Media itt: movie/film discussion - Beware Spoilers

[vonFiedler]

Now to round out the top 250, a selection of movies that commonly compete for the coveted #250 spot. Nothing seems more competitive, as hey, if you're #250 you're at least on the list. Movies I have seen that could be included are Beauty and the Beast and Young Frankenstein.

In the Mood for Love
This a very disorienting film. It's hard to figure out what's going on at all at first. Time goes by very fast. Scenes repeat. Integral characters are never portrayed, giving a dehumanizing feeling. Things that would seem obvious to portray for the viewer are mentioned later by characters. I think the point is to show what it feels like to be cheated on, and be at risk of cheating. Some scenes are literally whispered through small holes in the scenery. It gives a sense of isolation and anxiety. The filmwork is very clever. One scene in particular got me by surprise fucking hard. Does the film do much with all this? Not really. It doesn't seem to go much anywhere. It made me think, but not any conclusion.

High Noon
This is an incredibly small movie, even for being only 80 minutes long. Bad guys are coming, the marshal needs a posse, fight in the last ten minutes. In that sense, it's hard to recommend over 2013's The Last Stand, and that's a pretty poor thing to say about a "classic". McCree asks for people to switch to support or tank, they do not, and they don't even focus on the objective. He has to ult four people all by himself. The fight has its moments, but it was nothing to wait over an hour for.

Throne of Blood
I didn't actually know that Ran was loosely based on King Lear, although it's hard not to see in hindsight. Akira Kurosawa, one of the masters of modern story structure, actually took three of his movie plots from Shakespeare. But while Ran is a loose telling of King Lear, Throne of Blood is very close to MacBeth. As such, it's prone to the same criticisms of western movies that follow plays too closely. In fact, Throne of Blood was heavily criticized by Japanese critics for its overly theatrical style. The evil spirit in the forest is at least cooler than the three witches, and there's a gnarly scene as people are hunting a character down with arrows. Not great, but not bad.

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
No movie has plummeted through my IMDB ratings as fast as 3 Idiots. Initially I gave it a generous 7/10, but as I realized that I based everything that I dislike about Indian cinema on it, it eventually ended up as far down as 4/10, where it will likely stay. Lagaan has many of those same faults. It's overly long, sparsely musical, silly and melodramatic. But all of these things are much less heinous than they were in 3 Idiots. And it's not without its qualities. Lagaan is probably one of the better 3.5+ hour movies. That's small praise and it's certainly no Once Upon a Time in America (hmmm), but it uses its time fairly well to establish a strong and diverse cast of characters. It's a sports movie with a team you really want to root for, and decent use of tension. I've purposefully not given number ratings as a part of this project, but I think this is a much more appropriate 7/10.

Winter Sleep
Turkey has always greatly interested me. I've buckled at the idea of sightseeing tourism, but one of the places I really want to go is Istanbul. This takes place in Anatolia, but the scenery is some of most beautiful put to film. In a better movie, the mountaintop hotel could be considered one of the iconic film settings. The movie is inspired by the works of Chekov and Dostoevsky. I don't have experience with the former, but the latter is my favorite author. The influence is very apparent, even down to the awesome movie poster.

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The characters are amazingly complex and well developed. You can practically hear the internal monologue in the character's heads while also knowing how full of shit they are. The hypocrisy on display is delicious. It seems like I would rate this movie really highly and I sort of want to, but I dunno, it was pretty long and slow. Maybe it'd have been a better novel. Good scenery is not enough to justify the use of the medium.

Y'know as time passes (I didn't watch 7 movies quickly), this was a movie I want to mull over and think about. And I guess that elevates it somewhat.

Kahaani
I've said before that much of Bollywood carries the sins of early Hollywood. This movie is very much modern Hollywood, your run of the mill, mediocre Bournesque spy thriller. We see a few of these every year. I even might see our current offering, The Accountant. The one thing that you probably wouldn't find in America is that the main character isn't a spy at all, but a pregnant woman spending most of the movie on a wild goose chase looking for her husband. So it's like, a spy adventure for ordinary women to fantasize about. The movie never surpasses its gimick, but the gimick is also the only thing that makes the movie somewhat interesting.

That is until the ending

HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCKING WHAT WHAT WHAAAAAAAAAAT HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUCK FUCK WHAT THE FUCK DID THAT JUST HAPPEN WHAT THE FUCK WHAT AM I WATCHING FUCK FUCKING WHAT HOLY FUCKING FUCK WHAT HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK WHAT THE SHIT WHAT THE FUCKING HOLY SHIT HOLY CRAP FUCK SHIT DAMN WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKF WHAT IN THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK DID I JUST WATCH???!!?!!!?!

