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A few reviews

Masirimso17

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they're objectively bad movies
face-cringe.gif


With all due respect Gaith, "objectively bad movies" is an oxymoron. You can criticize objective aspects of a film and use that in your arguments, and there can be a consensus, but film is art and as such objective quality can't be determined as long as someone else can argue otherwise. Frankly I find terms like "objectively bad" or "objectively good" deeply pretentious.
 

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"Objectively bad" ... "overwhelmingly acknowledged by film critics as bad over a course of decades" ... No offense, but I'm not really interested in debating such semantic differences.

And sure, there's a fair amount of Spanish dialogue and story set in Mexico in Dark Fate, which absolutely beats setting scenes in San Francisco (a city/my home city that the Terminator series almost certainly should never visit), but that dialogue is pedestrian at best, and the overall story impact of the immigrant experience is negligible, IMO. Anyhow, if you like the border-crossing aspect of the movie, I highly recommend Sin Nombre, the incredible feature debut of Cary Fukunaga, from which Dark Fate borrowed footage.


Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Ghostbusters_-_Afterlife_official_theatrical_poster.jpg


I was planning on blind-buying the Blu-ray at Redbox for $4, but there was a $1 one-night rental, so I went with that, and was then able to blind-buy a Dune Blu for $3.

Anyhow, I enjoyed the movie a lot, despite its obvious shortcomings. The characters are thinly drawn (what does the mother do for work? How does the son know how to fix cars? Just what is Rudd's character doing there, anyway?), the story doesn't make much sense, and rehashing the mystical plot of the first movie rather than making a new one was totally unnecessary. The movie repeats a lot of the sins of The Force Awakens in making the lives of the classic heroes pretty grim, but it's not a school shooter level of grimness like TFA, and ending on a conciliatory note goes a long way. That said, the idea of Peter and Dana still being together is awkward as hell, and I would rather her have shown up to the battle than him! A certain CG effect at the end has proved controversial, but I thought it was nicely done, and the effect itself outstanding. Overall, it was a pleasant watch, and I'm interested in seeing more - something I absolutely cannot say for the 2016 effort.

Grade: B
 

Moe_Syzlak

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face-cringe.gif


With all due respect Gaith, "objectively bad movies" is an oxymoron. You can criticize objective aspects of a film and use that in your arguments, and there can be a consensus, but film is art and as such objective quality can't be determined as long as someone else can argue otherwise. Frankly I find terms like "objectively bad" or "objectively good" deeply pretentious.

I disagree with this take. Maybe you didn’t intend it this way, but I think making excuses because it’s “art” is lazy and, again no offense, but pretentious. Art can be bad. You can enjoy something that is bad but it can still be objectively bad. Plan 9 or The Room are objectively bad but people still enjoy them. There's nothing wrong with that. But they still are objectively bad. There’s objectively bad elements of my favorite movies: bad fight choreography in Godfather; bad acting, dialogue, and effects in Star Wars. I enjoy those movies but those elements are objectively bad. Excusing it by simply calling it art cheapens art and artists IMO.
 

TM2YC

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The Universe of Jacques Demy (1995)
I didn't realise that several of Jacques Demy's films are part of a "cinematic universe" and those that aren't still share recurring motifs. His wife and fellow Director Agnes Varda directs this very personal biography and complete retrospective of his filmography. The films aren't discussed chronologically at all, Varda flows from one to another naturally, in a sort of "Oh, that reminds me of..." type of way. Some obscure films mentioned like his black-death focused version of 'The Pied Piper' fairytale, and his adaptation of the 'The Rose of Versailles' Manga (retitled 'Lady Oscar') look as interesting as his more celebrated works. Varda manages to get everybody in to do interviews, even the usually taciturn Harrison Ford, talking a little about him losing the lead role in 1969's 'Model Shop' to a (then) more recognisable actor.


