[!@#$%!]

in the first batman there's this cool razor's edge vibe in that whole pilgrimage to the himalayas or whatever but then valar morghulis and he fights some cartoonish gangsters. in the last one too the man with the weird mouth i couldn't understand, etc., batman "goes away" or maybe he's dead and it's good (ambiguity) but it's cartoons about occupy wallstreet.

the second one was indeed great not only because it was a great villain-- but because the scene in the boat, and the "good people" turning into assholes and the prisoners being the more honorable ones. that sort of ambiguity and poking at human nature and the edges of morality is what made it more than just entertainment-- the look at the "human condition" that you usually find in "serious" movies. didn't care for the ripped from the headlines pandering about surveillance though.

also, it looked great, but i don't think i saw the imax version, just the widescreen. that's always unfair to cinematography--compose in one frame and show in another. you get completely different movies.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qim...t_to_webp=true

i'll look at jessica jones and daredevil some day- might get netflix stream and binge for a month.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

in the first batman there's this cool razor's edge vibe in that whole pilgrimage to the himalayas or whatever but then valar morghulis and he fights some cartoonish gangsters. in the last one too the man with the weird mouth i couldn't understand, etc., batman "goes away" or maybe he's dead and it's good (ambiguity) but it's cartoons about occupy wallstreet.

the second one was indeed great not only because it was a great villain-- but because the scene in the boat, and the "good people" turning into assholes and the prisoners being the more honorable ones. that sort of ambiguity and poking at human nature and the edges of morality is what made it more than just entertainment-- the look at the "human condition" that you usually find in "serious" movies. didn't care for the ripped from the headlines pandering about surveillance though.

also, it looked great, but i don't think i saw the imax version, just the widescreen. that's always unfair to cinematography--compose in one frame and show in another. you get completely different movies.

Well said about Dark Knight.

I think the first one (Batman Begins) worked because it was just a very succinct and efficiently told story. Remember, at the time of its release, it had been nearly 15 years since the last decent Batman adaptation (Returns), and the two previous Batman films had been so awful that some of us thought Batman would be impossible to redeem.

Nolan took a very real-world approach to the movie, but it also had an epic quality to it. I could tell when I saw the first poster that it was going to be at the very least a massive improvement over Schumacher's films. And it was. R'as Al Ghul was an excellent villain choice (no makeup, no real schtick, just a bad motherfucker terrorist assassin), and the Scarecrow scenes, where the viewers see the world through the eyes of those who are hallucinating, pushed it over the edge. Gave it a horrific and trippy quality without compromising the hard-line realism of the story.

The third film would have my respect simply because it was pretty goddamn good. I remember Nolan almost didn't make a third film after Ledger died. He was understandably wary after all that critical acclaim and box office success. But he didn't give up, and he bent the Knightfall and No Man's Land stories to his will, making them much cooler. He found a great actor to play Bane, and turned him into a genuinely sinister figure... That opening scene with the plane is just insane. I never liked Bane, but Tom Hardy clearly spent a great deal of time training his body to move with the mannerisms of someone with 100% confidence in their ability to beat the fuck out of anything. The best moments, for me, were when Bane was simply talking. And man, the way he drops through the fusilage of that upturned plane using just his arms. Fucking damn. I'm not into muscle bound dudes, but he carried himself like a fucking weapon.

The rest of the story was a bit flawed, but ultimately it delivered. It works as an ending to the story of Bruce Wayne's battle with Gotham. Catwoman was ok. Glad nobody ever called her Catwoman. Joseph Gorden-Levit was sweet, and Gary Oldman gave another great performance.

Also, each film has its own distinct color pallete. They're like seasons. Begins is orange and brown, autumnal. The Dark Knight was hard silver and cold grey, like a very long winter (or Long Halloween... anybody? Eh?) and TDK Rises had kind of a searing Ridley Scott circa-Gladiator kind of bleak summer vibe, even though much of it took place in the winter. I think each film has its own personality, but they fit together quite well. I think it's definitely one of the best trilogies ever.

But I do hope Christopher Nolan NEVER directs another superhero movie. His movies are all excellent, and his foray into the genre is unparalleled, so to revisit that would be silly. Maybe in 15 years he and Bale could reunite for a Dark Knight Returns with an old ass Batman (sans Joker), but hopefully not.

I can't wait to see his take on a WWII epic. Dunkirk is going to be incredible.
Just like Inception, Interstellar, Memento, The Prestige. The guy's the most gifted arty blockbuster maker of our time. Love him.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I agree about Kevin Costner. Generally not a big fan but he was the best thing about it for me. I just thought it wanted to be so much more than it was. It played at epic but never really delivered it: the same thing that was wrong with Watchmen (besides everything else that was wrong with Watchmen.) The film just draaags. I ultimately think the problem is Snyder.
Nolan's Batmans are arthouse blockbusters, where the sense of the epic never seems strained or pretentious. There aren't many superheroes beside Batman that can carry that amount of weight, but Superman is definitely one of them, which only makes MoS all the more frustrating. Dr Manhattan's another one who could handle the real epic treatment. It won't happen but I'd love to see Nolan do something around him.

