Media itt: movie/film discussion - Beware Spoilers

GatoDelFuego

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I clearly belong on nolanfans.com lol. I've been looking forward all day to rewatching this and reading a bunch of analysis and rewatching key scenes. I didn't even notice the "bad" parts I thought were so bad before. Now I have to keep showing this movie to everybody so I can watch it with them and see their reactions.

Bravo nolan
 

Hulavuta

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Anybody who is trying to "understand" the science or the "rules" and slaving over the physics is wasting their time. Nolan said himself: DON'T try to understand it. Just feel it. So it's not a smoothbrain take to say this.
The reason I disagree with this is that it does all make sense in the end. Which is a rarity (maybe even impossibility) in most time travel stories. So I feel like it should've taken advantage of that.
 

vonFiedler

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Tenet was the first Nolan movie that I really didn't understand at all, which I'd like to blame on watching it on an airplane.

I mean, as a big critic of Nolan recently, I'd say that by the end it seemed at least decent. But I'd really have to watch it again to catch nuances I couldn't the first time, and that's a shame given that I barely wanted to watch it once to begin with.
 

GatoDelFuego

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Hulavuta and I saw army of the dead last night. I had really high expectations, as it's directed by Zack Snyder, but it turned out really, really bad. Apparently the film has been in development for over 10 years by Snyder, but I don't believe him. He describes it as a spiritual successor to dawn of the dead, but at some point I think the studio had him turniit into a heist film, which although its a oneman project today, was probably not the original intention.

Not that I think the original intention was any good. The first half of the film has bautista getting a team together to steal a bunch of money from a Vegas casino after vegas has been overrun by zombies and the us government is about to nuke it. We go into a bunch of sad backstory on "the crew" and how close they were in the zombie wars. Then, about halfway through, three new characters join the team and basically become the main characters.

The "twist" is that the casino owner who tasked the team with stealing the money actually didn't care about stealing the money at all, they cared about stealing a zombie for some bioweapon project. What? In that case, why bother going through all the trouble when they literally catch a zombie 10 feet from the entrance to the city? So the entire point of the movie (the heist subplot) goes away and it turns into a...sort of bad action movie.

When it comes down to it, the movie is just stolen from a lot of other movies. It's very much like suicide squad, in that the second half of the movie has almost no relation to the first half's plot/buildup and a lot of the "action" is headshotting a zombie over and over. Except that the action keeps getting broken up every 5 minutes with the characters talking about sob stories to each other. But I DON'T CARE. There is absolutely no connection to any of the characters. It's an action movie with a weird attempt to put sad motivation on everything. It's a thriller movie where you wonder who's about to die next with gross dismemberment everywhere. It's a horror/gross out film with not enough horror because it's too busy with bad action shooting.

And apparently there is a sequel already in production, lol. I think this movie says more about the business model of Netflix than it does about anything else. Also, two of the characters have the EXACT same relationship as bats and baby from baby driver. Down to the hairstyle. The white guy even has headphones he carries everywhere...But never listens to any music the entire movie. Every character's custume just looks stolen from something else, even though like zero a list actors are in this. Just like suicide squad, no characters really have anything unique about them. The first 30 minutes seems to suggest everybody has unique abilities or something like that, but everybody quickly dies and just turns into the same shoot guns character.

What was the point?
 

Hulavuta

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Yeah, I am a big Zack Snyder defender and have liked every thing from him that I've seen. Even Sucker Punch I think is misunderstood. But this was just tasteless and pointless.

What bugged me the most was that the entire plot structure was lifted completely, almost shamelessly so, from Aliens. Down to having a corrupt corporate tag-along want to take a zombie head back to clone it as a biological weapon, and the same fake-out of making you think the helicopter pilot deserted them. So 1: you know every "twist" and plot point going in, and 2: it makes you just wanna rewatch that movie instead. But hey, he also did throw in a bit of Alien 3 there too with the heartwarming suggestion that these characters could regain the family they lost through each other, followed by killing them all off instantly.

The movie's tone was all over the place too. At some points it wants to be serious and then it literally has a line saying "The President wants to nuke Las Vegas on the 4th of July because he thinks it would be 'the coolest thing ever'" --> like was this supposed to be a Donald Trump joke or something? It was just so out of nowhere and then went nowhere. You do have a setup here to paint the government as evil buffoons if that's the route you wanna take. There's the extreme incompetence of them at the beginning even letting this happen, the extreme corruption of them abusing people in the camps (it wasn't even close to subtle that this was about the border and COVID-19) and the suggestion they want to use the zombies as biological WMDs. But all this stuff just kinda happens without really being about anything.


I don't really get why they had to lie about the money and then reveal the real reason was to recover a sample of a zombie. Going back to Aliens, it worked because they were going in to rescue people, and one member was revealed to have selfish intentions. But here, the entire point of going in is selfish to begin with (retrieving cash), so why not just be up front about what they want them to do in the first place? It would make the mission way easier. Maybe moral qualms about enabling WMDs I guess. But it wouldn't be too hard to find mercenaries who wouldn't care about that. I will say that production-wise, having a selfish reason for the heist does attract a certain kind of character and charisma (like the YouTuber guy, and Vanderohe) that a more noble mission might not, so I get that.



The only thing that I thought was really cool in this movie was the montage of putting together the team and plan, but that's like a given and is good in every heist movie. So I can't give it too much credit.
 
