[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by noisereductions

I love The Social Network. I've watched it numerous times and just think it's great. Which is ironic because I hate FB and have never even had a FB acct.

Me too. I think it works because it doesn't try to gloss over Zuckerberg's failings as a person.

Watched last night ...

 

Spectre

I really don't like the Daniel Craig-era Bond. Too moody. Less fun. I much prefer the silliness of Roger Moore running around in a safari suit.

[!@#$%!]

i thought social network was all about zuckerberg’s failings as a person

basically how he was a deity-level stalker overcompensating for his rejection

loved the movie, hate facebook. maybe that colored my perception.

[demonrail666]

I hate facebook too. I'm not on it. This is actually the closest I get to any kind of social media (hotmsail emails aside)

Maybe the movie's popular mostly with fb haters.

[noisereductions]

maybe. Yeah.

I mean Fincher is one of my fav directors. And the casting was excellent as well.

[!@#$%!]

fincher this fincher that but don’t forget that sorkin is writer número uno

and yeah social media is a fucking plague. everyone on tv like in that van sant “to die for” nightmare. an unfairly forgotten movie these days.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

fincher this fincher that but don’t forget that sorkin is writer número uno

and yeah social media is a fucking plague. everyone on tv like in that van sant “to die for” nightmare. an unfairly forgotten movie these days.

Yes, yes. Fincher’s a fine director and all — reliable, consistent, just edgy enough to make crowd pleasers that still have bite — but he’s not a visionary. He’s like the junior college version of Christopher Nolan. Sorkin’s writing and the excellent performances are what make The Social Network great.

Also a legitimately great soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Better than anything they’ve done in the NIN/rock sphere in probably 15 years.

I do really like David Fincher though. I think there’s a certain “itness” to his style that makes most of his movies and forays into TV really freaking enjoyable. There are exceptions of course (ever seen The Game? It’s just OK. Not bad, definitely not great, but fine — kind of a bad thing, really; also not a huge fan of Gone Girl) but Fight Club, Benjamin Button, Social Network, House of Cards, Mindhunter... all great.

But I think Sorkin made Social Network really sing.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Me too. I think it works because it doesn't try to gloss over Zuckerberg's failings as a person.

Watched last night ...

 

Spectre

I really don't like the Daniel Craig-era Bond. Too moody. Less fun. I much prefer the silliness of Roger Moore running around in a safari suit.

I think Craig is the best Bond ever. By quite a bit. Fucking gorilla, that guy. Made Bond feel like a legitimately dangerous human being.

However, somehow only two of the Craig-era Bond movies are good. Casino Royale and Skyfall. I thought Spectre was a bit of a slog. Daniel Craig seemed like he didn’t give half a shit about his performance and that made it seem like Bond didn’t give half a shit about his life/job.
Plot was phoned-in too. And there was slightly less creepy rapey stuff inbthe second half, but I think there was, like, way more early on? Which makes it not a step forward in that department.

Poor whatshisname from Inglorious Basterds and Django has just become the go-to generic villain for international-type-shit. Waste of a good actor, but I blame him as well. Why the FAWK did he take that role? Or the one in Tarzan?! Huh?

ETA: Christolph Waltz! Right? Two-time Oscar winner/probably never again Oscar winner. Started out so strong. Shame.

[!@#$%!]

yeah it was his script first and foremost for me here. that initial girl being all along his rosebud sled and the setting up/tracing of inner motivations for the “outer” plot, from the construction of this crazy algorithm to the sticking it to the winklevosses— that’s sorkin. like president bartlett standing up to his bully father or the newsroom dumb and dumber and his alkie dad or josh lyman in the shadow of his dead sister. but the moral reverse of it. to me he painted him like a total creeper.

[LifeDistortion]

I'm curious to see what Danny Boyle does with Bond, as he's been tagged to direct the next and very possibly final Craig Bond. I liked the idea of turning the Bond into a serial, with what affected him in the last movie, carried over into the next. Yet, I also understand the desire to keep the movies as their own individual adventure. Which makes me wonder if the next Bond is Craig's final, which is likely, if the last one will connect in anyway to Spectre or any of the previous Craig Bonds to show sequentiality or just keep it its own thing. Clearly they made Spectre so late in the game, it should have been something introduced in the second movie, and continued to build with each one. But the little hints they dropped in the first two movies were basically crumbs, and Skyfall ignored it completely.

[!@#$%!]

GANGS OF NEW YORK

for scorsese, it was a bit shit i thought.

the pros: the epic subject! the historical portrayal of the time. daniel day lewis. brendan gleeson. liam neesom’s quasi-cameo. jim broadbent. john c. reilly.

the cons: cameron diaz out of her depth. lionardo-as-thug. lionardo’s stupid voiceover. the final fight. the narrative as a whole which is what the fuck?

i get that scorsese wanted to make an opera. so maybe i’m not a real fan of the opera.

started great and promising, ended in a kind of squeaky fart.

i rate it about as high as a 70s or 80s movie he did with dinero and maryl streep where they meet on the train and start fucking around on their spouses and it’s a sorta romcom. yeah you don’t remember the name either i bet or what happened.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by LifeDistortion

I'm curious to see what Danny Boyle does with Bond, as he's been tagged to direct the next and very possibly final Craig Bond. I liked the idea of turning the Bond into a serial, with what affected him in the last movie, carried over into the next. Yet, I also understand the desire to keep the movies as their own individual adventure. Which makes me wonder if the next Bond is Craig's final, which is likely, if the last one will connect in anyway to Spectre or any of the previous Craig Bonds to show sequentiality or just keep it its own thing. Clearly they made Spectre so late in the game, it should have been something introduced in the second movie, and continued to build with each one. But the little hints they dropped in the first two movies were basically crumbs, and Skyfall ignored it completely.

