crashtech66 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:43 pm
Lately I have had trouble interesting myself in contemporaneous shows. I'm not enough of a critic to be able to articulate the reason for my apathy, but I do know that a rescreening of Lord of the Rings, for example, can still command my undivided attention and emotional involvement. Possibly some of this has to do with age, but is it just that?
I haven't seen much quality in film or TV for several years now. Outside of some of the independent stuff on YouTube like some of the Dust Sci Fi. I really don't even give it much of a chance anymore. Though I did have something of a revival of my interest with Breaking Bad. That was the last TV program I went out of my way to watch every week. Since then I haven't watched much at all. I don't even have cable TV anymore because I wasn't using it. I dropped netflix for the same reason.
It seems like Hollywood these days is nothing but putting old scripts in new clothes. The last movies that surprised me in the end were Carrie and The Sting. Which isn't necessarily a deal killer. But it doesn't help to watch something that you can figure out the ending of 30 minutes into watching.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
crashtech66 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:43 pm
Lately I have had trouble interesting myself in contemporaneous shows. I'm not enough of a critic to be able to articulate the reason for my apathy, but I do know that a rescreening of Lord of the Rings, for example, can still command my undivided attention and emotional involvement. Possibly some of this has to do with age, but is it just that?
Popular culture has been commodified, produced by and subject to the approval of committees focused solely on bean-counting, rather than individual artists be they actors, actresses, directors, or musicians.
On the other hand, I recently rewatched "Blade Runner: 2049" and decided that it is a worthy sequel and a very good film on its own.
Hmm, I shouldn't give either "Breaking Bad" or "Blade Runner 2049" short shrift. I did enjoy both of those! It's too easy to forget the good and dwell on the bad. I did also watch "Better Call Saul," and it seemed to be a worthy reprise/sequel to Breaking Bad. Re Blade Runner, I think it might be one of my all time favorite movies. Long ago worked at a shop that fabricated some of the vehicles for it, but it was my fate to merely work on cars for the later and more lowbrow "Robocop," which at the time I enjoyed, though I thought the 6000 SUX was about the cheesiest piece of crap ever to grace the silver screen.
Hollywood is now mere content for the internet, just as books were once for movies.
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Came across someone who made an analogy that as the cult of the artist as god bloomed during the renaissance, so has the cult of the fandom as god during the great awokening.
increasingly of late - hollywood is also gross people, the other half and I noticed the lack of charismatic leads in the current crop of movies
they arent sending us the best people.
Yes, here the missus observed that people in movies are theoretically getting prettier but they're never horny; they're increasingly sex-less cogs with no strong attractiveness.
stumbled across someone who has written a huge rant on this.
When Paul Verhoeven adapted Starship Troopers in the late 1990s, did he know he was predicting the future? The endless desert war, the ubiquity of military propaganda, a cheerful face shouting victory as more and more bodies pile up?
But the scene that left perhaps the greatest impact on the minds of Nineties kids—and the scene that anticipated our current cinematic age the best—does not feature bugs or guns. It is, of course, the shower scene, in which our heroic servicemen and -women enjoy a communal grooming ritual.
On the surface, it is idyllic: racial harmony, gender equality, unity behind a common goal—and firm, perky asses and tits.
And then the characters speak. The topic of conversation? Military service, of course. One joined for the sake of her political career. Another joined in the hopes of receiving her breeding license. Another talks about how badly he wants to kill the enemy. No one looks at each other. No one flirts.
A room full of beautiful, bare bodies, and everyone is only horny for war.
We’re told that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are an item, but no actual romantic or sexual chemistry between them is shown in the films. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor utterly lack the sexual chemistry to convince us that either of them would be thirsty enough to commandeer a coma victim’s body (as they do in Wonder Woman 1984) so they can enjoy a posthumous hookup. In defiance of Norse mythology, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor smiles at Natalie Portman like a dumb golden retriever puppy without ever venturing to rend her asunder with his mighty hammer, so to speak. Not that the competition is any better. Despite accusations of being an incel icon, it is Heath Ledger’s Joker, not Christian Bale’s chaste and sexless Batman, who exudes the most sexual energy in the Dark Knight trilogy.
etc
She makes good points, though it's kinda funny she ends on the hopes of Robert Pattinson's Batman. I thought it was good that he refused to 'roid up for the role but he also did end up playing heroin-junkie Batman. One step forward and all of that.
We watched Adam McKay's The Menu- I know the director wanted to get the audience on board with burn the rich and all other sorts of deep, symbolic thinkin'
but I was just glad to watch a film where that wasn't costume drama, comedy with no laughs, or the beginnings of a multi-part serial about space queens, super powered tech billionaires & their psychologically damaged clown best friend, and some toy I played with as a child.
