Man, if there's another film about fetishes as weird and inventive as Jan Švankmajer's Conspirators of Pleasure, I'd be very surprised. It's not as disturbing as his Alice, or at least it's disturbing in other ways, but it's a surprisingly fun watch once you've grown accustomed to its rhythms and style.
Did I mention that it's weird?
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I would like to enjoy anything as much as Claude Rains obviously enjoyed playing Captain Renault. The jaunty angle of his hat, his absurd array of incredible lines, the impenetrable sangfroid. The single finest supporting character in movies.
Watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them again now that it's on HBO.
I am struck by the difference between this and the other eight Harry Potter films.
We see the others through Harry's eyes, more or less, someone who was raised without any awareness of magic. But Magic comes relatively easily to Harry and in short order he's doing all the amazing things, and has remarkable friends and wins the House Cup, etc.
But Fantastic Beasts is through the eyes of Newt, who doesn't really get people, and Jacob Kowalski who grew up without magic, fought in the war, and just wants to open a bakery.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's a real sense of awe and wonder to the very existence of Magic in Fantastic Beasts that's either missing or far more subdued in the other eight movies.
I would like to enjoy anything as much as Claude Rains obviously enjoyed playing Captain Renault. The jaunty angle of his hat, his absurd array of incredible lines, the impenetrable sangfroid. The single finest supporting character in movies.
Has there been a film where Claude Rains wasn't an absolute treasure?
I would like to enjoy anything as much as Claude Rains obviously enjoyed playing Captain Renault. The jaunty angle of his hat, his absurd array of incredible lines, the impenetrable sangfroid. The single finest supporting character in movies.
Has there been a film where Claude Rains wasn't an absolute treasure?
Trick 'r Treat was actually really really good, a horror anthology done right that should be more in this world of jump scares and emo PG-13 horror. Given the dvd by a friend and while it has all the trappings of some straight to DVD movie what with the Warner Premier brand, it's actually not. It is super classy 80's horror that rests on misdirection, humor, and then solid story reveals while making no one safe in the movie which is a problem in modern horror. The quality is so good, with really good practical effects even, it makes me wonder what exactly happened with the film in terms of distribution as it even has a nice little spooky mascot character pimp out in the same vein as Jigsaw or Scream ghost.
You've got 4 main stories and a mini lead in story that tie together during Halloween night in an Ohio town (which totally isn't Vancouver, guys, seriously) where they really treat the evening like it's Christmas or Thanksgiving. You've got a story with a school principal, some kids believing in an old jack o lantern superstition, hawt girls looking for action with one of them still shy about being a virgin, and a crotchety old man who keeps to himself. All of these stories are shown at different times during the night with little bits here and there connecting them all. While some stories are better than others (the school bus story is excellent), none are bad or are a drag compared to other anthology films. Brian Cox and Ana Paquin are the biggest names here (Leslie Bibb is in it too for 2 minutes), the rest being a solid cast in a movie that doesn't look cheap. And then just to make it more R-rated you've got your classic 80's brief flashes of nudity and blood that isn't really there just for gore, but for purpose.
I really, really enjoyed it, keep it in mind for an upcoming October watch. Two severed thumbs up.
Give Krampus a shot if you liked this, same director. And apparently a Trick 'r Treat 2 could happen next.
Krampus was great and is Hansel & Gretel certified, it crossed my mind an it when the practical effects would show up. This guy knows how to make effective small budget 80's inspired films.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them again now that it's on HBO.
I am struck by the difference between this and the other eight Harry Potter films.
We see the others through Harry's eyes, more or less, someone who was raised without any awareness of magic. But Magic comes relatively easily to Harry and in short order he's doing all the amazing things, and has remarkable friends and wins the House Cup, etc.
But Fantastic Beasts is through the eyes of Newt, who doesn't really get people, and Jacob Kowalski who grew up without magic, fought in the war, and just wants to open a bakery.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's a real sense of awe and wonder to the very existence of Magic in Fantastic Beasts that's either missing or far more subdued in the other eight movies.