It's been around a year since some top 25 posts, so I will tag Triangles trc Eagle4 col49 Tomahawk and invite anyone else to post theirs as well...except this time, I want to raise the stakes and propose that it is a top 40 (as was done a few years ago), simply because the more expansive, the better, especially if the very topmost portions of these lists hasn't changed too much (personal favorites are personal favorites, as I understand all too well).

I really love browsing these, they're an interesting look into what others like, inspire me to check out the stuff on there and are a pleasure in general. (No need to overthink it or the order or anything!)

I'll start (order gets rougher around the early 20s):

1. Logan
2. Hot Fuzz
3. The Cremator
4. Taxi Driver
5. Stalker
6. Perfect Blue
7. Last Year at Marienbad
8. Under the Skin
9. The Man Who Sleeps
10. Angel's Egg
11. Marketa Lazarová
12. Harakiri
13. Clerks
14. Persona
15. Blade Runner 2049
16. Lost in Translation
17. The Terminator
18. The Incredibles
19. Drive
20. Mary Poppins
21. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
22. Nostalghia
23. Suspiria
24. Unforgiven
25. Fallen Angels
26. Evil Dead II
27. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
28. Mirror
29. L'avventura
30. Goodfellas
31. Throne of Blood
32. Ran
33. Eraserhead
34. 8 1/2
35. Ghost in the Shell
36. Daisies
37. Do the Right Thing
38. La haine
39. Victoria
40. Shaun of the Dead

Honorary: Shoot 'Em Up
 
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ryo yamada2001

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1. The End of Evangelion, Anno
2. Spirited Away, Miyazaki
3. Angel's Egg, Oshii
4. House, Obayashi
5. Tokyo Godfathers, Kon
6. Ghost in the Shell, Oshii
7. Trainspotting, Boyle
8. Liz and the Blue Bird, Yamada
9. In this Corner of the World, Katabuchi
10. The Matrix, Wachowskis
11. Paris Is Burning, Livingston
12. Gummo, Korine
13. All About Lily Chou-Chou, Iwai
14. It's Such a Beautiful Day, Hertzfeldt
15. Citizen Kane, Welles
16. The Fly, Cronenberg
17. Blade Runner, Scott
18. Perfect Blue, Kon
19. American Psycho, Harron
20. Apocalypse Now, Coppola
21. Hana-bi, Kitano
22. The Killer, Woo
23. Nausicaä, Miyazaki
24. Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino
25. Moonlight, Jenkins

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Ichi the Killer, Miike; Fire Walk With Me, Lynch; No Country for Old Men, Coens; Dog Day Afternoon and Network, Lumet; Battle Royale, Fukusaku; Redline, Koike; Heat, Mann; El Camino, Gilligan; Come and See, Klimov; 2 Fast 2 Furious, Singleton; Lionheart, Lettich

so that's life as a queer weeb i guess
 
Even more impossible than before, with more slots and my faves moving glacially. So I am now more drastically refusing the prompt and going for forty films I've first seen since the last list that I've really enjoyed, sorted roughly. Gonna keep it to one per director as well, just for the sake of diversifying 'cuz I'm scrolling now and I loved a lotta of Varda / Buñuel / Haigh this year, among others.
  1. 8 1/2
  2. The Handmaiden
  3. Cleo from 5 to 7
  4. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
  5. Vertigo
  6. Harakiri
  7. Rosemary's Baby
  8. Taste of Cherry
  9. Daisies
  10. Magical Girl
  11. Trainspotting
  12. Marketa Lazarová
  13. Brazil
  14. Mary and Max
  15. A Brighter Summer Day
  16. Wild Strawberries
  17. Throne of Blood
  18. Weekend (2011)
  19. Dark Horse (2011)
  20. The Blair Witch Project
  21. Tongues Untied
  22. Sorry We Missed You
  23. The Father
  24. Blue Jasmine
  25. Enter the Void
  26. Dog Day Afternoon
  27. Rat Film
  28. Paris is Burning
  29. This is England
  30. Emotion
  31. Once Upon a Time in the West
  32. Shiva Baby
  33. Die Hard
  34. On the Beach at Night Alone
  35. Petey Wheatstraw
  36. The Eagle Shooting Heroes
  37. True Stories
  38. Greener Grass
  39. The Wolf House
  40. Invention For Destruction
 
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Diophantine

Banned deucer.
Feel free to recommend me things based on what I put here. There are also some films that I didn't include here that I remembered liking a lot but can't remember them too well. Orderings obviously change over time.

