Nobody was exactly looking forward to Avatar 2. It didn't really ride the wave of popularity of the first movie afterall. And really not great blockbusters have been making huge profits for decades. Whether Thor 4, Black Panther 2, and The Enternals are worse than The Flash didn't stop them from having a better box office, and The Flash utterly tanking.
There's something else going on here. A lot of these June/July releases - Indy 5, The Flash, Elemental, Ruby Gilman; Teenaged Kraken - are movies that typically make a decent return, quality be damned. Though Elemental seems to be pulling itself up somewhat. It could be overcrowding, it could be audiences not exactly being in a movie going mood this summer, it could be streaming services having made people less willing to leave their homes and pay for tickets, or it's all of the above. Also, China being less welcoming to foreign blockbusters now also probably has something to do with it.
But to say that general audiences suddenly colllectively just got picky about the quality of blockbusters is doubtful. Not to say general audiences are just stupid, but most people who go to the movies usually do so as a night out, and they'll watch whatever is the new big movie. Same for families who take their kids to watch the next big animated movie.
But people knew Avatar 2 was gonna be more Avatar that they at least liked to some degree. I thought it was a shit movie (even worse than the recent Marvel stuff), it was a unique experience with the 3D and all that, it had something you don't really get from anything else. Yeah, I know MCU movies that weren't great made tons of money but people also cared about the overall MCU plot and characters so even if a movie wasn't amazing or anything, it was worth the watch. Now, what is the actual appeal of the MCU post-Endgame? Sure, just one movie isn't gonna derail it but when we did a complete phrase and there's no plot-line or characters people care about anymore, people will stop going to see these movies. The Flash did horrible because no one cares about the DCEU and everyone knows it's dead and James Gunn is rebooting the whole thing. The only thing The Flash had going for it was Michael Keaton's Batman, that's literally the only reason I saw it. Even Disney knew Elemental was gonna be a stinker because they gave up on the marketing and didn't even try because why put more money into something you know is gonna lose money?
I'm not saying that people care about a movie being good, but the chances of it being good. I know Mission Impossible will be trying it's hardest to be good so I'll go see it, I'm not going to try to figure out if it's good (by looking at reviews or even just the RT score) because I like going into a movie as blind as possible. The fact that the new MI is good or not isn't that big of a factor, it's going in knowing it could be really good that matters. I already know that The Marvels is gonna be shit, I knew that Indy 5 was gonna be shit (the trailer using Sympathy for the Devil was enough to know it wasn't gonna be an Indy movie I wanted to see). What they could've and should've done with the Indy franchise was to make it similar to James Bond where you just replace the actor and just continue making similar movies and don't really care about canon and whatnot.
Like I said before, I'll say it again: June was overcrowded and all of theaters overcharge the price for food, drinks, and tickets. There's a reason why I rarely ever go to an evening show now. Been that way for a good long while now. We already gave the reasons, he just don't want to listen and keeps goal posting like usual. I don't even bother wasting your breath at this point.
Funny how I mentioned theaters being overpriced as one of the reasons. Also, you apparently have no idea what goal posting is and just throw it out because it's something you think you win arguments automatically with.
But people knew Avatar 2 was gonna be more Avatar that they at least liked to some degree. I thought it was a shit movie (even worse than the recent Marvel stuff), it was a unique experience with the 3D and all that, it had something you don't really get from anything else. Yeah, I know MCU movies that weren't great made tons of money but people also cared about the overall MCU plot and characters so even if a movie wasn't amazing or anything, it was worth the watch. Now, what is the actual appeal of the MCU post-Endgame? Sure, just one movie isn't gonna derail it but when we did a complete phrase and there's no plot-line or characters people care about anymore, people will stop going to see these movies. The Flash did horrible because no one cares about the DCEU and everyone knows it's dead and James Gunn is rebooting the whole thing. The only thing The Flash had going for it was Michael Keaton's Batman, that's literally the only reason I saw it. Even Disney knew Elemental was gonna be a stinker because they gave up on the marketing and didn't even try because why put more money into something you know is gonna lose money?