Yeah, I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts more than any of the Potter movies, despite the massive script and story problems, because it got those characters so damn right. The core group of Newt, Tina, Jacob, and Queenie seemed like real people with real lives outside of the whimsical weirdness of England and Hogwarts. These are adults with adult problems and adult lives; I mean, three of the four main characters are Jewish, and the other has Aspergers. These are more interesting and grounded people than anyone at Hogwarts.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Likewise, I get most of my education from dance-rock bands
MIKA's treatise on the moral inequity of wealth disparity in late capitalism was formative to my early years as a club kid
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Hell or High Water (Showtime) is absolutely fantastic, 10/10 mega bang, should have won best picture. I was expecting something as dark as Sicario since it was by the same writer, which is why I held off on watching it, but it's a full shade lighter despite being pretty serious in tone and actually makes it something to watch again. But damn it gets the dark humor to land perfectly, the casting is fantastic, and at 100 minutes it doesn't extend into any bullshit abloo abloo that you would expect with Captain Kirk and Warren Worthington III being brothers with different temperaments robbing banks to then use that money to save their family farm while on the run from Texas Rangers.
This is the Paddington of modern westerns, practically perfect in every way. Act III alone is something most movies can't even get to on the whole when they waste two hours of your life. Hell (or high water), most movies falter in the end, this movie, Texan in roots, says "no, on my shoulders I will lift us all up to touch the hand of God."
Seriously, this movie should have won all the awards this year, fucking dabbing on all the haters forever.
The scene just before this happens, where they walk in and Mombi is just sitting there playing the mandolin, is one of my favorite things ever and no joke. It's so quiet and almost ethereal, and everything's all sparkly and glittery from the mirrors. And I love the thought of an evil queen/witch/etc character who just practices some music while she's bored. There's clips of the music but none of the video clips catch that part, they all seem to pick up just after she's stopped playing.
Weekend watches, all-Hollywood edition (though I didn't plan for that):
Desire
The 1936 romantic caper from Borzage (who directed) and Lubitsch, reuniting the stars of Morocco: Dietrich and Cooper. It's about an automobile engineer going on vacation to Spain, and a jewellery thief escaping to Spain who meet and of course fall in love. It starts Lubitsch: sexy, funny, then once in Spain feels more in line with Borzage: gauzy, intelligent melodrama. It's just that the first section is more fun, and the film slowing down and introducing a larger cast for its back half doesn't feel like the greatest choice in regards to pacing. It's what you might expect, but it's charming and very assured filmmaking.
The Baron of Arizona
An early film from one of America's most explosive filmmakers, Samuel Fuller. Like his first film (I Shot Jesse James) it's concerned with the intersection of history and myth. This is also based on a true story, the story of James Reavis, who, by forging historical documents, claimed Arizona for himself in the 1800's. Vincent Price is the lead, and he's the main reason to give it a watch, he's wonderful; charming and devious and full of spirit. It's clearly underfunded, with its globe-trotting and long timeline, but told mostly with small interiors and conversations. A bit of a shame, I think this story deserved more, but it's a unique and enjoyable film with compelling thematic quandaries. Basically any Fuller film is of some interest.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
One of those late-60's awards favorites that I wasn't sure was going to end up being something that played more into the freer, more personal realm of New Hollywood, or would end up a staid, well-meaning prestige picture. More of the first really; the story of a dance marathon during the depression. The American dream as an ill-fated spectacle: You exhaust yourself hoping for something you'll never have and then you die. Really cynical stuff, and Pollack's direction is impressive in its tracking of the ensemble. Shooting a dance floor is hard as hell, and he spends the majority of the film doing so. I can tell the novel is more lyrical than the film; that probably helps offset the bitterness, which is the real aftertaste of the story. I was impressed by it. It wasn't what I was expecting.
