I'd tell Bats to rip and tear, but his work in Gotham will never be done.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
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Yeah, when did this start, title screens dropping halfway into a movie if not at the very end of the movie? Doesn't necessarily bother me, just seems needlessly cocky, like a mic drop, and assumes they've engaged the audience enough to that point that a title splash should punctuate our intrigue and interest. Not always the case.
I noticed TV shows do it a lot (but not really movies), like 20 minutes in they do the title sequence and you're like "oh yeah, I guess they hadn't done that yet" and it's kinda weird. I think this movie did it properly in a sense because it felt like they did the setup and it felt like the "real" movie was starting and it was full-on changing gears but then they just totally didn't do that at all.
I guess the polarly-opposite alternative is the '80s films that splashed the title up front with a montage of mundane activities while idents overlay the screen for the first 5 minutes of the movie (which is equally annoying,) I just don't understand the logic of pushing the title splash in the middle of the film. I mean, I paid $12 to see a movie; reminding me 20 minutes which movie I paid to see does little more than interrupt the momentum. Not egregiously so, but noticeable.
A ★★★★★ review of The Living Daylights (1987)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
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Oh, I see we go beyond the Bond movies.A ★★★★★ review of The Living Daylights (1987)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
Yeah, I couldn't get in any of these. I love Dalton, but not as Bond (I'd have loved him as a Bond villain). So much melodrama, in the tone, the acting, the everything. And as so often they went "this time, Bond is TOUGH and SCARY like in the NOVELS", but I never found, in the novels, this figure of super gritty grit. They all read somewhat connerier to me. And very often, I see people who haven't read them praise the grittiest new gritty bond as the closest one the the grittily grit novels. As if 1) being close to the novels was a goal in itself (it's not : the popular james bond archetype was invented by the movies), and 2) novel Bond was defined by heartlessness and brutality. And hey, ironically, that movie starts where the novels basically end : Bond deliberately botching a mission and supposedly (happily) losing his job, because he's tired of killing, and developped a one-sided platonic crush for the violonist who turns out the shooter he's supposed to eliminate. Bond at his bleedingheartest.
Anyway, I have the memory of a series of aritficial action sequences that feel more forced than organically stemming from the plot (a common flaw in many late Bond films). And an unconvincing cast. And even without the historical hindsight (Mudjahideens were fighting the soviet dictatorship back then so it made sense that their struggle was deemed legitimate, it kinda was and one can wonder how things would have turned out of people like Massoud had got the upper hand afterwards), the whole sequence felt very very random and out of place.
I attach few positive things to that film. Myriam d'Abo was kinda cool. Necros was awesome (I occasionally rewatch the whole "where has everybody gone" sequence - possibly at the origin of the whole Hitman series, now that I think of it). The intro was okay, apart from the very cringey yacht landing. It was nice to see the smersh mentioned in a Bond movie. And there are fun uses of parachutes in that film.
But it doesn't suffice to make this film truly exist in my eyes.
Plus, Moneypenny no no no no no, no no no (no, no).
Edit : Oh, speaking of Necros. In this kidnapping sequence, there is a very long (and good) fight with a random protection agent. It was great to see a pretty capable non-Bond good guy, for once. Usually those are quickly dispatched because nobody but Bond is ever allowed to display any aptitude at anything ever.
Also, that movie got in big trouble, because that kidnapping uses red cross vehicles for nefarious purposes, and that is very very forbidden.
(Also, yeah, Barry is always fantastic and semi-relatedly I'm sad about the death of Jane Birkin. But still, like a View to a Kill, he gives us here, maybe because of directorial instructions meant to facilitate undecisive editing, short musics to be used as loops of arbitrary lengths, like for some random amiga shoot'em up...)
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I completely understand. Everything I enjoy about the Dalton and (spoiler) Craig Bond movies, you don't care for, and that's fine. And yes, I agree that the "capturing" sequence with Necros is a great highlight of the film, and it was neat to see a nameless agent/bodyguard be treated as more than just another person to get in the way of the villain and be killed without a thought to establish that the bad guys are bad. And I will say that rewatching this movie, I had remembered Afghanistan being a bigger part of the plot than it was.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Oh, was that it? I thought it was smuggling drugs using the red cross logo.
Actually, just using the Red Cross logo is a problem in and of itself. That's why Nurse Joy, in the Pokemon anime, doesn't have the Red Cross logo. Using it outside of military applications dilutes the meaning of the Red Cross and risks weakening the trademark, which is a problem.
