Topic: The Movie Thread

I was surprised by a friend with tickets to see the limited 10th anniversary Interstellar showing at my local IMAX tonight. It's one of my favourites so I'm obviously pretty excited!

Started in on a stack of Christmas themed movies with "Batman Returns". I'd gone off this one the last time I watched it but was firmly back on board with this viewing - I'd never considered that it might be in the same category of franchise self sabotage/studio F.U. efforts as "Gremlins 2", "Joker 2" and "Matrix 4". It was a Summer tentpole movie, squarely aimed at kids that's set at Christmas and starts with an attempted infanticide and only gets weirder (and more pervy) from there. Somebody must've thought it was a good idea, I suppose.

28 Years Later trailer is out in the wild. Looks alright, can’t believe Cillian Murphy went full Bale on the weight loss 😱

@PeaceSalad Looks like you are early with your quartely name change, eh?

Think he also lost weight for Oppenheimer, so has a bit of history for doing it for roles.

@JohnnyShoulder Well it has been 90 days so my quarters are a little unconventional 😉

I was taking the piss a bit to be honest, I’m not even sure he appeared in the trailer but the internet has commenced their nuttiness on a certain section. Those crazy kids, eh?

As I was finishing up the rather sublime novel "James" by Percival Everett, I was struck by how brilliant a good adaptation of it could be, so I had to check if one was in the works.
And, sure enough, Universal have bought the rights and it is being developed by Spielberg himself at Amblin Entertainment, with an eye to Taika Waititi to direct. Now, while I'm not sure if they are the best people to adapt this, I am sure that they are far from the worst.
Time will show what comes of this, though, but as I started to wonder who might fit the title role, I realised I was a bit unsure of how old the protagonist is in this book (it may have been stated there or in one of Twain's novels, but, if so, I missed it). I'm guessing Huck is maybe in the range of 10-15 (I'm thinking 12), which would probably make James somewhere in his thirties.
I guess Michael B. Jordan would easily be able to do the character justice, but I think I would prefer an actor with a somewhat lower profile, like William Catlett (skewing older) and Jordan Calloway (skewing younger). I think I would prefer Catlett, but I'm just not sure. Anyone else having thoughts on this?

Die Another Day being on the telly and not being as overwhelmingly terrible as I remember is 100% because modern blockbusters are typically even worse. Like it’s obviously a rubbish movie and none of it makes sense, and it’s incredibly cheesy, but I’ll take silly schlock over No Time To Die, Quantum of Solace or Spectre any day. That Madonna song is awful though.

@nessisonett It's an embarrasment of a film. Still haven't seen "No Time To Die" which as a lifelong Bond fanatic is pretty ridiculous. I keep meaning to but inevitably find "reasons" to put it off.

@LN78 It’s very very silly. But I’ll take terrible 00s drivel over washed out, £400 million budget CGI fests filmed against a green screen.

@nessisonett Watch something else - something not terrible - instead. Every time I watch (or attempt to watch) "NTTD" I find something else to hate about it. Like, how does Graves (as well as achieving worldwide fame, fortune and so on - in, lest we forget, an assumed identity - in the space of fourteen months) manage to commission, design, build and launch an orbital laser platform in the same timeframe? These are projects whose schedules are measured in decades. What a guy! The only thing more unbelievable is Madonna's "performance" as (excuse me) a world renowned fencing teacher. Get bent Lee Tamahori.
PS While I agree that on the whole "SPECTRE" isn't very good, there's more considered and applied thought, skill, care and creativity in just the opening shot of that film's pre-title sequence than exists in the entirety of "Die Another Day".

@LN78 There are so many incoherent writing decisions that it sort of just becomes camp. And the weird slowmo during fight sequences is laughable. But then you get Bond surfing away from a collapsing iceberg and it delves into ‘this is fun if terrible’ territory. I would probably never choose to watch Die Another Day but it was on the telly and given I’ve thought it was irredeemable for years, I was more surprised that there is enjoyment to be had. It’s similar to my thoughts on the Phantom Menace after having watched the disaster that The Rise of Skywalker was. Yes, these films are slated for a reason but I’ll take an all-time stinker over boring mediocrity.

@nessisonett The "so bad it's good" or "what were they smoking?" arguments certainly hold water, mate. As I get older I just have a harder and harder time sitting through movies (see my recent thoughts on "Alien: Rhombobulous") that actively insult my (admittedly limited) intelligence - and "Die Another Day" was one of the first movies that I walked out of (twenty some years ago) for doing precisely that - at the point (that you mentioned) where Bond starts parasurfing away from a terrible CGI iceberg on a terrible CGI tsunami. The comparatively grounded (and comparatively excellent - although I think overpraised) "GoldenEye" was only two films back, for Pete's sake!
PS Which is the all time stinker? "TPM" or "RotS" ? It's hard to keep track of the low points in that franchise. At least "RotS" is unitentionally funny, I suppose. "TPM" couldn't even manage that much.

@LN78 I hate when you get stuff like Face/Off being described as ‘so bad it’s good’, it’s just a good solid action movie with great performances and it’s entirely self aware silly. When I say something’s terrible but I enjoyed it, I’m talking proper disasters like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (awful) or one of the mostly terribly aged bro comedies of the 00s like Dude Where’s My Car or EuroTrip. I think sometimes people can forget that movies sometimes aim to be silly or hokey in places and that can work, Shaolin Soccer springs to mind as an insane movie that I love but also was well-received despite being the sort of movie that would normally get slated on impulse.

Clones is the worst imo. Terrible romance, not much actually happens and the ending is an anticlimax. The big Jedi fight is great though, plus has one of the best Lego levels 😂

@nessisonett I can't even remember what happens in "Attack of the Clones" - which probably adds weight to your contention. Yeah, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with movies that are self aware and that have the audience in on the joke - a good portion on the Bond canon falls into that category, actually. I think what makes "so bad that they're good" or "what were they smoking?" movies entertaining is probably the incompetence (and/or the wastefulness) on display. Like I said, what gets on my nerves is when the filmmakers treat me like an idiot.

Saw the first half of the new animated (it looks a bit like a late era Telltale game) "Watchmen". It's not bad - but it only really serves to demonstrate that Alan Moore made a comic because he wanted to make a comic - not a movie, a TV show or a novel - and to prove the unique capabilities of that medium. It also highlights how ham-fisted Snyder's live action adaptation really was. I'm interested to see if the animated version keeps the original ending (the one that makes sense) intact - I'm guessing that it does. Nice as a curiosity but completely unnecessary for anybody who has read the comics - a helpful prequel to the excellent HBO.series, perhaps.