1. Four Lions
2. Princess Mononoke
3. The Prestige
4. Downfall (Der Untergang)
5. The Mauritanian
6. American History X
7. Megamind
8. Shrek 2
9. Akira
10. Hereditary
11, Shaun of the Dead
12, Pan’s labyrinth
13. Spirited Away
14. Toy Story 2
15. The Imitation Game
16. Schindler’s List
17. Toy Story 3
18. The Big Short
19. The Wolf of Wall Street
20. Hot Fuzz
21. Spiderman into the Spiderverse
22. School of Rock
23. American Psycho
24. Shrek
25. Incredibles 2
26. Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back
27. Incredibles
28. The Boy in Striped Pyjamas
29. The Godfather
30. Kidulthood
31. Hidden Figures
32. Grave of the Fireflies
33. Moneyball
34. Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow
34. Nightcrawler
35. Finding Nemo
36. Lion King
37. Toy Story
38. Blinded by the Light
39. Good Will Hunting
40. Battle Royale
 
Always run to scroll through these and realize how much I still have to watch, thanks for starting it up again. Here's mine:
  1. Raging Bull
  2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  3. First Reformed
  4. Close-Up
  5. The Social Network
  6. Apocalypse Now
  7. Stalker
  8. No Country for Old Men
  9. Before Sunset
  10. Shoplifters
  11. Parasite
  12. There Will Be Blood
  13. In the Mood for Love
  14. Burning
  15. The Florida Project
  16. Goodfellas
  17. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
  18. Blade Runner
  19. For Sama
  20. A Separation
  21. The Godfather: Part II
  22. A Short Film About Love
  23. Minding the Gap
  24. Alien
  25. The Lighthouse
  26. The Big Lebowski
  27. The Lobster
  28. Climax
  29. Once Upon a Time in the West
  30. Last Black Man in San Francisco
  31. Chungking Express
  32. The Thing
  33. Zodiac
  34. Nightcrawler
  35. Spoorloos
  36. Fargo
  37. The Master
  38. Brazil
  39. Ratatouille
  40. American Psycho
 
thanks for the tag, definitely time for an update! Tried to go for one per director and the order does not really matter.
  1. Margaret (Lonergan, 2011)
  2. Soy Cuba (Kalatozov, 1964)
  3. Children of Paradise (Carné, 1945)
  4. The Portrait of a Lady (Campion, 1996)
  5. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
  6. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch, 1992)
  7. Salomé (Hernandez, 1976)
  8. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
  9. Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951)
  10. Francisca (de Oliviera, 1981)
  11. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz, 1978)
  12. Boyfriends and Girlfriends (Rohmer, 1987)
  13. Un Chant d’Amour (Genet, 1950)
  14. Three Comrades (Borzage, 1938)
  15. Story of Marie and Julien (Rivette, 2003)
  16. The Ascent (Shepitkov, 1977)
  17. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Mekas, 2000)
  18. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
  19. Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
  20. The Leopard (Visconti, 1963)
  21. From the Clouds to the Resistance (Straub-Huillet, 1979)
  22. The Meetings of Anna (Akerman, 1978)
  23. To Be or Not to Be (Lubitsch, 1942)
  24. Dog Star Man (Brakhage, 1965)
  25. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942)
  26. Portrait of Jennie (Dieterle, 1948)
  27. Come Back to the 5 and Dime (Altman, 1982)
  28. Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)
  29. Agatha and the Limitless Readings (Duras, 1981)
  30. Eros + Massacre (Yoshida, 1969)
  31. Taiga (Ottinger, 1992)
  32. The Crucified Lovers (Mizoguchi, 1954)
  33. Daisies (Chytilova, 1966)
  34. Vanya on 42nd Street (Malle, 1994)
  35. The Earrings of Madame De… (Ophuls, 1953)
  36. Pain & Glory (Almodovar, 2019)
  37. Red Angel (Masumura, 1966)
  38. A Sunday in the Country (Tavernier, 1984)
  39. The Ghost and Mrs Muir (Mankiewicz, 1947)
  40. Under Capricorn (Hitchcock, 1949)
 

chimp

Go Bananas
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It's been around a year since some top 25 posts, so I will tag Triangles trc Eagle4 col49 Tomahawk and invite anyone else to post theirs as well...except this time, I want to raise the stakes and propose that it is a top 40 (as was done a few years ago), simply because the more expansive, the better, especially if the very topmost portions of these lists hasn't changed too much (personal favorites are personal favorites, as I understand all too well).

I really love browsing these, they're an interesting look into what others like, inspire me to check out the stuff on there and are a pleasure in general. (No need to overthink it or the order or anything!)

I'll start (order gets rougher around the early 20s):

1. Logan
2. Hot Fuzz
3. The Cremator
4. Taxi Driver
5. Stalker
6. Perfect Blue
7. Last Year at Marienbad
8. Under the Skin
9. The Man Who Sleeps
10. Angel's Egg
11. Marketa Lazarová
12. Harakiri
13. Clerks
14. Persona
15. Blade Runner 2049
16. Lost in Translation
17. The Terminator
18. The Incredibles
19. Drive
20. Mary Poppins
21. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
22. Nostalghia
23. Suspiria
24. Unforgiven
25. Fallen Angels
26. Evil Dead II
27. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
28. Mirror
29. L'avventura
30. Goodfellas
31. Throne of Blood
32. Ran
33. Eraserhead
34. 8 1/2
35. Ghost in the Shell
36. Daisies
37. Do the Right Thing
38. La haine
39. Victoria
40. Shaun of the Dead

Honorary: Shoot 'Em Up
Thanks for posting this, it finally ended a decade of procrastinating and got me to watch the Edgar Wright comedies, which I've always wanted to see. I watched Shaun of the Dead on Halloween, which seemed fitting, and just watched Hot Fuzz last night.

I am genuinely curious as to why you ranked Hot Fuzz so high and Shaun of the Dead so (relatively) low. Immediately after Hot Fuzz, I thought Shaun of the Dead was better. I think Hot Fuzz had a weaker start and end, but more likeable characters, while Shaun of the Dead has a much more interesting premise. But after thinking on it today, I'm honestly not so sure which I'd say I liked better. So it's surprising to see such a discrepancy between the two movies.