The Legend of 1900
Hachi is the strangest inclusion on the Top 250, but if this movie could stay on it, then it would seem like a close second. Indeed, the first time I ever heard of this movie I thought I had imagined it. It's an Italian movie made entirely in English, and that's not the strange part, it's actually rather common. But it's about a piano player who is born on and never leaves a passenger ship. And his name is 1900. Even the opening narration says this shit is cray.

This is a music movie through and through. It is of course scored by the godly Ennio Morricone, but the music played by the characters themselves is something so soulful from the first to last. This three hour movie can dedicate half an hour to a piano duel and get away with it.

Is there something that movies are uniquely good at? It's not making you think, that's for sure. And I'm not sure it's making you feel, either. But every now and then there is a movie that taps into something subconscious and primal. It shakes you and scares you. It concocts a mixture of absurdity and circumstance that overwhelms you on a deep level. Then the movie leaves the conversation, a jumping-off point for you to better understand yourself. This is that kind of movie. I'd compare it to something like Cinema Paradiso... but then it is the same director.

I'm so glad that this is the movie I ended my top 250 project on. Unless... there's something I'm forgetting...

 

[brightobject]

saw Hacksaw Ridge, what an unpolished film. The movie was strongest when it was pushing the visceral and chaotic nature of war, with its drawn-out war sequences that still managed to maintain extreme levels of intensity. However, aside from this I think the movie is a garbled mess, with even the talented roster gathered for the film struggling to carry the weight of the absurdly corny dialogue and terribly inconsistent quality of the cinematography (amazing war choreography and reenactments and some well-put-together shots are dampened by bland everything else). Thje movie is also strange in that it seems to be going for a "all Japs are inhuman monsters" angle for most of the movie (which I could forgive from a showing-the-war-from-the-Allied-perspective) but then in like three moments the film abruptly switches to trying to give us a taste of the Japanese side of things (I think they only succeed in two out of the three). Additionally the religious motivations of the main character are occasionally pushed super-hard with glaringly obvious Christ imagery and at other times is utterly ignored. All in all a very inconsistent film and not one I think I'd recommend. The score was patronizing at best, and utterly intrusive at the worst of times. It's a shame that such an intriguing story of heroism and compassion had to be told in such a hackneyed fashion.

Also, Andrew Garfield had this weird 'country-boy' half-smile on for like half the film and it made him look like a fucking idiot.

Female lead was very pretty if that's any consolation!

 

[vonFiedler]

BOSS FIGHT: GANGS OF WASSEYPUR

If you've been paying attention, you'd know that I don't have a lot of patience for long movies. In fact, not only are there only 6 movies in my personal top 250 that are 3 hours or longer (including the exactly 3 hours Wolf of Wall Street), there are only 7 movies in total that I rate an 8 or above. That's less than 2%. Compared to that, the actual list has 14 movies (15 if Lagaan can resurface), and without doing the legwork, I feel the average is fairly higher than mine (which is 115 minutes). Furthermore, Gone with the Wind is both the longest and the absolute worst movie I've ever seen. So when I saw a 5 and a half hour movie lingering at the 250 spot a while back, my first instinct was to hope that it would go away. But when it didn't, it seemed fitting that this would be the last movie I'd end up seeing. Well... since then it actually moved as high as #232, slinking back to #239 atm.

For full disclosure, I watched this film in four chunks. And in this manner... I enjoyed it. That puts me in a tough position as far as rating it goes. It's an interesting watch, very reminiscent of City of God and practically defiant of The Godfather (it even has a guy that looks exactly like Fredo). There's this running theme that Bollywood is fucking stupid and so are the gangsters who are inspired by it, and it's fun to watch dumb gangsters that aren't overly romanticized. There's a lot of GREAT dialogue too. "It doesn't matter how big your balls are, they are subservient to the dick." A woman tries to convince her husband not to go fight. She's pregnant. "Tell him I said hello." It's very visceral, takes itself seriously in a good way, and it's truly an epic story spanning generations and decades. It's hard for a movie to be an epic, because long movies suck so much. But this is an epic.

BUT would I have enjoyed it if I watched it for over five hours??? Gosh, y'know, it's a better movie than The Godfather. But because of its length, is it really much better? I'll have to think on that.


So my Top 250 project is finally done with... oh fuck really? Well... it's been invaded by Indian movies again (and oddly enough Turkish ones? I'm not sure how that works). I've waited a bit to see if these vote fixed movies would be taken off, and so far they haven't been. But for now, I'd rather focus on being caught up with the great movies coming out this year (watch Arrival) and maybe sneak in a few old ones I've always wanted to see. After a break, we'll see what the top 250 looks like and I'll clean it up then.


