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The Last Movie(s) You Watched... (quick one or two sentence reviews)

Siliconmaster

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mnkykungfu said:
A Little Princess (1995)
Another Father's Day movie to watch, especially for dads and daughters.  Early Alfonso Cuaron work that is this close to being a moving story for all ages, but ends up a rather ridiculous kids' movie.  Enchanting, though.    https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/a-little-princess-1995/

Oh god I had forgotten about this movie. I saw it in theaters when I was probably 5 years old and was absolutely traumatized. I'm sure it's a well made movie, but my literal first thought when I saw the title was "oh no not that movie."

I cannot emphasize how surprised I am to find that it is considered a critical success and that people use the word "enchanting" to describe it.

That being said, if I watched it now as an adult I would probably appreciate it much more.
 

mnkykungfu

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Siliconmaster said:
mnkykungfu said:
A Little Princess (1995)
Another Father's Day movie to watch, especially for dads and daughters.  Early Alfonso Cuaron work that is this close to being a moving story for all ages, but ends up a rather ridiculous kids' movie.  Enchanting, though.    https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/a-little-princess-1995/

Oh god I had forgotten about this movie. I saw it in theaters when I was probably 5 years old and was absolutely traumatized. I'm sure it's a well made movie, but my literal first thought when I saw the title was "oh no not that movie."

I cannot emphasize how surprised I am to find that it is considered a critical success and that people use the word "enchanting" to describe it.

That being said, if I watched it now as an adult I would probably appreciate it much more.

Bwa ha ha!  Why "traumatized"?
 

Siliconmaster

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mnkykungfu said:
Siliconmaster said:
mnkykungfu said:
A Little Princess (1995)
Another Father's Day movie to watch, especially for dads and daughters.  Early Alfonso Cuaron work that is this close to being a moving story for all ages, but ends up a rather ridiculous kids' movie.  Enchanting, though.    https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/a-little-princess-1995/

Oh god I had forgotten about this movie. I saw it in theaters when I was probably 5 years old and was absolutely traumatized. I'm sure it's a well made movie, but my literal first thought when I saw the title was "oh no not that movie."

I cannot emphasize how surprised I am to find that it is considered a critical success and that people use the word "enchanting" to describe it.

That being said, if I watched it now as an adult I would probably appreciate it much more.

Bwa ha ha!  Why "traumatized"?

My actual memories of the film are basically this:

Girl's father goes off to war and disappears. Girl is sent to awful boarding school. I remember being scared of the evil headmistress and feeling absolutely helpless like the girl and then the scene where she has to crawl out over the board between the houses was equally terrifying (I was afraid of heights). And the fact that the dad is just in the house nearby and has no eyes and doesn't remember her was all just way too much to deal with as a kid. I didn't care that they got reunited at the end, I was scarred for life by that point haha.

I will also say that I spent the entire length of Snow White when it was back in theaters in the 90s turned away from the screen over my mom's shoulder watching the tiny version of the movie on the projection glass because I was so scared of it. 
 

mnkykungfu

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^That. Is. Adorable.  Well, I suppose it depends on what age you watch, etc.  Super short version of a story I often tell: I grew up in a tiny town where my mom could actually take me to Kid Matinee Saturdays and leave me in the theater while she ran errands.  She'd get me seated, then leave after 10 mins or so, and come back 45min-60 min later.  Well, she tried this with a re-release of Bambi when I was like 5....
For anyone who knows Bambi, you can guess what happened.  It starts as a perfectly bucolic Disney film, but then a hunter shoots Bambi's mom and Bambi gets lost in the forest while the whole thing is burning down and all the animals are panicking.  No, no, no...way too intense.  I got up and was crying hysterically, wandering around the theater calling for my mommy.  She came back maybe 10 mins later, and I was sitting behind the Concessions stand with the poor clerk trying to comfort me with popcorn.  That ended the babysitting me with movies.

Princess is definitely different viewing as an adult.  The Headmistress is creepy and harsh, but she's not a full villainess like in some other kids' movies... given the times and so on, she's got enough justification for all her harshness... right up until that ending you mentioned, where it just goes overboard.  I can see that being scary...Cuaron was sharpening his claws for making Harry Potter terrifying.
 