I mean, either way, both were hands down the best comedies I've seen, and just in general really fun movies. I didn't realize it was a trilogy, though. Does anyone know why the third movie isnt ever really talked about? Is it ass?
 

Martin

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I mean, either way, both were hands down the best comedies I've seen, and just in general really fun movies. I didn't realize it was a trilogy, though. Does anyone know why the third movie isnt ever really talked about? Is it ass?
It’s not bad, just not stand-out. I quite like it personally.
 
BKC thanks for the tag,

have barely watched any movies since I last posted so my top 25 remains my top 25, but 26-40 looks like this:

26. Sunset (Nemes, 2018)
27. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Anderson, 2004)
28. Cairo Station (Chahine, 1958)
29. City of Pirates (Ruiz, 1983)
30. Nocturama (Bonello, 2016)
31. The Big City (Ray, 1963)
32. Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels (Akerman, 1994)
33. The Prestige (Nolan, 2006)
34. 3 Idiots (Hirani, 2009)
35. Contempt (Godard, 1963)
36. Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
37. You, the Living (Andersson, 2007)
38. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
39. The Long Day Closes (Davies, 1992)
40. Exotica (Egoyan, 1994)

Also, saw TITANE (Ducournau's follow-up to RAW) last week and can't get it out of my head. Such a powerful, moving film. Impossible to put into words how Ducournau's films just *get* it -- how the supposed "shock factors" are rly quite beautiful and lay bare how intensely bizarre humans actually are. Any talk about ‘empty provocation’ is just such a failure in engaging with her work. So happy it won the palme d'or, kind of think it's the best film since the start of 2020 and certainly a great film *about* where we're at in 2020.

also chimp i actually think The World's End is Edgar Wright's best!! def check it out:)
 
Big horror fan, huh BKC?

What drives you to horror? What flavors of it are your favorites? What are your dislikes of the genre?
I like visceral atmospherics pushed to their limits. Horror has the capacity to do this incredibly well, and can take many forms. (I also like when non-horror films take cues from horror!) I don't know if I have a preferred category I seek out - I like the reality-twisting psychological descent of Perfect Blue/The Cremator, but also adore the sheer terror of the finale of The Terminator, and nothing beats the outrageously creative, goofy fun of Evil Dead 2.

Plus, "horror" can be a relative term, anyway - some people would call Under the Skin a horror movie, and I wouldn't quite disagree, but I don't really think of it that way, and it doesn't draw me (only) for that reason. Something like Suspiria barely feels like a horror movie to me, either; I get that that view is more out there, and while it certainly applies, the soft nature of the film just feels like it eludes fully being categorized as such.

The only thing I really dislike almost automatically on premise alone is torture porn, Martyrs being something I particularly disliked (very much felt like a cheap, flimsy pretense to mask/excuse indulging in some truly cruel sadism for the hell of it), and I have no interest in watching anything of its ilk besides maybe the first Saw.

trc, I already wanted to watch Soy Cuba, but now I'm definitely bumping it up, thanks for posting.

Thanks for posting this, it finally ended a decade of procrastinating and got me to watch the Edgar Wright comedies, which I've always wanted to see. I watched Shaun of the Dead on Halloween, which seemed fitting, and just watched Hot Fuzz last night.

I am genuinely curious as to why you ranked Hot Fuzz so high and Shaun of the Dead so (relatively) low. Immediately after Hot Fuzz, I thought Shaun of the Dead was better. I think Hot Fuzz had a weaker start and end, but more likeable characters, while Shaun of the Dead has a much more interesting premise. But after thinking on it today, I'm honestly not so sure which I'd say I liked better. So it's surprising to see such a discrepancy between the two movies.

I mean, either way, both were hands down the best comedies I've seen, and just in general really fun movies. I didn't realize it was a trilogy, though. Does anyone know why the third movie isnt ever really talked about? Is it ass?
That's interesting, because Shaun actually feels stronger to me character-wise. However, I personally prefer Hot Fuzz for many reasons - the overall setup feels richer (the detail in the fascist-hag setup and payoff alone is utterly astonishing) and I generally love how it manages to push itself so far in (the execution of) absolutely every aspect, going over-the-top without being overtly showy. I suppose I'd say it feels more confident/fully realized. Finally, the extended shootout (and eventual chase) in the last 45 minutes puts pretty much everything else in the category to shame...and it's hilarious, to boot. In addition to the aforementioned fascist-hag gag, there's also the woman firing two guns while on a bicycle, Simon Pegg going "IDEA," nothing like a bit of girl-on-girl, oh my God I could go on forever so I'll stop there.

Again, this is mostly semantics - I still absolutely adore Shaun. #40 is still really high for me - there are still roughly 20 films that pained me to leave off, as I hold them in similar regard to #s 22-40 (and a lot more that aren't too far off behind them). Additionally, it's not as enormous a discrepancy - it could've easily fallen into the 30s or even 20s for me. Hot Fuzz just holds a slightly more dear place in my heart.