I've officially rated 1000 movies on IMDB as of now. I've seen maybe 100 more than that. MST3K, horror movies marathon, dumb shit my mom was watching as a kid, there's a lot I may have forgotten. Bizarrely, my top 2 rated genres are the ones I bellyache about the most: Crime and Biography. And in spite of animation being my 4th highest rated genre, Family is lowest rated. I think there is some sense in that; I think it goes to show that watching cartoons is not the same thing as watching awful children's programming.

What are my plans in the future? Well... I kind of want to see the IMDB shadow list, the AFI lists, rotten tomatoes top 100, past oscar winners (and maybe nominees), and even IMDB's top 100 worst list. I don't plan to commit to one of these things, so I won't bother you guys with a post on each movie. However, I will be posting something else entirely in December.

 

[Eagle4]

3 more reviews that you can either check out on my website and give me views, or you can read in this post so that this post isn't against the rules:

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

5/5

http://www.edgarreviews.co.uk/nocturnal-animals/

Susan Morrow’s (Amy Adams) thoughts towards Nocturnal Animals hits it right on the nose: “It’s violent and it’s sad”. ‘Nocturnal Animals’ in this context is a typescript of Morrow’s ex-husband’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) first effort at a novel, and bears more than a few similarities to the way in which the couple broke up to be merely coincidental…

Morrow herself is an art gallery owner, specialising in an oddball raunch that dominates the screen during the film’s opening credits. She’s stranded in a loveless marriage to a hunky husband (Armie Hammer) who’s more occupied with work (and other women) than anything regarding his wife. Cue the ex-husband’s typescript, sent to Morrow at a time when she’s in desperate want of connection. A way to contact her ex again – just what she needs, right? Not quite.

The novel within a film plunges headfirst into a highway scene with a ferocious intensity that rivals Sicario’s border crossing scene last year. It’s a jagged, welcome tonal shift, tinged with uncertainty over what’s going to happen. In fact, the whole narrative of Nocturnal Animals – both the film itself and its titular typescript – is unpredictable, and we can’t help but sympathise with the main character’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) hapless plight in this thrilling revenge story.

Back in the real world – shot with fusty gusto – Morrow is mulling over the story and recollecting haunted memories of her prior life with her ex-husband. There’s a sense of disconnect, of lack of relevance, but suddenly parallels between their romance and the typescript’s narrative become apparent, building to a devastating final scene that’s as electrifying as it is inevitable. The film is endlessly evolving, bludgeoning past brutal plot points and descending into irresistible, dirty delirium, heightened by Abel Korzeniowski’s sublimely tempestuous score. Yet director Tom Ford and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey give control to the chaos, with an assuredness applied to the kinetic camerawork, the brooding pans of musty citylife and desolate deserts. The danger and immorality on display really is tangible.

One source of danger comes in the form of Aaron Taylor Johnson’s terrifying and unhinged Ray Marcus, who torments Gyllenhaal and his fictional family. This is Johnson’ best performance of his career, committing to his character’s sleaziness and repugnancy, and preventing Ray from becoming caricaturish. Another brilliantly absurd character is the cop looking for him, played by Michael Shannon with straight-faced hilarity. He’s a character inflicted with lung cancer, who continues to smoke (“Well, yep, that’s how it works”), and nearly steals the show with his deadpan delivery and questionable morals. Other recognisable, or renowned actors, are relegated to the sidelines, however: Michael Sheen and Jena Malone each feature in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos, but at least their fleeting moments are highlights.

I’ve seen this film twice now, which I suppose is testament to how the film grips – and then sinks its claws into you. It’s menacing, and bold, and each scene is displayed with enough unwavering confidence and dedication by Ford (save for one Gyllenhaal outburst) that it all holds together. That this is only his sophomoric effort, after his acclaimed ‘A Single Man’, is truly astonishing. He may not just be a fashion designer, but he uses his considerable expertise in that field to capture beautiful imagery and symbolic costume design, and boy, it works.

Ford has birthed a film that’s dripping with grime but presented with gloss, creating an almost ugly beauty that’s visually fascinating. It’s a savage study of an intricate relationship, furnished with the bravado of a director that knows how to handle a script that’s jet-black in both themes and humour, and bolstered by a blistering score and vivid camerawork.

THE ACCOUNTANT

2/5

http://www.edgarreviews.co.uk/the-accountant/

Ignore the uninspired title – The Accountant is a film heavy on gun-toting action and comparatively light on office space mundanity. Our number-cracking hero, Christian Wolff, is played with straight-faced indifference by Ben Affleck – he’s a bulky genius of a man, on the spectrum to some degree (though it is never definitively disclosed to what extent), and throughout the film we observe the makings of his confused characterisation via various flashbacks. He was a troubled child, with a stern father that enforced rigorous and vigorous martial arts training on both him and his brother, tidily explaining away Wolff’s effective brawling and focus on fatherhood.

