Movies + TV series: Past and New Recommendation

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

What's the deal with Nolan?

Part of me wants to glibly say: "Those 30 minutes of Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight has financed a decades long career."

But, really, place oneself in the shoes of a young teenage boy when the Dark Knight comes out, then followed by sci-fi/James Bond-ish sort of movies; and when he isn't doing that stuff, he's playing war.

He's an unapologetically boy-ish director. And that audience who were kids when Batman came out then are now adults with discretionary money who will pay premium prices for premium screens on the latest technology available just to see Chris Nolan play with his toys.

I liked the Batman movies; I really liked Inception and was fine with Interstellar.

The one I keep going back to is the overlooked thriller Insomnia starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank.

----------------------

The screenings in the several different theaters in the area were all sold out when we went to get tickets, hours ahead of time mind you. So we'll try going today. Did we get tickets? No. We'll be winging it.


It really comes down to someone in the party being fine with seeing it on a standard screen but really wants to see it on a premium screen. They even floated the idea of driving to Boston or heading into NYC just to see it on 70 mm IMAX. That I shot down. Too much dedication for me.

The thing I didn't tell'em though is that I had already anticipated they'd want to see it there, so I looked up tickets in NYC last week. Lincoln Center's 70 mm IMAX screenings are sold out for the next month. I imagine Boston isn't different.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Speaking of the Dark Knight

for the past year I've had this urge to edit the trilogy down to a single movie. Really parts 2 and 3 with a smattering of 1 in there. I know exactly what I'd do so I don't think it'd take all that much time.

The hold up is that I can't convince myself that it is good or useful of time.

[Typhoon]

This is not the first time the story of J. R. Oppenheimer and the first nuclear bomb program has be brought to the screen.

There is an first rate, yet forgotten, TV series of the same title Oppenheimer [1980] with the American actor Sam Waterston in the leading role.

_____

On another note, watched the recent "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Time [or whatever]" in the aether of the internet.

[I've seen the previous Indiana Johns films, but can only recall one amusing scene wherein Jones shoots a sword wielding guy,
which I took to be an unintentionally sardonic comment on the "all cultures are equal" belief.]

Okay as a movie one might watch on a flight to pass the time. Perhaps the most interesting part is that the fictional villain, the usual unrepentant closet Nazi, is a blatantly obvious reference to a well-known real German-American scientist who played a key role in the US space program. So much so that my impression was that it bordered on defamation.

But then, I've never been a fan of Speilbergian schmaltz.

Or superheroes in tights for that matter.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Many say that 2024 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2016, and there are certainly current conditions that support that premise. One of them is that the “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” attitude is making a comeback. In 2016, that meant voting for the guy who joked about grabbing women by the pink hat. In 2023, as blue-haired harpies and damaged alphabet people shriek at you that you’re a racist-sexist-homo-trans-xenophobe, it means you shouldn’t disappoint them. Embrace it, become it — fulfill their wildest unsafe-victim-of-violent-ideas fantasies. And then, as you confirm their bias and their eyes well up with terror, savor and enjoy the hysteria.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/athena-thor ... k-n1712910

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Wow, where to start?

The movie is good with a stretch of greatness in it but is not a crowning achievement. There are the big ideas to wrestle with which are its own thing but then there is the thumb on the scale that tosses away all the set up about complexity of characters and of the world that makes it easy to toss away as a movie. It's a character study that sheds it's character in the final act.

This will be controversial; I thought the soundtrack was excellent and woven into the film better than other Chris Nolan films. I disagree with most of the complaints about it. I did not think it effected hearing dialogue as in other movies, I do not think it distracted from scenes. The bomb is incredibly loud in the mix but well, that's the point isn't it?

Cillian Murphy is really tremendous. Really is. So much of the movie only works because of him.

Some quick negatives:

Yes, there is a bit of a very cheesy superhero feel to the various scientists-- just waiting for someone to yell avengers assemble! We were laughing every time Einstein popped up, not only was there something like a Halloween costume version to the character but he's also playing the role of Yoda which adds to the ridiculousness.