Raph Finnes is good; Nick Hoult is funny in his role (and the cast in general is good) and it was about what was expected.
But speaking of toy commercials; we also saw the Mario movie.
We hadn't been paying attention and had zero plans to do so. But during the 2nd week of its run, we started getting unprompted texts from friends coming out of the theater telling us how they just took their kids and it was worth going.
So we loaded up on random children and went and...well it's a kid's movie.
I appreciated that for the most part, it wasn't directed at adults narratively or that awful thing kids' movies do where they tell wink wink "jokes" at the parents.
The animation was very good, it was brisk, and how can you dislike spending an hour and change listening to Koji Kondo's music?
Like another of Ford's so-called "legacy sequels", Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this one brings back old characters (John Rhys-Davies's Sallah has a pointless cameo), introduces new ones who are strangely similar to the old characters (Ethann Isidore plays a substandard copy of Short Round from Temple of Doom), and has the air of a film passing the torch (or whip) to the next generation. But it does all this in an even gloomier fashion than The Force Awakens did. I'm not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken, helpless old man who cowers in the corner while his patronising goddaughter takes the lead, but that's what we're given, and it's as bleak as it sounds.
Sounds like a fun time at a summer blockbuster popcorn flick.
Can't wait for the scene where Indy puts on his toupee and dentures, hikes up his adult diaper and shuffles over to his corner for a lecture about how he's spent his life stealing from the indigenous and the evils of capitalism. (In the trailer, they try to make it a lighthearted joke that all capitalism is theft-- sponsored by the...umm...Disney Corporation)
A tale of Anderson's thoughts on COVID&lockdown&the meaning of life. And with a framing device (the movie is a teleplay that also explains the origins of how the playwrite and his troupe) that can be read as commentary on Hollywood and poking fun at himself with self-parody.
It's shaping up to be Anderson's most divisive film among his hipster/critics audience. Suddenly, the same people who've praised Anderson for years are curious why he is suddenly "all style, no substance" or "repetitive."
Is it any good? Well...
I'll always back Wes Anderson doing Wes Anderson things and he gives you more of that.
It doesn't bother me that he's twee and whimsical and mannered. (I think the way he pulled off the alien and the whole 50s sci-fi B movie/spaghetti western thing was very cleverly done). So I tend to fall into the positive camp.
It is better than the last film and he's matured into his style. It's not the mess the earlier films could be.
But, and I think this is part of the reaction, I don't know if anyone wanted to hear Wes Anderson's opinion on the meaning of life. There is also a reading of the film that seems rather critical of the lockdowns and gently mocks the officials and scientists as much as it may or may not be mocking religion & God Himself.
I don't think it's spoilers to say he is very much a Generation X liberal with a sour, fatalist streak.
One interpretation could be that life isn't merely meaningless but trivial and we massage (as opposed to make or impose) meaning into it with tactical deception to ourselves and others. Death itself is the only meaningful bit because it's the part we can't manipulate or fool ourselves about. Everything else is just petty chaos we just have to endure.
you have almost convinced me to watch it - I have a hard rule on never watching biographies or hollywood movies about hollywood.
I don't think it's spoilers to say he is very much a Generation X liberal with a sour, fatalist streak.
One interpretation could be that life isn't merely meaningless but trivial and we massage (as opposed to make or impose) meaning into it with tactical deception to ourselves and others. Death itself is the only meaningful bit because it's the part we can't manipulate or fool ourselves about. Everything else is just petty chaos we just have to endure.
need a healthy dash of absuridty and surrealism to sugar coat all that nonsense.
That's understandable and while I'm not trying to sell it, I believe I should expound on it a bit. It isn't necessarily hollywood navel gazing (though every Wes Anderson cast more or less is, I suppose.)
There is the throughline concern about faithlessness and types of abuse and perversions that come with it.
My take away was that the 'behind the scenes' scenes criticize himself; criticize the weird social justice warrior flack he's been getting for the last few years and criticize Hollywood.
None of the characters we meet backstage are likeable. They all come off as repulsive and its clear the whole thing runs on transactional sex predation.
While not explicit there is a statement that this is how the sausage is made whether the audience likes it or not. The gay playwrite is using the casting couch for the lead actor; the director is introduced with his wife leaving him for his infidelities and it becomes clear the licentiousness is his work. The lead actress may or may not be a borderline personality but she is being manipulated and abused and in turn, it is gently hinted that she is abusing the teen actor lower on the pecking order.
a fun collection of set pieces with archtype characters works - the moment you start filling in back story and fleshing out those characters, it becomes a basic drama.
good enough to watch in the background over dinner.