This ‘high-functioning’ accountant in question is tasked with investigating a company’s mis-managing of money, by the company itself.. uncovering their dodgy dealing…before it’s erased by the company…wait what? And J.K. Simmons gets involved as Ray King, a financial crimes director, I think, that attempts to track Wolff down…or does he? Then Anna Kendrick also appears as the company’s in-house accountant, and faux-love interest..or does she even have a particular point to the story? It’s all rather difficult to follow, or doesn’t make any sense, or both. Subplots seem shoehorned in and without purpose, buzzwords are thrown around in confusion, and the story never stops to explain anything that’s going on. The film’s jargon isn’t nearly as complex as in films such as this year’s The Big Short, but it’s also not as deftly handled either, and so manages to be a tediously baffling mixture of financing that’s too difficult to understand or too difficult to care about understanding, and unrealistic action set-pieces that are somehow just as dull.

The narrative is barmy on so many levels, buckling under the weight of its own ridiculousness. Wolff is a superhero of sorts, his form of autism fetishised rather than fleshed out – he’s super-intelligent, barely takes a punch in fights, and his shooting is pin-point accurate to a fault. His is a character that director Gavin O’Connor fails to root in reality, his attributes tritely displayed, window-writing and all. There’s barely any substance applied to Wolff’s autism, and so the best Affleck can do is stare vacantly and act expressionless – luckily that’s something he’s very good at. Thankfully, this film acknowledges its own slightness, and so doesn’t stray too far into overwrought sentimentality, instead opting for silly action sequences and a nonsensical narrative.

In some ways, there’s almost a delight to be had revelling in the stupidity of it all. There’s no denying its enjoyability, though most of it stems from laughing at the film rather than with it, and there’s a certain charm to the way Wolff’s character is performed by Affleck. Sadly, this doesn’t salvage The Accountant, a film too troubled with irrational decision making and irrelevant plotlines.

Crucially, and perhaps most damning of all, it’s a predictable fare, bereft of any of the thrills or shocks we would expect from its increasingly-Bourne-like premise. The Accountant is brash and clumsy – extending to its inability to hide a blatant Chekhov’s Gun, with just enough humour, at its own expense, to support a plot in desperate need of a reworking.

ARRIVAL

5/5

http://www.edgarreviews.co.uk/arrival/

There seems to have been something of a sci-fi Renaissance recently, with each year supplying a groundbreaking hallmark of the genre. 2013 was Gravity, a film with unrivalled effects, visually astounding and constantly breathtaking. 2014 was Interstellar, offering intense cinematic and emotional spectacle. And 2015 wasThe Martian, giving us an inspiring appraisal of the good of humanity. 2016, then, can only belong to Arrival, a film that serves as a cry for intelligent, thought-provoking sci-fi, not needing to rely on bucketloads of CGI or showy futuristic lingo.

Amy Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist with the weight of the world thrust upon her when twelve egg-shaped UFOs carrying aliens appear, dotted seemingly at random across the planet: she must translate their dialect in order to discover the purpose of their arrival before the threat of military retaliation is fulfilled. Assisting her is Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a theoretical physicist who’s devoted to Banks as much as he is to his job. Her unorthodox approach to the task at hand is garnering results, but growing distrust and paranoia spread across the research camp and various governing bodies altogether threaten to derail the mission entirely.

The film functions as both a metaphor for the growing separation and antagonism between the world as a whole, and a philosophical insight towards many ideas that if I were to reveal them to you, would spoil the movie’s emotional impact. It is not necessarily, however, an alien flick. The aliens in Arrival serve as a vehicle for the film’s integral themes. That’s not to say that their presence isn’t worthwhile, but that venturing into this film in want of a gun-ho alien quasi-horror wouldn’t fulfill expectations.

Denis Villeneuve’s take is much more intellectual – but this is to be expected from a director with such a mature filmography. His influence on Arrival isn’t as tangible as usual – he instead allows the film’s superb script, written by Eric Heisserer, and based on Ted Chiang’s short story, The Story of Your Life, to prosper. It’s a wonderful script, made poignant and dramatic through the overbearing tension and uncertainty it creates, emphasised by the twisting narrative. Villeneuve’s role is to maintain these emotions, and he handles this incredibly effectively. Memories of Bank’s daughter, whom she lost to cancer, are intertwined in the story seamlessly, and he sustains the uncertainty behind both the unknown purpose of the aliens’ arrival, and their odd, potentially threatening behaviour.

