Joaquin Phoenix deserves to be nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the Joker. If that happens and he wins the award it'll be second time an actor wins for playing the Joker.
@LN78 Oh yeah, I absolutely loved the sound design and especially the cinematography as well. It looks like initial reviews for The Irishman are great so I'm looking forward to that as I like Al Pacino.
Octopussy (Blu-Ray) - The second of the 80's Bond flicks I've picked up. When another "00" is killed for discovering that the Soviets are seemingly in the business of smuggling knockoff priceless artifacts, Bond is sent in to find out the truth behind the matter.
It started off really strong with Bond infiltrating a military facility of an unnamed(?) Latin American dictatorship, but never really climbed back up to those hights again (though the big climax in East & West Germany was pretty good too). Most of the film took place in India, which just wasn't that interesting of a locale IMO.
I want to give props to the opening chase (loved him pulling out that small plane), the cool (albiet very brief) car chase in Germany, and the ending plane scene (especially with the stunt doubles climbing on the outside of the craft while airborne).
Interestingly, it's the first time I've seen full nudity in a Bond film (for a brief moment or two when "Octopussy" is getting out of the pool in her introductory scene. She's just far enough away from the camera that they probably thought the resolution would ever be good enough to see anything).
Even as someone who enjoys the more campy elements of the older Bond films, it really kind of pushes it in the final moments of the raid on the villain's lair (you have a small army of women warriors raiding the place in JRPG levels of bikini armor, and James himself arrives in a Union Jack patterned hot air balloon of all things).
Overall pretty decent, but not one of my favorites.
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PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Does anyone have any recent experience oif using the digital codes in the UK found in blu rays? I know most probably throw them away or ignore them, but I've recently purchased a UHD tv but have a OG PS4.
I've streamed a couple of UHD films through Google Play Movies & TV and I'm happy the quality. But the choices of films available in 4k is very limited. I'm fully aware that the best quality is to play the discs but I've no way to play UHD discs at the moment. I might get a cheapish UHD blu ray player and i assume PS5 will have one, so if do buy the discs they will not be wasted. There are a few films I've got my eye one (Alien 40th Anniversary Edition for example).
The problem is that the service you used to load the codes up to, Ultaviloet, is dead. You can still use the codes but I think it depends on the studio on which streaming service you can use to redeem them, from iTunes, Google Play and Amazon prime. Movies Anywhere is cool, where if you redeem the code on one service you can then watch it on any of the other services. But that is only available in USA at the mo.
Seems like every major showing of Joker in the U.S. has armed guards, and reportedly undercover cops are going to various showings. Some large theaters are refusing to show the film altogether. Liberal journalists and movie critics are calling it a nihilistic, shallow nightmare of a film that will trigger incels and make them kill people (except for the few ones that think it's a masterpiece), but, again, the audience is wholly embracing it, and it blew away Venom's record for the best opening night for a film in October, and it looks set to achieve the same with the opening weekend record.
Haven't heard about any attempted shootings, but a portion of the press is patting themselves on the back for sounding the alarm because, in some NY showing of the movie, a creepy dude that was spitting on people had to be taken out.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy At the big ones. They're apparently searching bags and purses at these opening weekend showings from what I've heard as well. I'll update if I have an exceptional experience getting into the film later today.
Yeah, Venom did really well. As did Suicide Squad. Popularity and quality often don't go together.
I remember reading they both made like $800,000,000 or so at the box office... I didn't know Venom had made any actual records though lol
I look forward to hearing your impressions @Ralizah , the views expressed already during the topic by various people seems to be quite positive and it's been on my radar too.
I also hope nothing goes wrong at your viewing, just in case
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
Speaking of poorly executed Marvel property movies, I rented X-Men: Dark Phoenix. I figured for $2, it was worth taking a chance.
Well, I fell asleep halfway through and didn’t feel the need to restart it after I woke up. Symbolically lighting my 2 dollar investment on fire, I returned the movie, wishing I had the money back for a bag of M&M’s instead.
Since I never saw the ending, I don’t really know if I can fully pass judgment, but the fact that I didn’t have the desire to sink another hour into it is telling.
It’s too bad, because I liked some things about the First Class crew. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have previously been good as Professor X and Magneto; and I usually like J. Lawrence in most of her roles. But even these top shelf actors really underperformed. I didn’t like the portrayal of any of the other characters either, such as Beast, Cyclops, or Storm. But above all, Sophie Turner just didn’t have the acting prowess to carry the movie in the central role of Jean Gray. Her performance was really flat. Of course, the fact that I didn’t care much about the characters and their plight probably has more to do with the poor script and direction of the film. I can’t put my finger on it, but it was not enjoyable, despite some pretty decent special effects and artistic design.
I don’t know how they are going to try to salvage the X-men IP and successfully integrate it into the MCU, but this is not a good sign. I wonder if they are going to reboot the characters all again, or use the same actors. Just please no Sophie Turner, please.