I'm not saying that people care about a movie being good, but the chances of it being good. I know Mission Impossible will be trying it's hardest to be good so I'll go see it, I'm not going to try to figure out if it's good (by looking at reviews or even just the RT score) because I like going into a movie as blind as possible. The fact that the new MI is good or not isn't that big of a factor, it's going in knowing it could be really good that matters. I already know that The Marvels is gonna be shit, I knew that Indy 5 was gonna be shit (the trailer using Sympathy for the Devil was enough to know it wasn't gonna be an Indy movie I wanted to see). What they could've and should've done with the Indy franchise was to make it similar to James Bond where you just replace the actor and just continue making similar movies and don't really care about canon and whatnot.
Funny how I mentioned theaters being overpriced as one of the reasons. Also, you apparently have no idea what goal posting is and just throw it out because it's something you think you win arguments automatically with.
I already said that long before you started, just a heads up. Not my fault you never noticed it or ignored it. I do know what go posting is coming you always do it in the current events thread and whenever anything involved covid. Don't tell me otherwise. Not worth listening your lies, half truths, and pathetic excuses.
I already said that long before you started, just a heads up. Not my fault you never noticed it or ignored it. I do know what go posting is coming you always do it in the current events thread and whenever anything involved covid. Don't tell me otherwise. Not worth listening your lies, half truths, and pathetic excuses.
Ethan Hunt is up to his un-killable shenanigans again. This time tasked with locating two parts of a key somehow related to a newly-sentient AI which has rendered the entire world's digital existence moot as it's proven ostensibly there's nowhere it can't reach, i.e.: governments, militaries, personal info, etc., all this AI's playground. The race is on to destroy it while there are those who plan to weaponize it.
Lots of back stabbing, lots of two-facing, lots of convolution, lots of contrivances, a LOT of action, and a lot of fun. Best movie I've ever seen? Absolutely not, but it knows what it is, and doesn't waste your time slowing down to explain itself. Like Tom Cruise himself said, it was made to be seen in theaters, and wasn't wrong; I got my money's worth. That said, it's not likely one I'm anticipating watching at home.
I'm left a little depressed. I think the foundational ideas were good, the bots look great, but all around an incompetent snooze fest. A whatever film, made by whatever studio. Not a redemption, but a nail in the coffin. According to the wiki it's going to be a flop. It's just barely going to make it's money back between budget and marketing, but that's just on paper, most likely it will lose 60mil-100mil.
If that's the case I'm genuinely happy and I hope they lose the IP.
If there's any one thing I can say to hopefully make you not give them any money through rentals, Optimus Prime is portrayed as an infantile incompetent asshole. The idea is that by the end of the movie he starts learning to not be an asshole. It's such an offputing and bizarre portrayal of the character. Optimus Primal has to step in and be a parent figure to him, but even primal is kind of a boob. ignorant, I can deal with. I'm happy to see a heroes journey with Optimus, but this movie literally has him start off as a POS and it just doesn't work. So only watch if you wanna see two hours of Optimus being the ignorant dick leader you see the harry potter character replace in any normal action movie. 3/10 hard skip this. Seriously, its boring. Transformers should not be boring.
Mission Impossible: Rogue nation
I've sorta seen all the impossible films, but at a disservice to myself, it's something I've watched as noise in the background. The films just never interested me beyond the first one. It's weird to think they've been around so long I think I was 18 when part 2 came out. Anyway I had heard that Mission Impossible films made a distinct turn into being spy films that wanted to be taken serious as an artform around Rogue Nation and that Dead Reckoning Part one is quite good, so I'm sitting down and watching the 2 parter this weekend.
I have to say I really enjoyed Rogue Nation. The villains and heroes all made sense. It has a clearly delivered plot without overwrought contrivances and machina logic cover ups. What I really enjoyed was how Tom cruise and Rebecca Ferguson's characters are treated. Unlike a lot of these genre film they are very human. Tom Cruise fucks up several times, his co-star Rebecca Ferguson's fem fatale saves the day without seeming like a cartoon character. I like that these people are filmed as though trying to convey that they are real flesh and blood agents. I like that Rebecca Ferguson's character is pretty, but not SEXY like bonds girls often are. Like objects that just fill space. It all very balanced between action and spy elements instead of the whole structure of the film hinging on one or two big action set pieces.
In a way I honestly found it more enjoyable than most of the recent bond films which have been filled with too much gobbledeguck and sexiness. I understood clearly what was happening and why through the whole film. I get that both can exist without hurting me, but I suspect I prefer this version of Mission Impossible over most of Craig Daniels bond. 8/10 It's not Jojo Rabbit, but it's fun.
