Topic: The Movie Thread

@Ralizah Into the Spiderverse must be the first film that I can recall thst has received glowing praise all round on these hallowed pages.

@Ralizah Have you seen Brie Larson in Room? She's incredible there. Instantly converted me into a fan. I haven't watched Short Term 12 or United States of Tara (yet), but I've heard she's great in those too. It's a shame a lot of people are writing her off based on her Captain Marvel performance, which I thought was fine but nothing special. Not the case with you since you said you've seen her in other things too, but a sad observation.

@Tjuz @Ralizah I agree that Brie’s fantastic in both Room and Short Term 12. I’m a big fan of Marvel comics but Captain Marvel is a truly bland character. It’s almost as if they told her to act that way to be ‘faithful’ to the comics. I enjoyed the film, sure, but that was more due to Ben Mendelsohn, who stole the show.

@Tjuz I've seen her in Kong: Skull Island, Captain Marvel, and Just Mercy, and she just never makes much of an impression on me. Granted, anything is better than the constipated performance she gives in CM.

I've not seen Room. The synopsis I read just sounds profoundly depressing, so I think it's something I'll need to be in the mood for.

@RogerRoger That’s a great post (as always) about your End Game experience - full of insightful observations, justified emotional response, and honest balanced sentiments. I love your metaphor at the end about being a visitor at a stranger’s wedding, as it gives a nice palpable visual to how you feel about the movie. Very relatable.

And that’s wonderful that you got the enjoyment out of it that you did. Like in your wedding scenario, I always hate going to parties and huge social gatherings like weddings, especially when I don’t know or like the people there. I drag my feet and grumble a little but once I’m there I quite enjoy it usually and think fondly about it in retrospect. Yet, when the next opportunity to go comes again, I’m dragging my feet again. Weird how that works.
I did find it interesting how you spoke of the now infamous ‘girl power’ scene. Despite many viewers feeling strongly about the implications and delivery of it, I think your take is very balanced and sensible.

Well if End Game is like attending a stranger’s wedding, then Into the Spiderverse is going to be like being dragged to a concert of your best friend’s favorite band. I hope it’ll be a raucous good time that you didn’t know you wanted to have.

A few films I've watched recently:

Terminator Genysis - Despite the plot tangling itself up in knots and some stupid set-pieces, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy myself.

The Big Short - Good film, everyone in it was superb, especially Steve Carrell who was unbelievable.

Us - Excellent, even the unnecessary twist at the end didn't put me off. A clever film which was made for all the right reasons.

@RogerRoger I think I'd place Captain Marvel near-ish the top of my favourite Marvel films too. I think the strange plotting is quite deliberate - the audience spend half the movie not really knowing what is going on because Carol Danvers herself doesn't know either, so we're with her in that respect. It's the strong characters and performances that pull the movie through in the end, though. And I love the "cat"!

I only watched Endgame for the first time last month and found it absolutely awesome. I liked that the focus is more on the original Avengers as it feels fitting as an end to their saga, compared to recently introduced characters. However, certain characters like Valkyrie perhaps feel a little too on the periphery. The only thing that ended up confusing me was the time travelling Captain America at the end, which would surely create an array of time paradoxes. Seriously, time travel is headache inducing.

Nebula is one of my favourite characters in the film, but a lot of her character development is in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Her arc is complete in Endgame; things that happen to her in the Galaxy films make certain scenes in that film more profound.

Good point about Thor. Turning his depression and self-destructive behaviour into something comedic missed the mark. However, I do think that his scene with Frigga is one of the more poignant in the film.

The girl power bit was awesome, because the characters are completely badass.

I watched Split last night for the first time.

Was actually pretty good which was a nice suprise as I've only seen 4 films of M.Night's (Sixth Sense, The Village, Unbreakable and Signs) and the series Wayward Pines... And most of his other films/projects are considered awful.

It's... Well I can't really talk a whole lot about it without spoilers but I think the depiction of mental health was fairly decent despite it being (for the most part) what you might expect for a psychological thriller with the main "villain" having multiple personalities.

James McAvoy was rather splendid in the role of Kevin and his other personalities (being able to switch through them at the tip of a hat) and Anya Taylor-Joy was rather good in the other lead role of Casey.

James McAvoy carried that movie like Atlas carries the globe. Without his skillful performance, the rest of the film would collapse.

