I saw 'Wreck-It Ralph' yesterday too - four of us, my wife, son and one of his school friends. We all loved it. Some of the little touches were great - they way the apartment dwellers moved, the arbitrary rules (two stripes!) and, of course, the references to arcade and video games. I feel like it was a missed opportunity though, like they could have done more with the concept. Great fun though - since comparisons to Pixar are de rigueur, I'd rate it ahead of 'Toy Story 1' but behind 'Toy Story 2'. I also watched Dredd last night, which was great fun. Karl Urban was pretty much perfect, Lena Headey continues to be one of my favourite baddies and Olivia Thirlby's Anderson was one of the better female action movie characters I've seen recently. Mostly because absolutely no reference is made to the fact that she's female and what weaknesses she has are down to her rookie status and not her gender, but at no time do you get a sense that they could have cast a male actor in the same role without changing 'her' to 'him'. I'm not sure if I should bother with any criticisms though, because most of the ones that I have are probably just a long time fan of the comic strip being a nitpicking dork (in the comics, everyone knows who Dredd is - stuff like that). I liked spotting the nods to the comic - the Fatties, the blocks that were named after Dredd's creators and artists (Ezquerra, Grant etc.) and the Chopper graffiti. The voice-over at the end was disappointing though - I thought Urban was going to do the 'Mega City One: 800 million citizens. 800 million potential criminals' thing that's at the start of nearly every comic story and then he didn't and oh god I'm a dork.
Today: Thale and Primer. Thale was actually pretty good, a little bit creepy, and although I watched it without knowing anything about the Norwegian folklore before going in, was pleasantly surprised. Primer I had actually watched before, but didn't understand a goddamn thing the first time, so decided to give it a second go. It made a tiny bit more sense this time around, and I appreciated the ending a lot more on my second viewing. How many times does one need to watch this movie to fully comprehend it?
As an interesting piece of trivia, the kids singing in the church are all my oldest daughters classmates (she not in it, because she's not in the choir). They all received tickets for the movie... none of them are old enough to see it.
Watched The Bang Bang Club, which is based on a true story and follows four photojournalists through South Africa's end of Apartheid to their first big election-- about 1990-1994. So you've got Big Stuff happening, and we're given dates and places as titles as though they'd be instantly recognizable. They put up, "April 18, 1990 Tsokembe Road" or something as though that would mean something to me, but since I have no familiarity with that time/conflict, it just means nothing. So does that mean I'm too ignorant to enjoy this movie? Not really. It was okay. Photojournalists are crazy and risk their lives to get pictures. Photojournalists take pictures of horrible things happening to people instead of helping the people. Photojournalists get drunk, have relationships, and win Pulitzers. Also photojournalists are played by much prettier Hollywood actors-- so we've got Ryan Phillipe and Malin Akerman falling in love amidst the chaos. In all, fine for Netflix, but I wouldn't have been happy if I'd seen it in a theater.
Infinite. If you're interested in putting in the work needed to inch toward a better understanding of it, try this.
For me, I'd say I got 90% of it in the first two viewings. I had to watch it a third time for all of it to click.
Started watching Valhalla Rising and realized it wasn't going to be my cup of tea, then decided for the hell of it to start watching The Matrix for the first time in a long time. The first twenty minutes of that movie are hilarious. The first two effects shots hold up really well (slow mo jump kick and building jump), but then this happens. I don't know if that Superman move looked good at the time, but it certainly looks laughably B-movie stupid now. Still, it's fun watching Keanu stumble through his dialogue (and his office) and enjoying Hugo Weaving's insanely deadpan performance.
Commentary like this is part of why I haven't watched Primer yet. If I need a FAQ to understand a movie in one viewing (as it sounds like), it goes to the bottom of the watch list. We watched Silent Hill Revelations this weekend, since I kinda love the first Silent Hill movie. Wow, it was bad. Badly acted, nonsensical plot, criminal misuse of a Pyramid Head carousel. Silent Hill can happen anywhere for any reason! It's like October 19th.
