Topic: The Movie Thread

I saw Bumblebee last night and although it wasn't as bad as the last Transformers film I watched (the third, or maybe the second I forget now), I wouldn't reccomended it to anyone either.

My biggest gripe with it is that is just all felt over familiar, with large sections ripped off from the first live action film and stuff like ET and The Iron Giant. Also thought the dialogue was pretty bad and I found Hailee Stenfield's character a bit annoying at time. John Cema felt like he belonged in the previous films and well out of place.

On the plus side the design of the Transformers are much better harking backed to the G1 cartoons. The opening section in Cybertron was mind blowing, I would happy watch a film on there with no annoying human characters lol. The teenage leerieness humour from the previous films has gone too, with no fawning over scantily clad females. Which i don't mind, but not something I really want in a Transformers movie. And the horrible over saturated colour tone has gone with something that feels less Hollywood and more natural.

@JohnnyShoulder Speaking of, my wife brought to my attention last night that the guy from The Haunting of Hill House is Elliot from E.T. I didn't know this, it blew my mind a bit.

@Gremio108 That's interesting, do you know which bloke?

@Frigate funny, I’d take Detective Pikachu all day over Alita, which bored me to tears!

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Honestly, it feels like Tarantino has finally matured as a director. This is so much less self-consciously clever than any other film of his I've ever seen. Although I still don't like it nearly as much as Kill Bill vol. 1. And, yes, the foot fetish is still on full display. Anyway, I think my favorite aspect of the film is the way it subverted Sharon Tate's claim to fame; instead of exploitatively killing her on-screen and continuing to tie her destiny directly to that of the psychopaths in the Manson clan, she's allowed to live and stay happy in this (and is played adorably by Margot Robbie). I'm not a huge Brad Pitt fan, but he's great in this as All-American-Man and definite affable psychopath Cliff Booth. The film is probably half an hour too long and is essentially plotless, but I do have to commend the filmmakers for doing everything possible to transport viewers back to Hollywood at the tail end of the 1960s. The set design, the hair-styles, the way the movie is filmed, the music, the radio and TV ads... everything is there to help transport the viewer back in time. Solid movie overall.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: This one was actually quite a bit of fun. While it's definitely still juvenile horror, the film's command of the cinematic language ends up making it much more intense than the majority of adult oriented horror films I've seen. The monsters on display are also very creepy and, in one case, grotesquely ingenious. The plot does a good job of adapting stories from the book while not feeling like a framing device for an anthology (this feels like one consistent and coherent narrative).

@Ralizah I mostly enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . It falters in several areas for me though; and it's rare that I'll leave a film having thoroughly enjoyed watching it but be so ready to criticise it.
Performances throughout are fantastic - I'm loathe to say that it's a given due to the casting, but I'd expect nothing less of the majority of the players involved. DiCaprio still manages to put in an absolutely star turn here, and PItt hasn't been as compelling in ages.

This is a film that feels like is was, is and could still be several projects rolled in to one; not completely unsuccessfully per se - but certainly jarringly. The main thread of Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth is absolute solid gold (apart from the slightly misjudged Bruce Lee scene) , they're both rough enough and imperfect enough with their charm and sincerity shining through that they possibly climb to the top of the tree of Taranino characters. I'd happily watch more of them. And that is where the film falters. The real world historical setting is a great backdrop for Rick & Cliff, but the under-baked Manson story and sprinkling of Hollywood A-listers never feels anything but secondary, and distracting. Margot Robbie is great, but barely there.

The seemingly obligatory violence seems added as an unfortunate afterthought to an otherwise utterly charming film.

I've no doubt that there's a cut of this film possible (if not sat in QT's house already) where it omits the Manson sub-plot and just sticks with Rick & Cliff through and through. It' best remembered that way and would work far better in my opinion.

Godzilla KOM on the hand was a hoot! Much better execution that the last effort, though still a fair amount of human POV on the monster action, it's clear that Michael Dougherty is either a fan or knows what we want to see.
There's always more room for monster action with these things, and KOM is no exception - plenty of untapped potential there - but I guess they can't attempt something on a Godzilla: Final Wars scale before fleshing out their Monarch shared universe stuff a little more.

