Films Recently Watched

[Suffocate Peon]

Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

 

I thought this was ridiculously relentlessly inventive. The costume/production designers must have had the time of their lives on this film. It merges cgi and prosthetics/make up so seamlessly it's masterful and -i hate this phrasing but- it's a true feast for the eyes *cringe*

 

There are a series of sequences that just made me smile because of the sheer fun that exudes from the screen, it sets something up that is straight out of Jet Force Gemini (which, oblivious to the comic in 1999 i realise the game probably took influence from it) and plays out a scene that is like something from Spongebob Squarepants, so that's the pinnacle of infectious silliness to me the film gets close to. It can take a silly detour that for me a fantasy adventure space film should do more often, and pile idea on top of idea on top of idea. I was distracted by some of the action at the end, thinking 'that's another idea'.

 

A lot of cgi heavy blockbusters I watch rely too much on bogus baddies who want to destroy the world with their death ray, seeking to over dramatize and convince you of the mega threat by contriving a lot of tedious menace that grinds you down and becomes such exhausting nonsense, or they're like Avatar and feel 8 hours long, or they're both. This is neither. The story is incomprehensible for most of it until it all becomes clear, and maybe to some that clarity is too simple but even though I'm unsure of how some things worked i couldn't see glaring plot holes. By the end i was only just starting to get into it. There's a whole sequence early on that is almost too creative to digest (and I'm overselling this massively now but i don't care) and it's the way it continues to bundle into another idea while you were just trying to work out how on Earth the previous idea worked that means i think this is primed to only get better on re-watches. This is thousands upon thousands of kids new favourite film.

 

Luc Besson is just in his element* with this kind of film, he gives it a class that a lot of modern blockbusters have lacked over the last 10 years. And I hated Lucy so i don't think he's always on it. But this is really tight, efficient, free flowing.

 

*not sorry

 

Cara Delevingne is really good, she has a zest and early on does most of her acting with her eyes and cheekiness of her smile, she's a very watchable likeable positive screen presence and every time she was off screen I wanted to see her again. Both her and DeHaan with their youthful and carefree attitude contrast with the seriousness of everyone else, and although Dehann in other stuff i've seen him in does self loathing so naturally he mostly suppresses here. He's still got the voice but there's none of the angst. They go on a mission with ageing gruff types and i liked that cartoonish contrast between them, like they're superstars. They have good chemistry i think. The film could have been wittier maybe. I can see by googling Dehann's name to see how it's spelt The Independant reckon 'Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are the worst on-screen couple ever', so there we go. I mean, they're kids. Dehann is actually not that young at 31 but he appears 22. Maybe in the comic they're older, looking at images they look it. But i liked how young they are. The film would be different if it was Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. I can sense the inevitable hatred for the film's attempt at romance as though it hangs on it and that if you don't care about it the film loses you. I liked that they're not typically muscly, it's fresh that they're young. The film doesn't really sell their brilliance and why they're so important as agents over others who on the surface appear more adequate, but they do enough cool stuff and have to improvise and think on their feet.

 

I think The Fifth Element has a stronger opening (but then very little can compare to that) but overall i think Valerian is more consistent. Just the priest alone in The Fifth Element winds me up and Chris Tucker beyond the first five minutes take its toll, and i do lose interest before the end.

 

Wholeheartedly recommend this film. I am easily pleased though. For a film like this i only have a few rules: don't bore me, and be as silly as you desire. I liked Gods of Egypt and Jon Carter. I hated Age of Ultron and Civil War *spit*. Fuck, the Jet Force Gemini sequence (as it shall be now known) is one of my all time favourite moments in gaming. I'm raising a white flag to any rationality.

 

8/10

[olo]

my ass

[doublename]

They Live By Night - I didn't buy the central romance of this flick for a second, so I didn't like it as much as I'd hoped. Doomed lovers on the run+bank robberies should be right up my alley, but it never really drew me in. The Criterion Blu-Ray is v nice though. Might give it another look sometime.