I think it is very possible to understand 99% of Primer on the first viewing provided you actually watch it. If you are messing around with you phone or a laptop or something, you miss things.
Eh... it's really hard to puzzle out exactly what happens on the plot level, but you totally get the point in one viewing. I normally don't like movies that you can't tell what happened either, but I loved Primer. Also: Yeah I'm gonna say you have some room for Primer above the very bottom of your to-watch list there, chief.
Hahaha, more than fair. My introduction to Primer involved a link to this image, which was an instant DO NOT WANT. Even looking that image up now kills any desire I have to see it. I'll give it a shot at some point, but mehhh.
Don't worry about it so much, and don't study up on a bunch of diagrams before you watch it. It's just a movie, after all. That image is to Primer as The Silmarillion is to the Lord of the Rings movies.
Yeah, Primer is basically a movie made specifically to avoid paradoxes that every other time travel related movie has. I swear this was actually the end goal. That said once you get what the guys are doing understanding the movie isn't really that bad but you do have to pay attention in order to "get it" and then not miss it when those moments come.
That chart is a pedantic nerd's reaction to the movie, and doesn't at all capture the feeling of watching it. Don't worry about understanding the timelines and just watch it for how the characters react to the situations they are in.
I remember that being one of the dodgier effects shots at the time. Both of the Superman moments are corny and unconvincing, as is the Superman moment in the second film.
It being Valentine's Day (or close to it) I took my wife to a chick flick, because she really wanted to see one. So we went to see Safe Haven. It is everything you'd expect, and less.
A trivia question for the thread: Today I got home and watched a movie with Denis Leary and Andre Gregory in it. Without using Google... what movie did I watch?
"My Dinner with an Asshole"? Actually I went and used google and: that's funny. I forgot either if them were in that.
I just watched Primer on Netflix. For a $7000 budget, I was 7000 times more satisfied with the mind-bending use of time than any other movie that's ever used it.
It being Valentine's Day (or close to it) as well as my wife's birthday, we ditched the kids with her parents and saw Django Unchained. Great fun, bit too long, Jamie Foxx wasn't bad, but fuck did Christoph Waltz rule. Give him all the Oscars.
Today: Prometheus. I have yet to read the big-ass thread here about it, but while I thought it was a very dumb movie, I did not out-and-out hate it like I did with Avatar. Visually it's terrific, and I loved the art design*. I kept thinking all the way through it that if Michael Fassbinder had been the only person in the movie, it would have been awesome. I guess what I'm saying is: I wish Prometheus was Moon. * Even though it made no sense because the level of advanced technology seemed way beyond what we saw on the Nostromo which happens afterwards, but whatever.
I thought it was better than Blade 2, but I'm weird. One of the most underrated action films of the 90s. Be well!
Berberian Sound Studio, an unconventional horror film about sound production and giallo. It would have easily been in my top ten films last year had I actually got my arse into gear and seen it in the cinema. There are so many deft touches and great performances and, unsurprisingly, brilliant sound design. The soundtrack is by Broadcast, and most of it was recorded before Trish Keenan died, so it's a complete package of great things. As a film, I think it sits in the same genre as weird fiction. It reminds me, probably because I've just read them, of some of Arthur Machen's short stories, with a very off-kilter and believable reality tied to something a little stranger just beyond that wall. Very much worth it. Edit: Peter Bradshaw and Sam Davies have written very good reviews. The opening credit sequence for The Equestrian Vortex, the film-within-a-film with a glorious title, is a thing of beauty.
I watched Reptilicus and Wild Orchid with a friend. I thought they would be hilariously bad. But no, they are just bad.