Sorry for the double post, but I just had to share this.
I did a quick internet search out of curiosity to see if my Dark Phoenix criticism was too harsh. This is my favorite quote I found:
Kurt Loder of Reason magazine wrote, "There are several things wrong with Dark Phoenix. I'm tempted to say everything is wrong with it, except that the picture is largely in focus and the credits appear to be correctly spelled. Other than that, though..."
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Not directly related to the movie, but my theater thankfully was very light on police presence. No searching you before you went in the theater. Some people I know in other states weren't so lucky. I imagine location was important in my case.
Central performance was great, but I think everyone expected that going in. With that said, it wasn't great AS a Joker performance. Arthur Fleck isn't the Joker so much as he is a beaten-down maniac in clown makeup. Which is no surprise, as the director clearly had no interest in the comic book origins of the concept.
The movie is essentially a vehicle for that central performance. Almost every single frame of the movie is focused on Fleck in some way. It's practically a one-man show.
I'm a bit mixed on the movie around Joaquin Phoenix, though. Despite the movie's almost comical insistence on being misery porn for the first half, I don't think the director really had the chops to pull off a film that evoked intense negative emotions or a sense of gravitas. This is certainly Gotham at its slimiest, but this is so exaggerated that it feels more cartoonish than anything. If any of you have seen the TV show Gotham, it reminds me a lot of that. His history with comedy films kind of comes through in a lot of scenes, too, and I think this would have been more suited as a dark comedy.
The cinematography was great. Despite the objectively gross nature of the city (there's trash EVERYWHERE thanks to a series of strikes that have paralyzed the city's services), there's a dark, almost surreal beauty to it. It's a gorgeous looking movie.
This narrative about the film being incel bait is disingenuous. The film is concerned with the socially demoralizing effects of late stage capitalism and social/economic inequality, and depicts violence being committed against what might be termed 'cultural elites,' which is presumably why American corporate media is so intent on making it seem "irresponsible" and "dangerous." Anything that questions the basic morality of the oligarchic status quo in this country is probably going to get attacked in this same way. I also wouldn't say that the film celebrates his turn toward violence, considering its primarily spurred by forces beyond his control as opposed to a willful choice to strike back at society.
With that said, I do think the film could have been so much more subversive and interesting than it was. Despite the film's (arguably undeserved) reputation, the film frequently pulls its punches with anything that doesn't directly relate to the misery porn that is the main character's life.
Good movie, but the controversy that sprung up around it says a LOT more about the current state of American society than it does this film's willingness to be transgressive or shocking.
@RogerRoger It's really not that bad. There's only one scene in the film I'd characterize as being "brutal," and, while it is quite visceral and horrible, most of what you see happens just off-screen or is obscured by the actors' bodies. Fleck does get the snot beaten out of him a lot by various residents of this evil city, but there's not a lot of blood involved, and I guess they don't injure him too seriously, because he apparently survives them easily enough.
Otherwise, a few people get realistically shot, and someone gets shot in the head in the film's climax, which throws them back in their seat.
Maybe I'm just desensitized, but it didn't seem overly violent to me. I mean, there definitely IS violence, but it's not exploitation film level violence or anything. One ought to have gone into the film expecting people to get shot and beaten up in the first place. Nothing in it was as violent as the climax of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood..., for sure.
You saw that one really violent trailer for TLOU Part II, right? That trailer was way more violent and hard to watch, imo, than anything in Joker.
What really stuck out to me is the paternalistic moralism that seems to be infecting the Academy. People keep saying there's no "message," but the film clearly deals with specific themes; it just doesn't function as propaganda. They also talk about social responsibility, as if they should be recommending films they think people ought to be watching for ideological reasons instead of honoring excellent cinema and allowing audiences to sort out their own feelings about what messages the films are sending out.
I was kinda expecting close-up, sustained torture and gore based on the impressions some reviews had given; that would've really put me off, as I can kinda only deal with one uncomfortable thing at a time and am already bracing myself for the "misery porn" elements (and no, whilst I did see the latest trailer for The Last of Us, Part II during its State of Play, I never watched the first E3 one specifically because people said it was brutal).
Oh, yeah, no, nothing like that. No torture. Very little of anything is close-up. And, again, while it's quite violent in spots, I wouldn't characterize it as gory at all.
Honestly, the hardest parts of the movie for me to watch were when Arthur Fleck tried to come out of his shell a bit and it wouldn't... go well. When he breaks bad later in the film, it's honestly a bit of a relief, because you don't have to worry about seeing Joaquin Phoenix look like a wounded puppy quite as much as before.