Btw, I fully agree with Eagle4 - I think The World's End is not just underrated (which it definitely is), but excellent in its own right, and I would even call it outstanding in certain respects; it has the greatest emotional depth of the trilogy and some absolutely killer action sequences, in addition to the usual joy Edgar Wright and friends provide (fences, Cornettos, incredible setup/payoff). The Pegg/Frost switch is terrific as well. It's actually one of the aforementioned 20ish films that it pained me to leave off my list!

Speaking of Eddie W, I saw Last Night in Soho a few days, and loved it - I cannot wait to go back to the theater to see it again. I also agree with Eagle4 that Titane was quite excellent, and definitely recommend those reading this to find a theater near you that's playing it! (Raw is also great. I actually checked it out because Wright said he really liked it, too...)
 
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vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
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The only thing I really dislike almost automatically on premise alone is torture porn, Martyrs being something I particularly disliked (very much felt like a cheap, flimsy pretense to mask/excuse indulging in some truly cruel sadism for the hell of it), and I have no interest in watching anything of its ilk besides maybe the first Saw.
I don't like torture porn. My most hated film is Human Centipede 2. When I could finally stomach getting through it, I honestly thought about rerating all my 1/10 movies to 2s.

But I gotta stand by Martyrs (assuming you mean 2008). It's a real one. The theme of the film is peeling back the onion on your perception of reality and not being able to handle what you see. The existential dread of the unknown is a universal fear; "I shouldn't have been here", "I shouldn't have clicked that link". Martyrs captures this so brilliantly not just be being immediately shocking (which it is), but how on all fronts its gradually ramping up the feeling of punishment for continuing down that dark hallway. It becomes only more gruesome. You are pulled into the mystery through the character's eyes as it progresses from this incredibly violent act into the uncovering of this terrible conspiracy. And it doesn't wait until the end to punish the viewer for their inability to look away, suddenly killing off the main character. The ending of course plays directly into this, and it's about as poignant as anything I've ever seen in a horror film. Only three movies have ever terrified me, and I include this among Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hereditary in that regard.

1. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
2. Inside Out
3. Lives of Others, The
4. Princess Mononoke
5. Speed Racer
6. West Side Story
7. Cloud Atlas
8. Matrix, The
9. Sixth Sense, The
10. Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The
11. Kill Bill
12. Groundhog Day
13. Battle Royale
14. Thing, The
15. Wind Rises, The
16. Kubo and the Two Strings
17. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
18. Room
19. Pan's Labyrinth
20. The Handmaiden
21. Fight Club
22. Baby Driver
23. Oldboy
24. Apocalypse Now
25. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
26. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
27. The Shawshank Redemption
28. Beauty and the Beast
29. Mad Max: Fury Road
30. Up
31. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
32. Back to the Future
33. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
34. Moana
35. Rocky Horror Picture Show, The
36. Logan
37. Inglorious Basterds
38. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
39. Starship Troopers
40. It's a Wonderful Life
 
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Adeleine

after committing a dangerous crime
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i saw some movies so i’m gonna set up shop and rate them =)

first two shouldn't have any discrete spoilers, but like, viewing this still lowers surprise and all!

spider-mannowayhome_lob_crd_03.jpg

Arachnid Boy No Path Back to the House: 8.5/10

This score might strike some of you as a bit sour, but this was a great movie, I agree. Very disparate characters flowed, interacted, and worked with each other so well. Chemistry felt to be this movie's biggest strength, and it was a massive one. Combat and action was excellent, showing great choreography, creativity, and flow. One scene midway through was both very ambitious and clicked with my aesthetics–and it surpassed my (high) expectations. The second half as a whole was one of the best halves of a movie I've seen, and I understand that the movie's large-scale ambition will come with eventual hiccups. I love ambition! All in all, this movie is very good and you probably know that.

But I just can't vault a movie into 9/10 territory when my biggest individual takeaway is feeling frustrated. Why do I feel frustrated? The first half is one reason. I want to be graceful; buildup, especially for what this movie wants to do in Marvel, takes time. I enjoyed it-with some frustrations-in real time. Yet the transitions from one plot thread to the next felt very jerky and challenged my default graceful assumption that all parts of the movie's story are equally important. It wasn't so much that individual plot choices felt "contrived" enough to challenge my suspension of disbelief in terms of fictionality–that only happened once, with the combat scene I describe in the first paragraph. It was more that early plot developments/scenes felt so dedicated to building the plot, and not there to exist on their own, that it challenged my suspension of disbelief in the artificiality of narrative. I had fun in the first half in real-time, but I really wouldn't want to see it again, aside from some particular scenes. Something else I disliked with the movie was how it handled its themes and messaging. Over time, I eventually built up a list of themes I felt had questionable resolution or base principles, but I've forgotten it by now because I'm not sure I can pin a thematic or message takeaway I can resonate with. Also, Ned felt pretty unneeded narrative-wise. There was one particular moment I was excited because I thought he would take a major role of importance, but that ended up not really happening.