Harrison Ford section:


p.s. I'm all for calling the prequels "objectively bad", they go beyond mere subjectivity, to the point where if someone says they are good movies, I don't know how to have a discussion with that person about movies. It's like stating that pain is "objectively bad" but somebody can still say, actually that's what I get off on. Well good for them but they're still wrong :LOL: . That's not say that the PT doesn't have good things, or that I mind people saying they subjectively enjoy them. To put it another way, the prequels level of badness is highly subjective but their location within the general realm of bad is an objective fact.
 
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Pistol (2022)
Danny Boyle
directs this new 6-part mini-series about the rise of Chrissie Hynde... with some background information on the Sex Pistols when there is time. But seriously, I can only assume the negatives in this film are all down to regular Baz Luhrmann writer Craig Pearce's script and the positives are all down to Boyle's energetic direction and immersively authentic rendering of the 70s British Punk scene. It might not be an exaggeration to say that half of the 4.5hr runtime is about, or features Hynde. To the exclusion of actual members of the Pistols, Steve Jones being the exception, since it's based on his book. The Hynde character functions as a blunt narrative device for Jones' character to sit down with and explain the plot to each other, when it doesn't need explaining, or to discuss their feelings, when their feelings were already plainly expressed in the preceding scenes. After a couple of hours, I really grew to dread those moments when the thrilling music would fade low into the background and the camera would move in close on Jones and Hynde. For example, at one point Jones is gifted a guitar once owned by Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls, which is followed by a Hynde/Jones scene over-explaining this, featuring Jones saying "it was Sylvain Sylvain's" and Hynde replying "of the New York Dolls!?!" and I had to laugh, nah it was another bloke called "Sylvain Sylvain"! If I had my way, I'd cut most of the Hynde material from the film, so she's relegated to where she should have been, as just one of the mélange of colourful and talented musicians, artists and iconic "faces" that orbited the Sex Pistols maelstrom.

That major "drag factor" aside, 'Pistol' is wonderful, exciting, funny and gritty. Toby Wallace as Steve Jones is sensational, I was thinking, who is this guy, he's amazing, have I seen him before? Then I later realised he was Moses in the Aussie film 'Babyteeth' (My third best film of 2020), doing a flawless London accent. The rest of the cast are near perfect too, sounding and looking just like the real people they are playing, to the point where you forget you're not watching a documentary. They even sing and play the instruments like the real people. The casting director needs some awards please. Boyle's choice to do the film in old, grimy looking, 1970s 4:3, adds greatly to this verisimilitude. He portrays the Pistols and manager Malcolm McLaren, probably accurately, as cruel and kind, geniuses and morons, heroes and tw*ts.

A great, expletive-laden, red-band trailer:


This video with the real old guys and the young actors who played them is lovely:

 
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TM2YC

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Sharpe's Honour (1994)
'Sharpe's Honour'
has a great plot, in which Sharpe is framed for murder by the scheming French spymaster Major Ducos, sentenced to hang, secretly spared from the gallows by Lord Wellington and dispatched on a covert mission under the name 'Major Vaughn', accompanied by the trusty Sgt. Harper (Sharpe's 'Dr. Watson'). The OG Borg Queen herself, Alice Krige, plays the new love interest but Sharpe is still visibly mourning the death of his wife, in the last film. There is a rather improbable but cute sequence where the "chosen men" have to deliver Harper's baby son in his absence, when asked if he's done this before, Hagman replies with a smile "Not with human childs... no".


Sharpe's Gold (1995)
For the first of three 1995 TV-movies, the role of Wellington's spymaster is changed for a third time in the series to the new character Major Munro and actor Hugh Ross, who fulfils the same narrative purpose (of Q/Basil Exposition) but seems a more cheerful fellow than Brian Cox's Major Hogan and Michael Byrne's Major Nairn. A plot involving Aztec gold and human sacrifice brings some real dread and danger to proceedings, while the appearance of a couple of Lord Wellington's headstrong female relatives brings a lot of humour due to them exhibiting no respect for his exalted rank. Ian Shaw as Lieutenant Ayres does a fine job as one of a succession of arrogant, cruel, yet spineless and foppish high-born officers for us to hate (and love Sharpe more) but unfortunately his role builds up to nothing in the end.

