Topic: The Movie Thread

@nessisonett I saw Grave of the Fireflies twice, both times when I was a child, but still remember it vividly enough that I have no interest in revisiting it again. I don't need to keep inviting that pain back into my life lol.

Not seen Dancer in the Dark. Partially because it sounds about as fun as using a staple gun on myself, but also because I'd already seen Antichrist and thought it was the most pretentious rubbish I'd ever seen in my life.

All of Us Strangers sounds interesting, though. I'm surprised I didn't hear about it. Definitely adding it to my list.

@Ralizah Bjork is so good in Dancer in the Dark that it makes it worth seeing. Even if she was treated terribly on set. It’s Lars von Trier though, I dunno why anybody was surprised that he’s a bit gross. It’s like when Gerard Depardieu was accused of stuff, felt like a formality.

Films I watched over the weekend.

Alien Romulus (Cinema) - No overwrought lore and overbearing technical jargon kept to a limit, this is a back to basics affair that follows a group of scared youths fighting for their lives against unimaginable horrors amongst the decaying husk of an orbital research station. It's absolutely stunning, brutal, tense, icky, and the best thing I've seen in theatres since Dune Part 2. If you have even a passing interest in deep space/future sci-fi you owe it to yourself to see this.

Gran Torino (Blu-Ray) - Every once in awhile my parents will introduce me to a movie that I otherwise wouldn't watch but end up loving, and this is one of those films (though this isn't the first time I watched it). Clint Eastwood plays the role of a crotchety (& kinda racist) old man who forms a connection with a new immigrant family next door, and in his own way tries to keep their teenaged children from falling in/victim to the local gang(s).

Heaven's Lost Property Final (Blu-Ray) - What a load of crock. Following on from the preceding two TV series & film in the HLP franchise, this film seeks to be the big finale, or at least the title would lead you to believe so. However in practice this has to be the most ill conceived/mismanaged efforts in closure I've ever seen (even by anime standards of "we're cancelling the series before reaching the manga's conclusion", it's terrible). Starts out in the middle of the big climactic final battle with no context as to what's going on, precedes to have a 40 minute long flashback (which is like 90% of the film's runtime) that never gets around to addressing how the final battle begins, then in it's final moments returns to the "present" only to not show how things end either.

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (Blu-Ray) - For the first ever feature length animation this has a lot of elements that still impress (like a lot of the water effects, such as when the camera is looking up at the titular heroine from the inside of a well), you can really tell that the animators really poured their heart & soul into this as they had everything riding on it. That said it's characters don't have much in the way of character, especially Snow White (and her "Prince Charming", who shows up like twice), although the dwarfs have a few good comedic relief bits.

@CJD87, sorry for taking awhile to get back to you. Haven't seen the Watchmen TV series since we don't subscribe to Max (& honestly I really haven't found the time to stream much even on the services we do get ever since I started collecting & watching more physically. Especially dedicating myself to TV shows).

Just got back from "Alien:Romulus" which I went to see despite my brother's express warnings. He was right - it's an insulting, nonsensical mess - the movie equivalent of one of those knock off "greatest hits" albums recorded by a cover band that includes songs from the records that nobody even likes. In terms of franchise reheats it might be even worse than "Terminator:Genisys". I want my money back.

@LN78 I saw they used the same horrible tech to ‘resurrect’ a dead actor and immediately knew I didn’t want to watch.

@nessisonett That's not even remotely the worst part, either - I might have missed more of the cringe inducing "homages" because my eyes were rolled back into my skull for at least half the runtime. Come back "Alien Resurrection" all is forgiven.

I made another one of my "custom" double-features at the cinema on Sunday; first watching Blink Twice and then moving across the hall to see Alien: Romulus

Blink Twice is a psychological thriller and the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz and even comes with a trigger warning before the movie starts! I had gone in blind and did not know what to expect other than it was a thriller and initially I was a little disappointed. The first act was maybe a bit too long and dragged a bit, and while Kravitz managed to lace the proceedings with a slight tinge of dread, I found myself thinking it took too long setting the stage for the next two acts.
When act two came around, however, it got simultaneously quite creepy and quite funny and I started enjoying it quite a bit more. Act three was almost pure brilliance and made me come away from the movie feeling quite satisfied. Far from perfect, but a very solid first effort from Kravitz and she may be a director to look out for.

