Films Recently Watched

[Pirtek]

14 hours ago, nikisoko said:

saw dune in the theater today. i thought it was great in that in was basically how i imagined things in the book when i read it.  first time in a movie theater in about 2 years as well. i forgot the surreal feeling of walking out of a long movie into real life. kinda wish i’d seen it on imax though

Just got back from seeing it in imax. Absolutely stunning!! I too got that feeling when walking out of the cinema. Not been since March 2020.

Dune is a Masterpiece!!!

[Nebraska]

never read the books nor watched lynch's 84 attempt so i went into this completely blind. honestly, i didn't like it at all. felt like i had no idea what the hell was going as the story seems more massive than what is being shown, and all the explosion doesn't help because it's trying to set up a world in such a "just go with it" tone. wish they never green lit the 2nd part

Spoiler

the dave bautista portion was hilarious to me. can anyone tell me why most of the people of his race are so "buff" when they clearly do nothing else but just prepare for a war that never comes? literarly bautista is just walking around talking to a bald guy taking a mud bath, so i don't get when he gets time to work out.

 

[dr lopez]

4 hours ago, dcom said:

Just came back from watching No Time To Die. I've liked Craig's Bond the best, and if you're into what he gets out of the character, you'll like his finale, too - making Bond more humane, emotional, and sentimental, even - but it's still a 007 movie through and through, so don't expect anything too complicated or labyrinthine twists in the plot. It's an entertaining enough way to whittle away almost three hours.

seeing it tonight. looking forward but my god it's long! I think Casino Royale is one of the best bond films, and whichever one Deakins was DP for has that insane scene with all the reflective glass in the office tower that is seriously some of the best modern camera work I've seen. Forget which film it was in tho... Skyfall maybe? Anyone I don't really remember Spectre and I didn't see quantum of solace. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by dr lopez

[beerwolf]

11 hours ago, dr lopez said:

 has that insane scene with all the reflective glass in the office tower that is seriously some of the best modern camera work I've seen. Forget which film it was in tho... Skyfall maybe? Anyone I don't really remember Spectre and I didn't see quantum of solace. 

Yeah it was Skyfall, and yes indeed it was incredibly shot. Not really a huge 007 fan but that’s easily my favourite Bond film. Would like to see the new one (and Dune) but that’s not gonna happen.

Edited October 24, 2021 by beerwolf

[dr lopez]

bond plot made absolutely no sense at all. villains motivations entirely unclear and confusing. beyond massive plot holes it was still pretty fun and kept me engaged for almost 3 hours. new 007 character was pretty bad at acting unfortunately...  i would say this was as good as spectre. skyfall and casino royale are much better. 

[dcom]

13 minutes ago, dr lopez said:

bond plot made absolutely no sense at all.

Suspension of disbelief is always an option, although we (my SO and I) had a discussion last night about the inconsistencies, too.

[dr lopez]

1 hour ago, dcom said:

Suspension of disbelief is always an option, although we (my SO and I) had a discussion last night about the inconsistencies, too.

this is my best attempt at the plot. Please correct if I am wrong. normally I don't care about plot but it's a bond movie so it kind of needs to matter a little. And yes of course there are suspensions of disbelief all over the place in a film like this because it relies so heavily on tropes but some adherence to plot logic is required.

Spoiler

ok so rami malek wanted revenge on mr. white who killed his family. instead he just killed mr. white's drunk wife and was going to kill his daughter (lea seydoux) but instead, in some "unexpected" moment of pity, not only spared her life but rescued her from drowning, perhaps because he saw himself as a child in her situation. Up to this point it is entirely believable. Because Mr. White has presumably been killed (I think in a previous bond film) Rami Malek instead somehow convinces a evil, disgruntled bio weapons scientist to make modifications to a bioweapon being covertly developed by MI6. We unfortunately never see this happen. We also never see that SPECTRE, an evil organization that Mr. White was part of, also wants this bioweapon (why? to kill bond?) and also somehow think that the evil scientist is on their side. First moment where the plot begins to not make sense. A better motivation would be to try and free Blofeld somehow so he can go back to being evil. This never comes up.