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Punny Disney Ride Where The Better Poster Image Was "Too Large": 7.5/10

This movie's reception was very different to No Way Home's, and I'm giving them scores only one point apart! Am I just soft here? I don't know! You probably expect this has solid fundamentals, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, and not that much else. The first two are correct, and if you're overexposed to Dwayne The Rock Johnson, I won't judge if you lack interest. The Dwayne The Rock Johnson Overexposure Factor felt "not too bad", but that's not zero either. But this movie has other things. The tone-setting felt out of the park good. Yes, individual references to the theme park attraction got a little awkward. Yet the overall tone amazingly balanced irreverent fun and manageable stakes, knowing just the right amounts of seriousness to give and take. Emotional whiplash happens without being too forced or painful. The plot twist was also golden for me. Not because it was insanely genius or riveting, but that it steered (laugh.) the narrative in a better direction without making build up feel artificial like NWH did. The visuals: showed things worth showing? Like if you think the Amazon is just some squiggly map line, you'll get an adjustment. Plenty of creative action and combat direction. The antagonists take hackneyed concepts and give them new creative life, both visually/conceptually and in terms of plot. Home movies can struggle to keep my interest, but I was shocked how keyed in I felt throughout this movie. Was pleasant.

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What: 7.5/10
I dunno gang. Don't really know how I ended up watching this, or why it exists, but I had a great time. Figure this sequel lacks a die hard audience, and it's weird to talk about, so let's just go to spoilers.

This movie does the magic trick where like... it combines kind of typical plotlines of family drama and outcast status exploration, but it interweaves them so the derivativeness doesn't get seen. And it worked on me! Maybe because the movie has three strong cards and shuffles through them with skillful splitting and transition. Maleficent herself is always grand to see on screen, she has the Stage Presence and freezes cats and whatever. But beyond just that, her relationship with Aurora gets enough work to really shine through in the ending emotional beats. The villain complements Maleficent very well in tone and plot and other forms of functionality, even if as a character she's kind of meh to me.

And the combat /action feels almost... brainy in a broad stroke? Things happen for reasons. In the ending battle, the dark fairies simultaneously try and attack a defended position directly and with magic like creeping briars, and the briars recede when the applicable casting dark fairy is wounded or killed. Their attack is expected and met with area denial, which causes them to regroup and attack down a different line, which is still covered and set with booby traps. This isn't rocket science but it doesn't pick the easiest and simplest routes of choreography or thought. Action also creates questions that answer themselves. "Why are the dark fairies so reckless in attack?" "Oh, they're pretty isolated from humans and used to dispersing or murking random peasants, not an entire kingdom's prepared, positioned, and teched-up army." Satisfying stuff. I assumed the wedding trap threat was in the vein of "rocks fall and everyone dies", but the logistical problems in poisoning such a large, cover-filled area understandably lengthen things.

A lot of other things are what you'd expect. Great and creative visuals–especially in the fairy areas, some mucking about with cutesy fairy creatures that feels kind of pointless, up and down supporting characters. But, not only did I have a great time, but the movie wasn't just Based Maleficent screwing around within pretty colors and creative visuals.
 

SparksBlade

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I've seen many people say that this movie is a love letter to the previous two Spiderman and the people that grew up with them and loved them. In that, I think this movie does amazingly well, and the clips on youtube about people's reactions to Andrew and Tobey walking through the portal is proof enough. They also did the villains well imo, people who watched Doc Ock in Spiderman 2 will not feel like this is just the same actor playing the character very differently, and same is true for green goblin as well. Sandman is ok, and Electro was prolly done better than in amazing Spiderman, but just a template quippy guy, and Lizard isn't in the movie. Ned and MJ are also fun in the movie.

But I think that's where the positives might end for me. Aunt May obv got a lot of screentime cos she was gonna die in this one, and her death was probably the only actual good emotional scene not ruined by some joke.

I loved and hated this movie. As a fan of the Tobey Spiderman movies (yes, even 3, but in bits), I did enjoy the callbacks and the fanservice for the previous movies. But I also hated that most of the scenes with any tension were undercut by some quip or some joke or whatever silliness. Example: They talked about how Andrew Spiderman lost Gwen and how that sent him down a dark path and made him miserable. So when they throw the reenactment of that scene in your face and Andrew Spiderman is able to save MJ, instead of it being an emotional scene for Andrew, it's a made into funny scene for us at the expense of his emotions.

Relevant characters getting injured, or their injuries ever meaning anything, is something I've given up on at this point. The Tom Spiderman vs Norman fight in the building was filled with both of them getting seemingly brutal hits on each other (and concrete! they fell down multiple floors), there's no actual injury to either character. Tom Spiderman just has some blood/scarring on his face but it's basically nothing. I'm never worried about any character - either the character will be fine, or the foreshadowing about the character's death will be so in my face that I would just be waiting for the movie to get over it.

I enjoyed the first Doctor Strange movie even though the titular character didn't have much meaningful development for me to actually like him by the end, which is really hard when it's Bombadil Cumbersnack on the screen. In Infinity War his differences with Tony seemed somewhat natural but somewhat forced. But in this movie he was just ridiculous. He chides a teenager for not thinking things through, yet he decided the proper moment to explain the very dangerous and risky spell that he's about to use is after he has began the spell. He's explaining the spell to Peter while snapping at him for interrupting his spell. The writers just wanted some spell to happen, and then it to go wrong, but couldn't figure out any sensible way of doing it so they just went through with it. The time it took to walk down from the entrance of the Sanctum to whatever basement would've been more than enough for Strange to explain it to Peter, and for Peter to then tell him "Oh I would prefer if just some people remembered me".

