Topic: The Movie Thread

I watched the original Terminator there. Forgot just how good it was. I have to say though, this is my first time watching it in HD on a bigger screen and I saw rather more of Arnie than I remembered. You get a proper look at Arnold Schlongnegger swaying in the wind.

@nessisonett Yeah my younger mind must have scrubbed that from my memory. Or more likely it was edited when I saw it on TV.

I saw another Toby Kebbel duffer earlier in Bloodshot with Vin Diesel and Guy Pearce (who is someone else that needs stern words with his agent). Wasn't as awful as I thought it would be but found it a bit predictable in places and there was some noticeable use of CGI in a few of the main action scenes. Toby's dance near the start is something else too. Not as cringe as another Toby in Spider-man 3, be he was almost there.

@JohnnyShoulder Of course he was in Bloodshot! Dear lord Toby, get a better agent 😂

@JohnnyShoulder So I'm not the only one who thinks Guy Pearce is actually really good only he's in a ton of sub-par movies?

@zupertramp Yeah, that’s true, he’s great in Memento and L.A. Confidential but he’s done a lot of rubbish too. I totally recommend everyone to watch Priscilla, Queen of the Desert though, a strange but brilliant movie where he and Hugo Weaving play drag queens along with Terence Stamp as a trans woman as they travel across the outback. Absolutely barmy movie.

@zupertramp @nessisonett He was also good in The Rover with Robert Pattinson, which was the first film I took any notice of Pattinson. But apart from that and what Ness mentioned yeah I'm struggling to think what he has actually been in recently, nevermind if he has been any good in them. He was ok in Iron Man 3 I suppose, but I disliked the bait and switch they pulled on that one and was overshadowed by Ben Kingsley's performance.

I've finished Anger Management now. Loved the ending "Give her a five-second frencher!"

@JohnnyShoulder @nessisonett Scrolling through his IMDB is a tad depressing. But then again maybe these are the roles he wants/likes. Good for him if so.

Also I didn't realize The Adventures of Priscilla was so old. That's impressive subject matter for a movie from 1994. It's only recently come to my attention so I really thought it was newer than that.

@zupertramp @nessisonett Wasn't there a very similar american movie out round about the same time as Priscilla? Think it starred Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and a third actor I can't remember.

@JohnnyShoulder I think you're thinking of To Wong Foo, Thank You for Everything! Julie Newmar

@JohnnyShoulder @TheFrenchiestFry Yep, that one’s alright but it toes the line a little too much. The three leads play it very well though, they definitely throw themselves into the role!

@TheFrenchiestFry Thanks! Yeah that is the one. And John Leguizamo was the third main character. I would have never guessed that.

I'd completely forgotten that movie though I remember watching some of it at the time it released out of morbid curiosity. I would have been around 14-15 then, living in a small rural town in West Texas so I can't say open-mindedness was a virtue I possessed then.

Anyway, watched La Llorona last night. Not to be confused with The Curse of La Llorona. I went in expecting a horror movie which it definitely was not. So I was fairly disappointed, though I wouldn't say it's a bad movie. Just wish I'd known it's more a "solemn and gripping tribute to real-life atrocities" as Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com puts it. So just know that going in if anyone decides to watch it.

@RogerRoger @JohnnyShoulder @Th3solution

So watched Midway this evening. Not bad if you ask me. Some of the CGI was fairly atrocious and at times the acting/dialogue was a little dodgy (looking at you Mandy Moore) but I'd agree the movie, for the most part, is measured and authentic in its portrayal of the war in the Pacific (at least from what I could tell). There's definitely some bits that seem overly dramatized but nothing too comically over the top imo.

So while it's not my new favorite war film or anything, I believe yes this movie could benefit from better marketing.

I would say, because they decided to cover so much, it did have a bit of a superficial feel to it. I get what they were going for but I think it might have benefitted from a little less breadth. In spite of the subject matter, it all came off a little glossy to me. Good overview, but hard to feel anything. There's some specifics I could go into (good and bad) but I don't want to spoil any of the cinematic depictions so I'll just leave it at that.

Really enjoyed Bill and Ted Face the Music. If you are a fan of the first two, you will really dig it. Are theaters getting business over in the UK? In the U.S. nobody is really willing to chance it (save for those who think the virus is a hoax). It's a shame, I was pumped for an entire year over Tenet. VOD here I come in several months...

Today I learned that an American Root Letter movie based on the visual novel is in post-production. Bizarre that it’s gone seemingly unnoticed. Apparently it’s a ‘gritty re-imagining’ which sounds like exactly the sort of mistake that literally every other American version of Japanese media falls into.

Saw 1917 the other night. It was really good. The story they choose to tell fit the continuous shot take really well. This was partially why I was putting off watching it. The only other movie I'd seen that employed this technique the entire film was Russian Ark which I appreciated but it's not a film with a traditional narrative.

But watching Midway sparked a discussion about the differences between WWI and II, and why one gets covered more and on and on, so we ended up checking out 1917.

I'd say it met Tim O'Brien's definition of a true war story, it was beautifully shot, the acting was there across the board and that's, in my opinion, about the best anyone can ask for from a war movie.

@zupertramp Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of the continuous take. I felt it kinda took away from the story they set out to tell by making it feel a bit like a Call of Duty game cutscene. I dunno, the movie does a lot right but I personally just felt the continuous take gave it a bit of a tacky feel. A brilliant movie/documentary sorta thing about WW1 is Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old which colourises old footage and adds voiceovers. It makes it seem real, which I’ve never felt with footage that old.

I watched Pride & Prejudice & Zombies out of curiosity the other night thinking it was going to be a comedy. Ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would and found it melded the two disparate genres in a satisfying way. I've not seen Matt Smith in much but thought he was excellent in it.

@nessisonett That's pretty similar to what were my concerns. I thought it would ultimately take away from the story and come off gimmicky. That didn't turn out to be the case for me but I can see how others might come away not digging it.

Haven't seen that documentary but recall it being mentioned in a recent article where historians were decrying the use of colourisation on old footage. The idea being it can never truly represent the actual colors because those colors weren't ever recorded. We can never know, thus it's inaccurate historically to represent those colors. I think the other side of the argument is what you alluded to whereby coloring b&w footage allows modern viewers to connect to it in a way not previously possible. I don't know how I feel about it all (though part of me feels like the study of history is a lot of filling in the blanks with educated guesses) but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless. In any case I would like to see the documentary.