What are we watching now?

State of Epicicity said:
I think you put it perfectly. I really was expecting something with some emotion to it, some power. This was like someone's student film, but with a huge budget, and that student ended up going into banking because they felt more at home there creatively.
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I don't blame Christopher Nolan for it (he's had some great movies); it's the (boring) subject matter that is the problem.

It's like Hollywood sitting around the table going, "hey guys! we need a new blockbuster movie! what do you got????"

"how about a movie about the life of the guy who invented the atomic bomb!"

giphy.webp


zzzzzzzz....

Hollywood has been in desperation mode for decades. Recently, everyone's tired of the superhero oversaturation.
 
I've never really thought he was a great director. I love that he made Batman Begins, and turned a comic book into a serious style movie in several ways. I enjoyed that for it's novelty and creativity. But in general I can't stand Nolan. To me he rips as much personality as he can from his actors, and I end up feeling like he just has no soul. He can be so slick and stylish that it's like a luxury car commercial, but I never feel like I'm looking at a work of art. My two cents.
 
LeftyLoungeLizard said:
Oppenheimer is the most overrated movie in years. 3+ hours of "meh". And yeah, we already knew he was gonna build a nuke... no surprise there. :LOL:
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I thought it was ok/good, but found the way it was shot to be exhausting. Like the music barely ever stopped, it just kept being brought in and out of the foreground every three minutes, like they were trying to make every scene tense and profound. It just made the entire thing tiring and by the second hour I was just like “WILL YOU PLEASE JUST NUKE SOME MOTHERF**KERS ALREADY?” I was hoping for scene where someone would just drop a fart, to try help take its head out of its own ass.

Though the nudity was a pleasant surprise. (Not to be a pig lol)
 
Whizzinby said:
I thought it was ok/good, but found the way it was shot to be exhausting. Like the music barely ever stopped, it just kept being brought in and out of the foreground every three minutes, like they were trying to make every scene tense and profound. It just made the entire thing tiring and by the second hour I was just like “WILL YOU PLEASE JUST NUKE SOME MOTHERF**KERS ALREADY?” I was hoping for scene where someone would just drop a fart, to try help take its head out of its own ass.

Though the nudity was a pleasant surprise. (Not to be a pig lol)
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My main gripe with the film was that nearly every scene was like 3 or 4 lines of dialog long, max. Between this and the constant flashbacks/ flash-forwards, it felt very disjointed. Hard to get invested in any of it. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I shouldn’t have to spend an entire movie asking, “Who is this and when and why am I supposed to care?”

To be fair… we watched it across several distracted sittings, which only exacerbated this quality. Maybe if I’d been a captive audience in a theater I’d have experienced it differently. (I do know smart people with excellent taste who loved it.)
 
mbenigni said:
My main gripe with the film was that nearly every scene was like 3 or 4 lines of dialog long, max. Between this and the constant flashbacks/ flash-forwards, it felt very disjointed. Hard to get invested in any of it. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I shouldn’t have to spend an entire movie asking, “Who is this and when and why am I supposed to care?”

To be fair… we watched it across several distracted sittings, which only exacerbated this quality. Maybe if I’d been a captive audience in a theater I’d have experienced it differently. (I do know smart people with excellent taste who loved it.)
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Exactly. It was a collection of cutscenes, like a music video. Except it didn’t stop for 2 hours.

I still found it relatively good because of the underlying story and the quality of the actors, but it was a test of will by the end.
 
I watched the Brat Pack documentary, and I don't get how any of them had an issue with it. They all seemed to, but most have gotten over it. I would've made shirts that said, "I am the Brat Pack" just to stick it up the industry's uptight ass.

They should read the Rolling Stone article from the 70s about KISS. Gene was coveting the idea for some time, only to have his mom walk in, call him Chaim, give him some matzo brei soup, and the article came out referring to KISS as sounding like "Buffalo farts."
LeftyLoungeLizard said:
Hollywood has been in desperation mode for decades. Recently, everyone's tired of the superhero oversaturation.
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I think that has some to due with it, but even the group you'd expect to be the core audience are turned off by disrespect to the source material, box checking, and criticism shields as opposed to presenting a quality film.
 
Whizzinby said:
I thought it was ok/good, but found the way it was shot to be exhausting. Like the music barely ever stopped, it just kept being brought in and out of the foreground every three minutes, like they were trying to make every scene tense and profound. It just made the entire thing tiring and by the second hour I was just like “WILL YOU PLEASE JUST NUKE SOME MOTHERF**KERS ALREADY?” I was hoping for scene where someone would just drop a fart, to try help take its head out of its own ass.