The scene at Statue of Liberty with the back cracking was fine for me, besides maybe the super forced "you're Amazing Spiderman". We wanted to see the 3 Spiderman just chilling and talking to each other, and them waiting for the bad guys to show while prepping their plan is prolly the ideal moment in the fast paced act.


It was a fun and enjoyable movie, but unlike something like the first Iron Man, or Winter Soldier, it wasn't a great movie. It tries to create tension, then laughs at me for being tense. Still, I'll keep watching the Marvel movies cos weaving this vast universe with such a cast is intriguing and admirable, and while the things that I mentioned will continue to annoy, I'll probably just lower my expectations and enjoy the movie instead of expecting something great.
 
Here are my top 5 films of the yr:

1. TITANE (Ducournau)
A gorgeous, achingly beautiful film featuring car fucking and body mutilation - top notch treatise on gender, love, identity, the power of letting your guard down, etc. Kind of the flipside to Larrain's EMA: while that film sees the current generation as fucked up masquerading as liberation, TITANE is all about the current generation as liberation masquerading as fucked up. The definitive 'where society is in 2021' film.

2. THE HAND OF GOD (Sorrentino)
A disarmingly unconventional semi-autobiographical film in which Sorrentino paints a gorgeous, lived-in vista of 80s Naples, populates it with ableist characters and misogynistic imagery, and stakes the claim that his art need not appease moral objections while also admitting that yeah, he's a piece of shit. Thrillingly provocative in such a subtle way, and intensely moving in how real and personal everything and everyone seems.

3. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Trier)
Kind of makes me woozy thinking about moments from this film - a heart-stopping coming-of-age drama for people on the cusp of 30 finding their way in life and realizing that it's just passing them by. So much blunt honesty on display that sneaks up on you as you're being charmed with, say, an intensely grin-inducing party rendezvous, or a setpiece where time comes to a standstill. Renate Reinsve gives the performance of the year. The soundtrack is stupendously good.

4. THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Anderson)
Wes weaponises the inherent 'weaknesses' of anthology films (re: the fleeting, abrupt nature of every segment, where we have to move onto the next before really sinking our teeth in) to drive home the idea of the preservation of art versus the impermanence of flesh and blood. As a testament to creativity and its destruction via capitalist, commercialist means, this is Wes at his most slyly political.

5. NO TIME TO DIE (Fukanaga)
As someone who's not particularly invested in the mythos behind Craig's Bond and his associated recurring characters, I did not expect this to wallop me as much as it did. This is a modern spy film done right - the locations feel alive (you can practically smell the sweat in Jamaica; the baddie lair is impeccably designed), the action is expertly choreographed, and you can feel the stakes. Such a whiplash going from watching RED NOTICE (abhorrent, corrupt film, everything wrong with modern blockbusters) to this, a film where you can see the effort put in; all the better for it.

Other films I liked this yr include: Annette, Don't Look Up, Barb & Star Go to Costa Del Mar, Silent Night.
Films I thought were fine this yr: Spencer, Matrix: Resurrections, Old, The Last Duel, Malignant.
Films that were uhh not great: The Green Knight, Free Guy, Jungle Cruise
Films that fucking sucked: Shang-Chi, The Suicide Squad, Dune, Last Night in Soho, Red Notice, The Woman in the Window, Army of the Dead,

this has been my 2021 film roundup xox
 

Redew

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I dont see where else I can talk about TV so I assume it is here.

Here are my thoughts on the Book of Boba so far.

I agree that his character is hard to accept right now. I think this will change and it is starting to for me. There is a point to be made that this does not seem like the Boba we have become accustomed to (the quiet killer who cannot be tricked easily, a dedicated bounty hunter who only thinks about getting the bounty and working with whomever to get it, the watchful predator who waits to react before striking, etc.), but I don't think this is the same Boba for a reason. This is 5 years after RoTJ and we are learning what happened in-between then and now. In this essay I will argue that there is respect if you can best an opponent honorably.

When Boba said, "I am not going to rule with fear but with respect" and didn't parade around on a litter, it seemed a bit odd that he was so calm and open, especially that he had his helmet off. His helmet seemed to be a large part of the intimidating factor that comes with his outfit. If we believe that he is changed and is not going to rule with fear, then this change makes sense.

I think that this is going to work largely as the first season of the Witcher did where we see the present but also the past. I believe that while he was in captivity to the Tuskens, he adopted his now-mantra: respect, not fear.

To start off, we see him escape the Sarlacc pit broken and hurt. This is believable. He passed out from the pain and lack of constitution. This is also believable. I suspect he had some sort of a concussion. I believe that he was out for only a day, though it is arguable that he had been out for at least 2-3 days total (Jabba was an insanely well-known crime lord, so the news of his death would have spread incredibly fast. Where he was would have been known to only a few, those of which would not be privy to hand out that information as they would be more interested in keeping his empire and power for themselves in the immediate present [i.e. Bib Fortuna]. The Jawas finding the wreckage is more believable after a day, to me, because they are always looking for a good score and Jabba's sail barge would have been a great one, so they would have gotten there fast--most likely that night). In any case, it seemed important to him to escape the Tuskens so he could go and get his armor back as soon as possible, even helping the Rodian during the escape so he could add to his allies immediately. It still seemed that Boba was his old self, as killing needlessly makes no sense, especially if one can gain a use for someone as a means to escape.