Despite the less significant (though still just as important) role Villeneuve has to Arrival’s success, there’s still room for his directorial flourishes: he employs a visual trick, that was also used in one of his previous films, Enemy, to establish how entrenched Banks is in the alien language she’s trying to decipher. His record of creating visually interesting films doesn’t go amiss either; Roger Deakins may not be at the helm this time, but Bradford Young displays a keen eye for stunning visuals – a long take of clouds scrolling past the alien vessel during our first proper look at it is as beautiful as it is calculated. Slow pans of the ship’s surface during Banks’ introduction to its interior are particularly effective in conveying the alienness of the whole ordeal, and its power to overwhelm – which it indeed does, as we hear the diegetic sound of Banks’ heavy, stumbling breathing, amid Jóhann Jóhannsson’s droning, otherworldly score. The film as a whole manages to overwhelm, and astound, not necessarily with spectacle as in Gravityand Interstellar, but simply with a sharp, powerful script.

Amy Adams herself is remarkable as Banks, conveying her utter confusion and determination beautifully; although each other actor delivers serviceable performances, this is a film that belongs to her, her character saturated with complex philosophical ideas about humanity and its intent. The film often hinges on Banks’ reaction to revelations, and Adams certainly delivers.

Jeremy Renner’s character’s bum-note of a final line aside, Arrival is a cerebral, imaginative, emotionally satisfying sci-fi that bears potent metaphysical concepts and a tour-de-force performance from Amy Adams. It’s a brilliant, brilliant addition to an ever-evolving genre. I can’t wait for 2017’s sci-fi showpiece, whatever it is…

 

[TheValkyries]

Eagle4 is wrong The Accountant was pretty good.

Let's do a cons/pros list:

Cons:
-The Autism as superpower thing is rather damaging to the perception of people with autism by neurotypical people
-Anna Kendrick's character has a very confusing platonic (???) relationship (???) with the main character
-It's suspense is lacking and tries to confuse you with random flash backs nested within flashbacks. (Think: see from b to c, then from a to b, then from c to d)
-Lighting in some of the action scenes (In fairness there's not a lot of movies that please me in this department, I've been spoilt by the brilliant colors and visual candy of eastern cinema)

Pros:
-Honestly I've wrestled with the idea of superhero with tokenistic representation demographic tossed in concept, but all in all I say fuck it it's still pretty dang cool on the condition it doesn't over orientalist it. Movies like Chocolate, or Man in High Heels are still dope as fuck despite being problematic in their own ways. I kinda feel the same about this movie.
-It's basically Rain Man meets John Wick. Maybe the John Wick comparison is too strong but the action is heavily inspired by that juggernaut of an action film. The Accountant's action is crisp and tight and uses similar martial arts meets gunplay as Keanu's movie. Although the Rain Man comparison is p spot on.
-Fucking J.K. Simmons man. He carries the aforementioned nested flashback sequence so hard. Holy fuck I wasn't even mad afterwards about the jaggedness of it all. He's so damn good.
-WE FORGOT ABOUT THE BAD ROMANTIC (???) SUBPLOT. NOTHING HAPPENED. YAY!
-Has a real feel good ending. A+ quality tbh.

It's a fun action ride man would recommend.

 

[ButteredToast]

Walrein

I broke down and gave into my girlfriend's demand to see Kubo tonight. I can't say that it lived up to the hype that you gave it at all. She even thought the story was... overly simplistic. The opening to the movie was kinda silly in that I wonder to high hell why the mom didn't take more precautions in making sure her son comes home knowing this was a life and death situation. The whole quest to obtain the three items was meaningless besides leading to the 2nd to last battle. And the ending battle and post battle sequence was just... okay. I mean, while the message of the movie was deep and had large concepts that make it a powerful kids movie, and the visuals were quite nice.... the story could have been done way better to emphasize the message. Dare I say... the movie was very lazily written, even for a children's movie. It is a 6.5 movie at best in my book. I have it as a 7 for now, but I need to go back through some of the other family animations to see if I need to drop it.

----

An IMDb 250 update for me... I have gotten 181 movies on the list completed and have been jumping out of order. Living with my girlfriend who is picky about movies and working 2 jobs has put a damper on my list speed... and it was already slower than vonfiedlers pace anyways. I've been jumping around quite a bit. The last movie I watched was Trainspotting and it was just okay. A live look in to the realities and ugliness of a drug addiction isn't something that I really can relate to.

