Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684577 times)

1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3640 on: July 10, 2019, 08:31:09 PM »
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Much smaller in scope than I thought it would be. The street scenes are filled with people who looked like they wandered into the shot. The first future I've seen filled with cargo shorts and polo shirts. As a big Speed Racer fan there was a chance this could have worked for me, but I just didn't find any of it very engrossing or exciting.
It's a frustrating near miss because this is a rare case where James Cameron was involved in the development and not just taking a check to put his name on something. It looks like a James Cameron film in many ways, AND a Robert Rodriguez film, for better or worse. Yet the story and characters are very limited and everything moves along in a mechanical way.

1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3641 on: July 11, 2019, 08:43:44 PM »
...and for another take, Her Smell is amazing, and maybe not even insufferable enough to really drive the point home. I mean, sure, you get it quickly, and then you GET it, because you’re stuck in it, but you could GET IT even a bit more so that you can’t shake the feeling for three weeks. But, you know, it’s still great. The final scene is so fascinating...
The film is a litmus test. How long can you put up with such an insufferable lead character? You think it could've gone further (or just longer?) It's not that I don't have a few favorite films with unlikable characters, I just didn't see the other side, what makes her compelling. Didn't see it for myself and didn't see it from the other characters trapped in her hell.

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3642 on: July 11, 2019, 08:46:48 PM »
Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge character is like a tropical fish and serialized in a fish tank he eats the scenery like a piranha. Outside the radio studio, in feature length format, he becomes a much smaller fish that almost drowns in the big ocean.
Keep thinking about this wonderful description. You're right, it's about the size of the water not the amount of time spent. I binged "This Time" in one flight and my admiration only grew with each episode's addition to the format.

1SO

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3643 on: July 11, 2019, 08:52:14 PM »
IT - 8/10

It felt long this time, that's really my only complaint about the film at this point. It could've been tighter.
Do you think there's too much clown, not enough clown or just the right amount of clown? On a rewatch I still think the kids are a shadow of the Stranger Things ensemble, but looked forward to each clown scene. That could just be my fascination with the mechanics of a good Horror moment. (Not that anybody asked, but my favorite Pennywise moment is either when he twists out of the fridge or when he dances with increasing fury while his head stays perfectly still.)

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3644 on: July 11, 2019, 09:03:00 PM »
You didn't ask me, but I think there's not enough people who are neither the kids nor the clown. Derry in the book feels alive, if on the verge of death. This Derry feels empty by comparison.
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valmz

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3645 on: July 11, 2019, 10:31:47 PM »
...and for another take, Her Smell is amazing, and maybe not even insufferable enough to really drive the point home. I mean, sure, you get it quickly, and then you GET it, because you’re stuck in it, but you could GET IT even a bit more so that you can’t shake the feeling for three weeks. But, you know, it’s still great. The final scene is so fascinating...
The film is a litmus test. How long can you put up with such an insufferable lead character? You think it could've gone further (or just longer?) It's not that I don't have a few favorite films with unlikable characters, I just didn't see the other side, what makes her compelling. Didn't see it for myself and didn't see it from the other characters trapped in her hell.
She’s an insufferable lead character. Her band mates suffer her for years. Years. Why? This isn’t a hypothetical question, this is a central question of the film. The more of the actual insufferable character you see, the louder that question gets; Why?

You can answer that question before you watch it: They suffer it because they’re all in it together! BFFs! That answer goes away when you watch the film. She does unforgivable things, and they suffer her.

You can answer that question before you watch it, in another way: They suffer her because she is the Star and they are fame-starved. That answer isn’t sufficient when you watch the film.

Eventually, you are forced to answer that question in more nuanced, and perhaps uglier ways: They suffer her because they all went too far, and they were once all equally insufferable. They suffer her because they indulge her even when they despise her. They suffer her because they feel inferior to her whenever others idolize her. They suffer her because it is easier to despise her than to help her. They suffer her because they would rather keep making money than risk intervening to help her. That’s the kind of answer that arises from extending her insufferability. I don’t find her a compelling character, but it’s not a character study. It’s an environment study. The environment is so incredibly toxic, and what could be more relevant in today’s #metoo state of heightened awareness? I mean, yes, Golden Exits was a film almost entirely about toxic working and interpersonal environments, and especially he way men take advantage in these environments, but here it’s even more toxic, even more rarified and niche, and therefore more easily acknowledged. It may be a film almost entirely populated by women, but that makes the point all the more clear: to overcome an awful environment is not a given, and sometimes not even possible. Doesn’t Becky’s insufferability feel inevitable at some point in the film after all of the indulgence and idolizing and exploitation?  That’s the tragedy, and the character is almost an afterthought.