How Do You Know
More than anything, it's baffling. A 2010 James L. Brooks film with Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon and Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson and a talented supporting cast. A pair of successful 30-somethings face professional crises and engage in a complicated relationship---it's very white, very middlebrow. It looks like a television show and the actors look like they're performing on their first impulses with no reigning in. It lacks any specificity or self-awareness and yet never feels sincere in itself either. I have no clue what it's after and yet it feels entirely obvious in its attitude and aesthetic. What the fuck was this?
Wouldn't mind a take where the supposed infiltrator unit that sneaks into camps populated by malnourished apocalypse survivors isn't a towering bodybuilder.
Maybe Tom Hardy? Well built, can do silent acting, is only like 5 10.
It'll probably be The Rock.
The Rock wouldn't be bad as this. RE: Fast and Furious movies, Faster.
I don't know if I need to see anymore Terminator anything. We're digging down to bedrock and balrogs at this point.
On the contrary, the only parts of the franchise which digs deep creatively was the tv show and the comics, and novels. The films have only been interested in regurgitating the first ad second films, with Salvation being the exception and that was a horribly made movie with a decent concept. If the films had bothered actually being creative they wouldn't be in this mess to start with. As well as the franchise's obsession with Arnie, you don't need Arnie to have a good adaption RE: Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Go crazy with the time travel aspects, have Skynet and the Resistance go into the far future and the distant past. Go to the Wild West, Victorian England, the Aztecs, dinosaurs etc.
Why are you even trying to bother tying this to Terminator and Terminator 2 at that point though? You are just making a completely different thing with basically no relation to the original movies.
It also starts sounding like one of Calvin's flights of fancy. Creative, perhaps, but also random and kinda incoherent. The sort of thing that brought about Superman and Batman versus Aliens and Predator.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Wouldn't mind a take where the supposed infiltrator unit that sneaks into camps populated by malnourished apocalypse survivors isn't a towering bodybuilder.
Maybe Tom Hardy? Well built, can do silent acting, is only like 5 10.
It'll probably be The Rock.
The Rock wouldn't be bad as this. RE: Fast and Furious movies, Faster.
I don't know if I need to see anymore Terminator anything. We're digging down to bedrock and balrogs at this point.
On the contrary, the only parts of the franchise which digs deep creatively was the tv show and the comics, and novels. The films have only been interested in regurgitating the first ad second films, with Salvation being the exception and that was a horribly made movie with a decent concept. If the films had bothered actually being creative they wouldn't be in this mess to start with. As well as the franchise's obsession with Arnie, you don't need Arnie to have a good adaption RE: Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Go crazy with the time travel aspects, have Skynet and the Resistance go into the far future and the distant past. Go to the Wild West, Victorian England, the Aztecs, dinosaurs etc.
Why are you even trying to bother tying this to Terminator and Terminator 2 at that point though? You are just making a completely different thing with basically no relation to the original movies.
The franchise has existed fine without copying them, and can be in the films. Those movies are an anchor to the franchise at this point, their influence needs to be cut off and given a hard reboot. You don't need to copy them forever to have a good Terminator story, that's why I bought up the media examples. The only media they are crutch for are the movies, everyone else has moved on.
edit: The tv show expanded on their timeline, but quickly got outside their influence and became its own thing. The films have failed to do accomplish this task.
It also starts sounding like one of Calvin's flights of fancy. Creative, perhaps, but also random and kinda incoherent. The sort of thing that brought about Superman and Batman versus Aliens and Predator.
It is if you assume the people writing it aren't doing it right, which is a change you may as well use against what the movies are doing right now. Put creative people on it, and it'll succeed - or at least bring something new and inventive to the franchise rather than remake Terminator 2 for the 50th time.
edit: These were merely spitballing ideas, it's not like Terminator IP is a stranger to doing crazy shit. Give it to someone capable of making a coherent story which ties into the mythos and you're good. This applies to every idea in the franchise.
