 News | Forum | People | FAQ | Links | Search | Register |
Log in |
|
|
Speaking of superheroes.... Age of Ultron, anyone seen it yet?
I thought it was good. I always thought Ultron wasn't the next best villain to run with, and he still wasn't, he was also far too human and cliched. A supervillain robot A.I. making one liners, wtf? Why does he even have a human voice, and all buffed up on robotic steriods? Vision was good though, Scarlett Witch got better. Some others seem to be going on about there being too much humour, which is odd, the first movie and Guardians of the Galaxy were chocca with far more humour than this. the best action movies don't try to make you worry that people you know aren't going to die might die, they make you worry if they're going to succeed in their mission, and wonder how they'll pull it off.
That was the appeal of Die Hard, and it's also the appeal of Indiana Jones. Daredevil : Agree with Bal, it's pretty meh. Watching it because I've watched just about everything else on netflix :P
Man of Steel (rewatch) : You know, after forgetting about this film and all the dialogue surrounding it and then coming back and rewatching it, I enjoyed it a lot. The intro is weak, sure. They blaze through the origin story at lightning speed and it feels rushed. But once it kicks off its really fun to watch. The ending did feel like a bit of a meh way to seperate superman from the people he wants to protect in order to get some artificial human peril in there. Good, not great. Interstellar : Need to rewatch this but I enjoyed it overall. I felt there are aspects of the journey through space that needed more time to sizzle and some parts felt rushed. The final act was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. Certainly an interesting concept but felt very cheesy in comparison to the fairly "hard science" approach the rest of the film takes. Cool to see the sound design reflect the fact that sound cannot travel in vacuum. Interstellar was a great movie, but had many holes -- but all movies do and you have to provide some of your own suspension of disbelief.
These needed "enhanced suspension of disbelief": 1) Falling in a black hole is "human friendly experience". 2) Society is falling apart, yet they can cryo-freeze people. 3) Planet close to black hole, gravity so strong warps time (7 years in an hour), but a mere rocket can power away from it. I didn't like the cliche ending, but most movies actually rely on an improbable closing act and often begin with one too. I try to not judge movies by the ending, but by the journey and the picture it painted. ...Sleepy's previous defence of Interstellar.
Apart from point 2) which I think is answerable by looking at modern society. Ecological disasters + terrorism + peak oil + all that other shit vs. smart watches + processing power of phones + CERN + VR etc etc. Basically humankind has some very weird diversities and imbalances of technological capabilities vs. societial security. I haven't seen the film but for 1), the current science implies someone crossing the event horizon of a black hole wouldn't necessarily experience anything dramatic as it happens.
Saw the trailer and it looked like the entire movie was an action-packed dirt road race. There was nothing to suggest they ever stop the car and get out. Maybe they do and it was just a terrible trailer.
Finally saw this and, wow, definitely an experience I'll remember.
I sort of don't understand how people manage to be surprised and disappointed by the final act. Yes, it's emotiony gooey and not hard scifi, but that really applies to the whole movie, not just the end, which I thought was signposted in letters about 100 feet high. I'm not sure how anyone can miss that it is a story about humans and humanity in a sci-fi setting/context, given that was made explicit from the very start.
I thought the very end was great, and pretty moving if you got the vibe of what it was like for her. Pretty great scifi film, definitely recommended; great performances especially from the guy who played the CEO; also nice cinematography. Kind of reminded me of "Under the Skin."
No occult aspects.