Anyways, just got back from watching Oppenheimer. Easy recommendation from me. Can't think of anything I would do to improve on it, and if you like character dramas at all, this is the bomb.
The first example of it that I recall personally was the last Friday the 13th movie from like, 2009. I think it was an effective use of the tactic because it helped punctuate the change in tone after the opening sequence, which already had people surprised.
Having said that, it has long since started losing appeal. When’s the last time people started clapping after the title screen finally shows up?
Felt pretty average to me. What didn't help matters was that Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter already came out a year prior, and this felt like another follow the leader of that, and Van Helsing. I admit that I don't have the DVD copy of H&G anymore. Nor am I in a rush to see it again.
Oppenheimer, 7/10
To put it in a somewhat crass three-word summary: autistic nerd machismo.
With this and Tenet I feel Christopher Nolan is heading down the same path as Wes Anderson: content to just repeat and refine his style of filmmaking, regardless of the subject matter. And for me it's starting to hit diminishing returns. This isn't quite as chock full of Nolan-isms as Tenet, but some parts of it are Nolan on overdrive. So in case you were expecting this to be anything different, bad news for you.
I feel like I'm taking him for granted, so let's say that for all my personal gripes with Nolan's style, this is still top of the line filmmaking: the editing, music, acting, production design, effects and cinematography are all stellar. The ludicrously star-studded cast is firing on all cylinders. I'm pretty sure there are like 2 scenes in the entire film where Cillian Murphy isn't present, and he carries his role effortlessly. Special attention must be paid to the soundscape, because it's what basically makes this movie. Without it it would be just a whole load of white guys in suits talking for 3 hours. The central setpiece, the atomic test, is genuinely breathtaking and knuckle-whitening. On a technical level this movie is basically flawless. The first 1,5-2 hours are genuinely fantastic.
But like I said, Nolan's style is starting to hit diminishing returns for me, and here some of the choices feel perhaps more questionable than ever. As is expected at this point, the movie takes place in multiple time periods narratively: the experiments conducted during WW2, and Oppenheimer's public disgracing in the post-war years. But it doesn't stop there: these time periods are further split into different time periods internally, so the movie's playing out on like 4 time periods. Or maybe it was all linear and I just couldn't tell, because the movie jumps between scenes, locations and time periods at such a blistering pace that it was hard to keep up. Speaking of which, if you thought Interstellar and Tenet were hard to keep up with due to the wibbly wobbly time shenanigans, wait til you see Nolan get to make a scene of top-level theoretical physicists discussing hitherto unexplored concepts. It's like he's a kid let loose in a candy store without anything to hold him back.
This will be entirely down to personal taste, but for me the amount of discussion on technical detail just went overboard. A persistent criticism of Nolan's movies is how expository dialogue is often delivered robotically and mechanically. People don't stammer, they don't "umm" or even pause between lines of dialogue, it's always like:
Scientist 1: How can we solve this [really complicated science stuff]
Scientist 2 without missing a nanosecond: Have you considered [more complicated sciency stuff]?
Scientist 3 without missing a nanosecond: But didn't you heart about scientist 4 making this breakthrough in [yet more complicated sciency stuff]?
It would be fine if it was just limited to those scientific discussions, but every significant dialogue exchange is delivered in this exact same way, whether it's Oppenheimer wrestling with his crumbling reputation, or having a heart-to-heart with his mistress. This is why I use the word "autistic", because there's no better word to summarize the feeling I get from the combination of insane focus on technical detail, and lack of genuine-feeling human emotion I get from the characters. At times I wish there was a character who was hung over in one of these scenes, and would ask the other characters to speak a little slower for the benefit of the audience. During the last third of the movie I genuinely lost the plot a couple of times, and that's where it faltered the most for me.
The "nerd machismo" comes from how this movie feels like overall. This is a story about brilliant, but awkward and often morally dubious men coming together for a cause to prove themselves in the highest stages of scientific brilliance. It's almost like making the bomb is slaying some mythical monster, and the scientists are the 300 spartans. The often furious scientific debates might as well be muscle flexing competitions for how bullheaded and heated everone is in the scenes. The characters don't come into conflict over ethical quandries or how the experiment is affecting their life, it's because they often feel like their genius is being hampered by the other geniuses in the room. It's kind of funny.
So yeah, it's pure, distilled Nolan through and through. IMO for his next film he ought to switch it up a bit and direct a 95-minute romantic comedy. Or a kids' cartoon about a talking dog. Or just for maximum meme value, the sequel to Barbie.
To put it in a somewhat crass three-word summary: autistic nerd machismo.