 

SIUse

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Loved Like a Flower Bouquet aka Hanataba Mitai na Koi wo Shita (花束みたいな恋をした)

The trailer for this movie is somehow very cliché with his music and could scare people of, but i had the chance to watch this movie at the "Nippon Connection Film Festival" in Germany about two weeks ago and what can i say about this movie other than beautiful.
It´s raw and just reflects real life nearly to its last bit. Not everything works out in life in a relationsship and sometimes it is too late to turn around. Kasumi Arimura and Masaki Suda do have real chemistry and there characters convey somehow a (at least in my) sense of japanese people and how their culture shaped the behaviour: subtle, shy and a little quirky for western people.
No hollywood "you´ve to feel this or that way as the audience because we deem it so" through music or story telling.
The acting is superb in my opinion, the imagery steady, wide and near when it needs to be as well as aesthetic.

One of my new top love-drama movies so far.

QBEQY_4c.jpg
 
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TM2YC

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Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)
A documentary about English-French actress/singer Jane Birkin, by Agnès Varda, made before, during and after their film 'Kung Fu Master'. It's partly a behind-the-scenes document of, and pitch for, that movie, partly a typically unconventional biography of Birkin and a playful deconstruction of biographic and documentary film forms. A central component is Birkin playing scenes and characters from imaginary movies she wasn't in but might've liked to have been in. A great moment happens when Varda asks Birkin what actor she'd most like to have done a scene with (the point of the question was so Varda could make it happen) but when Birkin says Marlon Brando, Varda laughs because that's not going happen on this budget, so she asks again "What cheaper, French actor would you like to have worked with?". The style reminded me a bit of Orson Welles' 'F for fake', it's self-aware and wants you to enjoy it's self-aware-ness. Since this and 'Kung Fu Master' are connected, I wasn't sure which to see first, I went for this.




Kung-Fu Master! (1988)
Watching 'Kung Fu Master' just after 'Jane B. par Agnès V.' definitely alters and enhances the experience. Knowing who everybody is in the cast (mostly Agnès Varda and Jane Birkin's real children and family) and recognising places (specifically Birkin's beautifully decorated real Paris house) make it feel more intimate. Plus moments from the documentary, like when Birkin goes to her parent's home in London, now make you wonder if they were biographical illustrations, or just in there because they needed those scenes for 'Kung Fu Master', or a seamless flow back and forth between the two projects. The documentary was rapidly edited, unconventional and stylistically playful, which made me more aware of how classical, beautiful and restrained the direction is in the drama. Varda's 14-year old son Mathieu Demy plays a school boy who shares romantic feelings with his classmate's (Birkin's daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg) 40-year old mother, played by Birkin. It's a controversial and potentially difficult subject but Varda handles it with lightness and sensitivity. The opening scene where Mathieu is acting out the moves of an 80s arcade side-scroller on a Paris street is brilliantly done.


The delightful opening side-scroller scene:

 

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Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
I first watched 'Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai' in the early 2000s because I'd heard it was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 film 'Le Samourai', which was also the inspiration for one of my all-time favourite films, John Woo's 1989 film 'The Killer'. So I was expecting 'Ghost Dog' to be some sort of action-packed, Hong Kong-style, Kitana wielding, exploitation thriller. When it featured little of those aspects I was disappointed. I think I was probably expecting something close to 1994's explosive 'Léon' (those four films I mention would make a terrific quadruple bill). So this time I was determined to try and appreciate 'Ghost Dog' for what it is, especially as I've been loving everything else by Jim Jarmusch.

The premise of a mysterious master assassin, operating by a code of honour, betrayed by the employers he has served faithfully, does suggest cathartic, bloody, revenge-fuelled action but 'Ghost Dog' only really has one very brief sequence that you'd describe as "action" (although there are some other memorably creative assassination moments). So it does still fail to fully deliver on that front but the portrait of Forest Whitaker's thoughtful, lonely, possibly mentally damaged, bushido-worshipping killer is beautifully done. The blend of Samurai philosophy and hip-hop music (by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA) is inventive and stylish. Like other Jarmusch films, the script is full of deadpan humour, deployed at the weirdest of moments, out of the mouths of unexpected characters. I loved 'Ghost Dog'.