Edited August 2, 2017 by doublename

[Echolalia]

Yo Ass by Dj Rashad

[AJW]

 

 

Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

 

I thought this was ridiculously relentlessly inventive. The costume/production designers must have had the time of their lives on this film. It merges cgi and prosthetics/make up so seamlessly it's masterful and -i hate this phrasing but- it's a true feast for the eyes *cringe*

 

There are a series of sequences that just made me smile because of the sheer fun that exudes from the screen, it sets something up that is straight out of Jet Force Gemini (which, oblivious to the comic in 1999 i realise the game probably took influence from it) and plays out a scene that is like something from Spongebob Squarepants, so that's the pinnacle of infectious silliness to me the film gets close to. It can take a silly detour that for me a fantasy adventure space film should do more often, and pile idea on top of idea on top of idea. I was distracted by some of the action at the end, thinking 'that's another idea'.

 

A lot of cgi heavy blockbusters I watch rely too much on bogus baddies who want to destroy the world with their death ray, seeking to over dramatize and convince you of the mega threat by contriving a lot of tedious menace that grinds you down and becomes such exhausting nonsense, or they're like Avatar and feel 8 hours long, or they're both. This is neither. The story is incomprehensible for most of it until it all becomes clear, and maybe to some that clarity is too simple but even though I'm unsure of how some things worked i couldn't see glaring plot holes. By the end i was only just starting to get into it. There's a whole sequence early on that is almost too creative to digest (and I'm overselling this massively now but i don't care) and it's the way it continues to bundle into another idea while you were just trying to work out how on Earth the previous idea worked that means i think this is primed to only get better on re-watches. This is thousands upon thousands of kids new favourite film.

 

Luc Besson is just in his element* with this kind of film, he gives it a class that a lot of modern blockbusters have lacked over the last 10 years. And I hated Lucy so i don't think he's always on it. But this is really tight, efficient, free flowing.

 

*not sorry

 

Cara Delevingne is really good, she has a zest and early on does most of her acting with her eyes and cheekiness of her smile, she's a very watchable likeable positive screen presence and every time she was off screen I wanted to see her again. Both her and DeHaan with their youthful and carefree attitude contrast with the seriousness of everyone else, and although Dehann in other stuff i've seen him in does self loathing so naturally he mostly suppresses here. He's still got the voice but there's none of the angst. They go on a mission with ageing gruff types and i liked that cartoonish contrast between them, like they're superstars. They have good chemistry i think. The film could have been wittier maybe. I can see by googling Dehann's name to see how it's spelt The Independant reckon 'Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are the worst on-screen couple ever', so there we go. I mean, they're kids. Dehann is actually not that young at 31 but he appears 22. Maybe in the comic they're older, looking at images they look it. But i liked how young they are. The film would be different if it was Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. I can sense the inevitable hatred for the film's attempt at romance as though it hangs on it and that if you don't care about it the film loses you. I liked that they're not typically muscly, it's fresh that they're young. The film doesn't really sell their brilliance and why they're so important as agents over others who on the surface appear more adequate, but they do enough cool stuff and have to improvise and think on their feet.

 

I think The Fifth Element has a stronger opening (but then very little can compare to that) but overall i think Valerian is more consistent. Just the priest alone in The Fifth Element winds me up and Chris Tucker beyond the first five minutes take its toll, and i do lose interest before the end.

 

Wholeheartedly recommend this film. I am easily pleased though. For a film like this i only have a few rules: don't bore me, and be as silly as you desire. I liked Gods of Egypt and Jon Carter. I hated Age of Ultron and Civil War *spit*. Fuck, the Jet Force Gemini sequence (as it shall be now known) is one of my all time favourite moments in gaming. I'm raising a white flag to any rationality.

 

8/10

So it's not about valerian root after all? Dam.

[sunshine recorder]

nightbreed-directors cut   

 

preferred the original to this,tho neither are great,clive barker definitely overreached on this,unlike hellraiser,the story wasn,t good enough to mask the bad acting,but my biggest gripe was with the score,danny elfman was such a bad choice,its like it belongs to a mid eighties comedy and just ruins any sinister mood the film could of had,cool mask on cronenberg tho  -  5/10

 

Edited August 3, 2017 by sunshine recorder

[Silent Member]

Free Fire. Making your entire film a shootout when you're unable to shoot one is not a good idea. At no point did I have any idea where anyone were located in the warehouse and I was unable to understand who they were shooting at. Learn to angles bro/10

 

Also watched Kong: Skull Island. Most entertaining product from the Hollywood money factory in a while. 'Nam/68

 

Edit: oh fuck, I see Ben Wheatley directed free fire?! Wtf? I thought this was just another "me too" Tarantino wannabe arriving on the scene 20 years too late. Shit!

