Wot films are you watching?

[BillButNotBen]

He gave Baby Driver 5/5.

theguardian.com 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/02/baby-driver-edgar-wright-ansel-elgort-review

Baby Driver review – boy racer hits all the right notes

A young getaway driver’s playlist helps him stay in the fast lane in Edgar Wright’s exhilarating car-chase thriller musical

It reminded me of True Romance too.
But the Brighton Rock final showdown just didn’t really work for me. Meaning that the best 2 action/car/music scenes were all in the first 3rd (which did put a grin on my face) but then nothing after that really lived up.

It also kinda reminded me of Free Fire (which I thought was the same director but not) in being a movie with a cool idea that couldn’t quite sustain it for the entire movie.

[LexW]

But the Brighton Rock final showdown just didn’t really work for me. Meaning that the best 2 action/car/music scenes were all in the first 3rd (which did put a grin on my face) but then nothing after that really lived up.

Definitely agree there.

It also kinda reminded me of Free Fire (which I thought was the same director but not) in being a movie with a cool idea that couldn’t quite sustain it for the entire movie.

That’s an interesting one too, which I keep meaning to see, because the Guardian reviewed it twice, first when it was at a film festival and Benjamin Lee gave it 2/5 and said it didn’t work, and then when it actually came out, Mark Kermode, who likes films that are good films, not necessarily good stories or the like, gave it 4/5.

[Xercies]

Sausage Party… Why? Like I have no idea why this film exists. It’s just baffling a story. Food is somehow conscious and they all are culture stereotypes. It’s about religion apprantely.

The premise is fecking dark and in one scene it actually realises it… Which I appreciated.

There is a storyline between a Jewish bagal and a Palestinian food item… And it actually refrences the Israel and Palestine Conflict… What?! It also refrences Mexican tunnels. And apprantely the German food items want to kill the Jews… I mean juice… What?!

Again… It’s just baffling. Plus it makes you tired of swear words. Like the people who made this thought to make it adult they had to have swearing in every line. It gets old.

Plus here is the biggest problem… It’s just not funny really. But it is bizzare and I will give it props for keeping me guessing and going What?!

But I definitely wouldn’t call it good.

[alms]

Interestingly you can actually prove it’s not a “naked emperor” movie by looking at the reviews from the sort of reviewers who don’t give a shit what the other reviewers say, only what they think.

Mark Kermode for example. An amazing reviewer. Absolutely does not give one micro-shit what other reviewers think except maybe occasionally to shit on them. He hates a lot of stuff that consistently praised.

I don’t know Kermode well enough to comment, but there was no need to “prove me wrong” both because of this quote you quoted, and also it’s the way I felt, which is the way I felt, which, you know…

Not saying that it actually was the case (I don’t have enough information to tell), just how it felt to me.

I enjoyed the Cornetto Trilogy, and after Scott Pilgrim I was like “what the hell did I just see” but in a good way, so wasn’t it bad enough already that I was so thoroughly let down by the film?

[LexW]

I don’t know Kermode well enough to comment, but there was no need to “prove me wrong” both because of this quote you quoted, and also it’s the way I felt, which is the way I felt, which, you know…

Sure, but you said you felt like movie critics were being sycophants by liking the movie, and in many situations, there’s no way to show whether something is right or wrong, but in this one, it was interesting, because for once you can show that it’s wrong to feel that in a way that’s fairly conclusive. It’s easy to look at Kermode (who is one of the most famous film critics in the UK - probably the most famous still operating) and see his history of not being a sycophant, and he loved the movie more than most.

What I’d say is that your feeling of disliking the movie, and being confused by others liking it, totally valid, and not something I am criticising. Your expression of critics liking it as being like the naked emperor, though, I thought was interesting because, very unusually, it was demonstrably untrue!

I enjoyed the Cornetto Trilogy, and after Scott Pilgrim I was like “what the hell did I just see” but in a good way, so wasn’t it bad enough already that I was so thoroughly let down by the film?

I am honestly not trying to be mean to poor alms-y

I just thought it was interesting because Kermode proved that particularly feeling was not right and I think it helps dialogue and understanding if we look at why critics might differ from you on their opinion of the movie.

[BillButNotBen]

Benjamin Lee gave it 2/5 and said it didn’t work, and then when it actually came out, Mark Kermode, who likes films that are good films, not necessarily good stories or the like, gave it 4/5.

Sounds about correct.