 

TM2YC

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Mystery Train (1989)
I didn't know this Jim Jarmusch film was a three-part anthology film until a third of the way in. I was really fascinated by the first story, so was sorry when it ended suddenly, it was following a couple of "Harajuku" type Japanese kids, who are into 50s rock 'n' roll, on a pilgrimage to Memphis. Their dreams of what it would be like meet the reality of boarded up movie theatres, desolate dirty streets, a rather sad Sun Records tourist experience and a night in a seedy flophouse run by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. It's an interesting culture-clash perspective, from two characters that have clearly studied and worshipped the history, culture and aesthetic of a certain brand of Americana but still explore it like a deserted alien landscape. One with wide eyed joy, the other with a cynical detachment. I wish I'd spent my life practising how to flip open a cigarette lighter with the same apparently effortless cool as Masatoshi Nagase. It's a like a close-up magic trick.

Check this out!


The other two stories also follow foreigners to Memphis, who stay a night at the same flophouse but unlike with the first chapter, the others are not about how their unique perspectives view Memphis, they're still great short comedic tales though. One features the charming Italian actress Nicoletta Braschi (wife and muse of Roberto Benigni) as an unusually generous and sweetly accepting lady and the other stars The Clash's Joe Strummer, as a drunken Rockabilly Brit going spectacularly off the rails after losing his job and girl on the same day. The three tales are linked and intercut with banter between Hawkins and Cinqué Lee (younger brother of Spike) as the two hotel night staffers, who seem to give zero f*cks, yet simultaneously carry themselves with a stylish self regard and dependability. I enjoyed every minute of 'Mystery Train'.

 

TM2YC

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Lightyear (2022)
This ‘Toy Story’ spin-off is half baked in concept, lazily written, often not consistent to its own internal logic, features painfully clunky "team work!" messaging, is full of that tiresome Pixar wisecracking dialogue and seemed to slightly bore all the kids in the cinema I saw it in. On the other hand, the retro 70s/80s design aesthetic will please the adult fans of that style, as will references to films like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The time skipping aspect is genuinely interesting and emotional in a ‘Star Trek’ type way (up to a point where it got silly) and the robot cat 'Sox' is completely adorable, especially when it was doing “keyboard cat” style computer hacking. Michael Giacchino's score is of course wonderful. Overall an inoffensively okay movie.


By the way, the makers could be in trouble if the legal team from the 90s BBC sitcom ‘Red Dwarf’ see this because ‘Lightyear’ was sometimes like watching a beat-for-beat remake of the 1991 ‘Dimension Jump’ episode featuring test pilot Ace Rimmer.
 

mnkykungfu

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"objectively bad movies" is an oxymoron. You can criticize objective aspects of a film
A little support for Masirimso17 amongst the pile-on here. The issue is that "bad" is a vague term. You can say a performance is flat, that editing doesn't match, that a scene is paced overly-long for its importance in the film, but when you try to say an entire film, much less an entire trilogy, is "objectively bad", you're essentially just saying "the majority of critics say this". Which is in and of itself a problematic argument, as the majority of film critics are a niche community. You're talking about the opinions of a high preponderance of old, white, upper-middle class, English-speaking, left-leaning, men. I bet you could get even more specific and show how many of them are slightly-balding, wear glasses, have a bit of a paunch, and wear button-down shirts with loafers. Like, film critics are still a largely insular community and hardly representative of the opinion of all movie-viewers.

And even then, it's not so clear cut. Look at the numbers for The Phantom Menace on Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes and they fluctuate, but they trend slightly positive. Audience scores are higher. Scores on IMDb, higher. The Cinemascore is an A-! So if you're looking for some objective marker to say "everyone thinks these are horrible movies", keep looking.

