know for a fact that Paramount Home Entertainment has essentially been gutted by the powers that be who prepped the way for Skydance to purchase Paramount, and the situation hasn’t gotten better since the Ellisons took over there. In fact, I see very little evidence that the Ellisons even remotely care about the physical media business. I hope I’m wrong about that, but until things change at Paramount—until we start to see a resurgence of new 4K catalog product coming out of their recent distribution deal with Alliance Entertainment—there’s just very little evidence to the contrary.

What all this means, ultimately, is that we’re going to have to wait and see And you can rest assured that I’m going to have a lot more to say about it all in the weeks to come.

You can find the full article here, but I included everything pertaining to they buyout in the quote above. (Do send a few clicks their way if you're interested in physical releases, though, they are truly one of the best online resources on the subject and they are struggling to keep the lights on)