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mnkykungfu said:
^That. Is. Adorable.  Well, I suppose it depends on what age you watch, etc.  Super short version of a story I often tell: I grew up in a tiny town where my mom could actually take me to Kid Matinee Saturdays and leave me in the theater while she ran errands.  She'd get me seated, then leave after 10 mins or so, and come back 45min-60 min later.  Well, she tried this with a re-release of Bambi when I was like 5....
For anyone who knows Bambi, you can guess what happened.  It starts as a perfectly bucolic Disney film, but then a hunter shoots Bambi's mom and Bambi gets lost in the forest while the whole thing is burning down and all the animals are panicking.  No, no, no...way too intense.  I got up and was crying hysterically, wandering around the theater calling for my mommy.  She came back maybe 10 mins later, and I was sitting behind the Concessions stand with the poor clerk trying to comfort me with popcorn.  That ended the babysitting me with movies.

Princess is definitely different viewing as an adult.  The Headmistress is creepy and harsh, but she's not a full villainess like in some other kids' movies... given the times and so on, she's got enough justification for all her harshness... right up until that ending you mentioned, where it just goes overboard.  I can see that being scary...Cuaron was sharpening his claws for making Harry Potter terrifying.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense.

And yep Bambi got me for the exact same reasons. I didn't have a lot of luck with classic children's movies in that era, which is even funnier when I think about it and realize most of them were rereleases of earlier films.

My mom still likes to tell people stories of how I wouldn't let her take the dogs for a walk on the trail near our house because I was convinced a hunter was going to come and shoot her just like in Bambi
 

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 The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
I often see this on lists of like "100 documentaries you must see before you die" or "best documentaries of all time"...I wouldn't go that far, though it does come together better than the Part I doc about the Punk scene.  The biggest difference is in the rockers in the doc, who are just much more entertaining, and there are some stars that were just at the height of their fame in '88, or nearly there.  It's a fascinating time capsule to watch now... Full review: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacadem...western-civilization-part-ii-the-metal-years/
 

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Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Put this in the category of films where you're like "that sounds like a stupid name...but I'm sure it'll make sense once I've seen the story" and then you watch the story and....nope, they could easily have come up with 10 better titles.  Great performances and a heavy reliance on artful presentation of beautiful scenery, music, art, and literature don't change the fact that this is about an older man taking advantage of an imbalance of power to seduce a teenage girl and use her for a sexual fling.  Oh no wait, I meant "teenage boy", so I guess now it's art instead of statutory rape.  But all you guys watching Lolita are sickos.  Full review:   https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/call-me-by-your-name/
 

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You Should Have Left (2020)

Another story that could have worked as a 30 minutes Twilight Zone episode that was stretched to 90 minutes.
It's not scary, it's not great drama either.
At least the director understood he could not make a 2 hours long movie out of it, so there's that...
 

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Lately on a fan edit trip... Watchmen: Midnight

Awesome extended fan edit. @"Flixcapacitor" captures some of the spirit, narrative structure, color and character depth of the comic book. Reminds me I need to write a review about it :p
 

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ChainsawAsh said:
Yeah, no. Netflix didn't have anything to do with the retranslation. Studio Khara (the studio founded by Hideaki Anno, the creator of Evangelion, which owns all the rights to the series) made a new translation and new dub a requirement of licensing after they were extremely unhappy with Funimation's first dub of Evangelion 3.0 (the reason why the home release of 3.0 was delayed 3ish years was because Khara forced them to redo the dub with their own script).

Khara made the new translation for both the subs and the new dub in-house. They also cast the new dub actors themselves.

It's a very literal translation, that's all. It isn't kiddie-ized, and it isn't necessarily better or worse than the old, more localized translations. I also firmly believe the new dub is significantly better than the old in terms of both the new actors' performances (which are much more natural and less over-the-top/cartoony) and fidelity to the original sound design (no changed or added sound effects as in the original dub).