It might be more accurate to say "everyone around me whose opinion I respect thinks these are trash movies and you will never change my mind". Doesn't sound as internet-argumenty as "objectively bad", but it's certainly a lot easier to prove. ;)
 

Gaith

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Film critic Gene Siskel had a great quote: "There is a point when a personal opinion shades off into an error of fact." Katy Perry's Last Friday Night is not a better song than While My Guitar Gently Weeps. A McDonald's Double Double is not a better hamburger than one from The Cheesecake Factory. And the Star Wars prequels, with their dearth of coherent character arcs, setups and payoffs, trite dialogue and stilted performances, are not good movies. They just aren't. I may never convince some PT fans of that, but they, in turn, will never convince me that this should be a matter for ongoing debate.

Yes, art is subjective, and tastes vary, but cultures are built upon accepted consensuses of opinion held over time. Without such agreements - if we view everyone's individual opinion as something as valuable and fundamentally equal as their right to free speech - there can surely be no culture at all, just a shapeless blob of a populace. If PT fans want to band together and form a subculture in which their movies are considered good, I'm happy for them, and wish them continued free expression and happiness. Cultures are born from subcultures, after all, just as subcultures are born from cultures. But, in the mainstream culture of serious film appreciation, of which I like to consider myself a very minor member, it is a consensus-acknowledged fact that the correct opinion of the PT is that they are bad movies.

p.s. I'm all for calling the prequels "objectively bad", they go beyond mere subjectivity, to the point where if someone says they are good movies, I don't know how to have a discussion with that person about movies. It's like stating that pain is "objectively bad" but somebody can still say, actually that's what I get off on. Well good for them but they're still wrong . That's not say that the PT doesn't have good things, or that I mind people saying they subjectively enjoy them. To put it another way, the prequels level of badness is highly subjective but their location within the general realm of bad is an objective fact.

Hear, hear. :)



------------

Anyhow, as an adult who's not a parent, and isn't much interested in PG-rated stories about kids or families with small kids, let alone inanimate objects such as cars or toys*, Lightyear is the first Pixar I'm actually interested in seeing since Wall-E. I hope the lesson Disney takes from its under-performances isn't "don't let Pixar make movies in which the protagonists aren't kids," but... we'll see.



*Or about absurd afterlife (sorry, pre-life) scenarios concerning ordinary adults. If your movie is going to be about a present-day jazz musician, why bother making it in CG?
 

TM2YC

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Elvis (2022)
In an odd way, Baz Luhrmann's new 'Elvis' movie reminded me of 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. George Miller exploited the full possibilities of the cinema medium, sound and vision, to create a masterful action-chase movie that was nothing but action and chase. Now Luhrmann has made a unique entry in the often ignoble music-biopic genre, that is nothing but music and biopic. It's a 2.5-hour virtually continuous montage, delivering a complete overview of Elvis Presley's life, from cradle to grave, with barely any conventional scenes, or complete song sequences, that aren't intercutting two things, two ideas and fusing past with future. Hurray for these two crazy old beautiful Australian Directors and their uncompromising maximalist visions. See it on the biggest, loudest screen you can find.

The early sequence where a wide eyed young Elvis is simultaneously peering through a crack into a sexy Juke joint where blues is being played and looking over to the Gospel sound emanating from a nearby Revival tent, while also intercutting his future, is an extraordinary piece of editing and sound mixing. It's the sacred and the profane, the ying and yang of his music, conveyed to the viewer without the script needing to say a word. Luhrmann manages to set Elvis within the original culture and politics of his times but also recontextualises him for a modern audience, without either seeming contradictory. Sometimes you can faintly make out Elvis' music and voice playing very low in the mix under some scenes (to the point that some people might not even hear it), so he's always there. 'Elvis' is so full on, so hyper edited and so lacking in the normal pacing, structure and storytelling devices of most movies that I could totally understanding people hating it but I loved it! If you do hate it, you can still applaud the time, craft and technical dedication needed to shape an entire movie at this sustained fever pitch.