Next couple movies I'm planning to watch are Network and The Thing. I know Network mostly for the "mad as hell" speech... one of the local political talk radio hosts that I listened to before Coast to Coast use to play that speech all the time. I always wanted to see the movie... but I have been hesitant because I feel like that speech might be the best part of it. I wanted to watch The Thing for Halloween, but after watching The Babadook (meh movie) with my girlfriend and scaring the shit out of her by knocking on the walls during the movie and subsequently at night... well, let's just say she didn't want to watch another scaryish movie with me for awhile.

I'm definitely looking for some different types of good movies to watch. I heard that the Arrivial Movie is pretty good from a few coworkers... but the history major in me questions if I would get into it. I feel like Fantastic Beasts is gonna be just okay, and I don't really want to pay the money to see it. The Harry Potters were good movies, but nothing overly special. I don't know if this can live up to that. I heard good things about the movie Hell or High Water too... but I haven't really found a stellar movie in a long time and I'm searching for suggestions.

 

[Ampharos]

fight me

 

[vonFiedler]

"message was deep and had large concepts"

6.5

I heard good things about the movie Hell or High Water too... but I haven't really found a stellar movie in a long time and I'm searching for suggestions.

Then see Hell or High Water


Fantastic Beast was just okay. The lore and characters are great, and it's very enjoyable, but it's trying to be two different stories at once (one where we find Fantastic Beasts, which is 1/3 of the movie and kind of underwhelming, and one setting up the Grindelwald War that will form the background of the 10 Fantastic Beasts movie already in production). It's better than any previous HP movie, due to being a story made for the screen, but it still manages to shy away from greatness.

Also, Arrival isn't a history movie.

 

[TheValkyries]

Also, Arrival isn't a history movie.

That's what you think.

 

[Eagle4]

Fantastic Beast was just okay. The lore and characters are great, and it's very enjoyable, but it's trying to be two different stories at once (one where we find Fantastic Beasts, which is 1/3 of the movie and kind of underwhelming, and one setting up the Grindelwald War that will form the background of the 10 Fantastic Beasts movie already in production).

Holy shit we may actually agree on something ! It's a confused mess of a film, with a largely irrelevant catching-the-fantastic-beasts storyline, and takes way too long to establish how each individual plotline interlinks with one another. Redmayne and Waterston are fantastic as always though, and the film has plenty of charm to make up for its shoddy pacing.

It's better than any previous HP movie, due to being a story made for the screen, but it still manages to shy away from greatness.

Oh, nevermind.

 

[ButteredToast]

"message was deep and had large concepts"

6.5

If the message wasn't there it would be lower. The movie is down rated by the plot, not the theme. Bringing themes about appreciation for moments in life to a children's movie is deep. Children have hard time understanding both of those things. Hell, a lot of young adults struggle with it. It makes it unique for a children's movie. But the plot could have been better. Time could have been used better to form the bonds and to make the story make more logical sense. My rating stands. :)

Also, Arrival isn't a history movie.

It has historical themes in the term of dealing with first contact. There is a realistic set of options that would occur should alien ship-pod things land on Earth. I'd be overly critical of them doing small things that doesn't make sense based on first contact that occurred already. That's why I would question it. Things done for the purposes of the plot that don't make sense.

 

[vonFiedler]

If the message wasn't there it would be lower. The movie is down rated by the plot, not the theme. Bringing themes about appreciation for moments in life to a children's movie is deep. Children have hard time understanding both of those things. Hell, a lot of young adults struggle with it. It makes it unique for a children's movie. But the plot could have been better. Time could have been used better to form the bonds and to make the story make more logical sense. My rating stands. :)

Plot is not the end all, be all of storytelling. Having a message AND delivering it well is something that 99.9% of movies lack. If a weeb kids movie can accomplish that, who the hell is anyone to say that "the plot is bad"? Maybe it was constructed exactly the way it was to do it what it accomplished. You can watch a thousand other movies for their plots.

It has historical themes in the term of dealing with first contact. There is a realistic set of options that would occur should alien ship-pod things land on Earth. I'd be overly critical of them doing small things that doesn't make sense based on first contact that occurred already. That's why I would question it. Things done for the purposes of the plot that don't make sense.

No, it's a movie about linguistics. I don't know why you are making wild assumptions about a movie you haven't seen (much less about how first contact with aliens would go).

 

[brightobject]

you cant seriously say kubos plot was good, it was decent at best, and the ending was straight out of a shitty battle anime

 

[vonFiedler]

you cant seriously say kubos plot was good, it was decent at best, and the ending was straight out of a shitty battle anime

I didn't just say it was good. I said most movies are overly concerned with their plots. Kubo is rare in that's concerned with its message. And that's much better IMO. Doesn't hurt that the characters are fantastic too.

 

[brightobject]

I didn't just say it was good. I said most movies are overly concerned with their plots. Kubo is rare in that's concerned with its message. And that's much better IMO. Doesn't hurt that the characters are fantastic too.