As far as translations go, it isn't better or worse. On the pro side, it's generally more precisely translated compared to the original Japanese without taking liberties (like "I'm so fucked up," which is NOT the Japanese line). On the con side, because it's so literal, it occasionally feels more awkward, especially when it comes to things that Khara dug in their heels about (namely calling Shinji the "Third Children" - apparently ADV had to fight tooth and nail to let Gainax say "Third Child" back in the day).

The queer references thing is overblown too. The Japanese line in that scene is an ambiguous word that can mean "love" or "like." ADV's original VHS subtitles used "like." ADV's dub and DVD subtitles used "love." Netflix is back to "like." But it's a guy telling another guy "I like you" while they're naked holding hands in a sauna - there's no gay erasure there, the scene is still very explicit in its intentions.

But I will say that the new translation for the line right before that (which now says "you're worthy of my grace") is a prime example of what I mentioned earlier when I said some of the new lines are awkward because they're too literal.

Overall, people are laser focused on specific things they've heard about the new dub/translation and decided it's awful because someone else told them it was instead of just giving it a chance for themselves.

Me? I found one service that does subtitles https://thewordpoint.com/services/translation-service/subtitling and I really like the quality of the translation Japanese subs. I never much liked the ADV dub. But I do still prefer the old subs I have to the Netflix subs. 


Now if only they had ponied up to get the rights to "Fly Me to the Moon"...



Typical Netflix translation. Sometimes, because of this, the desire to look further will disappear. Who is watching what kind of voice acting? or maybe subtitles?
 

mnkykungfu

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Trez75 said:
Lately on a fan edit trip... Watchmen: Midnight

Awesome extended fan edit. @"Flixcapacitor" captures some of the spirit, narrative structure, color and character depth of the comic book. Reminds me I need to write a review about it :p

Undoubtedly a superior version of the film.  In the end, I don't like the animated segments being put back in though.  I was always dicey on them being in the comic, and I think they really don't work that well here.  I'd love to find the V1 of Midnight that doesn't have them in yet!

Watched a pair of films for Father's Day, both multiple Academy Award nominated father/daughter stories.  Couldn't have hit me more differently though:

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
I'm not generally a big fan of magical realism and like really tightly scripted films, but that wasn't the problem here.  This is clearly a film about poor black people made by affluent white people.  I found it very 'other'ing and insulting.  Full review: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/beasts-of-the-southern-wild/

Paper Moon (1973)
The best movie I've seen all year, maybe in the past couple of years.  Completely not the kind of film I usually like, but I was blown away.  Full review: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/paper-moon/
 

asterixsmeagol

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mnkykungfu said:
Undoubtedly a superior version of the film.  In the end, I don't like the animated segments being put back in though.  I was always dicey on them being in the comic, and I think they're really don't work that well here.  I'd love to find the V1 of Midnight that doesn't have them in yet!

 Does this count as a fanedit? I removed all of those pages from my digital copy of the comic.
 

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'Annihilation' [2018]

A surprisingly routine sci-fi/horror/FX movie with an unconvincing performance by lead Natalie Portman. Fortunately, her team are much better and the effects work well. The film seemed to be asking questions about self-destruction and new beginnings, but also feels like the studio and perhaps audience previews got in the way. The cliched ending subverted what could have been a more interesting and ambiguous climax, I feel. Disappointing.
 

mnkykungfu

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Garp said:
'Annihilation' [2018]

A surprisingly routine sci-fi/horror/FX movie with an unconvincing performance by lead Natalie Portman. Fortunately, her team are much better and the effects work well. The film seemed to be asking questions about self-destruction and new beginnings, but also feels like the studio and perhaps audience previews got in the way. The cliched ending subverted what could have been a more interesting and ambiguous climax, I feel. Disappointing.

Wow, your review is so puzzling to me!  I have no idea how the ending fits any "cliche".  I have no idea how this plot is "routine".  I have no idea how Portman is "unconvincing", except just that I don't believe any of those women could haul all that gear around the swamp for days.  The studio was Netflix, so I have no idea how you get "studio/previews" getting in the way...they don't do previews and are famously uninvolved in production notes.

What are all the movies that this is copying?  To me, there are bits that were clearly inspired by Stalker, but everything else was much more unique than the average film that comes out, especially horror films, which tend to be incredibly tropey...
 