I'm left a little depressed. I think the foundational ideas were good, the bots look great, but all around an incompetent snooze fest. A whatever film, made by whatever studio. Not a redemption, but a nail in the coffin. According to the wiki it's going to be a flop. It's just barely going to make it's money back between budget and marketing, but that's just on paper, most likely it will lose 60mil-100mil.
If that's the case I'm genuinely happy and I hope they lose the IP.
If there's any one thing I can say to hopefully make you not give them any money through rentals, Optimus Prime is portrayed as an infantile incompetent asshole. The idea is that by the end of the movie he starts learning to not be an asshole. It's such an offputing and bizarre portrayal of the character. Optimus Primal has to step in and be a parent figure to him, but even primal is kind of a boob. ignorant, I can deal with. I'm happy to see a heroes journey with Optimus, but this movie literally has him start off as a POS and it just doesn't work. So only watch if you wanna see two hours of Optimus being the ignorant dick leader you see the harry potter character replace in any normal action movie. 3/10 hard skip this. Seriously, its boring. Transformers should not be boring.
I'm not quite sure this can count as a review because I haven't finished watching it, but goddamn is Transformers: Rise of the Beast dull as fuck.
I'm on my third attempt to finish watching it tonight. I like to use my ADHD as my meter of a films quality and man did this film have me clawing out of my seat.
If you can try to picture this, Michael Bay movies - Loud, frenetic, quippy, nonsense. Now picture the exact opposite - Slow, drab, energonless dialog.
Transformers: Rise of the Beast Superficially tries to remove all the mistakes of bayformers. It's largely played straight, very minimal "wackiness", the combat is easy to see, the Transformers all look awesome, but now the story is by the numbers, all the voice acting feels like actors desperately trying to stay awake. Instead of a joke or quip every thirty seconds, every line is like "We must get the thing", "we have the thing" like exposition more than dialog. It reminds me of the toys that you can click to say things, but it's just like "Transform.....rollout..(I guess). It's very strange to watch on screen.
Even Pete Davidson playing Mirage sounds dull and lifeless, like they just put him on speakerphone while he was playing Call of Duty and had him distractedly say lines that the tiktok kids would recognize. Maybe this is a little racist, but the whole time I was thinking man if they had let Craig Robinson let loose he woulda knocked it out of the park as Mirage. It feels like that's the character they actually wanted like Craig Robinson from Pineapple express, but the studio said they had a contract with Pete Davidson. For the record I don't "hate" pete davidson, he was great in bodies, bodies, bodies, but this really just feels like poor direction.
The whole movie(I'm like halfway through) feels like it suffers from pacing, cinematography and script being overworked by studio notes and editing. Several jokes in the trailers are noticeably cut out of the film. Scourge, the villain, seems like he's on valium. Everyone just sounds bored and exhausted, by the abject meaningless of existence.
The only real positive thing I can say is that the combat looks pretty cool, very classic transformers, the rest of it coma inducing.
Easteregg: I accidently watched it in French and so for Bumblebee, instead of movie quotes, it's just some wacky french guy and it's hilarious. I almost considered leaving it on as it was vastly more entertaining, at least for his scenes.
I disagree with you heavily on this. I never found the film lifeless nor dull; especially when it comes to the performance of the Transformers themselves. Sorry for you ADHD, but nothing felt "lifeless" for me. While the characters aren't as over-the-top when it comes to the Bay films, I see that as huge net positive after having to deal with that shit for nearly a decade. I'll take subtly and proper development over loud, obnoxious, characters (or the writing) that think they're funny and witty, when they're shit. I like how there is some tension between one of the human characters and the Autobots. You see where they're coming from, but neither are in the complete right and must learn to work together. Their motivations are understandable, and you want them to work out their differences to see the bigger picture and threat. Even Optimus learns that great things come from humans, and we've have built ancient civilizations that have stood the test of time without Cybertronian tech to help us out, nor involved with our development as a society and species. Which I am sure was a dig at the Bay movies that kept retconning themselves each time.
The box office is actually good, and it is pretty clear the same studio is going to make the next one. Like it or not.
Newly orphaned 9-year-old girl is fostered to her reluctant aunt who works at a toy company making advanced robotic toys. Aunt takes the opportunity to complete a pet project, a 4-foot-tall autonomous robot child (the titular M3gan,) to serve in the immediacy as a surrogate friend, but the robot soon becomes her ONLY friend and confidant. Oh, and the robot gains sentience, and her protective nature over the girl leads to murder.
