Topic: The Movie Thread

@Frigate The secret is not watch any trailers lol. I used to watch a lot more than I do now, and these days they either spoil large parts of the story or misrepresent what the film is actually like.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, it’s amazing how a trailer can be produced, edited, and constructed so well and in such an entertaining way, and then the actual movie itself can be poorly produced, edited, and paced. It’s like — hey, the crew that made this trailer should have made the whole movie! They knew what they were doing and the main movie’s director and producer were garbage.

@LN78 Ha, ha! Really? I didn’t realize that. I liked Suicide Squad more than most, but I’ll admit that it wasn’t Citizen Kane by any stretch.
I only know just a little bit about film and cinema production, but it does seem clear from the discrepancy between the typical trailers and the actual movie that there is a whole different art and technique to making a trailer. I haven’t any idea, but I wonder how often the director and editors of the movie do actually make the trailer. I’ve always suspected that it’s like lower level intern-type personnel that make these trailers and spots.

Trailers are often used to mis-sell a film. Drive, as @LN78 points out was very different from the sexy, action-packed Ryan Gosling romp that the trailer put out.

Modern horror tends to suffer from this too, with almost every jump-scare manageable chucked in to the trailer because that's all that is in the film.

Lucy is a pretty similar example to Drive; the trailer really is an advert of the last 10 minutes of the film.

Sometimes it does lead to a nice surprise, like Drive and Lucy; and which Heredetary turned out to be a fun watch, it really wasn't what I was wanting to see.

@RogerRoger Very interesting. It sounds similar to what my suspicions were. Do you know if the industry now has a “trailer team” type of career path, or do these marketing companies comprise of a lot of “wanna be” filmmakers who are getting experience and building a resume’? Not sure why I’m curious but I am. I would think it similar to how writers often first publish short stories in periodicals and anthologies before they get the attention of publishers to get their full length novel out there on the shelves. Or kind of like a developmental or minor league in professional sports. In NASCAR, called the “Busch league”, for example. (Which in common slang of course connotes a lesser or inferior product). I’m not sure why I’m interested in this but I’d hate to refer to trailer makers as Busch league filmmakers when in fact sometimes their work is of higher quality than the film itself 😜

The trailer for Us was a good un, and the director and writer Jordan Peele had a hand in putting it together, as he didn't wanna give too much away and get the tone of the film right.

The trailer and marketing for It Comes at Night painted it as horror film... which it wasn't really.

@RogerRoger Haha, thanks for the effort. It sounded like maybe you had some inside information. Maybe there are some Film School people out here that can give us a solid answer, but I think it is probably a combination of things going on: new creators getting their feet wet with these smaller trailer projects until they hit the big time, and also a collection of people who simply just enjoy and thrive at making trailers and just are happy to do it as a career.

And on that note of speaking on things of which I only have partial knowledge, I had to do a quick search to make sure I didn’t lead you astray on the “Busch League.” So apparently both spellings are used (‘Bush’ and ‘Busch’). The former referring to old novice baseball teams that were relegated to “playing in the bushes” and the latter being the lesser NASCAR league that I referred to earlier. The implication of the slang term is the same either way. The internet seems to debate which spelling is the “right” one.
Alas, much like the pronunciation of “Gif” and what the blue button on the Dual Shock controller is called, we may never put such a critical and polarizing debate to rest.

For Your Eyes Only (Blu-Ray) - Releasing in 1980, it's the first 80's entry in the long running Bond series, and this entry sees the famous super spy seeking out a device that can control Britain's nuclear sub fleet, after the spy ship in which it was located is sunk. He'll have to act fast though, as a Soviet linked criminal organization is after it as well.