Think about the end of the film: when Becky goes missing, what is the film about? It is as much about the horrible environment that they find themselves in as it is the character who inhabits it. She doesn’t succumb to the environment, this once - but there is no victory. She can’t even face an encore. There are no shamans lurking in the corridors, but the menace of idolatry hangs in the air.

All that being said: I don’t want every film to be Her Smell. If I am going to watch a film like Her Smell, I would rather it go all the way and leave no stone unturned and no environment insufficiently toxified so that the next time I am faced with the prospect of watching a more mildly insufferable character I will watch something else, because there is nothing to gain by going not far enough, and if I am going to experience it then I want all of it. It’s not a litmus test, it’s a film of ideas, and you don’t need to like or care about any characters to engage with the ideas.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2019, 10:41:13 PM by valmz »

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3646 on: July 12, 2019, 12:20:09 AM »
IT - 8/10

It felt long this time, that's really my only complaint about the film at this point. It could've been tighter.
Do you think there's too much clown, not enough clown or just the right amount of clown? On a rewatch I still think the kids are a shadow of the Stranger Things ensemble, but looked forward to each clown scene. That could just be my fascination with the mechanics of a good Horror moment. (Not that anybody asked, but my favorite Pennywise moment is either when he twists out of the fridge or when he dances with increasing fury while his head stays perfectly still.)

I wouldn't say too much clown since I like every scene the clown is in. And in theory I could use even more... but it's hard to say. One more scene and it might go over the line. The presentation of the clown is so varied. How or where he appears, how he moves, how he sounds, how he attacks... as villains go he's certainly not a one trick pony. So that I think contributes to his presence not getting stale. The two scenes you mentioned are great... I would add the projector scene as a highlight for me as well. And he also does this sprint attack in a few scenes, and I find the way it's done to be very effective.

The kids as an ensemble lack the natural feel that the kids in Stranger Things have. Just something about the line delivery, and the lines themselves, make the interactions feels very forced. But individually they each have good scenes, and feel well cast. The characters types are much more extreme I would say in IT, so that's more of a challenge too.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2019, 11:50:40 AM by smirnoff »

oldkid

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3647 on: July 12, 2019, 08:14:47 AM »
You didn't ask me, but I think there's not enough people who are neither the kids nor the clown. Derry in the book feels alive, if on the verge of death. This Derry feels empty by comparison.

On the one hand I'd say that it's not fair to compare the book with any adaptation.  You just can't do what the book did, get into people's minds, and even with two two-hour films, there just isn't enough time.

But I agree that It feels like a bunch of really well-done horror set pieces without enough humanity to keep it together. Stranger Things has the opposite problem, good character building but not enough weird/scary things to keep one's interest rivited (I haven't seen the third season yet, though).   
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smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3648 on: July 12, 2019, 12:40:53 PM »
I listened to the unabridged audiobook prior to my last viewing. Very different than reading the book myself, and coloured so much by the reader's voice and what I've seen from the film. I'm not sure that under those conditions it ever really got into my head in the way it would if each turn of the page had been a journey into the complete unknown. I was never under its spell really. Then in some of the later chapters it started jumping between characters, and swinging forward and backward in the timeline in such a way it really felt like King was simply finding ways to amuse himself, and not necessarily the best ways tell the story. But then again the book was meant to be read not listened to, so the intended effect may have been lost.

I know for sure I never would have completed reading the book. Not at this point.

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3649 on: July 17, 2019, 12:01:03 AM »
Gattaca

There are only a few films that I find near perfection in and feel an emotional reaction every time I revisit it.
This is one.
The acting, the art direction, the cinematography, the score - all hit every beat for me.
The ending clobbers me right in the feels.
They really don’t make them like this any more.
Hey, nice marmot!