Sure, but then you're not that far from simply saying, "These films need to be written better," and while that's true, it's not very helpful. Since the main reason to go back to a franchise well is usually not a creative one, they're already starting on the wrong foot. Perhaps the creatively more sound decision would be not to do another Terminator film, at least for now.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Sure, but then you're not that far from simply saying, "These films need to be written better," and while that's true, it's not very helpful. Since the main reason to go back to a franchise well is usually not a creative one, they're already starting on the wrong foot. Perhaps the creatively more sound decision would be not to do another Terminator film, at least for now.
Except that's not my main argument - which was to expand in other creative avenues for new directions, that was merely to point out that those ideas weren't unsalvageable to the franchise rather than writing them off completely because they sound incoherent.
Here's the thing: that is incredibly spot on, and I admit that here and now, and I also admit I completely love and buy into those trailers every single time. It is definitely a formula that works for me. hahaha
Ya know... slightly off-topic, but sort of related to the Problems with the Terminator movies.
I'm kind of intrigued by the way studios like to throw giant wads of cash at movies, then use that to justify saddling them with ratings that then hobble them.
This is pretty evident with movies like the Dark Tower and Terminator 4&5 (see also AvP).
I know special effects and locations cost a lot, but quality CGI has been produced for 25 years now, starting with Jurassic Park.
What seems to really happen is a studio mandating a crowd-friendly rating that completely fucks the tone of a film, as well as cutting runtimes to get more showings.
Terminator 3 had its violence toned down, a brighter/friendlier visual style, and was saddled with some really stupid Bayformers-style humor. The first two were dark, moody, and atmospheric. They killed at the box office, regardless of budget (though The Terminator is a legendary example of low-budget guerilla film making). But, after Terminator 3, we get Salvation, with a great concept that fans had been clamoring for for over a decade, and which thematically followed its predecessor. But the studio mandates a short runtime and a pg-13 rating, necessitating more humor, a tonal shift, and a switcheroo on the visual style (hey, these movies have always portrayed a night time war, but now we're gonna set everything during a desaturated daytime and not even show that there's anfucking war going on).
The Dark Tower, at all points in the series, is a story about a broken man slowly stumbling into a path of redemption that costs a lot of lives. The world is bleak and apocalyptic filled with mutants and ghosts and blasted-remains of recognizable landmarks and locations. So the studio demands a pg-13 YA flick set mainly in modern New York, crammed into ninety minutes on a budget that'd make a prestige TV series squirm. All in order to make it family-friendly and pack in more showings per day.
I dunno, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't even necessarily think the creators involved in these franchise productions are the problem, so much as the studios expecting to be able to hand them money, then explicitly tell them to turn their projects into shit, but still pack theaters.
It's a symptom of the horribly broken rating board in America.
PG-13 is the sweet spot for any big budget film as it attracts potentially the widest audience, so that rating has been stretched to include content that would be better suited to higher ratings but because its a bigger studio film that needs the rating they get away with finding work arounds. Such as filming in higher colour contrast or having sexualised content included in a comedic way..
Recently though there has been a big push for more R rated content due to the success of Deadpool, so with the new Terminator could try and use the logic of R rated comic book success wave.
I remember going for a talk with the UK BBFC head about 12 years ago about why content is cut from UK films etc to meet ratings and its a whole different minefield but utterly fascinating.
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
I as I said I would I watched American Ultra this weekend.
I liked it a lot! It felt like a more down to earth, pot heady Borne Identity. And wow you guys were right. Kristen Stewart was surprisingly great. And yeah, it didn't really lean on pot head humor as much as it leaned on the sort of vision of what a pot head guy lives like. Less Dazed and Confused and more, "Here is a guy who's kind of a loser, and most losers smoke weed right?"
Good movie. You have my thanks thread.