A LOT better than I thought it would be. I had no desire to watch this, but once I did, I was extremely surprised how good it actually manages to be. Maybe because it harkens back to '80s-type films that want you to throw credibility to the wind, and just enjoy the ride, y'know the ones: some genius in his/her basement manages to accomplish feats of technological advancement billion-dollar corporations have only dreamed of, and it all goes wrong to constitute the movie. I had a lot of fun, and M3gan was fittingly creepy, the little nods of the head to tell the audience she is learning, and picking up on cues that her very objective "programming" is misconstruing as logic. I recommend it, and coming from someone who thought the film wasn't worth my time, that's saying something. Not sure to whom, but it saying something.
Willy's Wonderland, very obviously based on Five Nights at Freddy's. This film was presumably made during a writers' strike. And a CGI strike. Maybe a director strike.
Nicolas Cage excels in the leading role as Nicolas Cage.
I've sorta seen all the impossible films, but at a disservice to myself, it's something I've watched as noise in the background. The films just never interested me beyond the first one. It's weird to think they've been around so long I think I was 18 when part 2 came out. Anyway I had heard that Mission Impossible films made a distinct turn into being spy films that wanted to be taken serious as an artform around Rogue Nation and that Dead Reckoning Part one is quite good, so I'm sitting down and watching the 2 parter this weekend.
I have to say I really enjoyed Rogue Nation. The villains and heroes all made sense. It has a clearly delivered plot without overwrought contrivances and machina logic cover ups. What I really enjoyed was how Tom cruise and Rebecca Ferguson's characters are treated. Unlike a lot of these genre film they are very human. Tom Cruise fucks up several times, his co-star Rebecca Ferguson's fem fatale saves the day without seeming like a cartoon character. I like that these people are filmed as though trying to convey that they are real flesh and blood agents. I like that Rebecca Ferguson's character is pretty, but not SEXY like bonds girls often are. Like objects that just fill space. It all very balanced between action and spy elements instead of the whole structure of the film hinging on one or two big action set pieces.
In a way I honestly found it more enjoyable than most of the recent bond films which have been filled with too much gobbledeguck and sexiness. I understood clearly what was happening and why through the whole film. I get that both can exist without hurting me, but I suspect I prefer this version of Mission Impossible over most of Craig Daniels bond. 8/10 It's not Jojo Rabbit, but it's fun.
I like that Rebecca Ferguson's character is pretty, but not SEXY like bonds girls often are. Like objects that just fill space. It all very balanced between action and spy elements instead of the whole structure of the film hinging on one or two big action set pieces.
Not everything needs to be and I prefer it that way.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning -...........
Holy shit, is this movie is amazing! Tom Cruise and the team just keep outdoing themselves! The proper build up, the suspense, the characters, action, and everything in-between! While a much darker film in tone calling back to the first movie, there's plenty of funny moments with it not being out of place or tone deaf. I noticed this, as Dead Reckoning uses those Dutch angles the first movie used a lot. Also, that entire opening? Master Class S Rank starter right there! The finale? A better Uncharted movie than the official Uncharted movie! Add another to the list! See this movie!
If you ever need a measure of how much of a hero Ethan Hunt is, he had to have two women fridged to get his dander up. Otherwise, this movie is extraordinarily good. Don't invest too much thought into the plot as it has some weaknesses, but beyond that this is overall a highest level action blockbuster. Tom Cruise is doing his best to defy age, and Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are on hand to lend their sidekick best helping our hero save the world from a rogue AI. Various characters from earlier entries are also brought back, plus Hayley Atwell as new interest. What really makes it work is that the action scenes are very well thought out and executed, saving it from the risk of the usual, dull shooty-shooty punchy-punchy.
Of all my favorite depressing psychological horror movies The Tenant (Le Locataire if you want to be pedantic) is one of the few that I don't have a fixed interpretation of. Stuff like Eraserhead is more famously weird and experimental and inscrutable but I've had a fixed read on that movie since my very first viewing and I'm satisfied with it. The Tenant, despite being more plain with its "horror" and having a more conventional narrative, is somehow even more defiant in interpretation. It's a little bit like The Shining where you can be dismissive of the plot in the following order: 1) Character's insane, 2) There's a supernatural element, 3) The insanity and the supernatural element reinforce each other, regardless of causality. And maybe that's good enough. But every time I watch the movie I feel like "something else" is going on.
