Film Thread

I hate to say it but I can't say I give a pair of dingo's kidneys about any of these sorts of films. Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Man of Steel, Sharknado...escapist fun, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but outside of the hype I suspect these things are little more than CGI-stuffed, clunky films with little substance and a lot of spectacle. At least The Dark Knight had some great dialogue.

That said, I'm not entirely sure what I'd substitute as a good film. Something by Studio Ghibli, possibly.

Jonny wrote:Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Man of Steel, Sharknado

sharknado is a league of its own
it's an intentional B-movie

I haven't seen Man of Steel but I assume that's more like Nolan's Batman than Pacific Rim and Godzilla.

Mr Majestyk
this is either the daggiest movie i have ever seen and i am so loving it
charles bronson

the poor guy just wanted to harvest his melons
ends up being hunted by a hitman
don't fuck with his melons

most heartbreaking scene SPOILERS:

Bought an Ed Wood collection
Glen Or Glenda, Crossroad Avenger, Jail Bait, Bride Of The Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space
I might start it tomorrow
Has anyone seen any of them or

Mr Majestyk looks so earnest and snuggly why would anyone want to hurt someone that nice looking

Plan 9 From Outer Space is so stupidly fun it's almost a parody of itself

Paula is my favorite, she's so cute and honest
I just want to scoop her up and tell her that shes neat

Let me know when you get around to watching any of his collection, Ed Wood movies are such guilty pleasures

Hollyღ wrote:Plan 9 From Outer Space

i am pretty sure i have seen technically worse movies than this
paula is a sweetheart

I haven't seen any other Ed Wood movies yet, but I feel like this shouldn't be judged as harshly as it is and shouldn't be seen as a cult hit because it's "laughably bad". Wood seems like he's got a style I think some critics are looking at too literally.

I think Mad Max is the movie which scares me the most.
The Road, I Am Legend, Dawn of the Dead, The Matrix, The Terminator, Contagion, fucking Reign of Fire they've all got great settings but it's missing something MM gets right. It's not even just because I relate to Mad Max because it's in Australia but there's a real sense of hopelessness in MM that I think is critical to that whole apocalyptic genre, I don't think I've ever seen a movie that comes close to it.

Has anyone seen it?
Bloody plebs have no appreciation for Australian cinema
strewth

Bedtime Stories represents everything Disney does wrong nowadays. It's cheesy, saccharine and the odd bout of product placement doesn't help either. It's the sort of film you can't help but feel utterly cynical about.

And, you know, it's a shame because when you look back at their "golden age", those films were great. The animation was striking, even haunting, the songs were amazing...I know, I'm comparing apples with oranges here but man, Disney is just...ugh nowadays.

They've got Wreck-It Ralph and Up and Wall-E and National Treasure and Monster's Inc and Toy Story 1, 2, and 3.
It's not all bad and it's hard to come up with fresh ideas.

They're a bigger company than they used to be, they can afford to make lots of money-grubbing, shallow movies in between the good ones. Looking at this, I think the number of critically approved ones they're churning out is still around the same, they're just filling in the time between them.

and man did they make some shit movies back in the day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Flubber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littlest_Outlaw






also holy fuck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Dory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maleficent_%28film%29
so excite

Yeah, but Wall-E, Monster's Inc and Toy Story are all Pixar's output, and even that's beginning to go downhill a bit. Wreck-It Ralph was pretty good, but Tangled and The Princess and the Frog didn't really hit the highs of their golden era despite being solid overall.

I'm also not convinced on the whole "it's hard to come up with fresh ideas" thing either: Pixar came up with really imaginative things over the years. In a way Disney is screwed whatever they do because they've set themselves up as this schmaltzy, feel-good company that re-imagines the classics. How much can they break out of that and still have the Disney label?

We should probably cut Disney some slack. They have to make movies for modern audiences, which must be a nightmare as kids today must be much different than the ones they can remember. In addition, the nostalgia factor hits them pretty hard- why aren't their movies like they used to be? They can't afford to re-create the past. The entertainment market is suddenly much bigger than it used to be and they have to find ways to get kids into movie theatres.

Maybe, but making crappy films isn't the only way to do that.

In any case, it's not necessarily about recreating the past: it's about ensuring that the films are half-decent to begin with. I think The Princess and the Frog was designed as a move away from the passive, demure princesses of the past, as was Merida. But the songs in the former were just alright, and as a story Brave just felt pretty underwhelming, especially as a Pixar film.