The press is praising Robert Downey Jr.'s role in the film. I thought he was awfully hammy the farther into the movie we got. He was mugging through his last scenes and it brings the whole thing down.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Hollywood is just working out its no more special than rust belt workers or musicians.

literally millions of mediocre arts student graduates who can do an average variation on one of the classic story frameworks, or point the cameras and microphones, or slap together a set.

If i was a studio Id let them burn themselves out on protesting, then rebuild around the next batch.

It didnt have to be this way, but the middle class educated brought it on themselves with the way they let this happen to the bottom half of society.

things are only upsetting when they happen to you - now they get to be bitter clingers too!

That's the plan for the writers at least; who don't have a leg to stand on. Maybe for the better, as I'm personally sick of hearing writers whine about all the ways these companies are screwing them over.
The salad days of the radio/tv&cable pay structures is very likely over barring some miraculous shift. The vexing problem of streaming is agreeing upon what exactly has value in any of it if you aren't getting paid on access/admission.

But really even when they are right, they don't seem to get how they are the most expendable of the lot and whining about not having reliable work for a middle class life (as a writer!!!!) is insane. For most, it's once again leaning towards avocational work which will get paid as if its avocational work.

[noddy]

This will be controversial; I thought the soundtrack was excellent and woven into the film better than other Chris Nolan films. I disagree with most of the complaints about it. I did not think it effected hearing dialogue as in other movies, I do not think it distracted from scenes. The bomb is incredibly loud in the mix but well, that's the point isn't it?

aah yes, that was the other thing I didnt like bout some of his previous movies - He believes the sound/lighting should be done for a premium movie setting and isnt fussed about how that turns out on my cheap tv for streaming.

which did make large parts of some thing unwatchable for me - just loud background noise and mumbling.

he is not alone in that - heaps of shows have scenes with almost pitch blackness or mumbling audio - apparently it works nicely on premium cinema and top notch home setups.

which is fine, ill do something else.

[noddy]

Many say that 2024 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2016, and there are certainly current conditions that support that premise. One of them is that the “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” attitude is making a comeback. In 2016, that meant voting for the guy who joked about grabbing women by the pink hat. In 2023, as blue-haired harpies and damaged alphabet people shriek at you that you’re a racist-sexist-homo-trans-xenophobe, it means you shouldn’t disappoint them. Embrace it, become it — fulfill their wildest unsafe-victim-of-violent-ideas fantasies. And then, as you confirm their bias and their eyes well up with terror, savor and enjoy the hysteria.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/athena-thor ... k-n1712910

smells a bit copium to me.

what im seeing is the usal folks getting right into the 'anti patriavhy' message and a shitload of young women who enjoy a women friendly context they can play dress ups.

if their is one thing the boomer women fucked up in their righteous fury at "the man making them dress up" is that heaps of women actually love dressups when they arent being forced to do them.

all the conservative media getting mad at a modern chick flick being all about the chicks is a bit odd.

[noddy]

Many say that 2024 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2016, and there are certainly current conditions that support that premise. One of them is that the “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” attitude is making a comeback. In 2016, that meant voting for the guy who joked about grabbing women by the pink hat. In 2023, as blue-haired harpies and damaged alphabet people shriek at you that you’re a racist-sexist-homo-trans-xenophobe, it means you shouldn’t disappoint them. Embrace it, become it — fulfill their wildest unsafe-victim-of-violent-ideas fantasies. And then, as you confirm their bias and their eyes well up with terror, savor and enjoy the hysteria.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/athena-thor ... k-n1712910

smells a bit copium to me.

what im seeing is the usal folks getting right into the 'anti patriachy' message and a shitload of young women who enjoy a women friendly context they can play dress ups.

if their is one thing the boomer women fucked up in their righteous fury at "the man making them dress up" is that heaps of women actually love dressups when they arent being forced to do them.

all the conservative media getting mad at a modern chick flick being all about the chicks is a bit odd.