BvS was a disaster but I did think Wonder Woman came out of it pretty well.

BvS would have been fun as a one-off. I agree that it was a diaster, but I still enjoyed it. If it didn't have such awful ramifications it would have been fine. But it totally fucked with Batman AND Superman AND gave Wonder Woman a handicap. Mostly it fucked with Superman though. For that, I cannot forgive it.

Still had a blast watching it.

[noisereductions]

I have so much to say about this page but i am tired. Tomorrow.

[Severian]

 

Jungle Book (2016)

You know, I don't think I read a SINGLE bad review about this movie. Some of them were almost reverent. I think one review suggested it should be considered for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

And yet... It was basically just the Disney cartoon told with not-quite as cartoony characters.

I mean, visually it was pretty amazing. I liked the ridiculously large animals that defy the laws of nature. That was fun. And Shere Khan has always been a favorite villain of mine. It was cool watching him smack the shit out of entire wolf packs, bears and panthers like they were toys. And the kid was cute. Maybe he'll even learn how to act some day!

But really, after the promising trailer, it was pretty mediocre. I can't believe they kept some of the songs in there. Christopher Walken's take on Louis Prima was ... lacking. Embarrassing even.

Oh well. Fun enough for a kids movie. No major complaints. I just don't think it deserves all that critic jizz.

[!@#$%!]

im having me a little forman festival this weekend and booked loves of a blonde + amadeus for a double feature. ah ha ha ha

thanks, thread!

right now im on the amadeus intermission (have to flip the dvd-- it's like a laserdisc!) and here are some things i've enjoyed so far

salieri rebels against GOD!! this is milton. of course shaffer had to be english. great variation on this neo-classic theme though! mythical struggles shaped to the individual age

the other "big thematic conflict" in the movie is the individual vs. authority. in this it's also somewhat like loves of a blonde, which is people living under communism, though not quite because here it's serious business but in loves of a blonde it's definitely a farce. wait, god as the ordainer of fate is the same thing. lol chinese box.

a sub plot of this which i really enjoyed is the look at the workings of monarchy. how everything depends upon one person. how chatting up a king's ear can change the whole world. and how mozart is great at music but poor at that. i sort of "identify" with this problem because i'm not an apt social operator-- i actually despise that sort of stuff and i hate it when great social operators with shitty ideas get their way. so this definitely charges me watching this.

mozart's wigs are superhilarious. there's a whole narrative of them. starts with his wig fitting and it evolves through the movie. one looks like an albino racoon. another one is orange. they are all crazy. when he brings the party home and gets news of his father his wigs are at the most degenerate curly pink

of course then when he stages don giovanni with all the fatherly doom and gloom he finally has no wig or it's a natural-looking brown

the other thing is that i braced myself to be displeased by hulce's acting but found that this time around (not when i saw it a long time ago but this time) his braying made me break out in laughter myself. really couldn't help it-- it was contagious.

oh last last last-- this time around the wife didn't bother me at all. i actually liked her-- i get her pretty face and her preppy (?) american accent (someone said connecticut)

oh, extra laughs at seeing the teacher from ferris bueller as the emperor of austria haaaa haaaa haaaaa haaaaaa

anyway i'm really digging the explicit use of american accents here. much better than the terrible terrible terrible english accent that keanu reeves affected in that "bram stoker's dracula" thing from the 90s. pffffthhhthth.

in any case, that's it so far. we're taking a loooooooong intermission so i don't know when i'll catch up with the rest

OH YES! the chick from loves of a blonde is in amadeus too. during the performance of don giovanni, sitting screen left from the musical dweeb with the glasses, is hana brejchova dressed as a viennese matron. she has a great and interesting face, but also it's great that forman was sweet to his old friends.

damn, could write about this all day but i have a sore neck

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

R'as Al Ghul

ras al dohaeris!

i'll reply to some of the rest of this later!