The bioweapon is stolen by SPECTRE and knowing that Bond was going to be spying on this SPECTRE party in Cuba, Blofeld plans to kill Bond and only Bond with this bioweapon at the party. *but* the macguffin scientist covertly changes the "profile" of the weapon so it targets all of the SPECTRE bosses instead, because he's secretly working for Rami Malek somehow. Mayhem ensues, and the SPECTRE henchmen think that Bond did it. At this point Rami Malek's plan is going swimmingly. To finally eliminate SPECTRE and exact his revenge he now has to kill Blofeld, who is being held in a hilarious prison in London. He has the bioweapon matched to Blofeld (how? The movie tells us you need some DNA or hair or something but they never have Blofeld's because he's locked up.. just a minor point) and he needs Lea Seydoux to transmit it to Blofeld because... she is the only person he speaks to because (I guess) he and she both know that her dad was in SPECTRE. Here is where I become very confused. Ms. Swann is a psychiatrist.. who used to work for doctors without borders or something (explained in the last film) Now somehow she works for Her Majesty's Government as a psychiatrist for... evil villains? The motivations to set up the scene where she gets the nanobot/bioweapon from Rami Malek make no sense. He's just a random guy off the street who needed psychiatric therapy from the NHS? And by sheer coincidence they paired him with her? ok... but then what is her motivation for helping him kill Blofeld? Just because she's afraid of him? I don't recall him threatening her with death or anything if she doesn't kill Blofeld. In fact he says that they have a strong bond (lol) because he saved her life. Maybe the bond (lol) between them meant she "owed" him this favor? 

She for some reason doesn't want to kill Blofeld... the most evil man ever, and chickens out. Bond kills him by accident but there are absolutely zero repercussions for this for the rest of the film. They needed a better reason to *not* kill Blofeld. Crummy writing. This is where things for be began to break down. She goes into hiding because she's worried that Rami Malek will kill her for not killing Blofeld? I guess she didn't see that Blofeld died because she ran away before it happened. Does Rami Malek know that Blofeld is dead? That was his goal right as stated in the beginning of the film right? So Bond goes to find her and tell her that everything is ok, turns out she has a daughter. The evil CIA agent is working for Rami Malek (this is not really explained at all) and is tracking Bond.. or Madeleine? Why? Why does anyone want Bond or Madeleine dead? Simply because the evildoers are assuming Bond will try and get the weapon back? And they don't want anyone to get in the way of them having the weapon? That makes a small amount of sense except for the fact that it's well established that Bond works for MI6 and that there is a giant roster of secret agents that can also try and get the weapon back, as well as the entire British military apparatus. Killing Bond and an NHS psychiatrist does not prevent this in any way. For this to work plot-wise Bond and Madeleine need to know some crucial intel or have a macguffin that singles them out especially. Clumsy. Then for no reason Rami Malek abducts Madeleine and her daughter (possibly as bait for bond??) and instantly flies them from Norway to the Kuril Islands via helicopter.

Now it's clumsily revealed he's mass producing this bioweapon to.... kill the entire world? Why does he want that? Who would want to kill the entire world. They show a graphic of the bioweapon spreading and bond says "this could kill millions." ok, yes. Generally that is bad, and we don't want that to happen. But there is simply no motivation for Rami Malek to do this other than vague Thanos-like posturing. (which was a very weak part of the script)  There is also no motivation to inflict psychological pain on Madeleine by taking her daughter. Why does he take her daughter? The film even realizes this is stupid because he eventually lets her go for no reason and she quite comically just skips away unharmed. Another extremely ham-fisted moment at the end was the evil scientist guy saying that the bioweapon can target races and "eliminate the entire west african diaspora" or something. Then Nomi decides to slay queen and kill him. Very stupid. I was actually very impressed that the film up until that point had made no mention of her gender or race, especially considering how much press this character got before the film was released. She was a cool secret agent and her gender and race were simply incidental to the story and didn't define her character in any way. But then phoebe waller-bridge ruined it.

Bond opens the blast doors to let the missiles destroy the bioweapon factory. But then Rami Malek, after having all his henchmen brutally killed (including the cyclops guy who was originally working for SPECTRE but then decides to be a henchman for the guy that killed all of SPECTRE??? fucking stupid) closes the blast doors to prevent the missiles from entering the factory and instead just killing him and bond on the outside. Then he ruins Bond's life for no reason and then pathetically dies. I looked up his character after the film and producer Barbara Broccoli described his as "one that really gets under Bond’s skin. He’s a nasty piece of work." ok cool. not sure why. There is no reason for him to hate Bond at all. This is the biggest issue with this film.

other than that, fun time at the movies!