We also saw the latest live action Resident Evil film, Resident Evil: Whatever, You Know She'll Be Wearing A Napkin At Some Point, For Science Reasons, and they continue to be better than they should be. I even tried one of the straight to CGI ones once, but it is incredibly unwatcheable stuff, so I have to conclude there's something to the schlocky premises and B actors that makes it rise above the material. I would discourage anyone from trying to replay the old games in the series as a result, or for that matter, the embarrassing RE6. It's RE4 or 5 if you have someone to play it with, and that's it, although perhaps the 3ds entry might be ok. RE6 came with Code Veronica, and while it's one I came close to beating on the Dreamcast (shortly after beating RE2), I really had forgotten how huge the gulf was between 4 and everything that came before it. The first five minutes of Code are all I needed to go back to appreciating the movies as their own thing. In contrast, for reasons that no one around here is quite willing to take the blame for, we saw Underworld: Awakening, and could not imagine a more lifeless celebration of hack film-making, blue filters, and cashing in on making Twilight for people who think of themselves as fans of action. Sometimes you know ten minutes in that you should stop a movie, and you don't, and then you feel stupid afterwards. I am glad more people are enjoying Prometheus, for certain values of "enjoy", and look forward to re-opening old wounds.
I watched Night of the Creeps, a fine entry in the films starring Tom Atkins in which small slimy creatures emerged from out of extras' heads. While it was no Halloween 3, you could still see the joy with which he delivered the line, "Your dates are here!" to the sorority as the creepocalypse finally kicked into gear.
Just saw A Good Day to Die Hard with Quacks. Guys, it is never a good day to watch A Good Day to Die Hard. Easily the worst of the movies, and I say that as someone who liked Live Free or Die Hard. It's pretty much a spy movie rather than a Die Hard movie. I'd have zero problems believing that it wasn't originally meant to be a Die Hard movie. The story is terrible. A nonsensical plot that is basically an excuse to string together barely coherent action sequences. The direction is like Tony Scott and Paul Greengrass had a baby and the baby was epileptic, then they raised the baby on a diet of espresso and crack and when he was thirteen they handed him a camera. The quips are pretty poor, and Die Hard should be all about quips. The movie starts with a completely bonkers car chase, peaks at the end of the car chase and falls to shit thereafter, and it never started that high, what with John McClean being written like a cranky grampa. And the worst sin, where it's gotten the furthest away from the original Die Hard, the bad guys had zero character. You end up with about four named bad guys, and there's nothing to make any of them interesting. Just a goddam disappointment all around. In the end I'm like 90% certain that the whole thing was a setup so that Jai Courtney can be the star of Die Hard 6 and the role of John McClean (Sr) can be reduced in future films in the franchise. The high point was the redband trailer for the new Melissa McCarthy/Sandra Bullock buddy cop movie.
Saw Warm Bodies with a friend in the mood for a stupid movie, we ended up liking it more than we thought we would. Though that group of teenage(?) scavengers at the start are some of the slowest redshirts I've seen in a zombie survival situation. The zombie romance/evolution premise will always be silly but once you let that slide, it's a well acted and enjoyably written ride. I particularly like that the zombie dude knows he's creepy and undead, and that's an established turn off rather than creepy fetish...and the girl actually is upset over the fact he ate her boyfriend's brain. I definitely prefer it, compared to the lauded undead romance of Twilight- if only because he actually wants to be human rather then the girl whining that she wants to be forever undead with him. That and zombie man protects her while feeling guilty, not abuses her while saying he's dangerous but hanging around anyway.
I saw Baxter. I can honestly say it was the best movie involving the inner monologue of a psychopathic bull terrier going through a couple owners before ending up with a psychopathic kid on the launch arc to serial killerdom that I've ever seen. Which is to say, it was sort of meandering and weirdly pulled its punches and never quite lived up to potential and more just petered out than ended.
Saw Red Tails and while it was a pretty by the numbers drama with lots of cool planes, it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe. Low expectations can be a boon. The happy sappy end credits even made me go read about them and I was pleasantly surprises at how well it went for them after the war.
I've been watching a little of Bye Bye Birdie, or as much as I can stand given my general dislike of musicals. Someone more talented than I am REALLY needs to cut together a trailer recasting the movie as the tale of a closeted small-town husband and father (played by Paul Lynde) tormented by his feelings for the rock star who has come to town to kiss Lynde's daughter before going off to war, where he will be killed in the jungle by the Viet Cong.