I worried about Tom Hanks in a big fat-suit and makeup being cartoony. It is and it isn't, his Col. Tom Parker is deliberately like a carnival grotesque but Hanks' subtle acting is brilliant in many close-ups of him observing Elvis and him observing how others see Elvis, he's like a predator eyeing his pray, just tasting the money to be made. The choice to make Parker the unreliable narrator was a stroke of genius and adds another dark fairytale level to the film. The unknown (to me) Austin Butler as Elvis is insanely good, at times I thought it was some real Elvis footage and it was actually Butler. He's got the voice, the mannerisms, the fragility, the emotion, the power, the androgyny and the burning ambition in his eyes. In a world of countless cliched Elvis impressions, this is one that feels real. The footage of him performing 'Suspicious Minds' is so perfectly done that I reckon you could cut it into the actual 'That's the Way It Is' documentary and you wouldn't know. I could not be more on board with Butler being announced as Feyd in 'Dune: Part Two'.

By the way, I re-watched the 1979 'Elvis' TV-movie a couple of months ago, the difference is startling, from a film with a palpable lack of energy, to one that might have too much for some. https://forums.fanedit.org/threads/a-few-reviews.9937/post-393108

 
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Armageddon (1998)
'Armageddon'
is a textbook "guilty pleasure" for me. It's a right-wing fever dream, where smart people are dumb and dumb people are smart, where never paying taxes is the ultimate dream of every red blooded man (just before these same men take a trip on a taxpayer funded rocket to save the world) and an American flag is in every shot. It's Michael Bay's usual cocktail of sexism, stupidity and racist caricatures, a world where sex offenders and wife beaters are heroes too. It's reprehensible trash but it's so much fun! I'd rather re-watch this any day over the po-faced 'Deep Impact', one of a number of instances where two Hollywood studios somehow released the same movie, in the same year. It's a total blast of an action comedy, packed with hilarious larger than life "dirty dozen" characters, a team of misfits with "the wrong stuff", played with wit and enthusiasm by some of Quentin Tarantino's stock company. Trevor Rabin's score is triumphant, thrilling and romantic. Bay over edits the action to the point of visual noise (but it's mostly great) and as per usual, it's far too long but in this instance, for some reason, I don't care. The deadly serious delivery of the line "He's got space dementia" sounds like a line straight out of 'Team America: World Police'. I believe that movie was originally conceived as a shot-for-shot remake of 'Armageddon', just with puppets. That film's big ballad 'Only a Women' sounding just like Aerosmith's mega hit song 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing' is a residual direct link to that idea.


 

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^ I've never seen Armageddon, but it sounds like a thoroughly terrible headache. I have seen The Core, though, and unironically love it. Curious if you have any opinions on that one? :)

 

mnkykungfu

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Armageddon (1998)
It's a right-wing fever dream, where smart people are dumb and dumb people are smart
It's been a long time since I watched this, but it came from a period of Michael Bay films that I felt he got the balance somehow just on the right side of Awesome. Your comment, and the movie in general, reminds me of a great story Ben Affleck told about working on the film (sorry if you've heard it), and I paraphrase:
"So I made the deal and we didn't have much prep time, everything was moving so quickly, and I get on set and it's just go, go, go. I mean, the scale of this was so huge, so much bigger than I was used to, and Michael is running around like a mad general, orchestrating everything, but there was nothing there that I recognized from the movies I'd been making. Like, there was no rehearsal, no script meetings... So I finally get a minute with Michael and he's like, 'hey, yeah, how's everyone treating you? Do you need anything?' and I'm like 'yeah, um I just had a question about the script...like, these guys are all miners and these blue collar guys? Why's it easier to train them to be astronauts than to have them be astronauts and train 'em to work mining equipment?'.... big pause, and then Michael looks at me, and he says 'Shut the fuck up, Ben. It's a fucking movie.' And he walked off. And that was the last conversation we ever had about the script."
I love Ben Affleck.
 

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^ I'd heard that one before, sums up his mentality nicely. To be fair to Mr Bayhem, ridiculous as it is, Affleck's logic question is answered by the movie. The mission faces critical problems that can only be solved because of the drill team's long term experience with drilling and solving unpredictable drilling based problems on the fly... on the other hand, a few problems for the mission are caused by the drill team being stupid, arrogant ar**holes and not cool headed trained NASA astronauts :LOL: .