With this and Tenet I feel Christopher Nolan is heading down the same path as Wes Anderson: content to just repeat and refine his style of filmmaking, regardless of the subject matter. And for me it's starting to hit diminishing returns. This isn't quite as chock full of Nolan-isms as Tenet, but some parts of it are Nolan on overdrive. So in case you were expecting this to be anything different, bad news for you.
I feel like I'm taking him for granted, so let's say that for all my personal gripes with Nolan's style, this is still top of the line filmmaking: the editing, music, acting, production design, effects and cinematography are all stellar. The ludicrously star-studded cast is firing on all cylinders. I'm pretty sure there are like 2 scenes in the entire film where Cillian Murphy isn't present, and he carries his role effortlessly. Special attention must be paid to the soundscape, because it's what basically makes this movie. Without it it would be just a whole load of white guys in suits talking for 3 hours. The central setpiece, the atomic test, is genuinely breathtaking and knuckle-whitening. On a technical level this movie is basically flawless. The first 1,5-2 hours are genuinely fantastic.
But like I said, Nolan's style is starting to hit diminishing returns for me, and here some of the choices feel perhaps more questionable than ever. As is expected at this point, the movie takes place in multiple time periods narratively: the experiments conducted during WW2, and Oppenheimer's public disgracing in the post-war years. But it doesn't stop there: these time periods are further split into different time periods internally, so the movie's playing out on like 4 time periods. Or maybe it was all linear and I just couldn't tell, because the movie jumps between scenes, locations and time periods at such a blistering pace that it was hard to keep up. Speaking of which, if you thought Interstellar and Tenet were hard to keep up with due to the wibbly wobbly time shenanigans, wait til you see Nolan get to make a scene of top-level theoretical physicists discussing hitherto unexplored concepts. It's like he's a kid let loose in a candy store without anything to hold him back.
This will be entirely down to personal taste, but for me the amount of discussion on technical detail just went overboard. A persistent criticism of Nolan's movies is how expository dialogue is often delivered robotically and mechanically. People don't stammer, they don't "umm" or even pause between lines of dialogue, it's always like:
Scientist 1: How can we solve this [really complicated science stuff]
Scientist 2 without missing a nanosecond: Have you considered [more complicated sciency stuff]?
Scientist 3 without missing a nanosecond: But didn't you heart about scientist 4 making this breakthrough in [yet more complicated sciency stuff]?
It would be fine if it was just limited to those scientific discussions, but every significant dialogue exchange is delivered in this exact same way, whether it's Oppenheimer wrestling with his crumbling reputation, or having a heart-to-heart with his mistress. This is why I use the word "autistic", because there's no better word to summarize the feeling I get from the combination of insane focus on technical detail, and lack of genuine-feeling human emotion I get from the characters. At times I wish there was a character who was hung over in one of these scenes, and would ask the other characters to speak a little slower for the benefit of the audience. During the last third of the movie I genuinely lost the plot a couple of times, and that's where it faltered the most for me.
The "nerd machismo" comes from how this movie feels like overall. This is a story about brilliant, but awkward and often morally dubious men coming together for a cause to prove themselves in the highest stages of scientific brilliance. It's almost like making the bomb is slaying some mythical monster, and the scientists are the 300 spartans. The often furious scientific debates might as well be muscle flexing competitions for how bullheaded and heated everone is in the scenes. The characters don't come into conflict over ethical quandries or how the experiment is affecting their life, it's because they often feel like their genius is being hampered by the other geniuses in the room. It's kind of funny.
So yeah, it's pure, distilled Nolan through and through. IMO for his next film he ought to switch it up a bit and direct a 95-minute romantic comedy. Or a kids' cartoon about a talking dog. Or just for maximum meme value, the sequel to Barbie.
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The Wizard of Oz, 9/10
I only watched this because I'd started watching Return to Oz (which I'll talk about below), and about 20 minutes in I just paused it and decided to watch the original. And I'm glad I did, because boy does this hold up and then some. Despite knowing basically all the beats and iconic moments from countless parodies and references I'd seen over the years, it was still quite an experience on its own. The deliberately artificial, theatre stage production design does wonders to keep it from feeling dated, and the ultra colourful storybook aesthetic goes hand in hand with it. It evokes a sense of childlike wonder where you just go along with absurd concepts in a way I've rarely seen executed this well outside of Hayao Miyazaki films. Judy Garland is great (even if the story behind this movie's production was a horrorshow), the characters are charming, the story is timeless, the music's great, it's just marvelous all around. A classic and damn well deserved at that.