[Typhoon]

To elaborate on your point . . .

The Spectator | Barbie's critics are the real snowflakes

Or in the words of the late great American philosopher, Dean Martin,

"Relax, pal. It's just a movie."

The big winner in all this controversy is probably Mattel as Barbie has been transformed from a "patriarchy and unrealistic body image reinforcing doll", once loathed and denounced by feminists [from what I seem to vaguely recall], to a girl-power icon.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Same social media postings which talked about all the gen z bros tried convincing the world that Margot Robbie was borderline hideous.

Whoever in the Barbie production started (or paid for) all that free, viral advertisement is brilliant.

But I think we are in double-reverse copium territory here because the movie was designed to agitate and antagonize a male audience.

[noddy]

Same social media postings which talked about all the gen z bros tried convincing the world that Margot Robbie was borderline hideous.

Whoever in the Barbie production started (or paid for) all that free, viral advertisement is brilliant.

But I think we are in double-reverse copium territory here because the movie was designed to agitate and antagonize a male audience.

nar, power fantasy movies are as old as time itself and their are plenty around for all demographics - their is a "conservative" approved one about hunting pedo's on aswell I think - also amusing for being called a dog whistle in a time when "trannies are pedos" memes are alive and well.

plenty of bitchy girl power stuff around too, none of which went viral like barbie.

I dont consider bond or conan or any of the male fantasy stuff about strutting around , dominating all around them to be anti woman, and I dont consider girl power lavender about taking power from men to be anti men - Its all walter mitty stuff for the powerless

i think the big and pink and dumb and girlie was the factor more than anything else - especially when it involves dress ups, we live in dark times and this had the right flavour at the right time for that.

the margot robbie being hideous thing was quite amazing to watch - somehow some idiots shitpost becomes promoted by twitter, Im super suspicious.

a lot of women of course having to jump to margot's defense because if she is ugly, well, what does it mean about them.

[noddy]

Hollywood is just working out its no more special than rust belt workers or musicians.

literally millions of mediocre arts student graduates who can do an average variation on one of the classic story frameworks, or point the cameras and microphones, or slap together a set.

If i was a studio Id let them burn themselves out on protesting, then rebuild around the next batch.

It didnt have to be this way, but the middle class educated brought it on themselves with the way they let this happen to the bottom half of society.

things are only upsetting when they happen to you - now they get to be bitter clingers too!

That's the plan for the writers at least; who don't have a leg to stand on. Maybe for the better, as I'm personally sick of hearing writers whine about all the ways these companies are screwing them over.
The salad days of the radio/tv&cable pay structures is very likely over barring some miraculous shift. The vexing problem of streaming is agreeing upon what exactly has value in any of it if you aren't getting paid on access/admission.

But really even when they are right, they don't seem to get how they are the most expendable of the lot and whining about not having reliable work for a middle class life (as a writer!!!!) is insane. For most, it's once again leaning towards avocational work which will get paid as if its avocational work.

the valid arguments are in the the lack of quantification around streaming value and residuals.

then again, every other career on the planet , no matter how clever, creative and vital to the product you are, you get your wage, you go home and you get no ownership in anything.

some folks can build up enough networks and reputation to argue for more than that - but again this applies to all industries.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

the margot robbie being hideous thing was quite amazing to watch - somehow some idiots shitpost becomes promoted by twitter, Im super suspicious.

a lot of women of course having to jump to margot's defense because if she is ugly, well, what does it mean about them.

I'm super convinced that WB marketing had its finger on the scale there.

But the initial troll was a work of art. It wasn't just that ol'Margie over there is as plain as can be but that women are only comfortable seeing Barbie because Robbie isn't prettier than the average female, making her unthreatening.