I should probably revise my earlier statement in that Disney are okay sometimes: I just wish that there wasn't so much rubbish mixed in. But hey, it's Disney: they don't really need defending as a company as I suspect the name means they're almost guaranteed to do well whatever.

Jonny wrote:Yeah, but Wall-E, Monster's Inc and Toy Story are all Pixar's output, and even that's beginning to go downhill a bit.

If you wanna go down that path then Bedtime Stories is Adam Sandler's output and I'm pretty sure he's confirmed that he makes movies just to give and get money.

SQUIGGLES wrote:
If you wanna go down that path then Bedtime Stories is Adam Sandler's output and I'm pretty sure he's confirmed that he makes movies just to give and get money.

I think he made Grown-Ups just so he could make a movie that all his friends could be in together? It seemed that way when watching it, at least.

yes I think that's what I heard too

Wait, which one was Grown Ups?

Also, now that I think about it, even stuff like Oz The Great and Powerful and Tron were pretty subpar. I'll be interested to see what their new animated film is like.

Actually, just remembered their animated short Paperman, that preceded Wreck-It Ralph. That was amazing. A really interesting art direction, effective storytelling, a bit of humour...I'd love to see more stuff in that vein.

Prometheus was good.

Not worth talking about in detail, really. Art and makeup were great. Cinematography was great. CGI was great. Everything was great until maybe the last 15 minutes.

It was a very good revival of the Alien franchise and the alien genre in general. It's maybe what I'd set the bar at for "great" movies in that area.

spoilers cause spoilers, even though there's not much to spoil:

Thing about Prometheus is that you need to treat it like it isn't an Aliens movie. Treat it like it is it's own and it great.

I wasn't quite feeling 90's enough so I watched Indian in the Cupboard on VHS the other day and the premise of how the cupboard works has far reaching consequences. Think about it, he puts a Robocop and a Darth Vader toy in the cupboard and BAM they become a "real" Robocop and Darth Vader (albeit tiny ones) functioning lightsaber and everything. The toys become actual factual representations of they they are.

So what would happen if he put a toy Jesus in there? Or Odin? Or a Shiva? Would they become actual Gods with all the power and omniscience granted to them?

Mother of God. Where are my Beatles figurines!?

Samiam wrote:So what would happen if he put a toy Jesus in there? Or Odin? Or a Shiva? Would they become actual Gods with all the power and omniscience granted to them?

I'm not an expert on that particular story
having only read the book once in like grade 3

But

I think if you're in a world with a magic cupboard
the idea of there already being a god is far from improbable. If a god's powering the cupboard then any gods created by the cupboard might technically just be extensions or manifestations of that god, doing whatever that god deigned. I mean that's assuming that any representations of gods in that universe that aren't the god of that universe are simply misunderstandings of that true god.

On the other hand maybe the cupboard just animates the figurines to the physical prowess of what a human scaled down to that size would have. Is there any other evidence of magic in the movie other than the cupboard?

Samiam wrote:Thing about Prometheus is that you need to treat it like it isn't an Aliens movie. Treat it like it is it's own and it great.

Yeah I was talking to Holly about that right after I posted that
I agree completely
They set it up well for a sequel

If the sequel isn't called Epimetheus, I will cut off all my limbs.

How will you cut off your arm if you cut off one arm beforehand?

Also aren't they vertices?

I will position a guillotine so that it will chop off one arm and hold the rope with the other arm. I will hacksaw through the arm holding the rope, and when it falls off, the rope will release and boom goes the other one.

I hated Prometheus, I watched it twice and I was still confused about the motivations of everyone in that movie. It was like watching somebody trip and fall in slow motion, for two hours, and I did not derive much enjoyment from it.

New Wolverine movie! It is very good! I did not bother to see the last two X-Men related movies they churned out because I heard they were crap(by which I mean Legends and Origins, although X-Men 3 wasn't the best IMO) and box office seems to correlate this. But the new one is full of action and one-liners and genuine emoting and Hugh Jackman! It's very comic booky and enjoyable, and just a little silly. I highly suggest it.

If they make a sequel they'll probably say that David was being manipulated by someone, I guess maybe someone from Yutani Corp? It was only Weyland Corp in Prometheus I think, not Weyland-Yutani, and if they play the angle that Weyland was against a merger then they could probably make it make sense maybe.

Also someone posted a while ago that the room shown on the hologram near the start of the movie, when Weyland gives his speech, has the exact same architecture as that one room in Blade Runner, another Ridley Scott movie.