Linearly told. No Cary Fukunaga. Boring as shit looking setting. Looks like a police procedural all around. I'll still watch but I'll be perpetually angry about it. I only have one left to see, and I'm pretty sure it's going to suck (Maaatt.... Daaamon!):
No Country For Old Men: 10/10 No complaints, one of the best movies of modern terms. McCarthy basically defined the neo-western, so it was great to see this come out the same year as The Assassination of Jesse James (beautiful movie) and There Will Be Blood (also amazing stuff) and measure up to both, at least. The Road: 9/10 I also loved John Hillcoat's The Proposition, and I think this adaptation captured the book very well. The ending might have been too different, but overall it was really faithful to the bleakness of it. The Counselor: 8/10 I don't understand the bad reviews this got, maybe parts were a bit cheesy or extreme, and yeah the cast was too Hollywood-ish (unlike the above two movies), so that not everyone disappeared into his or her role. In fact few did. But it hit the main McCarthy-style points pretty damned well. Child of God: 8/10 The most disturbing McCarthy film made, and more disturbing than any of his books I've read even (haven't read this book, but Blood Meridian is a tornado of violence). Super disturbing; more disturbing than most horror movies. But with a point: "He was just a child of god, much like yourself perhaps." Bleak setting, great acting. The Sunset Limited: 7/10 Goes on a bit too long (some dialogue should have been cut, since it's more or less the same confrontation in different ways of approaching it), but great performances from both main actors; definitely worth watching. Max Max: A Very Angry Road
This film is H Y P E D. You've no doubt heard about the glorious visuals, not just Tom Hardy and his dystopian facial stubble, but also of the bleak, vast desert landscapes, covered in angry angry men in angry angry cars. This movie features a car chase. I also features pretty much nothing else. I hope you like car chases. If you've seen the other Mad Max films, you might be surprised in this one to see that Max is not really the sole protagonist. Instead, the role is shared with the very furious Imperator Furiosa, played by a one-armed, shaven-headed Charlize Theron. Furiosa is leading an escape from a city run by a very bad, very angry man, taking with her said angry man's very unfortunate harem of ladies, including the mother of her unborn child. Thank god she's here, because she is at least slightly more verbose than Max, who mostly just grunts. I saw this in a 3d IMAX, and that's definitely recommended, as the spectacle is amazing. The sheer scale of the action. The sets, costume, vehicles all bring to mind scenes from the Burning Man festival, but also make Burning Man look like a trip to the seaside. It's a well-realised world, that doesn't try to wow you into saying "LOOK HOW MUCH WORK WE DID ON THIS", but there is clearly a lot of visual detail that is not really focussed on or explained. You're never explicitly told who anyone is, where or what anything is, or what's happened. You're very much dropped into this world - and it's been a while since I've seen the original trilogy (was it a trilogy?) so explanations and backstory were not springing into mind. That works for it and against it. The lack of exposition makes the situation mysterious and vaguely intriguing, but the lack of context made me feel like I was starting a box set on the second disc. Walking out I felt like i'd gone through the meat-grinder, with a lot of truly exciting moments and stunts, but not necessarily satisfied with an engaging character arc or story. It shines brightest in small character moments, like an out-of-character thumbs-up from the humourless Max, or a moment of fragility from Furiosa. Mostly, it made me feel like the next film will be something worth waiting for. Perhaps now they've got a lot of the non-stop action out of the system, they will take some time to try something a bit slower-paces and more story driven. saw it yesterday and thought it was better than pretty much all action movies that Hollywood has putout over the last 5 years.
Couldn't have said it better. It's so over-hyped for how little movie is there.
Don't get me wrong, the action is all top-notch and the visuals are great, but it just doesn't take enough time to make you care about anyone. I tend to feel so much more invested in an action movie when the characters are more than just archetypes with paper thin backstories Who cares? Max Max is a spectacle and it's a fucking GLORIOUS spectacle at that. We're considering another viewing it was so good.
!!!
excite. also hoping to catch mad max if I ever find a spare second. previews really turned me off but post-release hype getting to me. might just do ex machina though... Well, I care if I'm paying money to go see a movie and not a trumped up music video (I mean, the number of times they cut to the guitar dude alone shows they probably consider it one)
My high watermark for action movies is Terminator 2. It's got tons of great action set pieces, lots of tense chases, and yet SOMEHOW it still manages to tell a lot of story and make me emotional when I see Arnie boiling up in a pit of lava. There's nothing wrong with Mad Max but I don't get why people are losing their shit over it when it's nothing more than a good car chase.
|
|
| You must be logged in to post in this thread. |
|
| Website copyright © 2002-2024 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors. |