[!@#$%!]

so the 2nd part was a bit more of the same but here is the descent

maybe too buzzed i stopped paying attention to the wigs

BUT a funny thing happened and mozart started to look a lot like pink in alan parker's pink floyd movie "the wall". there is a very slight physical resemblance between hulce and bob geldof (both slightly neanderthal heads) and the whole wasted-wornout-burned out rockstar vibe came to the front for me, especially as mozart becomes the pop genius with his vaudeville incursions-- stadium rocker runs empty of juice

the other strange parallel is that when mozart gets sick he started to sound a hell of a lot like ferris bueller when he malingers. it's like-- thats fucking ferris bueller! an 80's teenager. watt.

i don't know the exact releases of these 2 movies but roughly the same era

the other thing is that things started to get a bit too sturm and drang at this point. the music is great but gets too loud, the plot starts to compress, the shots get a little too "significant" and overwrought (there's that word again). it relies too much on montage. but at that point the rock is rolling down the hill to its inevitable conclusion anyway o a bit of schlocky hollywood is understood. maybe this is where the direction could have been more subdued instead of making things overly obvious.

then back to the scene when they two of them are writing the music, it's nice the way the music comes together, piece by piece, how each voice gets piled on top of the other. maybe kieslowski borrowed that for blue. that was nerdy-nice and obvious movie bullshit too, but i didn't want to apply moronic logic to the moment--

speaking of moronic logic (i can't help myself) it's a bit absurd that he wouldn't recognize salieri's voice and accent under that mask. i mean... but whatever. hitchcock told me to ignore it and so i did. fine. i accepted it.

so overall this was a great pepperoni pizza that starts delicious and by the end it makes you a little sick. but okay. maybe it's the fucking potato chips i ate.

regardless, seems to me today's forman festival was about "youth vs. the father. in loves of a blonde you get the commie leaders and the creepy fucking soldiers who are attempting their creepy move on the girls. and the musician and his dad and mom. and the poor factory patriarch with his good intentions and dim wit. and also laughing at the mediocres. weird the parallels one finds like that.

ebert in his review compared amadeus to mozart, and that again it's hippies vs. authority, and the son getting killed by an authoritarian father.

i guess forman had daddy issues, like the whole baby boomer generation. too much to psychoanalize, i need to sleep this off.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

the fog. i love that movie..

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

the fog. i love that movie..

The fog?

Drawing a blank. Can only think of The Mist. Gonna have to google.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

The fog?

Drawing a blank. Can only think of The Mist. Gonna have to google.

you never seen this John Carpenter classic??

daaaaaaaaaaamn missing out

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

you never seen this John Carpenter classic??

daaaaaaaaaaamn missing out

It's John Carpenter? And a classic you say? Sold. I will watch it with the gf on our next (ugh) "Netflix and chill" night. I swear.

I fucking love classic John Carpenter. The Thing is one of my favprit movies of all time. Seriously, all time.

[Severian]

Symbols, I didn't even catch it when you said valar morghulis. Read right past it. I haven't watched any of the show past season one — though I did read the books — so I didn't even pick up on it.

Hah. Game of Thrones stuff.

[greenlight]

 

shite movie, but I think I fell in love with Blake Lively, she is such a hottie, haha. great location as well.

 

shite movie, good idea for a script tho., amazing ambient soundtrack
https://soundcloud.com/pauldamianhog...ng-the-unknown

 

such a cool movie.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

Symbols, I didn't even catch it when you said valar morghulis. Read right past it. I haven't watched any of the show past season one — though I did read the books — so I didn't even pick up on it.

Hah. Game of Thrones stuff.

i remembered it was ghul-something so i said morghulis for jokes
yes, my jokes are terrible and i only amuse myself

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by greenlight

 

shite movie, but I think I fell in love with Blake Lively, she is such a hottie, haha. great location as well.

Straight into my Amazon basket.

My tolerance for films like that is near limitless.

And yes, Blake Lively is almost depressingly sexy.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Severian

It's John Carpenter? And a classic you say? Sold. I will watch it with the gf on our next (ugh) "Netflix and chill" night. I swear.

I fucking love classic John Carpenter. The Thing is one of my favprit movies of all time. Seriously, all time.

Seriously, yes, watch it. I saw it again recently. It's so underrated.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i remembered it was ghul-something so i said morghulis for jokes
yes, my jokes are terrible and i only amuse myself

Funnily enough, you spelled it right as far as I can tell.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by greenlight

 

such a cool movie.

Hah, look at that expression on Andie Macdowell's face! It's so '90s!! I love that shit. It's like she's looking at us going, "See what I have to deal with? Yeah. I got this guy over here and he's trapped in a clock. Whattaya want from me?"

Fuck that takes me back. Raised eyebrow fourth wall breaking "Eh?" looks. '90s rom-coms were built on those looks!

Groundhog Day really is a cool movie though. Legitimately good. Well made, well-acted, well-thought out, heartfelt, weird as fuck, and hilarious. I remember seeing it in the theater and really liking it even when it first came out, but I had no idea it would go on to he considered such a classic.

I just heard a Groundhog Day reference the other day, on a current — like, 2016 current — tv show. Can't remember which one, but Groundhog Day references are so common it probably doesn't matter.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

saw The Revenant last night, actually i really liked it.. certainly don't think it was Academy Award caliber but a good flick.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Seriously, yes, watch it. I saw it again recently. It's so underrated.

it really is, i think its one of my fav John Carpenter movies because he was still kind of underground/indie in 1980 so it less campy than his later more popular flicks. its when he still made actual horror movies