+5
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
On that note, in the UK, the first or second of the Rami Spider-Man films is responsible for the creation of a whole new rating category. The content in the film would have given it a "12" rating, ie nobody under the age of 12 would be allowed in, even accompanied. The sudio was either unwilling or unable to make the cuts necessary to bring it down to a "PG" (Parental Guidance) rating, where anyone could go as long they had a guardian with them. So they negotiated a compromise, in the form of "12A" where 12 and up could go and see it just fine on their own, as they could have done with a 12 or a PG, but if your 10 year or really really really wanted to go, you could take them along.
Current MCU offerings usually land on a hard 12 so it's not totally supplanted by the 12A, but it's an interesting result of studio negotiation on our stricter and more granular ratings system compared to the US.
On that note, in the UK, the first or second of the Rami Spider-Man films is responsible for the creation of a whole new rating category. The content in the film would have given it a "12" rating, ie nobody under the age of 12 would be allowed in, even accompanied. The sudio was either unwilling or unable to make the cuts necessary to bring it down to a "PG" (Parental Guidance) rating, where anyone could go as long they had a guardian with them. So they negotiated a compromise, in the form of "12A" where 12 and up could go and see it just fine on their own, as they could have done with a 12 or a PG, but if your 10 year or really really really wanted to go, you could take them along.
Current MCU offerings usually land on a hard 12 so it's not totally supplanted by the 12A, but it's an interesting result of studio negotiation on our stricter and more granular ratings system compared to the US.
Well up until 1989 the ratings were U, PG 15 and 18. A similar situation happened with the 1989 Batman film so the BBFC created the 12 rating.
One interesting side note, if the film has highly sexualised or strong violent scenes but is within a historical or dramatical context, then the rating drops with the BBFC.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
On that note, in the UK, the first or second of the Rami Spider-Man films is responsible for the creation of a whole new rating category. The content in the film would have given it a "12" rating, ie nobody under the age of 12 would be allowed in, even accompanied. The sudio was either unwilling or unable to make the cuts necessary to bring it down to a "PG" (Parental Guidance) rating, where anyone could go as long they had a guardian with them. So they negotiated a compromise, in the form of "12A" where 12 and up could go and see it just fine on their own, as they could have done with a 12 or a PG, but if your 10 year or really really really wanted to go, you could take them along.
Current MCU offerings usually land on a hard 12 so it's not totally supplanted by the 12A, but it's an interesting result of studio negotiation on our stricter and more granular ratings system compared to the US.
Well up until 1989 the ratings were U, PG 15 and 18. A similar situation happened with the 1989 Batman film so the BBFC created the 12 rating.
One interesting side note, if the film has highly sexualised or strong violent scenes but is within a historical or dramatical context, then the rating drops with the BBFC.
Huh, I'd not heard that before, I'd always assumed that the 12 was as old as time
Wouldn't mind a take where the supposed infiltrator unit that sneaks into camps populated by malnourished apocalypse survivors isn't a towering bodybuilder.
Maybe Tom Hardy? Well built, can do silent acting, is only like 5 10.
It'll probably be The Rock.
The Rock wouldn't be bad as this. RE: Fast and Furious movies, Faster.
I don't know if I need to see anymore Terminator anything. We're digging down to bedrock and balrogs at this point.
On the contrary, the only parts of the franchise which digs deep creatively was the tv show and the comics, and novels. The films have only been interested in regurgitating the first ad second films, with Salvation being the exception and that was a horribly made movie with a decent concept. If the films had bothered actually being creative they wouldn't be in this mess to start with. As well as the franchise's obsession with Arnie, you don't need Arnie to have a good adaption RE: Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Go crazy with the time travel aspects, have Skynet and the Resistance go into the far future and the distant past. Go to the Wild West, Victorian England, the Aztecs, dinosaurs etc.
Why are you even trying to bother tying this to Terminator and Terminator 2 at that point though? You are just making a completely different thing with basically no relation to the original movies.