So on the surface level, The Tenant is a Kafkaesque nightmare starring (of course) some poor schlub who is pointlessly oppressed by everything and everybody. Nobody likes him. Everybody treats him with spite or indifference or suspicion. He's denied the basic fucking pleasure of a cup of coffee. He keeps getting roused in the middle of the night by noises or neighbors or nightmares. There are not-so-veiled hints of Antisemitism. Past a certain point he becomes convinced that the whole building is in on a conspiracy to drive him to suicide.
The previous tenant killed herself too. The new tenant is convinced he's "becoming" her, which is where his paranoia - which may or may not be justified - turns into insanity. He's only allowed to order the things she consumed in the cafe next door. He hangs around with her old friends. He discovers a tooth stashed away in a hole in the wall, and later (somehow) loses one himself. Next up he starts putting on makeup, buys a wig and wears her old clothes. From Psycho to Silence of the Lambs (and In Dreams! Anybody remember that shitty movie?), transvestism in movies is almost always the symptom of a fractured psyche.
There's a recurring theme of Egyptian literature and symbology, but it's never directly addressed by the movie (or anybody, really). The old tenant was an Egyptologist - did she find something, trigger something, that led to her death? That cursed the apartment? The protagonist never acknowledges any of it. Nobody's there to tell him about Pazuzu. Then we arrive at the very Borges-like twist of having the new tenant take over the old tenant's place in her deathbed, where she was mummified in an earlier scene (and he sees himself from "her" POV shot, essentially signaling the restart of the cycle).
You could boil down the gist of the story to somebody being trapped in some kind of death loop (a little bit like The Shining - we're just missing a scene where the bartender goes "You've always been The Tenant") by way of an Egyptian curse, and try handwave everything else as the hallucinations of a person going insane by the process, but it's an unsatisfying take because it doesn't settle which characters are real or imaginary, the degree to which Trelkovsky is being groomed or conspirated against, or what the hell is going on in the bathroom across his apartment (the other tenants go and stand in there in the middle of the night... why?). And the world as is seems horribly warped and aggressive even without the supernatural shenanigans. The Egyptian stuff feels like a misdirect - more like a thematic commentary on reincarnation than actual hocus pocus - but because Polanski already covered a Satanic cult and the actual birth of the Antichrist, I think most people will be predisposed to taking the Egyptian superstition literally.
Of all my favorite depressing psychological horror movies The Tenant (Le Locataire if you want to be pedantic) is one of the few that I don't have a fixed interpretation of. Stuff like Eraserhead is more famously weird and experimental and inscrutable but I've had a fixed read on that movie since my very first viewing and I'm satisfied with it. The Tenant, despite being more plain with its "horror" and having a more conventional narrative, is somehow even more defiant in interpretation. It's a little bit like The Shining where you can be dismissive of the plot in the following order: 1) Character's insane, 2) There's a supernatural element, 3) The insanity and the supernatural element reinforce each other, regardless of causality. And maybe that's good enough. But every time I watch the movie I feel like "something else" is going on.
So on the surface level, The Tenant is a Kafkaesque nightmare starring (of course) some poor schlub who is pointlessly oppressed by everything and everybody. Nobody likes him. Everybody treats him with spite or indifference or suspicion. He's denied the basic fucking pleasure of a cup of coffee. He keeps getting roused in the middle of the night by noises or neighbors or nightmares. There are not-so-veiled hints of Antisemitism. Past a certain point he becomes convinced that the whole building is in on a conspiracy to drive him to suicide.
The previous tenant killed herself too. The new tenant is convinced he's "becoming" her, which is where his paranoia - which may or may not be justified - turns into insanity. He's only allowed to order the things she consumed in the cafe next door. He hangs around with her old friends. He discovers a tooth stashed away in a hole in the wall, and later (somehow) loses one himself. Next up he starts putting on makeup, buys a wig and wears her old clothes. From Psycho to Silence of the Lambs (and In Dreams! Anybody remember that shitty movie?), transvestism in movies is almost always the symptom of a fractured psyche.
There's a recurring theme of Egyptian literature and symbology, but it's never directly addressed by the movie (or anybody, really). The old tenant was an Egyptologist - did she find something, trigger something, that led to her death? That cursed the apartment? The protagonist never acknowledges any of it. Nobody's there to tell him about Pazuzu. Then we arrive at the very Borges-like twist of having the new tenant take over the old tenant's place in her deathbed, where she was mummified in an earlier scene (and he sees himself from "her" POV shot, essentially signaling the restart of the cycle).