Those quotes from Academy members betray a lot of what Hollywood has become of late, as well as the divided state of America at the moment. Awards ceremonies are now as much political platforms as they are genuine appreciation of the arts, and the results of that are worrying. As you say, it's a sad state of affairs when the only pieces of art that are deemed to "mean something" are the ones that go "Look at us, we mean something!" as though everybody walking out of a cinema immediately takes to Twitter and complains that the film they just watched didn't tell them what to think. I reckon I'd much rather just be asked a question and left alone to answer it for myself.
You could call us the... Divided States of America. Badum-tish!
But, yeah, I've noticed the majority of bad press this film is getting is American in origin. Foreign critics seem to be able to appreciate the film on its own terms, whereas our own people can't view it through anything other than a pure Culture War lens. It's pretty bad when a good half or so of the reviews I read mentioned President Trump at some point or another, when the film isn't even set in a contemporary American social context. Films have also gotten increasingly politicized reactions over here through the years, with stuff like Joker, Rambo: Last Blood, Ghostbusters 2016, Captain Marvel, The Last Jedi, etc. polarizing audiences along ideological lines. And this is all very symptomatic of a society that is deeply dysfunctional, one that is edging toward the point where internal strife becomes the norm.
@Ralizah It's even creeping into reviews of video games on some sites. I recall Far Cry 5 I believe got criticised for not being political enough and not having the so called balls to be anti-Trump. Or something along those lines.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Even the wikipedia page for Joker has a bunch of stuff in the "themes" section with quotes from various reviews saying how it could inspire people to commit atroscities and paints Arthur in a sympathetic light...
I read one review going on about how the director was basically just trying to shock/be edgy with Joker because he did the Hangover films...
Really quite surprised at how the media is trying to hate this film when they loved the utter cringey tripe that was Ghostbusters 2016 (... And I personally think the original is only ok too)
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
I'll see Joker at some point - it is very interesting to see the established entertainment (and wider) media try so hard to insist that the film is dangerous - or even just not very good.
The gulf between what a lot of media sources say is all right and good and what audiences (informed fans or not) actually go out and enjoy is growing increasingly wider. Every time I think we've reached 'peak woke' - they do go and prove me wrong.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
I wasn't really trying to make any political statement but I guess I should've chose something other then that film to highlight a disconnect between reviewers and audiences
I didn't realise that was you Frigate or should I say @Arugula . Take it you didn't enjoy the second half then of Far From Home?
Well it's been a while since I've seen Ghostbusters @LN78 (about five years give or take) so I can't give you a lovingly and well thought out response... You'll have to make do with recollections unfortunately 😂
I don't rate Bill Murray particularly for starts. Only watched a few films with him in to be honest, but he's a bit dry for my taste.
The story has some lulls in places
The tone can get a bit too goofy as well that pulls me out of it
It's not bad or anything. 6.5... maybe a 7 outta 10 if I'm feeling generous
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Here's a big one this year that doesn't appear to have any politics behind it - Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Audiences enjoyed it for the spectacular, beautiful, dumb kaiju film that it was, but reviewers apparently weren't satisfied with the story and characters and couldn't appreciate the film on its own merits.
And yeah, Ghostbusters 2016 was a spectacularly bad film. And the funny thing is that a lot of critics who were carrying water for it have since admitted that it's a bad film. I remember a piece where one critic even basically said: "It wasn't a good film, but because of where the culture was at the time, I couldn't admit that."
@RogerRoger lol After the 2016 election, there was a period where you could tell all of the big liberal Hollywood writers were processing their grief, because there were storylines and references to the president and the election everywhere (references even ended up in one of my Danganronpa games!). The American Horror Story that next year was nakedly ABOUT some alt-right sociopath trying to upend the social order after the election, for example; the ending was practically 2016 fanfiction, and involved the main character, as a stand-in for Hillary, shooting the Trump-ish alt-right dude on-stage after making a "nasty woman" quip.
But, yeah, I'm shutting up now. American media is 100% Trump, 100% of the time. I'm not infecting this place with that mind-virus, too.
It's a pity how far the Wolfenstein reboot series seems to have fallen. The New Order was a legitimately fun game. But the games just seem to keep getting worse, with the most recent, multiplayer-focused entry getting almost universally panned.
@LN78 Yeah, that's the sense I got, too: Joker's deconstruction of late-stage capitalism made the corporate-funded media nervous, so they're attempting to make the discussion about incels and white terrorism.
Reginald Von Twinleaf III it is then @Arugula (Jokes I'll call ya by your new name)
And I see, glad you enjoyed it overall, in particular the more inventive first half
Oh yeah I remember you saying about that @Ralizah ... The fact it doesn't have Aaron Taylor Johnson front and centre as generic military dude #2346 would already make it a vast improvement on the first
I've admittedly only seen the american ones (I know a bit about the Gojira films, mainly some of the villains) and King Of Monsters did look good but I was too ill at the time to go see it. I'll catch it on dvd/blu ray soon hopefully
Little worried that the next one Godzilla vs Kong is being directed by the guy who did the abysmal Death Note Netflix film...
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