The franchise has existed fine without copying them, and can be in the films. Those movies are an anchor to the franchise at this point, their influence needs to be cut off and given a hard reboot. You don't need to copy them forever to have a good Terminator story, that's why I bought up the media examples. The only media they are crutch for are the movies, everyone else has moved on.
edit: The tv show expanded on their timeline, but quickly got outside their influence and became its own thing. The films have failed to do accomplish this task.
THEY ARE THE FRANCHISE
Like, holy shit dude, this is exactly what I'm talking about. When you've reached the point where you are complaining that the 2 good movies that are why people even care at all are an "anchor" around the "franchise", you need to seriously deeply reconsider wtf you are even trying to do.
Why are you even trying to do a "Terminator franchise" (whatever that even means) movie or TV show or whatever if you consider the actual Terminator movies to be not what you want to do? What are you even trying to accomplish?
It's like saying "Look, what we need is a sequel to Jurassic Park that isn't weighted down by all the dinosaurs".
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Did I mention that it's weird?
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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I am struck by the difference between this and the other eight Harry Potter films.
We see the others through Harry's eyes, more or less, someone who was raised without any awareness of magic. But Magic comes relatively easily to Harry and in short order he's doing all the amazing things, and has remarkable friends and wins the House Cup, etc.
But Fantastic Beasts is through the eyes of Newt, who doesn't really get people, and Jacob Kowalski who grew up without magic, fought in the war, and just wants to open a bakery.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's a real sense of awe and wonder to the very existence of Magic in Fantastic Beasts that's either missing or far more subdued in the other eight movies.
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One of these days I'll watch it!
Wait, wrong movie. Carry on.
Has there been a film where Claude Rains wasn't an absolute treasure?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Terminator 1. Mainly because he wasn't in it.
That's cool
Krampus was great and is Hansel & Gretel certified, it crossed my mind an it when the practical effects would show up. This guy knows how to make effective small budget 80's inspired films.
Yeah, I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts more than any of the Potter movies, despite the massive script and story problems, because it got those characters so damn right. The core group of Newt, Tina, Jacob, and Queenie seemed like real people with real lives outside of the whimsical weirdness of England and Hogwarts. These are adults with adult problems and adult lives; I mean, three of the four main characters are Jewish, and the other has Aspergers. These are more interesting and grounded people than anyone at Hogwarts.
Also, the art direction slayed me. So pretty.
MIKA's treatise on the moral inequity of wealth disparity in late capitalism was formative to my early years as a club kid
It's also basically the (sub-)genre of the movie itself.
Steam | XBL
This is the Paddington of modern westerns, practically perfect in every way. Act III alone is something most movies can't even get to on the whole when they waste two hours of your life. Hell (or high water), most movies falter in the end, this movie, Texan in roots, says "no, on my shoulders I will lift us all up to touch the hand of God."
Seriously, this movie should have won all the awards this year, fucking dabbing on all the haters forever.
The scene just before this happens, where they walk in and Mombi is just sitting there playing the mandolin, is one of my favorite things ever and no joke. It's so quiet and almost ethereal, and everything's all sparkly and glittery from the mirrors. And I love the thought of an evil queen/witch/etc character who just practices some music while she's bored. There's clips of the music but none of the video clips catch that part, they all seem to pick up just after she's stopped playing.
Desire
The 1936 romantic caper from Borzage (who directed) and Lubitsch, reuniting the stars of Morocco: Dietrich and Cooper. It's about an automobile engineer going on vacation to Spain, and a jewellery thief escaping to Spain who meet and of course fall in love. It starts Lubitsch: sexy, funny, then once in Spain feels more in line with Borzage: gauzy, intelligent melodrama. It's just that the first section is more fun, and the film slowing down and introducing a larger cast for its back half doesn't feel like the greatest choice in regards to pacing. It's what you might expect, but it's charming and very assured filmmaking.