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mnkykungfu said:
The studio was Netflix, so I have no idea how you get "studio/previews" getting in the way...they don't do previews and are famously uninvolved in production notes.

Netflix got the international distribution but the book adaptation rights and US distribution were with Paramount.

I can't comment on the rest because I haven't seen it yet, but I got the impression from reviews that it would be pretty good, and I liked Ex Machina.
 

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The new documentary 'Disclosure' is an incredible look into the history of trans representation in film and television, featuring interviews with trans actors and filmmakers on their personal experiences.

There's a point in the documentary that made me burst into tears because it was just so wholesome it broke me. Highly recommend giving this a watch
 

Garp

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mnkykungfu said:
Garp said:
'Annihilation' [2018]

A surprisingly routine sci-fi/horror/FX movie with an unconvincing performance by lead Natalie Portman. Fortunately, her team are much better and the effects work well. The film seemed to be asking questions about self-destruction and new beginnings, but also feels like the studio and perhaps audience previews got in the way. The cliched ending subverted what could have been a more interesting and ambiguous climax, I feel. Disappointing.

Wow, your review is so puzzling to me!  I have no idea how the ending fits any "cliche".  I have no idea how this plot is "routine".  I have no idea how Portman is "unconvincing", except just that I don't believe any of those women could haul all that gear around the swamp for days.  The studio was Netflix, so I have no idea how you get "studio/previews" getting in the way...they don't do previews and are famously uninvolved in production notes.

What are all the movies that this is copying?  To me, there are bits that were clearly inspired by Stalker, but everything else was much more unique than the average film that comes out, especially horror films, which tend to be incredibly tropey...

Re: the ending. The indication is that they are now both alien clones, free to carry out the 'annihilation'. It's in the very last shot, and it's a very cliched horror twist, I would argue. 'Whew! Everything's going to be fine. Wait - no it's not!' (See remake of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', the first Jason film - even the 'Thriller' video! - or any of these three films I watched in the last few weeks - the 'Nosfertau' remake, 'Count Yorga' and 'The Return of Count Yorga', just to mention ones fresh from my memory.) With the flashbacks to her previous life with her husband, it would have been more interesting if she was considering starting afresh with this blank slate of a husband, wondering whether she could rectify her mistakes (the affair and consequences) and actually love this guy, even if he wasn't the same. The 'preview' line was a throwaway in a very short review - I have no idea, of course, whether that was the reason, nor if this ending is the same as the book, and frankly I didn't care enough to check. Still, the ending, to me, seemed to go in a different direction than the rest of the film, especially with an affair subplot included. As for Portman, that is my own bias, I admit. I can't think of a film I've seen her in where she doesn't appear to be acting. Some actors, to me, can seem so effortless and natural that I can easily suspend my disbelief - they become the character. With Portman, every twitch and movement seems calculated and forced. But perhaps that's just me. My wife can't understand why I feel the same way about Michael Caine.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Garp said:
Re: the ending. The indication is that they are now both alien clones, free to carry out the 'annihilation'. It's in the very last shot, and it's a very cliched horror twist, I would argue. 'Whew! Everything's going to be fine. Wait - no it's not!' (See remake of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', the first Jason film - even the 'Thriller' video! - or any of these three films I watched in the last few weeks - the 'Nosfertau' remake, 'Count Yorga' and 'The Return of Count Yorga', just to mention ones fresh from my memory.) With the flashbacks to her previous life with her husband, it would have been more interesting if she was considering starting afresh with this blank slate of a husband, wondering whether she could rectify her mistakes (the affair and consequences) and actually love this guy, even if he wasn't the same. The 'preview' line was a throwaway in a very short review - I have no idea, of course, whether that was the reason, nor if this ending is the same as the book, and frankly I didn't care enough to check. Still, the ending, to me, seemed to go in a different direction than the rest of the film, especially with an affair subplot included. As for Portman, that is my own bias, I admit. I can't think of a film I've seen her in where she doesn't appear to be acting. Some actors, to me, can seem so effortless and natural that I can easily suspend my disbelief - they become the character. With Portman, every twitch and movement seems calculated and forced. But perhaps that's just me. My wife can't understand why I feel the same way about Michael Caine.

 
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