I agree with you on that count but I don't think that excuses the badness of the ending! On the other hand I disagree with Butt Toast in that I found most of the rest of the movie enjoyable despite it being a "generic" fetch quest bc I am of the opinion (like you) that the characters and visuals still carried the rest of the movie. But the ending was a real cop-out and just left me really dissatisfied.

 

[vonFiedler]

I agree with you on that count but I don't think that excuses the badness of the ending! On the other hand I disagree with Butt Toast in that I found most of the rest of the movie enjoyable despite it being a "generic" fetch quest bc I am of the opinion (like you) that the characters and visuals still carried the rest of the movie. But the ending was a real cop-out and just left me really dissatisfied.

Why didn't you like the ending? It hammered down the whole point of the movie, about how are memes and our stories define us and make us last beyond death.

I dunno, like, I tend to love stories about stories.

 

[brightobject]

spoilers

mostly with how the evil villain was spared for no real reason? Although he was the embodiment of the intolerant, anti-human (and in extension anti-story) faction trying to wipe out Kubo and his party

I'd be fine if they treated all of the villains this way, but it's weirdly inconsistent with how the film treated his daughters, who both were killed in savage battle. Are they, the grunts, somehow more evil than the moon king? Because they dress in black and dont put on airs about being 'good guys?' So why not do the same thing with the evil grandfather? It takes away from the impact of that climax.

 

[vonFiedler]

spoilers

mostly with how the evil villain was spared for no real reason? Although he was the embodiment of the intolerant, anti-human (and in extension anti-story) faction trying to wipe out Kubo and his party

I'd be fine if they treated all of the villains this way, but it's weirdly inconsistent with how the film treated his daughters, who both were killed in savage battle. Are they, the grunts, somehow more evil than the moon king? Because they dress in black and dont put on airs about being 'good guys?' So why not do the same thing with the evil grandfather? It takes away from the impact of that climax.

Hide

Because the man with no memory is NOT the same person as the evil villain. With no memories, he is what the village tells him that he is. By changing his story, you change the kind of person he is. If his story has no crimes in it, why would he get punished?

The girls dies in battle because sometimes that happens in battle. Justice isn't part of the equation. But as for story sense, redeeming them early on would have cut into the impact of the climax. Sometimes people die. Both of Kubo's parents die in battle too, but you wouldn't say this was the film's way of serving justice.

 

[brightobject]

Hide

Because the man with no memory is NOT the same person as the evil villain. With no memories, he is what the village tells him that he is. By changing his story, you change the kind of person he is. If his story has no crimes in it, why would he get punished?

The girls dies in battle because sometimes that happens in battle. Justice isn't part of the equation. But as for story sense, redeeming them early on would have cut into the impact of the climax. Sometimes people die. Both of Kubo's parents die in battle too, but you wouldn't say this was the film's way of serving justice.

spoilers

why didnt it happen for the moon king? It was a ferocious battle of epic proportions, yet somehow instead of dying like his daughters he just magickally becomes a harmless old man. I can appreciate the symbolic merits of what happens to him AFTERWARDS, but the lack of a) foreshadowing for this random change and b) lack of explanation for him surviving Kubo's final strike makes it bullshit. And obviously I am not equating death in general with justice. It is simply the fact that when defeated in battle, the evil daughters die. Why is it any different for the Moon King?

e@below: if a blast powered by ghosts and memes isnt bullshit then i dont know what is

 

[vonFiedler]

why didnt it happen for the moon king? It was a ferocious battle of epic proportions, yet somehow instead of dying like his daughters he just magickally becomes a harmless old man. I can appreciate the symbolic merits of what happens to him AFTERWARDS, but the lack of a) foreshadowing for this random change and b) lack of explanation for him surviving Kubo's final strike makes it bullshit. And obviously I am not equating death in general with justice. It is simply the fact that when defeated in battle, the evil daughters die. Why is it any different for the Moon King?

I mean two of them are stabbed and the other gets hit by a magic spell powered up by ghosts and memes. It's magic! I don't know why that's a problem.

 

[Eagle4]

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

3/5

http://www.edgarreviews.co.uk/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them/

Fantastic Beasts’ title card may bear the same familiar font and sweeping melody of its big brother, but the film is a far cry fromHarry Potter. For one, it takes place in 1920s New York; a more grimy, unromanticized version than we’re used to. This New York is saturated in a general unease with the wizarding community, rather than the embracing of magic seen in the Harry Potter franchise, and thus each wizard and witch is forced into hiding, unable to reveal themselves under the judgement of the No-Maj (America’s less-than-subtle equivalent of a Muggle). So when Newt Scamander, a magical zoologist wonderfully realised by Eddie Redmayne, inadvertently lets loose an array of creatures, or, ‘Fantastic Beasts’, to run amok in the city, you can imagine the chaos it would cause.