@KALofKRYPTON I liked that the Manson stuff existed on the periphery of the story. In any other movie, the murderous hippies would be the point of the film. Here, they're just a part of the total picture. It's sort of Notre-Dame de Paris-esque in that sense.

Glad you enjoyed KotM. It blew my mind how critics panned that INCREDIBLY fun film. Granted, it's not a masterpiece like Shin Godzilla or the original (or Godzilla vs. Destroyah; fite me), but it was the first American Godzilla production I unreservedly enjoyed, and it was a LOT of fun seeing some of the classic kaiju get the big budget Hollywood treatment. Ghidorah, especially, was just magnificent; practically a force of nature in its own right!

@JohnnyShoulder He's the dad, but in the scenes where he was a younger man. Does that make sense...?

@Ralizah the whole plot could be exised from the film and leave it in a better state for my money. Especially given the direction QT took it.

@Gremio108 Ah yes, I know who that is now, thanks!

@JohnnyShoulder Oh and cheers for the Owl tips by the way, beat him last night as a result

Damn..... Looks like Spider-man will no longer be a part of the MCU apparently.

@WanderingBullet
Disney trying to get more money out of the deal it seems. Which was inevitable I guess.

Can't say I'm too fussed, MCU Spidey isn't my jam at all.

@KALofKRYPTON A friend of mine says that apparently Disney only gets 5% from ticket sales but I've also heard that they don't get anything from ticket sales, only from merchandise. Idk which is true.

Far From Home made over a billion dollars at the box office. So I can understand why Disney's asking for more, but at the same time it's obvious that Sony wasn't gonna give up 50%.

They probably should've negotiated more.

This must be what Stan Lee's feeling right now.
https://tenor.com/view/stan-lee-marvel-stan-tony-stark-avenge...

@LN78 This is Keanu's year.lol

@WanderingBullet It is meant to be something like that - but they also get ALL of the merchandising rights and don't have to pay to make the film.

Whatever people's thoughts on Sony, this is a *ick move by Disney. They don't need the cash and went along to try and set Spidey up as Iron Man's replacement linchpin character for the MCU. As if Sony (or anyone) would renegotiate to Disney taking 50%.

Holland is pretty well installed, Venom did ridiculously well and there's still plenty there for Sony to add to and finally exploit. Whether they manage it without the MCU production teams is another matter.

@LN78 @WanderingBullet
Not sure what's left to say in the Matrix. Certainly with Neo and Trinity. We all know the sequels aren't great, but they wrapped it up good & proper. I expect retconning and more convoluted dirge.

Perhaps Neo & Trin become the Merovingian and Persephone in the restarted Matrix from the end of Revolutions and work against the new 'One'...

Also, lets not forget the W's last 'big' films haven't exactly landed well. I quite enjoyed Cloud Atlas, but Jupiter Ascending was all kinds of pap! Pap!

Lol I didn't like any of the Matrix films 😅

Not quite sure why they've let The Wachowskis (Or rather only one of them) make another matrix film as you said @KALofKRYPTON the last few films they put out were tosh (Cloud Atlas was pretty unique but very polarising)

That show sense8 they did was well recieved enough... But was canceled from the low views and it seems a bit mad to hand them the keys to a big budget film after all of that.

Especially when the films already came to a conclusion... But then what do I know?

This is Hollywood where they'll give the keys to Robocop, Godzilla and other 100+ million dollar budgeted movies to directors who've done bugger all and somehow be surprised when it doesn't do as well as they've expected

Also I can't believe Venom did that well... One of the worst films I've seen recently and definitely the worst preformance I've seen from Tom Hardy too

@KALofKRYPTON I honestly don't know how Venom did so well at the box office. I thought the movie was terrible, tbh. Having watched ASM1, ASM2 and Venom I don't have a lot of faith in Sony. Sigh, at least there's still the Spider-verse animation(s).

Kevin Feige coming back from the meeting with Sony be like, "I lost the kid."

Enough time has passed since 3, you’ve got to wonder why they are doing it if they aren’t confident about it, so it could be decent.

Or it could be Alien Resurrection all over again.