It was stomping right on the hornets nest with gusto; getting a lot of real upset responses, which only lead to more trolling and carried away commentary with the most important earnestness about the physical attractiveness of...*reads notes*...Margot Robbie.

The best were the guys who were going something like, "Yea, maybe I'd settle for 4-out-of-10 Margo if I were a vagrant with cataracts and my first choice shot me down."

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

nar, power fantasy movies are as old as time itself and their are plenty around for all demographics - their is a "conservative" approved one about hunting pedo's on aswell I think - also amusing for being called a dog whistle in a time when "trannies are pedos" memes are alive and well.

plenty of bitchy girl power stuff around too, none of which went viral like barbie.

I dont consider bond or conan or any of the male fantasy stuff about strutting around , dominating all around them to be anti woman, and I dont consider girl power lavender about taking power from men to be anti men - Its all walter mitty stuff for the powerless

i think the big and pink and dumb and girlie was the factor more than anything else - especially when it involves dress ups, we live in dark times and this had the right flavour at the right time for that.

Let me rewrite this: I was avoiding it, 'specially the geek rage economy where everything is awful and the worst thing ever destroying our childhoods brick by brick, yadayadayada.

But while I don't feel this way, there are people not in culture war echo chambers who do perceive the general movie going experience now to be antagonistic towards young men and shouldn't just be dismissed. To paraphrase someone else, Hollywood is in a hole where they are targeting their blockbusters towards women which is going unrecognized by that audience as the movies are built either on targeting kids or on dispossessing young men. Now does that include Barbie...well, no in many senses (some you listed above) but yes in that part of the marketing was stirring up gender controversy and worrying about "male wreckers" at the box office.

Male properties-- the aforementioned Conan or James Bond being perfect examples-- are sources of embarrassment for the studios, except in those brief moments their counting the cash. If MGM could, and they've already toyed with the idea, they'd make the next 007 a female.

[noddy]

sure, i get the progressive/conservative wars in the USA - and yep, everything is produced in through that lens and consumed through that lens.

i just find it tiring.

and more importantly, I have always felt art is art - playing with the mind, so I dont care about male fantasy stuff and will defend it, so for consistency in myself - Im not fussed about young women having an escapist power fantasy movie either.

I have no interest in it personally but im not particularly worried its going to affect me in any way - ive been deaaling with angry men and women who want to take power off, or convince me to drop my world for their world, my entire life.

good luck with that.

its grifters as far as the eye can see, clutching pearls.

hollywood is a bit gross for young men sometimes - im not sure a return to john wayne movies is particularly interesting to the young urban male either.

maybe they will do a HE-Man movie next, it is the executive headspace on Barbie doing well....

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

The counterpoint is that women have always driven the box office, just like most household spending is still a female-centric thing. And the male dollar is no longer around-- it's in video games. So the scramble is to shore up the female dollar.

But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.

"girl" coded movies are generally more evergreen than "boy" movies, though boy movies do better in the immediate run.

One of the reasons being that mothers will take their sons & daughters to "boy" movies but are reluctant to take their sons to "girl" movies. I can't remember off-hand but a similar dynamic shows up with couples.

Has that changed since I last looked into it? Maybe. I'd hedge no though with the rise in the permanently single, that is a difference.

The movies which will always do the best are those which are female-approved male movies.

[noddy]

Sounds about right in my experience.

tho, Barbie has surprised me for its reception, its doing peak Marvel numbers on mostly just women.

your point on hollywood aiming for the urban women market is the key one I think.

hollywood itself isnt woke, its cocaine sniffin rapists and exploiters - they would happily send any message from any angle aslong as it got bums on seats, they pretended to be traditional before, they pretend to be progressive now.

the period we are currently going through, is them testing the waters on various levels of wokeness starting with the twitter lunatic lefties and trying to find the average suburban mum.

they have no insights into this - they live in a different world, we have talked before about how corporate america is over reacting to the twitter idiots and wouldnt know what a normal person looked like if they tripped over it.

in the grand scheme of things, their is no woke agenda - even if their is a period of knee jerk, over wokeness.

i also do think teenage boys are watching these rules carefuly, and they wont know what hit them when the right ones start applying them good and hard back at theem.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I'm pretty easy going when it comes to movies where I'll give anything a chance but the one film I rejected after twenty minutes are so is Mean Girls.