Return to Oz, I'm-only-50-minutes-in/10
Holy shit! This is my muthafuckin' jam! I'd heard stories and seen some brief clips of this movie, but I'd never have expected to love it this much. This is right in the realms of Coraline or the creepy parts of Spirited Away: creepy as shit, weird, eldritch, mysterious, and damn intense. The scene where the hallway of heads started screaming was absolutely terrifying, and I was enthralled. This is about as much of a PG-rated horror movie as you can get. There are bits in this that remind me of Bloodborne and A Cure for Wellness. How many supposed family films can you say that about? Can we bring back this DIsney please? Unless this movie shits the bed in the second half, I think I might have a new contender for my list of all time favorite movies.
I only watched this because I'd started watching Return to Oz (which I'll talk about below), and about 20 minutes in I just paused it and decided to watch the original. And I'm glad I did, because boy does this hold up and then some. Despite knowing basically all the beats and iconic moments from countless parodies and references I'd seen over the years, it was still quite an experience on its own. The deliberately artificial, theatre stage production design does wonders to keep it from feeling dated, and the ultra colourful storybook aesthetic goes hand in hand with it. It evokes a sense of childlike wonder where you just go along with absurd concepts in a way I've rarely seen executed this well outside of Hayao Miyazaki films. Judy Garland is great (even if the story behind this movie's production was a horrorshow), the characters are charming, the story is timeless, the music's great, it's just marvelous all around. A classic and damn well deserved at that.
Return to Oz, I'm-only-50-minutes-in/10
Holy shit! This is my muthafuckin' jam! I'd heard stories and seen some brief clips of this movie, but I'd never have expected to love it this much. This is right in the realms of Coraline or the creepy parts of Spirited Away: creepy as shit, weird, eldritch, mysterious, and damn intense. The scene where the hallway of heads started screaming was absolutely terrifying, and I was enthralled. This is about as much of a PG-rated horror movie as you can get. There are bits in this that remind me of Bloodborne and A Cure for Wellness. How many supposed family films can you say that about? Can we bring back this DIsney please? Unless this movie shits the bed in the second half, I think I might have a new contender for my list of all time favorite movies.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Let me get this out of the way. This movie isn't really original. It's a heist movie set in the D&D universe. It feels like a Marvel movie at times in it's flow and vibe. That being said, I had a good time with it. It moves fast enough to not get bogged down, it doesn't take itself too seriously, the visual effects generally look pretty good and honestly it's basically what I wanted from the FIRST D&D movie 20 years ago(and to a lesser extent the Dragon Age Absolution series from last year). It seems to nicely balance having references tossed in here and there for people who kind of know the lore(Baldurs gate is mentioned a few times and the movie spends a fair bit of time in Neverwinter) but if you didn't know you probably wouldn't miss much.
So yeah, enjoyable popcorn movie.
Let me get this out of the way. This movie isn't really original. It's a heist movie set in the D&D universe. It feels like a Marvel movie at times in it's flow and vibe. That being said, I had a good time with it. It moves fast enough to not get bogged down, it doesn't take itself too seriously, the visual effects generally look pretty good and honestly it's basically what I wanted from the FIRST D&D movie 20 years ago(and to a lesser extent the Dragon Age Absolution series from last year). It seems to nicely balance having references tossed in here and there for people who kind of know the lore(Baldurs gate is mentioned a few times and the movie spends a fair bit of time in Neverwinter) but if you didn't know you probably wouldn't miss much.
So yeah, enjoyable popcorn movie.
Oh yeah, it's really something. I particularly like how the wheelies simultaneously manage to be over the top bad 80s villians, and legitimately creepy at the same time.
Barbie was fun. Definitely not a kids movie though, I'd imagine they'd be quite bored. Second half falls flat pretty hard, but the movie was funny enough and Gosling stupid enough for me to ignore that.
I didn't even hate Ferrell in it, this is exactly the kind of movie that benefits from his kind of humor.
But I will say, 100% this is the first and last good movie that Mattel is going to shit out.
I didn't even hate Ferrell in it, this is exactly the kind of movie that benefits from his kind of humor.
But I will say, 100% this is the first and last good movie that Mattel is going to shit out.
Finished Return to Oz. It didn't shit itself. 9/10, and a new entry to my all time favorites.