Watched Atomic Blonde and I wonder how Kermode felt about that one… because as a piece of cinema it’s very well made, but as story it’s awful.
Cinematically it looks very nice, if a little over-done in the 80s style department. As you’d expect from the director of John Wick, it has some great action scenes*.
But, unless my brain crapped out on me, the story is an incomprehensible mess of double/triple/quadruple-crosses (and not in a good way) where we have no idea who is doing what and why, and so even the twists/crosses don’t land because if it’s not that shocking when it turns out that A wasn’t actually working for B, but actually for C when I thought A was working for D anyway.
Plus, I haven’t actually sat down and worked it out, but i can’t imagine that the plot actually makes any sense when you do know who is working for who.

*Back to the action scenes. Knowing it was from the director of John Wick might have colored my expectations a bit, but there’s not actually as much action as I was expecting. There are a couple of short hard fights near the beginning, but they don’t stand out above other shows, movies (except having a female protagonist).
There’s a John-Wick-ish gun fight near the end, but it’s short.

However there is a ridiculously awesome brutal one-shot take fight (involving a stairwell of course) in the middle of the movie that basically makes the entire movie worthwhile. (in the same way the one-shot stairwell fight in Daredevil S2 saved that season).
I assume there’s some CGi/editing trickery in there as I can’t see how they could have actually done it all in one take.

Charlize Theron is awesome and very game as usual.

Oddly, it made me appreciate the “Bad guys killed my dog” approach of John Wick, as imho the film would have benefited from dumping all the complex cross-plotting and flashback stuff and just being a simple “Bad guys killed my boyfriend and I’m going to go to Berlin and kill them all” movie.
You can kind of ignore all the plot stuff, but it’s difficult.

So yeah, watch it for Charlize Theron and the middle fight scene.

[somini]

This thread can’t die! Let me jolt it to life.

I’m currently watching the entire Bond series, starting with Dr. No. What a load of tosh.

I’ve seen about 20 of them so far (not in order), and there’s about 2 or 3 that work as a serious films. There are no real stinkers, but even though (because?) the producers rule the cash cow with an iron fist, they devolve into a bunch of unnecessary action scenes and truly beyond the pale plots.
Austin Powers was toning down the worst parts.
We live in a world where there was a Bond film that revolved around Christopher Lee with an extra fake nipple and a midget, come on!!! There was a Bond villain plot to give away 2 billion dollars worth of heroin to kill the competition and corner the market. A villain built an ice hotel/palace on Iceland only to destroy it on the opening day with his kill sat.

Each film stands alone, with no overarching plot, even the same actor can be doing something like Casino Royale and then return to the boredom that is Quantum of Solace. Or The World is not Enough into Die Another Day.

I still think Dr. No is just a worse remake of North by Northwest.

[Shadoko]

I wonder how 15 years of Daniel Craig and to a lesser extent Pierce Brosnan Bonds have created this idea in the collective consciousness of the viewers that James Bond is a high-octane, dark, actiony and serious thing while the immense majority of Bond films are extremely pulpy and goofy. A bit like Nolan’s Batman modified our expectations for a Batman movie.

[somini]

People balk at the idea of watching any of the old films. “Kids these days” think any Bond pre-Brosnan was made by rubbing to sticks together.

[BillButNotBen]

[nostalgia glasses on]
Having grown up watching all the Bond movies again and again, and (like most british boys) basically thinking Bond was the coolest thing slice sliced bread, I say the old movies are great and not that different from the new ones.

There are of course differences in tone between the bod eras, with the Roger Moore ones in particular being a fair bit more camp and funny/silly. But at their core, the Craig movies aren’t that different from the ones that came before them.
Cinematic editing (particularly pace), action, and sfx have all advanced a lot since many were made, but most of them tend to be fun rides.
Unfortunately, a lot of the green-screening has aged rather badly, but on the flip side, most of the stunts by the stuntmen remain pretty awesome.
(When they were hanging on a net off the back of a plane, they were really doing it. When they span the car jumping the river they really did it… these days it’d be CGi, or even if it wasn’t, it’d feel like it).

I got the whole dvd set back at the end of the Brosnan era, and almost all of them were fun, even those that had aged.
I have fond memories of there being a Bond movie on tv every bank holiday Monday, and then the next Tuesday at primary school, every boy would be playing “Man with the Golden Gun” or whatever game we could make out of that particular movie.
That and making Lego submersible bond cars.
Plus everyone at Uni dressing up in Tuxedos and mall gowns to go to the first showing of Goldeneye.

Bond movies were all great… except Never Say Never Again, and the bit with Roger Moore being hit on by a teenage ice skater, and when it went full on CGi at the end of Die Another Day.

–

I wish someone would invent an AI tech that’d go back through all old movies and improve the green-screening. That’d improve most old movies immeasurably.