Air Force One (1997)
I hadn't seen 'Air Force One' since it was first one TV, I remembered it being aight and it still is. The premise comes across as a straight-to-video B-movie knock-off of 'Die Hard' that has accidentally been greenlit with a huge Hollywood budget, an uber-A-list cast, an acclaimed Director and an Oscar winning composer. The President somehow evading capture from the baddies while they're all aboard a single aircraft for hours is inherently ridiculous but everyone involved is doing their level best to make it not seem that way. Whenever Harrison Ford's situation is stretching credulity in our minds, a cunning Wolfgang Petersen frequently cuts away to tense hostage situations, or pressure-cooker meetings in the White House, to reset our internal stupidity clocks. Jerry Goldsmith's provides a heroic and memorable score (apparently written in 12-days), lots of guns are fired, huge explosions happen, what more do you want out of an action flick? There's a bit of unintended sadness given recent developments, as this it becomes clear that this was a film made in the unfortunately brief period between the end of the cold war and Putin coming to power a couple of years after this movie. If this typically gung-ho American action thriller was made a few years before, or after, the script probably wouldn't have the USA and Russia as political and military allies. Also I bet when they cast a steely Glenn Close as the very believable first female Vice President, they didn't think it would be nearly a quarter century until that happened in real life.




Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
After about 60-hours of MCU movies, my enthusiasm for another 2-hours of the same was low but if they keep swiftly chucking them on to Disney+ for no extra cost, I might as well watch them. They're usually nothing less than entertaining and brightly coloured. The usual Marvel level of "This'll do" VisFX, where it's about quantity, rather than quality of what's on screen, persists, except now they're not just using awkwardly fake digital doubles to do the inhuman action, the doubles are also used for normal long shots because it would have required too much effort from the actual actors to walk up and down a bit. I've never watched any Marvel TV so I didn't know or care what half the Scarlet Witch plot was on about and this film doesn't take the time to explain it. Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen are trying but much of the rest of the cast seem half asleep, especially Rachel McAdams who reads her lines as if they've just been put in front of her. The multiverse cameos are yawn inducing, except the Captain Carter one was fun (but then the Cap movies were always my favourite part of the MCU). The last act was engaging and satisfying when Sam Raimi brought in some 'Evil Dead'/Necromancer type elements and the musical notation fight was inventive. 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' is fine but I need these movies to be a lot better than fine to get me excited after all these years.

 

mnkykungfu

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Armageddon (1998)
I'd rather re-watch this any day over the po-faced 'Deep Impact', one of a number of instances where two Hollywood studios somehow released the same movie, in the same year.
Incidentally, I'm kind of fascinated by these and actually made a list of them a little while back: Twin Films

Air Force One (1997)
Such an enjoyable film. I'm half-convinced George Bush Jr.'s press team actively tried to draw comparisons to this film to convince voters he'd be the tough guy movie president they wanted.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
awkwardly fake digital doubles
it's stunning how bad a lot of the CG in this is, particularly at the start
I've never watched any Marvel TV so I didn't know or care what half the Scarlet Witch plot was on about
It's honestly better you hadn't, since Raimi didn't either and it shows. The movie actually completely undoes the character arc of the show.
The last act was engaging and satisfying when Sam Raimi brought in some 'Evil Dead'/Necromancer type elements and the musical notation fight was inventive.
The only aspects that save this movie from being utter trash, "Dr. Strange and That One Other Universe". Can't blame Scott Derrickson for abandoning ship on this one.

Big blockbuster weekend! Feels like you're getting in on America's big dumb guilt-laden weekend! lol I assume you need a break from all the Antonioni and Bergman. ;)
 

TM2YC

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Incidentally, I'm kind of fascinated by these and actually made a list of them a little while back: Twin Films

Great list! So many I'd forgotten about, or never heard of. Of the films where I've seen both, my picks would be:

Turner & Hooch
Dante's Peak
Event Horizon
White House Down
Armageddon
Antz
Capote
Mowgli

Big blockbuster weekend! Feels like you're getting in on America's big dumb guilt-laden weekend! lol I assume you need a break from all the Antonioni and Bergman. ;)

I do try to mix 'em up.
 
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