The Baron of Arizona
An early film from one of America's most explosive filmmakers, Samuel Fuller. Like his first film (I Shot Jesse James) it's concerned with the intersection of history and myth. This is also based on a true story, the story of James Reavis, who, by forging historical documents, claimed Arizona for himself in the 1800's. Vincent Price is the lead, and he's the main reason to give it a watch, he's wonderful; charming and devious and full of spirit. It's clearly underfunded, with its globe-trotting and long timeline, but told mostly with small interiors and conversations. A bit of a shame, I think this story deserved more, but it's a unique and enjoyable film with compelling thematic quandaries. Basically any Fuller film is of some interest.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
One of those late-60's awards favorites that I wasn't sure was going to end up being something that played more into the freer, more personal realm of New Hollywood, or would end up a staid, well-meaning prestige picture. More of the first really; the story of a dance marathon during the depression. The American dream as an ill-fated spectacle: You exhaust yourself hoping for something you'll never have and then you die. Really cynical stuff, and Pollack's direction is impressive in its tracking of the ensemble. Shooting a dance floor is hard as hell, and he spends the majority of the film doing so. I can tell the novel is more lyrical than the film; that probably helps offset the bitterness, which is the real aftertaste of the story. I was impressed by it. It wasn't what I was expecting.
How Do You Know
More than anything, it's baffling. A 2010 James L. Brooks film with Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon and Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson and a talented supporting cast. A pair of successful 30-somethings face professional crises and engage in a complicated relationship---it's very white, very middlebrow. It looks like a television show and the actors look like they're performing on their first impulses with no reigning in. It lacks any specificity or self-awareness and yet never feels sincere in itself either. I have no clue what it's after and yet it feels entirely obvious in its attitude and aesthetic. What the fuck was this?
Why are you even trying to bother tying this to Terminator and Terminator 2 at that point though? You are just making a completely different thing with basically no relation to the original movies.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The franchise has existed fine without copying them, and can be in the films. Those movies are an anchor to the franchise at this point, their influence needs to be cut off and given a hard reboot. You don't need to copy them forever to have a good Terminator story, that's why I bought up the media examples. The only media they are crutch for are the movies, everyone else has moved on.
edit: The tv show expanded on their timeline, but quickly got outside their influence and became its own thing. The films have failed to do accomplish this task.
It is if you assume the people writing it aren't doing it right, which is a change you may as well use against what the movies are doing right now. Put creative people on it, and it'll succeed - or at least bring something new and inventive to the franchise rather than remake Terminator 2 for the 50th time.
edit: These were merely spitballing ideas, it's not like Terminator IP is a stranger to doing crazy shit. Give it to someone capable of making a coherent story which ties into the mythos and you're good. This applies to every idea in the franchise.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Except that's not my main argument - which was to expand in other creative avenues for new directions, that was merely to point out that those ideas weren't unsalvageable to the franchise rather than writing them off completely because they sound incoherent.
Wicked Witch was trolling, before trolling was cool.
Mad TV alternate ending:
Oz, the Great and Powerful. The movie is deeply flawed, I liked it anyway.
Mill Kunis was its MVP.
Why is this so depressingly true
"Meet (Main Character)"
"He's just a (Normal Occupation or Trope)"
(Establishing shots that evoke some other movie genre)
"Until one day..."
*record scratch*
*Fast moving light-hearted Pop Music*
(Best joke from the movie)
"From the (dubious connection to a film occupation) director/producer/writer of (some other Comedy)"
(2nd best joke from the movie)
(Some slapstick scene with pants falling down or farting or a funny collision)
(Stinger joke from the movie... and now you've seen all the jokes)
(Movie title appears with obvious pun OR sequel to previous movie)
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-fucking-live-for-haunting-covers-of-literally-any-son-1789737073
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Though the current trend of "haunting covers of pop songs" is perhaps more annoying than most.