You could boil down the gist of the story to somebody being trapped in some kind of death loop (a little bit like The Shining - we're just missing a scene where the bartender goes "You've always been The Tenant") by way of an Egyptian curse, and try handwave everything else as the hallucinations of a person going insane by the process, but it's an unsatisfying take because it doesn't settle which characters are real or imaginary, the degree to which Trelkovsky is being groomed or conspirated against, or what the hell is going on in the bathroom across his apartment (the other tenants go and stand in there in the middle of the night... why?). And the world as is seems horribly warped and aggressive even without the supernatural shenanigans. The Egyptian stuff feels like a misdirect - more like a thematic commentary on reincarnation than actual hocus pocus - but because Polanski already covered a Satanic cult and the actual birth of the Antichrist, I think most people will be predisposed to taking the Egyptian superstition literally.
It's one of my favorite movies (to be fair, most of Polanski's movies are - sorry, world). But also, it's very faithful to Roland Topor's formidable novel, "le locataire chimérique", and if you know a bit Topor, you know what kind of ironic surreal grit to expect. Just have a look at his drawings, for instance. Or listen to his laughter. You'll cease to ask.
I don't know the "peinture lure" story, but if it helps, the verb "peinturlurer" (as opposed to "peindre" which means "to paint") means "to daub", "to paint childishly", "to paint negligenty" or "to paint badly". It can be descriptive (for child activity) or very derogative (for an artist) or modest and humorous (for a self-description, and that would be in tone for Topor). So "peinture lure" is a play on words, making it sound important ("peinture" something) and undercutting it with the "lure" that sounds serious in isolation (could be the place, or a name, whatever) but make the whole "peinturlure". Gives a weird feeling. A false pomposity.
And the image itself is very topor-like. So I don't know what it...
oh
just googled "peinture lure topor" and found this :
Something of a mixed experience in a lot of ways, though it gets better as it goes along. It's straining between two completely different directions, styles and tones, and they never mix naturally. On one hand you have the screeching female lead (but by golly what a magnificent pair of knockers on her... ahem), the kiddie adventure with Short Round, and the at times almost Looney Tunes-esque goofiness of some of the action scenes. And on the other you have the heavily horror-inflected, gory, disturbing and ominous temple adventure. There's a place for the former, but it's not in the same movie with the latter.
I still enjoyed myself quite a bit. Like I said, it gets better as it goes on as the goory slapstick of the first half is toned down heavily in the second. The adventure in the temple itself feels like a dungeon crawl in all the best ways, it has that ominous sense of danger and peril lurking around every corner, but you just have to wander deeper and deeper to sate your curiosity. The highlight of the film to me was the first sacrifice ceremony. It wasn't interrupted with gags, it was really atmospheric and disturbing, and I now understand how this film traumatized a generation. It's still pretty damn gruesome to watch, since you actually see the priest's hand reaching in the guy's chest to rip his heart out. This film also does a really good job of making Indy and the gang's situation feel genuinely desperate and hopeless. Which is then ruined somewhat by Short Round turning out the savior. On one hand it's quite in line with the pulpy tone of the series, but on the other it makes the villains seem pretty damn ineffectual.
I may need to refresh my memory with a rewatch, but to me the action in this felt a lot more purposeful than in the first. In Raiders I remember some of the action feeling like it was there only for its own sake, and as a result some of the action scenes felt pretty long-winded. That came up much less here, sans maybe the minecart chase. But even that was a fun bit of old school filmmaking, with a mix of sets and miniatures.
Really solid action movie. It's kinda hard to rate Part 1 of a movie, it does have a less cliffhanger-y ending than the Spiderverse movie though. There's a really fun chase scene that hinges on the stereotype that women are bad drivers and that really elevates the comedy of chase scene quite a bit. It was kinda hard to follow the macguffin but I guess that's par for the course in these Mission Impossible movies. I swear the new thief character Grace gave one half to some random passenger and never actually went to get it (nor had time off-screen to get it either), unless she lied about that and had it the whole time. The climax on the train was pretty awesome, especially the Uncharted-esque scene.