[Shadoko]

People balk at the idea of watching any of the old films. “Kids these days” think any Bond pre-Brosnan was made by rubbing to sticks together.

Which is a shame because, bar the rampant sexism and colonialism, Connery-era Bonds are still fun to watch. Goofy but fun.

[ana]

Hi !
I watch a lot of comedy films, but I got really interested in the films that are based on real facts. For example “BLOW”. Any similar film?

Thank you so much !

[Fumarole]

I wish someone would invent an AI tech that’d go back through all old movies and improve the green-screening. That’d improve most old movies immeasurably.

We already have these; they’re remakes and they’re generally terrible.

[BillButNotBen]

We already have these; they’re remakes and they’re generally terrible.

Noo! That’s not what we want. We want the original movie with better green-screen compositing.
Which most movie companies probably won’t finance… hence the need for an AI.

[BillButNotBen]

I’d been meaning to watch Get Out for a while, and I finally got around to it. It’s ok I guess, occasionally mildly clever, but mostly very predictable.

I assume, a bit like Black Panther, its hype was mainly based around its meta qualities rather than its qualities as an actual horror movie.
It’s a very workmanlike horror movie that, for me at least, didn’t really manage to pull off either the “rising dread” style, the “shock twist” style or the “blood and gore” style. Infact I wouldn’t really classify it as scary or horror at all.

So, yay for the social progress and representation, but meh for the movie.
(Unless there was something deeper/cleverer there that went over my head)

Spoiler: Bonus points for “Get him Grandad!” though.

[Lukasz]

So I finally watched Civil War

Fun movie and fights. A premise is a bit weak, with the conflict between them could have easily avoided if they just have a more mature discussion but anyway.

The best was Spiderman. Loved every scene he was in. Really excited for Homecoming now!

[LexW]

I kind of wonder if you would feel it was predictable had you watched it at release. I haven’t seen it and have never read spoilers for or even seen a trailer. Nor read reviews beyond it being good. But I’m pretty sure from the few pictures I have seen in articles and from the general things people have said even without spoilers that I now could predict the entire plot.

Yet I am confident I could not have when it came out, nor for a month or two afterwards.

Not a criticism but I noticed this myself and wonder.

That said I actually enjoyed BP because I engaged strongly with the central conflict and enjoyed the spectacle and side characters more than almost all Marvel stuff. I mean Tony Stark pretty much single handedly ruined the new Spiderman for me with his creepy vibe and the way the movie licked his boots, and the lack of anything like that in BP was great.

[Vandelay]

Can’t say I found Get Out predictable, for the most part when I saw it back at release. It really won me over and I thought it was smart, biting and consistently funny. As a film, I found it much more of an achievement than the also culturally significant Black Panther (which was enjoyable, but nothing special beyond what it represented) and deserving of the critical and award attention it received. I still found that when I watched it again on Blu-ray earlier this year.

It is not one jot scary though, the only disappointing element. BlackKklansman did a better job of that.

[BillButNotBen]

I kind of wonder if you would feel it was predictable had you watched it at release.

You may be right, though I also haven’t seen the trailer or read any real spoilers about it. But I’d heard generally about it being culturally significant and the genre, and seen the poster/cover, and that alone is enough to basically give it all away.
I can’t really imagine it’d have been much different if I’d watched it soon after release, unless I went in absolutely blind (like, as in never having heard of the movie, but maybe what I went to the cinema for was sold out).

I could see it having more impact if you thought it was a drama… but even then it shows its hand in the pre-credits sequence.

It really won me over and I thought it was smart, biting and consistently funny.
…
It is not one jot scary though

Interesting… I didn’t really find it funny at all, except a few slightly out of place scenes with the OTT best friend. There were a few bits I thought were smart, but the delivery seemed so placid to me that they never really made much impact. It wasn’t half as biting as I expected either, but that might be down to expectations.

Agreed on the not one jot scary bit though… infact I wonder if my expectations of it being a horror film are slightly what lead to me being somewhat disappointed. I kept waiting for something scary to happen, or something violent, or something shocking, or even just surprising. Maybe it’d have worked better if it was a straight satire.

I just felt like the way it was delivered was very by-the-numbers and languid and it didn’t seem to care about making anything exciting or shocking… even things that might be considered twists were introduced in such a way that they didn’t land as twists.
IMHO the directing/editing wasn’t very good.

[Fumarole]

It is not one jot scary though, the only disappointing element.

Perhaps it isn’t scary, but black American men who have gone through the experience of meeting the wealthy parents of their white girlfriends certainly relate to its horror.

‘I’d Never Seen My Fears as an African-American Man Onscreen’

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