This is now the third movie on my favorite movies list where a young girl gets pulled into a twisted fantasy world and has to face different challenges to find her way back, with one or several animal sidekicks. I may have a type of movie that strikes a chord with me. But I do genuinely think this is Spirited Away tier in what a wildly imaginative world it builds, and just gets you to accept it. The sets, the practical effects and the stop motion animation are all great, there's huge amounts of visual variety, it's really well shot, the music's great and it's oozing with atmosphere. What faults I find with it are rather minor: Fairuza Balk can't measure up to Judy Garland, but that's hardly a fair comparison considering they had an age difference of 6 years when filming. There's some obvious concessions made to the budget when the gnome king turns from stop motion animation to just a dude in a (pretty bad) costume for a while. The ending's also a bit hard to swallow. This time Dorothy explicitly wants to go back to Oz in the beginning of the movie and there's far less of a sense of her having a happy life and a community in Kansas. So her just deciding to go back to Kansas at the end without staying even for a little just feels out of character and more of a plot obligation than anything organic.
Fucking loved it, so getting both these movies on blu-ray.
This is now the third movie on my favorite movies list where a young girl gets pulled into a twisted fantasy world and has to face different challenges to find her way back, with one or several animal sidekicks. I may have a type of movie that strikes a chord with me. But I do genuinely think this is Spirited Away tier in what a wildly imaginative world it builds, and just gets you to accept it. The sets, the practical effects and the stop motion animation are all great, there's huge amounts of visual variety, it's really well shot, the music's great and it's oozing with atmosphere. What faults I find with it are rather minor: Fairuza Balk can't measure up to Judy Garland, but that's hardly a fair comparison considering they had an age difference of 6 years when filming. There's some obvious concessions made to the budget when the gnome king turns from stop motion animation to just a dude in a (pretty bad) costume for a while. The ending's also a bit hard to swallow. This time Dorothy explicitly wants to go back to Oz in the beginning of the movie and there's far less of a sense of her having a happy life and a community in Kansas. So her just deciding to go back to Kansas at the end without staying even for a little just feels out of character and more of a plot obligation than anything organic.
Fucking loved it, so getting both these movies on blu-ray.
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, 5/10
One of the most famous examples of comedy not aging well, this 90s Jim Carrey joint is definitely a product of its time. I'm not old enough to remember how this matched the zeitgeist when it came out, but it's perhaps the 90s equivalent of "lol random XD rawr" humor of the late 00s. The filmmaking here is mostly mediocre, there's nothing of note about the score, cinematography, editing or the like. The entire movie rests and relies on Jim Carrey's performance. And he certainly is giving it his all, whether it's funny these days is another question entirely. Most of the comedy relies on the assumption that saying weird things in a weird voice and massive physical overacting equals funny. And to me it's mostly not, because that's the entire gag for the vast majority of the movie. In fact, looking at it through a modern lens, Ventura comes across mostly as one of two things: 1. a sociopath, or 2. massively autistic. And I'm leaning on the latter: his weird voice inflections and movements, inability to tell when people are uncomfortable around him, his overall manner just seems off kilter. Looking at it like that it almost comes back around to being funny again, because if you tell yourself that Ventura is autistic, the film is wonderfully accepting of him.
There are some genuinely funny moments and lines, but they're few and far between in what turned out mostly as an anthropological exploration of a mid-90s time capsule. Then there's the obvious transphobia stuff, but not being trans myself nor really knowing any trans people I'll just settle for saying that it's rather uncomfortable and cringeworthy to watch.
One of the most famous examples of comedy not aging well, this 90s Jim Carrey joint is definitely a product of its time. I'm not old enough to remember how this matched the zeitgeist when it came out, but it's perhaps the 90s equivalent of "lol random XD rawr" humor of the late 00s. The filmmaking here is mostly mediocre, there's nothing of note about the score, cinematography, editing or the like. The entire movie rests and relies on Jim Carrey's performance. And he certainly is giving it his all, whether it's funny these days is another question entirely. Most of the comedy relies on the assumption that saying weird things in a weird voice and massive physical overacting equals funny. And to me it's mostly not, because that's the entire gag for the vast majority of the movie. In fact, looking at it through a modern lens, Ventura comes across mostly as one of two things: 1. a sociopath, or 2. massively autistic. And I'm leaning on the latter: his weird voice inflections and movements, inability to tell when people are uncomfortable around him, his overall manner just seems off kilter. Looking at it like that it almost comes back around to being funny again, because if you tell yourself that Ventura is autistic, the film is wonderfully accepting of him.
There are some genuinely funny moments and lines, but they're few and far between in what turned out mostly as an anthropological exploration of a mid-90s time capsule. Then there's the obvious transphobia stuff, but not being trans myself nor really knowing any trans people I'll just settle for saying that it's rather uncomfortable and cringeworthy to watch.