I love how these movies actually connected to each other, but they should have done a better job of it (uhhhh Quantam of Solace.... blergh).

Also, I thought Spectre was, like, definitely Craig’s last. ??? Like, he said before the film even premiered that he would “rather slit his wrists” than play James Bond again.

I vote for Idris Elba. That guy just plain deserves it.

[noisereductions]

We saw that new Tomb Raider. Fine popcorn flick. Vikander is a far better Croft than Jolie ever was.

[LovelyJubbly]

Just saw The Post. (I know I'm late to the game.) Meryl Streep was brilliant as usual and I loved the film's art direction, but every line in the dialogue felt like it was written specifically to give the audience background info it needed to follow the plot. This excerpt from the Entertainment Weekly crit summed it up perfectly.

"Spielberg makes these crucial days in American history easy to follow. But if you look at The Post next to something like All the President's Men, you see the difference between having a story passively explained to you and actively helping to untangle it. That's a small quibble with an urgent and impeccably acted film. But it's also the difference between a very good movie and a great one."

[evollove]

Funny. I rarely watch movies anymore, but I gave THE POST a look and found myself fast-forwarding quite a lot. And yeah, there are clever ways to reveal info and Spielberg used none of them. Weird.

Finally watched ALIEN COVENANT, and maybe because I thought it would suck, I actually sorta liked it.

Except the special effects were oddly bad. The chest bursting in 1979 was more convincing.

But the set design was amazing. A very, very good looking film, I kept thinking.

A few massive plot holes or HUH? moments.

END SPOILER:

Why did Evil Robot release an alien? Wasn't everyone about to go in the chamber to sleep? Seems if he wanted them dead, they'd be vulnerable enough to kill then. Why make a mess on the ship? So we could see some butt and tits in the shower scene?

But it wasn't the travesty I was led to believe it would be.

[ilduclo]

the concept was to carry the alien back to earth. game over for earth. robot revolution trope.

[evollove]

Never mind. Just now realized dude who got face-hugged ended up on the ship. That's where the alien came from.

For some reason I thought Evil Robot sneaked one on.

I have trouble following these things. Pentagon papers? No prob. Sci-fi horror? I go stupid.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

GANGS OF NEW YORK

for scorsese, it was a bit shit i thought.

the pros: the epic subject! the historical portrayal of the time. daniel day lewis. brendan gleeson. liam neesom’s quasi-cameo. jim broadbent. john c. reilly.

the cons: cameron diaz out of her depth. lionardo-as-thug. lionardo’s stupid voiceover. the final fight. the narrative as a whole which is what the fuck?

i get that scorsese wanted to make an opera. so maybe i’m not a real fan of the opera.

started great and promising, ended in a kind of squeaky fart.

i rate it about as high as a 70s or 80s movie he did with dinero and maryl streep where they meet on the train and start fucking around on their spouses and it’s a sorta romcom. yeah you don’t remember the name either i bet or what happened.

I can't disagree with any of that, but somehow still like it - even more after watching it a few times. Not saying it's a grower just that I think I've ended up focusing on the positives (DDL and the basic story) rather than the cons (pretty much everything else).

[Rob Instigator]

gangs of new york never made any sense to me. overwrought crap.

[Rob Instigator]

watched a not-so-overwrought film yesterday with the wife. Aftermath with Arnold Schwarzenegger. sad stuff.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I can't disagree with any of that, but somehow still like it - even more after watching it a few times. Not saying it's a grower just that I think I've ended up focusing on the positives (DDL and the basic story) rather than the cons (pretty much everything else).

“pretty much everything else” ha ha ha

yeah i didnt hate it, sorry if i gave that impression. it’s just that with scorsese one expects MORE. much more. here the soufflé collapsed for sure but it was still edible.

the basic story is kind of what i had a problem with. they cram too much in too short a time so that everything had to be abbreviated. there was no delving into character really. so they add the voiceovers to help make sense etc. but not really. first it makes you think you’re witnessing some sort of montecristo revenge. or some sort of popular uprising. or some sort of struggle. but then it turns out that no! it’s not about them at all. time makes their struggle futile. which is... a great point i suppose but the way it gets torn down after such a huge buildup is... it makes the story unclear.

the period reconstruction was great—even though the thing mixes historical events from various different decades in a contrived hodgepodge, the production i thought was pretty fucking great. maybe except for the digital elephant ha ha ha. but yeah it was a glorious thing to see.

artistically i think maybe the best thing that came out of that movie was there will be blood— because without bill the butcher maybe there would have been no daniel plainview a few years later, you think? it’s a continuation of the type, in a way. a fortunate typecasting.

the other thing that probably derived from it was the embrace of the filth of the past, not done for comedy. a tv show like “deadwood” where people are always trudging through the muck or end up in the belly of wu’s pigs probably owed something to gangs of new york as well. i’m sure there have been other depictions historical filth but it’s usually done for comedy like it was in “the visitors” (the french version, with jean reno, about the medievals who travel in time).

scorsese is always important, his work is serious even when he fails or repeats itself. so yeah i’d rewatch this one some day to catch some new detail or another. i’ll also rewatch “casino” some day.

btw i think di caprio worked much better in both “wolf of wall street” (great) and “the aviator” where you could actually believe his face was that of the character. here... really hard to see him as a street tough.