You Hurt My Feelings - 5/10
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the premise about people hearing honest opinions that would hurt their feelings. I feel like the movie really drops the ball on the premise and explores basically white lies that everyone does. I thought the movie was going to be about more serious type lies and characters working through that (bigger lies get dropped in the shows like Beef or Shrinking). But it's just like the husband doesn't think the wife's book is that great or wife doesn't think the earrings the husband buys her are that great. The worse thing is that the wife does the same thing with her son that the husband did to her and she doesn't even realize it. Everything is just decent enough and the movie doesn't overstay its welcome at basically a flat 90 minutes.
It was the kiddo’s first theater experience (he’s five) and he loved it. Was getting antsy towards the end which is understandable as there’s a lot going on here and he’s used to watching movies in living room daylight while also playing lol. It’ll require another watch before I can decide if it’s better than the first though. Animation gone wild basically, with a very “middle movie” feel in terms of trilogies (which AFAIK this is planned to be). Most of it is visually engaging past the opening credits (which are prefaced with a red alert epilepsy warning), but they clearly are along the “more is better” line of thought here. Like, the first movie kinda required an adjustment period for the new animation style but still seemed tame in this respect, whereas here it feels they pretty much doubled down on a lot of it. I actually like it best outside of the action scenes, like when a rainy, heavily lit street is shown at night and you can see stuff like rain droplets on the hood of a car with all the reflections to really the make the most of the contrast in visual technique.
They obviously have to set the stage for the next, and while I’m a bit peeved by Miguel’s misplaced anger towards Miles I’m curious to see how that plays out, along with the whole dynamic between Miles, Gwen and their respective parents. Also I’m not into the comics but it seems safe guessing Earth-42’s Prowler will be a red herring antagonist and they’ll ultimately be teaming up.
This is a weird one to talk about. Like most of what I watch, I watched this 'on the side,' as in, had it on while doing other stuff, had to stop after doing said stuff, went out to get stuff, came home late in the day and watched the rest while doing other stuff. That hasn't stopped me from reviewing these kinds of things before (films that are short enough that I can watch them in a single setting without specifically setting aside time to watch them), but if I ever did give this a "proper watch," I could see my opinions shifting drastically.
Anyway, the film supposedly takes place at/near the end of the last Ice Age, somewhere in North America. I say "supposedly" because while this isn't really a focus of the film (and it's not an objective flaw that it isn't), the time period never really plays a role. For instance, if we're at the end of the ice age, there's no mention of glaciers receeding, or mammoths declining in numbers, nor are there signs of any pre-Holocene fauna besides said mammoths. Like I said, it's minor, but I noticed the lack of any presence/mention of these elements.
Anyway, the film starts focusing on a human tribe - no idea as to whether the tribe can be called 'genuine,' and since the film takes place over 10,000 years ago, it's probably a moot point. We have three brothers (one of which is named Kenai, forget the other two) are are divided between the older, wiser bother, Kenai (youngest, the goofball), and the middle child brother. The tradition of the tribe is that upon reaching a certain age, each are initiated by the shaman, who ascribes them an animal aspect (e.g. the eldest brother has the wisdom of the eagle). Kenai gets assigned the "bear of love," which he resents, made all the more of an issue when his elder brother loses his life to a bear indirectly. Seeking revenge, Kunai seeks out said bear, said bear falling to its death on a glacier, but he wakes up as a bear himself, where he has to reach the top of some mountain to reach the northern lights to return to human form. Comes across a bear cub named Koba who's lost his mum, and agrees to escort him. Meanwhile, middle brother guy is hunting Kunai, thinking he's responsible for Kunai's 'death,' and as a bear, Kunai has no means of communicating with him.
Honestly, the plot isn't really much to write home about. I could write more, but honestly, just typing that paragraph was boring enough already. However, for whatever reason, I was more reciprocal to this than I thought I'd be. The two moose characters SHOULD be annoying with their constant "ehs" (we're in ancient Canada, don't ya geddit, eh?), but aren't. Koba SHOULD be annoying since he's a kid and a brat, but isn't. The simplistic plot SHOULD be lacklustre, but isn't. That the film feels like a hybrid of Ice Age (setting, fauna, there's even an equivalent to "On the Way") and Tarzan (in that Phil Collins is providing all the vocal tracks) should be a turn-off, but again, isn't. And I'm really not sure why.