Alien: Romulus will probably not need any sort of introduction, so I'll cut right to my impression of it: I liked it, but I also had quite a few issues with it. First and foremost, I think this would have been better if Alvarez would have been able to make his own movie without having Scott looking over his shoulder. It feels like the movie was compromised by the need to accommodate everything that has come before, including the unfortunate retcon that took place in Scott's own Prometheus. There are also some incredibly heavy handed callbacks in there that pulls you right out the proceedings.
Also, the practice of digitally resurrecting dead actors needs to stop. It's not something I'm up in arms about and it won't necessarily ruin a movie for me, but here it is wholly unnecessary and feels exploitative. Unfortunately, I don't see this going away until a successful lawsuit sets a legal precedent that will make typically risk averse movie studios shy away from the practice. Until that happens, I can only hope that the practice will be mostly limited to short, heartfelt homages sanctioned by the next of kin, like they did in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Now, this may be unfair (and maybe even completely wrong), but I don't fault Alvarez for the things I felt went wrong with this movie; it feels very much like Scott (and maybe Disney) interference to me.
Still though, in sum, I felt that this was a decent Alien movie and the best one to have come out since Alien 3 in my opinion, thanks to some really tense moments and Alvarez' trademark brutal, almost sadistic, treatment of his characters (one character in particular goes through the wringer here). It also contributes with some decent world-building by showing us how daily life in the shadow of the massive Weyland-Yutani corporation is in the opening act.

"Sasquatch Sunset" reminded me of why I love movies in the first place. Just wonderful.

@LN78 Been wanting to see it for a while now, but it hasn't been available here yet. It's showing as a part of Oslo Film Festival, but it sold out while I was on holiday, unfortunately. Hopefully it will open wide after the festival or hit a local streamer soon

@FuriousMachine I found it was a treat - but I suspect that it will rub a lot of people the wrong way. On that topic, I was quite surprised that you came down on the side of liking "Alien:Romulus" even though you had all the same criticisms of the thing that I had. I thought it was the worst installment in the franchise (discounting the "AvP" movies) by a mile.

@LN78 It's simply a case of the things I liked outweighing the things I didn't. Granted, it's a long time since I saw "Prometheus" and "Covenant", and I've seen them only once, so I may feel more charitable towards them if I were to see them again. I remember coming out of "Prometheus" feeling annoyed and "Covenant" feeling indifferent, but after this one I at least felt that I'd been entertained.
I'll probably go through all of them again at one point and I may change my mind then, but for now I enjoyed this one more than I did those two (I would also add that I found even the first AvP more enjoyable than those two, so there's that. Only the second AvP movie is completely useless to me and thus lands on the bottom of my list)

@FuriousMachine There's no world in which I'd describe the Ridley Scott prequels as good movies but at least they didn't make me angry in the way "Romulus" did - I actually hated the movie for the way it insulted my intelligence and franchise continuity in the same measure.

The prequels are just so forgettable. The only thing I even remember in Covenant is the weirdly hot Michael Fassbender selfcest with the two androids.

Anyway, I haven't seen AvP, but in terms of the mainline movies, I highly doubt anything will ever be worse than Alien Resurrection. I'm noticing horror sequels with "Resurrection" in the title tend to be the worst entries in their respective series.

@LN78 Would it be safe to say that Covenant left you feeling… alienated 😂

Star Trek 2009 (Blu-Ray) - I may be a bit biased as it's one I watched in theaters when it first came out, but this one is a blast. The cast has great chemistry & seems to be having fun, and it's a big fun roaring sci-fi film. I can't really speak on it's qualities as a "Trek" film as it was never really an important franchise for me growing up, but on it's own merit I always have a good time watching this.

Cutthroat Island (Blu-Ray) - I hadn't heard of this until now, but as I didn't yet have any seafaring/pirate movies in my collection, I picked up the BD when I saw it at a thrift store. Nothing particularly noteworthy, but it's a fun enough swashbuckler (I really liked the big ship battle in the climax though).

@RR529 Ah, Cutthroat Island, the Guinness World Record holder for biggest flop of all time and the movie credited with bankrupting Carolco Pictures (though, in reality, the company had always been struggling, in spite of huge blockbuster success like the Rambo movies, Terminator 2, Total Recall, etc, so the company was already going under when they released Cutthroat Island).
I haven't seen it myself, so cool to hear that it isn't entirely abysmal

@FuriousMachine Make no mistake, it is that abysmal. I imported a German blu-ray a few years back out of morbid curiosity (I wanted to see the movie that finally sank Carolco) and it transpires that the stories of its abject awfulness are all true. It's not even so bad that it's good - the mark of a truly woeful experience.

@LN78 Damn, now you poked my morbid curiosity. I will try to resist

@FuriousMachine Don't say I didn't warn you - for God's sake, Renny Harlin tried (and failed) to pass off charisma vacuum Matthew Modine as a romantic lead - largely because every major male star in Hollywood (including, amusingly, Johnny Depp) refused the part, presumably having read the first two pages of the "screenplay". It makes Bruckheimer's "Pirates" sequels look like masterpieces of substance and sublety by comparison.

I've just been told that the extended cut of Ridley Scott's "Napoleon" has been made available on Apple TV. That's my Sunday afternoon sorted out, then.