Though the nudity was a pleasant surprise. (Not to be a pig lol)
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Did she at least have big thingies? (Sue me, I watched Beavis and Butthead when I was like 6. Huh huh, uh huh huh.)
 
State of Epicicity said:
I've never really thought he was a great director. I love that he made Batman Begins, and turned a comic book into a serious style movie in several ways. I enjoyed that for it's novelty and creativity. But in general I can't stand Nolan. To me he rips as much personality as he can from his actors, and I end up feeling like he just has no soul. He can be so slick and stylish that it's like a luxury car commercial, but I never feel like I'm looking at a work of art. My two cents.
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I love the Dark Knight, but as a trilogy, he fucked himself from the word go. I'm not keen on Ra's Al Ghul despite being quite a fan of Batman, and while I enjoy the hell out of Scarecrow, they should NOT have taken from Knightfall if Bane was going to be in the third film.

Aside from a scene in TDK, Scarecrow doesn't come back. They don't lean into the horror elements enough. They tried doing too much in too little time in the first and third films. Where the fuck is Azrael with the bad ass metal Batman suit? Why does Bane just sort of vaguely taunt and terrorize people like a bully with no purpose or anything to do? It's like they didn't plan anything out, went "we gotta get the cover everyone remembers to be a part of the third one!" And then had zero ideas after.

I love Bane in the comics, but his character outside of that space has been mismanaged every single time.
 
Spaced Out Ace said:
I love the Dark Knight, but as a trilogy, he fucked himself from the word go. I'm not keen on Ra's Al Ghul despite being quite a fan of Batman, and while I enjoy the hell out of Scarecrow, they should NOT have taken from Knightfall if Bane was going to be in the third film.

Aside from a scene in TDK, Scarecrow doesn't come back. They don't lean into the horror elements enough. They tried doing too much in too little time in the first and third films. Where the fuck is Azrael with the bad ass metal Batman suit? Why does Bane just sort of vaguely taunt and terrorize people like a bully with no purpose or anything to do? It's like they didn't plan anything out, went "we gotta get the cover everyone remembers to be a part of the third one!" And then had zero ideas after.

I love Bane in the comics, but his character outside of that space has been mismanaged every single time.
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That's interesting. I don't know anything about the comics, but I'm not surprised Nolan had a less than great adherence to the logic of the original stories. I'm sure he thought he knew better!
 
JiveTurkey said:
Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Insomnia, TDK trilogy, Dunkirk; all are killer flicks in my eyes.
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Ah, I always forget about The Prestige. I did think that one was cool; so dark and brutal too. I think there was a little bit more feel and personality from the actors, if I'm remembering correctly. I've seen all those except Dunkirk, and I'm thinking it's maybe just the problems I have with most modern films in general.
 
Last night we saw Patriot's Day. Man, that was a fantastic rip off of Michael Mann's style from The Insider forward. Unfortunately Mann hasn't made any films I liked recently, but Peter Berg really did a great job directing his actors and the framing here. It's interesting since Peter Berg was in Collateral, under Mann's direction. So the rip off of style really really bothered me, but since Michael Mann has trailed off into no feel no emotion movies these days, I guess it's marginally better if someone else takes up the mantel.

The story is so crazy and brutal you'd assume it's made up, but the actual story of the chase of the Marathon bombers is completely nuts. It's great that they didn't go into their motivation, because terrorists don't need any extra platform for their beliefs.

I think the best you can do is provide some interesting background without justification, à la Syriana, which I think is a damn masterpiece.

Anyway, I highly recommend Patriot's Day, as long as you can deal with the subject matter that night. The real thing was brutal and horrific, and the film reflects it very well.

I should also say that the battle scenes were some of the best I've ever seen in any film. He was totally channeling Heat, but really did go beyond in a badass and awe inspiring way. That part I respected massively.
 
Peter Berg has done some good films. We recently watched Deepwater Horizon and it was much better than I expected. Very Bad Things is a great one from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. The Rundown was really good as well.
 
JiveTurkey said:
Peter Berg has done some good films. We recently watched Deepwater Horizon and it was much better than I expected. Very Bad Things is a great one from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. The Rundown was really good as well.
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Oh cool. I'm definitely interested in him now. I'm curious to see if his style changes between films or if he's a"Mann's man."
 
Spaced Out Ace said:
The TDK trilogy has a lot of issues to be killer. The main issue is Batman Begins' Arkham Asylum escape.
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I am not a stickler for canon. And I think Nolan had a HUGE advantage coming after the Schumacher crap. And I just like the dude's style as well as Bale, Hardy and Ledger. I think Cillian's Scarecrow was awesome too \m/
 
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