All that said, there's some elements of the film that I do like that are independent of anything else. If nothing else, I like the concept of setting a film in this time period. There's also a nice touch that goes beyond the tired "humans are evil" trope. For instance, something I came to realize is that while this setting operates on the principle of all animals speak in one language, humans speak in theirs (because reasons), the term "human" is never actually used by any animal character, but they rather use the term "hunters." Kunai finds bears terrifying, but we see through Koba's eyes and other reactions that humans are terrifying because in their eyes, they're apex predators, especially through their spears. This is far from the only work where this idea is used, where humans' use of tools give them an edge that animals can't understand, or even find intimidating (e.g. The Jungle Book), but it's done well all the same.
Speaking of Roman Polanski's The Tenant, I just watched Barbie.
Barbie is a little bit like all those skits and commercials and short films where a dude is constantly harrassed by women to prove it to men that harrassment is no fun on the victim, although it's one of those messages that is probably lost on anybody who needs to hear it. Everything is awesome in Barbie Land, but sucks in the Real World. In Barbie Land all the men are second-class citizens who're too stupid to hold any kind of job and too narcissistic and jealous of each other to do anything about it. The flipside is that women have monopolized every profession and government seat, and because of that everything is perfect.
But then Barbie and Ken go to the Real World to treat Barbie's encroaching existential crisis (and cellulite, ew) and realize that Barbie Land isn't the reflection of the Real World they always thought it was. The Real World kinda sucks for the ladies, but is a walk in the park for men. Ken takes note and brings back "patriarchy" unto Barbie Land like it's the smallpox, while Barbie is catcalled and harrassed within like 5 minutes of rolling down Venice Beach, and to make things worse isn't very warmly welcomed by the snarky Gen Z teens who see through the the whole objectification/consumerist angle of the doll.
If you can read all that you know how the movie ends.
So I think what Greta Celeste Gerwig has here is a very funny comedy about a toy that nails the spirit of the thing, finds the humor in its features and contradictions, uses it to reflect on themes that are timeless yet always seem pressing, and tells a story on her own terms without making it look like she's selling a product. The Lego Movie all over again. I genuinely laughed out loud at some of the jokes, and I don't do that for most comedies I find funny or interesting. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are perfect in the roles and in a post-Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep I think they're legit Oscar contenders for the sheer phyisical and emotional stuff they go through here.
I suspect the nitpicking nerds are gonna be all over Barbie Land's impossible, nonsensical utopia (missing the point of an impossible, nonsensical utopia) and the finer details of how it connects with the Real World. It's magical realism guys. Just handwave it. They joke about it constantly. It's girls-playing-with-dolls logic.
The only thing that stuck out to me was how the Real World didn't seem as gritty and grounded as the movie was pretending, in the interest of contrasting it with Barbie Land. Yes, Barbie gets harrassed and catcalled and arrested like twice as soon as she rolls in. And Ken excitedly catches glimpses of men in positions of authority. But outside of that it's more or less the same heightened, comically exaggerated version of reality that Barbie Land presents. Having Will Ferrell running around screaming and chasing Barbie in a Scooby-Doo style montage, or featuring the ghost of Ruth Handler as a deus ex machina, sorta kinda pushes away from the point you're trying to make about a harsh, oppressive, disappointing reality. If anything it makes patriarchy look like the reverse, slightly milder version of what the Barbies have going on in Barbie Land.
I saw it on a list of better films of the year so far and the premise seemed interesting enough. I guess it's mainly a horror/suspense movie about social media influencers going on vacation. The influencer character that starts the movie is befriended by a native of the country they're vacationing in. They hang out and whatnot and the native takes them to an gorgeous isolated island and just leaves them there. I guess that's their thing even though you really don't get their motivations too much. Then, the native tries to do the same with another influencer they purposefully try to befriend and it doesn't go nearly as smooth and leads to some murdering. The movie, in a sense, tries to do a Psycho-like twist where you think the main character is the 1st influencer but it's actually the native chick. The problem is that seeing the rather well-off influencer try to survive on an isolated island by herself would be far more interesting than following this native chick around doing the same thing you just saw her do. The movie also does a neat thing where it doesn't drop the opening credits/title screen until about a half hour in where the influencer gets stranded on the island so you think that this is where the real movie starts and we'll be switching gears to a different tone/vibe but nope, you just follow the native chick the whole time. The movie also seems to want to have some commentary on the whole influencer culture but really doesn't have much to say about it or anything interesting either.
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