First, we see the Chieftain looking at Boba from afar as the children beat up on him. Then he walked away. This does not leave much room for interpretation in the beginning, but I believe it is made clear as the episode progresses.

When he escaped the initial time, the first moment of this mantra was seen when he was caught by the Massiff. The Chieftain pulled back the Massiff and allowed a warrior to fight Boba. This seems to me to be a call to action similar to that of the Tahaddi challenge in Dune (which Star Wars--especially Tatooine and the Tusken Raiders--is based off of). If he beat the warrior, he would be allowed to go freely (maybe even join the clan, but this is uncertain and just conjecture). It was only when he was beaten by the Tusken warrior that the Chieftain allowed the other members to beat him and bring him back to their base.

Because of this, a very basic but distinct line of rules seems to be coming out into the open. There is respect if you can best an opponent. This is central to his mantra. Respect is not gained by savage oppression, but by honorable besting.

When Boba fought and killed the 4-armed monster we saw that he is still very much a trained killer that fights to win. He is not afraid of anything. He did not kill the Tusken child and leave. He knew he could dig for water and possibly find his way back to Mos Espa or another outpost, but it was pragmatic to go back to the clan. When they got back, the child seemed to be boasting that they themself killed the 4-armed monster the way that Boba did, and the clan was accepting of this story; however, the Chieftain went to Boba's side and offered him water in an understanding that read, "I know it was you. Thanks for being a good sport. You deserve this." This was a sign of respect. He knew--and it should be clear to anyone--that if Boba could kill this monster (which it is obvious he did and not a child), he could have killed the child. He didn't, therefore earning him respect.

The Chieftain rules with respect and not fear. Not once did he have Boba beaten just to keep him in line. There were instances where he allowed it to happen, but because Boba didn't earn the respect that was needed to get out of his situations in those moments.

There wasn't much to go off of in this first episode, but I believe this is where it is going to lead. Boba went through a large change of character after the events of RoTJ. This is why we see him as loyal to the Mandalorian and the Child in the Mandalorian. It could be a warrior's honor- or a cultural honor-type deal, but I believe it makes more sense in the context of ruling with respect. I believe this is why Boba is the way he is so far. He is not the same Boba we knew because it would be out of character for him to be the same if we are going to explain how he didn't have his armor in the Mandalorian except for 5 years after RoTJ. It could be argued that this was the writer's fault in the Mandalorian, but these events are believable for me in this story so far.
 

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matrix resurrections is so hilariously bad lol (major spoilers ahead)

so the first part is pretty enjoyable. When it's established that neo is stuck in the matrix again and they managed to convince him that his experiences in the real world were his imagination and that he's turned it into an award-winning game. Then they start breaking the fourth wall as the game devs discuss the themes of the matrix trilogy WITHIN the fourth film I really enjoyed that level of fuckery. They even poked fun at warner brothers for commissioning a fourth film, which almost justifies the clusterfuck of a plot and callbacks that follow. Unfortunately lampshading is the refuge of the desperate. I started to get bored when Neo was getting extracted, because for a good half an hour onwards they're basically replaying the original film (and LITERALLY too lol, they play actual footage of the pill scene).

Honestly parts of the film were tedious to watch because you know what's going to happen. Neo's gonna take the red pill and then get plucked out of his goo egg, then get trained up by P2P File Sharing Program. Except that the complications along the way to differentiate it from the original sequence don't capture the same magic of the original - they're there purely to make it something different. So the overall effect is that I mentally tl;dr'd through large parts of the film.

Then you have the references to the trilogy, jesus lol. When Neo begins to remember his skills he says "I still know kung-fu". lol. The film's end credits are to the tune of a cover of RATM's Wake Up. It's like, come on. They are pandering so hard to the original crowd it's not even funny. OMG Neo's anti-psych meds being literal "blue pills". As soon as his shrink asked him if he wanted a refill all I could think about was what fucking colour those pills were gonna be lol. One of the problems with making a reboot of a film series like the matrix is that it has so much iconic symbolism, that ANY reference to it looks heavy-handed. And I think there are creative reasons to keep with the same themes if you're doing a reboot, rather than start from scratch.

The plot is in keeping with matrix fare, i.e. it starts off like it kind of makes sense and then without realising it completely veers off track. I have no fucking idea why they wanted to help Neo free Trinity. The Smith sub-plot probably makes sense if you remember wtf happened in Reloaded/Revolutions, so I won't comment on that. It's a huge shame they doubled down on the whole "humans generating electricity" bollocks. In 2021 the audience could definitely better understand humans as microchips rather than batteries, since in the interim we've had the damn things completely take over our lives. So as a result they had to weave that into the plot with all the dexterity of Michael J Fox doing brain surgery, and come up with this stupid concept that neo/trinity generate shit tons of electricity if you keep them alive and close, but not too close. I almost rolled my fucking eyes in the cinema when I saw this.

That said, overall the film was very self-aware, not only of itself but of the trilogy, and that made it quite fun. The bit where the analyst tries to manipulate Trinity into staying by bringing her kids was a cheap trick, and Trinity remarks on that later. I also enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris as the analyst, he basically reprises his role as the scientist in Starship Troopers - i.e. a smug smart dude. It's a good look

Anyway as fucking shit as it was I enjoyed it. Anyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for referential humour and this film delivers. Whether comedy is what the Wachowskis were going for here is a different story.
 
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