• I really quite enjoyed the more deliberate pacing of the film, which was a nice change of pace from the thrill a minute pace modern action/adventure films tend to have. This really gave you the time to appreciate all the locales, and I really thought all the underwater scenes, as well as the scenic mountains where the bad guy's lair were located, were quite beautiful (especially at Blu-Ray quality).
• The action scenes were good fun, and all the more impressive that they were handled by real stuntmen & physical props (I really want to recognize the opening helicopter scene, and the ski resort chase).
• Think what you will of me, but I like seeing what they were able to get away with in terms of sexual content in these old PG & PG-13 films, whether they did it intentionally, if they just didn't think resolution would be good enough for people to ever see it, or if things were just more relaxed on this type of content (to me it adds a sort of rawness to them that modern PG & PG-13 films don't have, as it seems like they go through them with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing slips through), and there certainly were a few of those moments here. As one example, in one scene where our heroes are ransacking the sleeping quarters of the bad guy's henchmen, you can clearly, albiet briefly, see a couple of photos of topless women pinned to the walls, and there are a couple more moments like this as well.

Overall I really enjoyed watching this one (more than I thought I would, honestly) and can't wait to get to the other 80's, 90's, and early 00's Bond films (I plan on buying them up through the Brosnan films).

@LN78 That trailer was amazing. Still get goosebumps from it!

@LN78 Ha ha me too. I think I downloaded it!!

@LN78,

• forgive my ignorance, but I don't know who Charles Dance is, lol (I enjoy watching movies, but I'm not a huge film buff).
• To be fair, when it came to Bibi, James didn't seem that interested (that kinda stuff doesn't really bother me much anyways for better or worse, probably due to all the anime I watch).

Finally got around to John Wick 3. Liked it more than John Wick 2 for sure, but the whole secret society of assassin's stuff was pretty thin material to start with, the first film managed it rather well by constraint of budget; but since 2 and now with three, delving 'deeper' in to it really does things no favours whatsoever.
The first film just manages to work within a healthy suspension of disbelief - by Parabellum, we have 'secret assassin organisation' branded SWAT vans driving openly about the place dropping off SWAT teams.

The action is mostly great as always - even the 'vicious crufts' set-piece was fun enough to watch.

@KALofKRYPTON I enjoyed the film but I thought story wise it was the weakest of three movies. On the other hand the action was the best among the three. As much I like the franchise, I still don't get why do they need so many assassins in one city for.haha

@WanderingBullet

The Wick series actually reminds me of The Matrix films. A great stand alone movie that worked on several levels; followed as soon as possible by cash in sequels that take a sound premise (when kept under a certain restraint) and 'develop' it so much that it becomes ridiculously unpalatable.

At no point during Parabellum did I get the sense that anyone was trying to keep anything secret; and why would they, since everyone seems to be in on it anyway and the police don't exist?!

@KALofKRYPTON Don't quote me on this but I think the creators mentioned that the police are aware of the assassins organisation. They just decide to ignore it.haha Which kinda makes sense since in the first movie there was that one officer who went to John Wick's house due to a complaint from the neighbours.

@LN78 I wasn't particularly interested if I'm honest. As I say, 2 wasn't very good.

JW is very much a film that would have been better served just left alone.

@WanderingBullet
See, that 1 officer - the 'local' cop who it totally makes sense for Wick to know and have an arrangement with. That's fine, I buy that.

A city/nation/global -wide 'look the other way' policy is so unbelievably unworkable that it does just break the thing for me, a lot.

@LN78 Hahahahahahahaha!!
You've hit the nail on the head there!

@RogerRoger Glad you liked Thirteen. I was worried it was going to be poor, and that I'd given it an easy ride after Twelve. I might re-watch it at some point seeing as I don't remember it.

After reading and posting about it on here the other day, I got talking about the Ocean's films with a couple of friends. My mate said that he was loudly criticising Ocean's Twelve at a party around the time of release, when someone overheard and pointed out (without irony) that they were bound to be running out of ideas by the twelfth instalment.

@RogerRoger, yeah, I have other stuff I want to watch, but after FYEO, the other Bond films are probably my most highly anticipated (still, going to watch things inbetween as to not get burned out).