Edited August 3, 2017 by Gocab

[doublename]

Anyone seen The Untamed (La región salvaje)? I might try to catch it next week.

 

Edited August 3, 2017 by doublename

[Silent Member]

Yes! It's very good.

[doublename]

Nice, tix acquired.

 

And yeah, that Free Fire is a v disappointing turn for Mr Wheatley.

[usagi]

T2 Trainspotting. I thought this wis fackin barry though some ay they soondtrack choices got oan ma tets a bit n aw.

[eugene]

shin godzilla - that was fucking ridiculous and hilarious, and i can't even really tell if this was intentional or not, but probably not. i guess the director attempted to do something akin to soderbergh's contagion, a sort of a wide scale portrayal of a disaster and the various organizations' attempts to deal with it. the super-quick editing going from one meeting to another with the subtitled barrage of names of organizations and people in suits is an attempt infuse it with grave seriousness, but with phony deadpan acting and overemphasized japanese honorifics it just came off stupid and silly with its pretentious. it gets from silly to hilarious when it goes international, one of the best examples is an american born young hot female politician character who is also ethnically japanese, has ambitions for american presidency(!) and a youtube viral video worthy engrish skills. the actual monster in its first evolutionary stage looks absolutely retarded (the fucking eyes man, you'll never forget those, flol), like some kind of cross of a lizard and a seal QWOPping all over the city stomping building with motionless and expressionless head. then there's the fucking music, my god, it goes from some kind of elaborate orchestrated score to soft elevator jazz standards (to indicate relief i guess? lol) to shoegazy dance-rock and metal (when the crew of people were brainstorming hard for solutions to the godzilla problem), and what i think is the original japanese godzilla soundtrack during action scenes, which sounded like it was ripped straight from the 50 year old vynil without any kind of reworking and updating at all, it sounded mono, tinny and generally very low fi, it actually prompted me to check if my torrent was legit because it seemed so fucking weird. a big chunk of the music usage and placement obviously didn't make any sense. i don't want to spoiler it anymore, this is essential viewing.

Edited August 4, 2017 by eugene

[tec]

A lot of it was definitely intention, the honorifics getting bigger as the film goes on was a lol.

[Auditor]

Sad what I'm hearing about Free Fire. I hope Wheatley gets back to making great films. I feel like he's gotten too light and self indulgent since High-Rise. Which had it moments but could of been cut down by 1/3

[Echolalia]

Watching i origins. New York looks like Bruce Davidson's Subway. The PhD student nails the solipsism of his own existence. Spanish bird well fit innit.

[zaphod]

eyes of my mother

 

i wish i liked this, but it was like watching paint dry.

[tec]

eyes of my mother

 

i wish i liked this, but it was like watching paint dry.

Fairly sure I saw it a few months ago but if I had a gun to my head I still couldn't tell you anything that happened.

 

Had a google and realised I'm thinking about Julia's Eyes, please ignore me.

Edited August 6, 2017 by tec

[usagi]

I thought it was amazing.

[Auditor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak9CsLwx90U

Wow, started out lukewarm on this but it grew on me quickly. Total demented fun. 

 

This was good, an obvious labor of love. Shout out to Irreversible within the first 10 minutes!

Edited August 6, 2017 by Auditor

[Rubin Farr]

Atomic Blonde was great, Luc Besson should have made this instead of Valerian. If they're gonna do a John Wick connected universe, this would have been a great prequel, Hell she could have been his mom, lol.

[dr lopez]

a John Wick connected universe

please end my life

[zaphod]

it's a cool idea. like, what if the pianist is part of the holocaust connected universe. 

[zaphod]

the israeli title of munich is the avengers

[zaphod]

bands should have shared universes. imagine sigur ros and godspeed existing in the same timeline. crazy stuff.

[dr lopez]

the israeli title of munich is the avengers

lol