I get irritated at movies using mental illnesses to scare the audience (and almost refused to see it for that reason), but certain plot twists calmed my concerns a bit on that front.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @Ralizah I’ll forever love James McAvoy for the sole reason that he got Meryl Streep to say the word ‘bawbags’.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I like M. Night quite a bit. He does have a few duds though. You’ve seen most of his best ones. You might add on The Visit. I liked that one pretty well, probably better than most of his except for Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. Like you say, Split is decent enough. I like it a little better than The Village and After Earth, and it’s miles better than The Last Airbender and the awful Lady in the Water. If you liked Split and McAvoy, then definitely check out Glass too, since it’s related.

Well apparently Joaquin Phoenix was originally going to be Kevin but left for some reason and McAvoy was cast instead @Ralizah.

I'm admittedly quite curious at that would've been like... Probably pretty similar as they're good actors but still...

I'd actually only seen two M.Night films for the longest time @Th3solution. The Sixth Sense (which I liked) and the Village (Which I didn't like).

Then I saw Wayward Pines which actually was a pretty good Mini Series (... Don't watch the second season though it's bad as it wasn't meant to be more then one season and it shows 😅)

Then I saw Unbreakable and Signs last year which were both decent.

I think M.Night is a pretty decent ideas man... In fact my opinion of him is actually sort've similar to my feelings on ol' Quantic Dream David Cage in that I think they could do with a good writer (Or at least someone who isn't a yes man) to make sure they don't do twists just for the hell of it and tighten up a few things as otherwise they have pretty decent ideas!

I'll be sure to give Glass a look... The lead performances should be pretty decent from those three even if it isn't the best film

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy That's the best way to approach Glass - as a fun crossover piece. The plot itself isn't great, but I enjoyed watching the three primary personalities interact.

Not Shy's best film, but certainly not The Village or The Happening (although that's so bad it's almost good).

Watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters last night. Not a masterpiece in filmmaking, but a generally fun time that consistently brought a smile to this Godzilla fan with it's many references to the franchise history (the classic Godzilla & Mothra theme music being mixed in at parts, the oxygen destroyer, and Ghidorah's codename as "Monster Zero"), not to mention pretty great depictions of Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan, and the titular star himself.

Will definitely pick it up on Blu-Ray at some point in the future (the family rented it on DVD, and it's easy to see how the vibrant colors are muted with the sub-HD resolution), and am looking forward to the inevitable Godzilla VS Kong. Calling it now, after fighting each other they have to team up to beat Mecha-Ghidorah, as forshadowed in the after credits scene of KotM, to save the Earth.

Anybody watched this?

It's surprisingly pretty good. The sequel releasing next month.

Joaquin Phoenix won another award last night, he has won every best actor award this year out of the shows he has been to so am hoping he goes onto have a successful BAFTAS and Oscars too!

Reckon the BBC’s film guy’s pretty much summed up the awards season rather well.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51144669

@nessisonett I already have made my opinion clear that the award shows have been a shambles, from the exclusions of female directors like Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang, to the amazing talent that was snubbed such as Willem Dafoe for best supporting actor, Lupita Nyongo for best actress and Adam Sandler for best actor.

Films like The Irishman, Joker and Jojo Rabbit didn't deserve to be best picture contenders and films such as Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse, Waves or The Farewell were far more deserving of a spot.

Hell literally the WHOLE cast of Parasite have been snubbed in favour of safe nominations.

It is so annoying to see just how much some films have been snubbed, and the fact that Uncut Gems and The Lighthouse only have 1 Nomination between them sickens me, but alas we should not be expecting much more from a now terrible.

I am glad that Joaquin is getting the awards he deserves and am hopeful that Parasite will win the Oscar Award for Best Picture but aside from those two small wins, this award season is showing off more than ever why we need a new voting committee.

@DonJorginho Oh man, The Lighthouse was amazing. One of the most visceral, muddy and downright bonkers films I’ve seen in a long time. To think RPatz was just your average teen heartthrob a decade ago! Now he’s done some great movies, landed Batman and is inadvertently responsible for FKA Twigs releasing one of the best albums of 2019.

@nessisonett It was truly off the walls nuts but I adored it and even purchased the UHD Bluray which cost me £45 pounds taking in international shipping lol!

And RPatz is becoming one of the best actors of this generation, I really started to take notice of him when he was in that Cosmopolis and I started to look forward to projects with him, whenever I would talk to my friends about how good he was they would laugh at me for thinking that "The guy from Twilight" was a good actor.

And when Good Time came out I felt like my praise for him had been fully paid for by the amazing and powerful raw performance from Rob, and ever since he has just gotten better and better with his films being so interesting.

When you also remember that he is co-starring in a Christopher Nolan film this year in Tenet it really shows his glowup!

And he was responsible for Magdalene? Jesus he may be one of my favourite people ever as that album was perfection.

All we need is him to be cast in a Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese or Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig film and he will cement his spot with many as a top top actor.