If there were ever a movie not for me, that was it. The kicker is that it's apparent from near the beginning that every girl involved is a mean girl. It was just in gradations of cruelty.

[Typhoon]

To-date the number of movies that I've seen directed by Christopher Nolan is one: "The Prestige" which was entertaining although a bit far-fetched even for sci-fi.

Hitchens | Why 'Oppenheimer' is a Bad Film

So it seems that my Nolan movie count will remain at one.
The actual science and history of the development of the first nuclear bomb and its aftermath [to use the term fallout would be in poor taste], with which I am quite familiar, is far more interesting than any auteur treatment by a director.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I like Peter Hitchens but he has an axe to grind and in the process misrepresents the purpose and key facts of scenes. Or missing them altogether.

For example, when he says

Here are several huge issues barely touched on. The scientists knew they were building a weapon of mass destruction, but excused themselves because Hitler might build one too. We now know that Hitler never got near building a bomb. The whole moral driving force of the project was a fantasy.

He's very blind. There are key scenes dedicated to the above which the movie pivots around.

-------------------

The movie isn't about the bomb or the war. It's about integrity. Nolan's adaptation of the book, "American Promethus" (very much a left-wing book as politics are important to this), argues that Robert Oppenheimer in everything he did, good and bad, was a man of integrity and that his enemies weren't.

Nolan as director argues that the bomb didn't compromise Oppenheimer's integrity but that like Promethus, he and his integrity were sacrificed by being tied forever to the bomb he delivered to people without integrity.

Nolan's views about the red scare and all of that is very much tied to being (in his words) a British teenager in the 1980s where Ronnie Ray Gun was going to disintegrate him by starting nuclear war.


I do not think the film makes the case.

[noddy]

2023-07-24_11h56_16.jpg (21.57 KiB) Viewed 26874 times

their have been quite a few folks in the nerdo-sphere complaining about the lack of science and scientists - its a funny line to walk in these male biographies.

how much biopic and drama, versus how much you tell the story of the engineers and their struggles on a technical level, make heros out of the people involved rather than ignore them.

for me personally, I will (as always, with everything) wait till its on streaming.

I certainly didnt expect an engineer focused thing - I watched his existential sci fi on love and realsied quite quickly he isnt into the harder/drier side of life.

[Typhoon]

2023-07-24_11h56_16.jpg

their have been quite a few folks in the nerdo-sphere complaining about the lack of science and scientists - its a funny line to walk in these male biographies.

how much biopic and drama, versus how much you tell the story of the engineers and their struggles on a technical level, make heros out of the people involved rather than ignore them.

for me personally, I will (as always, with everything) wait till its on streaming.

I certainly didnt expect an engineer focused thing - I watched his existential sci fi on love and realsied quite quickly he isnt into the harder/drier side of life.

I'm going to give it a miss for all the reasons stated above.

Sci-fi.

The War of the Worlds [1953]. The Martian invaders and their technology are the front and centre in this sci-fi film.

War of the Worlds [2005]. The Martian invaders and their technology provide the backdrop to a melodrama about a family dealing with divorce.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Probably for the best.

I don't know how one would tell the technical story within three hours while retaining a casual audience and remain truthful.

[Parodite]

Probably will watch Oppenheimer in IMAX purely for its cinematographic qualities which are said to be excellent. And try forget the inaccurate-biased narrative...

I doubt any narrative here can be convincing enough, "mostly accurate historically" a claim that will always be rather meaningless. Reconstructing the thoughts, feelings, motives, drives of the people involved is doomed to be guesswork. I would do the opposite and keep that part mysterious, if not a complete mystery.