[dcom]

17 minutes ago, dr lopez said:

this is my best attempt at the plot.

The MacGuffins, plot inconsistencies/unmotivated actions and tropes you describe are exactly what my SO and I discussed last night - there's just so much that simply doesn't make sense - it's not jumping the shark, but a lot of weird choices anyone with half a brain will notice. There's this one more thing:

Spoiler

There's the very obvious I'm-pregnant-and-you're-the-father setup/conspiracy with the audience in the beginning, where Bond is being paranoid about Madeleine being "a daughter of SPECTRE" - she says "I need to tell you something" and Bond cuts her off and doesn't let her speak, then later when Bond forces Madeleine on the train and the door closes, she grabs and scrunches her abdomen to make it painfully obvious she's with child.

If you switch off the analytical mode it decent enough, but I'm hankering for a second viewing just to try and see if the holes are as agape as they seemed to be.

Edited October 24, 2021 by dcom

[brian trageskin]

they shall not grow old: very nice.

[zkom]

I kind of want to watch the documentary on Moby called Moby Doc, which he himself co-wrote (lol) and according to reviews is mostly self-serving wankery, just so I can hate it but on the other hand I don't want to waste time watching him talk about himself.

[Nebraska]

On 10/16/2021 at 7:09 AM, Rubin Farr said:

Ugh this woman is the worst 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVde5tAFT4H/

[auxien]

^Chappelle playing the victim doesn't work.

i don't doubt he's temporarily inconvenienced regarding the documentary, sure. potato is too hot right now, no one wants it in their hands at the moment. in a month or two or three it'd be fought over of course. trying to capitalize on it and playing the 'am i cancelled or not' schtick feels really icky.

[prdctvsm]

 

[Silent Member]

I saw dune and I liked it very much thank you! 

[brian trageskin]

the master: poop.

[Nebraska]

these nikkatsu films are some of the most demented pieces of cinema i've ever seen. this one has a teacher who is raped by "someone" at the school, and begins to seek the perpetrator out with a jigsaw puzzle he left behind- not because she wants justice. but because she's in love (or obsessed) with her assailant. the story is presented as "matter of fact" which gives it a very disorienting character- and more importantly, a rather sinister one as well.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Nebraska

[brian trageskin]

under the silver lake: nope. not for me. stopped watching after 14 minutes. 

[J3FF3R00]

8 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

under the silver lake: nope. not for me. stopped watching after 14 minutes. 

I feel you. I tried watching it a couple years ago but turned it off a little less than half way through. 

[perunamuusi]

9 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

under the silver lake: nope. not for me. stopped watching after 14 minutes. 

I was totally not feeling it to begin with. Ended up a strong 9

[cruising for burgers]

On 10/17/2021 at 12:34 PM, brian trageskin said:

the lighthouse: nonsensical but not in a good way. meh.

 

On 10/18/2021 at 3:34 PM, brian trageskin said:

i'm thinking of ending things: poop. 

 

On 10/21/2021 at 8:00 AM, brian trageskin said:

tenet. poop. both palindromes.

 

7 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

the master: poop.

 

1 hour ago, brian trageskin said:

under the silver lake: nope. not for me. stopped watching after 14 minutes. 

 

[zero]

yeah brian, you should probably stop watching all these crappy movies and only watch the good ones.

[brian trageskin]

i'm looking for the good ones. 

[ooqpoo]

'The Dead Center' all looks alright on paper but totally lacks momentum, never really finds a unique vibe and plays out like a sub par x files episode. At one point I thought it might be getting somewhere but then it was over and I realised I'd spent most of the movie thinking about how much the lead psychiatrist guy resembled what the end result of an experiment involving pouring Keanu Reeves into a Thom Yorke shaped recepticle must look like. 

probably ripe for Brian's poop collection. 

[brian trageskin]

mank: pretty good. outstanding cinematography. the dialogues are a bit much for my taste though. the fact that every single line is super smart and witty, i don't know, all it does is constantly remind me that a screenwriter put a lot of thought into each of these lines.

Edited October 30, 2021 by brian trageskin

[prdctvsm]

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