And sure, it does cause chaos, but to what effect? Fantastic Beasts takes a while to get going – penned by JK Rowling herself, it’s a film composed of two major plotlines: the escape and subsequent capture of Scamander’s Fantastic Beasts, and the concept of an Obscurus and its relation to the leading members of the Second Salem (an organisation keen on stamping out magic and exposing magicians). Sadly, the plotline the film adopts as its title is both the least interesting and the least relevant of the two.

The film plunges straight into action without first establishing character motivations or defining a significant threat that the protagonists face. A mole-like creature called a Niffler with an affinity for treasure, easily the film’s most memorable critter, escapes from Scamander’s case to provoke an entertaining sequence in which Scamander scurries around a bank looking for it. Here, he meets Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), an endearingly bumbling No-Maj who’s needed as the audience’s perspective. After a brief(case) mix-up, he accidentally involves himself in the wizarding world, much to the disdain of Katherine Waterston’s Tina, a demoted Auror (investigator of crimes related to the Dark Arts). We’re not sure why Scamander’s in New York, nor the consequences of letting the Niffler loose, and so these opening few scenes lack significance if not entertainment, stripping the film of any momentum. When the main protagonists of Scamander, Tina and Kowalski involve themselves with one another, such as during a dinner scene at Tina’s residence, it comes across as unimportant – there’s simply no driving force behind it all.

We are introduced to The Second Salem, a magic-hating organisation, but it’s not made clearer until the film’s second act how exactly they’re important to the story. Bluntly put, the pacing is dreadful. It takes too long to learn how this plotline interacts with the main protagonists, and when it does, it just casts the realisation that there wasn’t much point to the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ storyline in the first place. That’s not to say that there’s no enjoyment to be had watching Eddie Redmayne attempt to woo a weird rhino-esque creature with an unorthodox mating display in order to capture it, but the scenes lack substance, and are, surprisingly, unmemorable. There’s no moments of wonder created akin to Harry’s first ride on the Hippogriff – most of the magic has seemingly died with the Potter saga.

Kowalski certainly seems taken aback, however, by his discovery of magic. His journey in Scamander’s briefcase is a highlight of the film, signalling how the divide between No-Maj and wizard needn’t be. Fantastic Beasts deals with these politics skillfully – it’s a simple oppressed-minority structure that applies to our world as much as it does the wizarding world, but is integrated well into the story and gives various scenes superb heft. Some of these scenes involve Percival Graves, played with manipulative assertion by Colin Farrell. He’s a senior Auror who works in league with Ezra Miller’s Credence, a member of the Second Salem, and his performance is brash and menacing. This contrasts well with Scamander’s inherent introversion, where Redmayne gives a certain charm to the character that would come across as cloying in the hands of a less capable actor. His performance isn’t the caricaturish loner either – he’s as introverted with humans as he is extroverted to his various creatures, supporting his affixion with the beasts. The roles in Fantastic Beasts are testament to JK Rowling’s knack for churning out interesting, believable characters – the one misstep is Tina Goldstein, her one-note, soapy characterisation wasted on Katherine Waterston’s talent.

Yet her writing, in this instance, doesn’t extend to a sophisticated or restrained plot. The film juggles too much – when it works, it’s awe-inspiring. But there’s an inordinate amount of loose plotlines, all culminating in an exhaustive final battle sequence. As the latest entry in the Wizarding World, it’s a disappointment rather than a failure. There are, however, moments of intrigue and awe to be had among its plodding narrative – Fantastic Beasts is a film jam-packed with superfluous storylines, but also a film jam-packed with mature themes and exciting new characters.

 

[vonFiedler]

Just another public service announcement from that guy who watches too many movie: Go see Moana

 

[Karxrida]

Just another public service announcement from that guy who watches too many movie: Go see Moana

Wasting my 4.8k to support this. Really good movie (even if imo Zootopia has a stronger backbone) that deserves to do well.

 

[vonFiedler]

Wasting my 4.8k to support this. Really good movie (even if imo Zootopia has a stronger backbone) that deserves to do well.

Is zootopia more genius, unique, and relevant? Yes. Is it better made? Not even close.

 

[Karxrida]

Is zootopia more genius, unique, and relevant? Yes. Is it better made? Not even close.

If we're talking about better made from a visuals standpoint I totally agree. I've been to Hawaii and little details like how the grass and beachs looked on Moana's island were totally spot on, on top of the movie being beautiful in general.

I also want to go to Hawaii again.