The problem of action/adventure man turning into drama man.
Few can pull it off. Neither Keanu Reeves or Chris Hemsworth are on that list.
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A particular genius of Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible films is how he always figures out a way to skirt just around turning the character into drama-man.
follows that bond recipe - or maybe its also the seinfeld recipe.
nobody leaves their archetype, nobody ever learns any lessons
comedy and action both require that, or it becomes melodrama nonsense from b grade writers with over inflated views on their own story telling abilities.
the man with no name from the old spahetti westerns.
we know nothing about mission impossible mans emotional background, his relationship to his mum, his traumatic event (tm) which made him what he is.
all of those things are much better left unsaid, the sheltered middle class person writing it has no idea about any of that anyway.
even when they do lose their wives or whatever in some tragic scene, they never dwell on the before or after of that moment
We know a good amount about mission impossible action man. But so much of it is thrown out there and quickly deflected.
My favorite part of the last film was when he meets his secret wife again while she's doing some charity thing...and he's like, "can't talk honey, gotta deal with this nuclear bomb."
Reminded me of the episode of Space Ghost where he married Bjork and tells her that he can no longer see her because of the giant space war.
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 was good. Action set to action set, it is arguably the best in the series. I think the well publicized piece of Tom Cruise riding a bike off a cliff and parachuting down is my favorite stunt in the series. Better than the halo jump, running down the building in Dubai, hanging off the side of the plane. There is also more levity in this film than in the whole rest of the series.
It acts like a compendium of the series providing a summary of who the players are and what they do. There is a meta to it that can't be written about now because it may give away too much.
When we left the theater, my immediate thought was the best in the action-man part of the series, basically when Christopher McQuarrie became Tom Cruise's primary director/writing partner. With some more distance, I don't know if it beats the last one overall.
The weakness of the film is that the villains are weak and while the story is self-contained without a cliffhanger, between the summarizing of the series and being a "part 1", it can't quite shake the feeling of being a prelude to something else.
Then there is all the meta stuff to deal with, which includes Cruise's self-conception. Leaving his religion aside, there his infamous touchiness about speculation that he is a closeted gay man.
I don't know and don't care but it very clear is that there is no amount of women you can throw at him that he seems to have any affection for whatsoever. Goes without saying that on screen the attraction is zero; lots of gay actors can fake some sort of affection for their female co-stars; but Tom Cruise isn't one of them.
So when women and heterosexual Tom Cruise is front and center meta-narrative it is sort of...well awkward.
NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2023 11:07 am
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 was good. Action set to action set, it is arguably the best in the series. I think the well publicized piece of Tom Cruise riding a bike off a cliff and parachuting down is my favorite stunt in the series. Better than the halo jump, running down the building in Dubai, hanging off the side of the plane. There is also more levity in this film than in the whole rest of the series.
. . .
As an action film it delivers.
That Tom Cruise does his own stunts places him in the elite category along with Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh.
As for his personal life, have to say that as with other artists [actors, musicians, composers, painters, etc.] I simply don't care.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Anyways, both the Hollywood writers and actors are concerned that ML, so-called AI, will make them obsolete,
so they've joined forces in a strike action
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
I have reservations as I haven't liked the last two Christopher Nolan films; the subject matter is depressing, and the length of the film could make it a real slog. But I don't want to psyche myself out too much before the movie even starts.
I don't think Robert Oppenheimer is a very likable character and it's going to be an uphill battle to make him less agitating than he is in the history books-- that's without all the socio-political context which colors things further.
There is no good resolution to the Hollywood labor problems. The fundaments are all screwy and I don't think there is a way for them to avoid the commodification problem all that much longer.
As charitably as possible: the creative accounting is certainly screwing the talent over, sometimes by very large amounts. But it is a two way street here, no one is better at hiding actual losses either; which indemnifies all the talent involved too.
Honest book-keeping at this point would put 70% of Hollywood out of business with the constant threat of studio collapses every project.
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!
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I really dont get Nolan - I do get that his movies stand out for being different to the ones Ive mentioned above but I dont actually like them or find them enjoyable.
memento was ok - it came out of nowhere and is the only out of order, flashback thing Ive ever watched and not disliked for creating mystery with what is essentially a cheap stunt.
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I think the biggest problem MI7 has against it is the 7 - I lost track somewhere around 4 or 5, didnt even know there was a 6.