As mentioned in the comments there, one of the top groups for these is apparently Scala & Kolacny Brothers (homepage) (youtube).
I think south park handled that one pretty well.
I'm kind of intrigued by the way studios like to throw giant wads of cash at movies, then use that to justify saddling them with ratings that then hobble them.
This is pretty evident with movies like the Dark Tower and Terminator 4&5 (see also AvP).
I know special effects and locations cost a lot, but quality CGI has been produced for 25 years now, starting with Jurassic Park.
What seems to really happen is a studio mandating a crowd-friendly rating that completely fucks the tone of a film, as well as cutting runtimes to get more showings.
Terminator 3 had its violence toned down, a brighter/friendlier visual style, and was saddled with some really stupid Bayformers-style humor. The first two were dark, moody, and atmospheric. They killed at the box office, regardless of budget (though The Terminator is a legendary example of low-budget guerilla film making). But, after Terminator 3, we get Salvation, with a great concept that fans had been clamoring for for over a decade, and which thematically followed its predecessor. But the studio mandates a short runtime and a pg-13 rating, necessitating more humor, a tonal shift, and a switcheroo on the visual style (hey, these movies have always portrayed a night time war, but now we're gonna set everything during a desaturated daytime and not even show that there's anfucking war going on).
The Dark Tower, at all points in the series, is a story about a broken man slowly stumbling into a path of redemption that costs a lot of lives. The world is bleak and apocalyptic filled with mutants and ghosts and blasted-remains of recognizable landmarks and locations. So the studio demands a pg-13 YA flick set mainly in modern New York, crammed into ninety minutes on a budget that'd make a prestige TV series squirm. All in order to make it family-friendly and pack in more showings per day.
I dunno, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't even necessarily think the creators involved in these franchise productions are the problem, so much as the studios expecting to be able to hand them money, then explicitly tell them to turn their projects into shit, but still pack theaters.
PG-13 is the sweet spot for any big budget film as it attracts potentially the widest audience, so that rating has been stretched to include content that would be better suited to higher ratings but because its a bigger studio film that needs the rating they get away with finding work arounds. Such as filming in higher colour contrast or having sexualised content included in a comedic way..
Recently though there has been a big push for more R rated content due to the success of Deadpool, so with the new Terminator could try and use the logic of R rated comic book success wave.
I remember going for a talk with the UK BBFC head about 12 years ago about why content is cut from UK films etc to meet ratings and its a whole different minefield but utterly fascinating.
I liked it a lot! It felt like a more down to earth, pot heady Borne Identity. And wow you guys were right. Kristen Stewart was surprisingly great. And yeah, it didn't really lean on pot head humor as much as it leaned on the sort of vision of what a pot head guy lives like. Less Dazed and Confused and more, "Here is a guy who's kind of a loser, and most losers smoke weed right?"
Good movie. You have my thanks thread.
Current MCU offerings usually land on a hard 12 so it's not totally supplanted by the 12A, but it's an interesting result of studio negotiation on our stricter and more granular ratings system compared to the US.
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Well up until 1989 the ratings were U, PG 15 and 18. A similar situation happened with the 1989 Batman film so the BBFC created the 12 rating.
One interesting side note, if the film has highly sexualised or strong violent scenes but is within a historical or dramatical context, then the rating drops with the BBFC.
Huh, I'd not heard that before, I'd always assumed that the 12 was as old as time
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THEY ARE THE FRANCHISE
Like, holy shit dude, this is exactly what I'm talking about. When you've reached the point where you are complaining that the 2 good movies that are why people even care at all are an "anchor" around the "franchise", you need to seriously deeply reconsider wtf you are even trying to do.
Why are you even trying to do a "Terminator franchise" (whatever that even means) movie or TV show or whatever if you consider the actual Terminator movies to be not what you want to do? What are you even trying to accomplish?
It's like saying "Look, what we need is a sequel to Jurassic Park that isn't weighted down by all the dinosaurs".