Pretty much what nitin said but I found the narrative interesting.

Jury's still out on whether Renton's ending is happy or bad though. 

And people go to her movies.

Lifetime Gross Total (38): $3,611,323,311
Average: $95,034,824
Opening Gross Average (23): $49,537,590 (Wide Releases Only)

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=scarlettjohansson.htm

"Lucy" made close to half a BILLION worldwide: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lucy.htm

Pretty simple casting decision. 

I found the themes in the narrative interesting but the last 1/3 (particularly the Begbie part of the story) was what didn't work for me narratively.

Do you know how much how much of it is from Porno and how much is original? 

will just be happy to see more Begbie, because that extreme character is entertaining. Also the end of the first one did kind of imply some sort of eventually reckoning. Plus people do age but not die right away. So I'm looking forward to checking it out. 

Haven't read Porno, but from what I know, it's pretty loosely adapted, probably more loosely than the original Trainspotting book was in the first film.

Fun fact though is that the parking lot meeting scene is, at its core, essentially the ending of Porno, except totally reimagined. 

yeah that's what I had read too but I was hoping you had more specifics, for some reason I thought you had read Porno :)

Will have to look up what they did with the parking lot scene. 

Begbie spots Renton across the street and runs towards him, only to get run over by a van. The movie does a total 180, of course.

Tronyn, you'll be satisfied. 

In other news:

Legion is an outstanding series. It's apparently based on the X-Men comics but has zero relation to Marvel's Cinemacancer Universe. It shares two, maybe three characters from the comics and everything else is Noah Hawley (of the amazing Fargo series) going hog wild.

The camera work, the set designs, the choreography, the ensemble cast (!) and the acting thereof (!!!), the bizarre nature of it all, the blah blah, everything here is A+++. Spoiler-less example of all of this at once 

looking forward to it. 

I don't know, it's getting a bit too pretentious now. 6 episodes in I think people are going to start getting stick of the progression where about as much has happened in the last 5 episodes as it did in the pilot. I was only half watching the last episode so I got a bit lost with it, but it seems to be trying hard to be all Lynch bizzaro. I shouldn't be complaining about that though, maybe I should concentrate on it harder/give it my full attention.

I've started on Iron Fist as well. Anyone else watching that? 

That last episode of Legion was pretty good huh? I tried to pay more attention to it, the long musical sequence was good. I hadn't realised who the bad guy was but all the dreamlike stuff fits now. First time The SK has been used in live action right? 

#5879 yes, simple decision, expensive decision and what probably greatly lowered the risk to the financers of it - if the asset is made use of, and it is, it seems more about a series of setpieces for Jo to strut her shit than about GITS - aka typical ego-hollywood fare. 

As in the scenes are retake of Anime GITS scenes but adapted to show off more Jo first and foremost. 

 

You guys are really hating on GITS huh?

The differences seem inconsequential really. I'm not too fussed about the face flash, although it would be better without it it is hardly ruining the entire film. Hell, the cartoon has a bit of a cheesy line "awww, out of ammo?" so it's no surprise as to what is about to happen.

I will certainly miss the classical Japanese music/choir stuff from the anime though. That's the main draw for me.
Also the film version will have the opportunity to fix the ending from the anime. The anime has the typical "buy the rest of the books and/or series" that many have (I'm looking at you Akira, Berserk). 

stop making sensible posts. 

And it's killes, so....... 

I think I now understand the whole Daz/Dranz situation a little bit better. 

 

Toni Erdmann - 9/10

6 years in the making and apparently edited out of over 100 hours of shot footage, german filmmaker Maren Ade's third film is slow and languid, but if you are willing to give yourself over to it and go with the flow, it rewards you with some very acutely observed drama about many different themes, while also mixing in some completely surprising moments of absurdist humour.

One of the films of the decade for me. 

Land of Mine - 6.5-7/10

Well made and acted drama set at the end of WWII when young German POWs were used to defuse thousands of land mines in previously occupied Denmark. Admirably economical in its storytelling but overly simplistic in its characterisations, it comes off a bit incomplete on the whole, or at the very least leaves you wanting a more complex examination of the circumstances it depicts. 

Colossal - 7/10

Fairly solid overall although I was kind of ambivalent for most of its runtime until it came together impressively well (thematically, narratively and character arc wise) in its last 15 min. Still felt it was a little too surface level dramatically (despite the committed performances), and it probably didn't have the budget to do too much with its monster movie mashup. 

Caught this just before it goes out of the cinemas here. Glad I did. Cool film, really quite enjoyed it. Gave off good old meets tech meets uncertain morality vibes in a very similar way to Deus Ex despite a different setting. Sure it's not the most rivetting story and it's a bit of style over substance but the style is good and distinctive in parts, the characters are pretty engaging for an action flick, and it unfolds nicely. Also any big fight scene that's won with a deadlift gets my vote.

As for the people complaining about something as petty, as, say, the water fight scene, in the words of my GF (who says it is by far her favourite anime and she's seen it multiple times) "they did some of the iconic scenes really well, it's a good homage to it".

And the people complaining that Scarlett thingymajiggy is mis-cast as an Oriental chick, well, errrr, she's an Oriental chick put into a robot body made by a very clearly global country with high profile caucasian officials who might not want to replicate her original looks, and the film also features leading characters Oriental, American, black, English, robot and also a fucking beagle. Pretty sure beagles aren't Japanese. So fucking bite me. Also Sca-Jo carries it off pretty well I thought, not too cutesy for sure.

In short:

Film: 7.25 / 10
Killes Ranting: 6.75 / 10
Agglomerate differential total rating: 7.75 / 10 

I thought GITS was a very pretty film in a lot of ways but a bit of a hodge-podge story. I also think Johansson was mis-cast. Not because she was white but because I found her acting to be fairly bad (and believe me, I love her to bits). She also walked around with a weird hunched-over gait and it was a bit off-putting.

If I had seen this on it's own I'd probably give it a 7/10. But it's about a 5 compared to the anime.