ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Yeah, but if you want the technical achievement of a long take, you just watch Russian Ark instead (and are incredibly bored). The way that Cuarón uses long takes to explore a space and draw the viewer in is nothing short of masterful.

 

Yeah, exactly.

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What don't you like about the last 45 seconds?

 

Usually I'm pretty dismissive of spoiler culture, but I like this movie so much, I just don't have the heart to risk anyone's sense of wonder.

 

From a writing perspective, I don't like that the ship actually appears in the end. I feel like the whole movie is about a disillusioned man finding something to believe in and the redemptive power of that belief on its own, so having the ship show up, even if Theo is not alive to see it, muddies those waters a little. But I fully acknowledge that there's no way a mass-market movie, even one as dark as Children of Men, would ever end with the world's only mother and child alone at sea with a corpse, so I don't hold it against the movie at all.

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Usually I'm pretty dismissive of spoiler culture, but I like this movie so much, I just don't have the heart to risk anyone's sense of wonder.

 

From a writing perspective, I don't like that the ship actually appears in the end. I feel like the whole movie is about a disillusioned man finding something to believe in and the redemptive power of that belief on its own, so having the ship show up, even if Theo is not alive to see it, muddies those waters a little. But I fully acknowledge that there's no way a mass-market movie, even one as dark as Children of Men, would ever end with the world's only mother and child alone at sea with a corpse, so I don't hold it against the movie at all.

 

I am pretty sure

that it's ambiguous. A ship appears. Not necessarily The Ship. First time I played through The Walking Dead I assumed the epilogue was inspired by Children of Men. Two figures appear. You don't know who they are.

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I am pretty sure

that it's ambiguous. A ship appears. Not necessarily The Ship. First time I played through The Walking Dead I assumed the epilogue was inspired by Children of Men. Two figures appear. You don't know who they are.

 

The ship has the word "Tomorrow" painted on its bow, which different characters say at least twice before in the movie is the name of the hospital ship disguised as a fishing boat by the Human Project.

 

I think it's pretty unambiguous unless you're exercising a pretty zealous brand of skepticism. I wish you were right, though.

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I've seen Children of Men maybe ten times, never once saw the word "Tomorrow'' painted on the bow. Wonder how I missed that.

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So a friend got me in to a special screening of the uncut Plague Dogs print that the director brought to Austin the other day. I've never seen that before and boy was that heavy. Great film, glad I watched it, even though I might not be up for another viewing. The animation style was very interesting in the way it ignored outlines and actually showed talking dogs acting like just dogs (that talked) without any of the usual animation trope crap to get it up to Lady and the Tramp tier.

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Just watched Oblivion.

 

Same director as Tron Legacy, except he wrote Oblivion as well as directed it unlike Tron (not a writer there). And considering the Daft Punk soundtrack was the main good thing to come out of Tron I didn't have high expectations. Which was probably good, because Oblivion managed to exceed those low expectations, if not by an incredible amount.

 

Trying to avoid spoilers, the movie was great to look at. A very unique take on an apocalyptic earth despite have more than enough of that recently, and some stunning shots in general to boot. But that was the only particularly standout effort in this film, the rest was almost, but definitely not, good enough to be in a really good movie. There were action scenes that were well paced, well filmed, made sense in context, but never really got terribly exciting or impressive. A story that was cogent and coherent, that twists and turns, that just wasn't quite original enough or had enough going on in it. A set of actors that were competent veterans and solid in their parts and did their jobs, that never managed to be a charismatic enough hit to carry the entire movie like Johnny Depp in the original Pirates or Sam Rockwell with Moon.

 

So all in all it was the sum of its parts, almost good enough to be really good, but not crossing the finish line. Still, it was nice to see a science fiction movie that was actually coherent and at least tried, and even often did, make sense. The utter crap that Damon Lindelof and crew have been dreking in Hollywood recently (Prometheus, etc.) has been more than enough thank you. So that combined with "almost good enough" still made it worth watching, even if it's not particularly memorable :tup:

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I watched both the 1982 movie and the 2011 movie both entitled The Thing! This post will contain spoilers for both movies.

 

The 1982 movie I've seen lots of times; no big surprises there. It's probably my second-favourite horror film after Alien and I'll always admire the effects work, acting, music, etc. My favourite scene is still when they find the partially-transformed Thing in the snow, where it looks human except it can't speak yet and has weird fucked up hands. It so clearly indicates exactly why the Thing is a threat and what its limitations are. Watching it this time I realized that somebody somewhere made the effort to operate a puppet that was on fire, and that ain't not bad.

 

The 2011 movie is weird. I hesitate to call it a bad movie. It's just kind of mediocre and forgettable. While it clearly tries to do its own thing to set it apart, it is by necessity slavishly loyal to the John Carpenter film. On top of finally questions like "how did that axe get in that door" (spoiler: a dude fucking axes a thing), sometimes you even get to see weird parallel versions of scenes from the 1982 movie. eg: they devise an alternate (and kind of flawed) equivalent to Jake Rodkin's favourite blood test scene. The acting is decent enough (especially on the part of the lead, who is distinguishable from the rest of the cast by virtue of being a woman), though we never really get much of a picture of who each character is besides a set of interchangeable bearded men like it was the fucking Hobbit (though I remember originally feeling the same way about the 1982 Thing, so maybe it'll improve on repeat viewings). There's a few things that bug me though. The 2011 Thing is often too fast and aggressive and conversational. In the Carpenter movie, the only time the Thing ever carries on a real conversation is when Wilford Brimley wants to be let back into the camp, and it's deliberately a very unconvincing and cyclical argument. It also almost exclusively acts defensively. It doesn't reveal itself unless absolutely necessary and it keeps a low profile. It doesn't build a weapon, but an escape vehicle. There's a really great short story based on the idea that the Thing is nonagressive and just a scared creature trying to survive, which is how I've always the film. In the 2011 version, it almost immediately uses conversation to lure Ramona Flowers into a room so that it can attack and consume her. It's uncharacteristic and inconsistent. The CG doesn't help matters; the new Thing has that serviceable but boring Cloverfield/Super 8/King Kong etc. weightless mass of slimy fish flesh look, and the speed that it moves and transforms at now make it seem more like one of those terrible Perfect Killing Machine movie monsters than like something desperately trying to adapt to the situation. Also, all of the stupid spaceship spectacle stuff with the unnecessary opening car crash and the stupid spaceship interior bits with the totally bland designs can fuck right off.

 

2 1/2 stars out of 4; would pick up for five dollars out of a discount Blu-Ray bin

 

 

As a side note, I have seen the first adaptation of "Who Goes There," 1951's "The Thing From Another World." It's pretty crummy and not recommended.

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I watched The Thing (2011) one afternoon because I was feeling really crummy and wanted to watch something that I could easily get angry at to distract myself (full disclosure: The Thing (1982) is my favorite horror movie and probably one of my top 5 favorite movies period, there was no I was going to like the reboot/remake).

 

Weirdly, The Thing (2011) is one of the few times I wish that there weren't any female characters in a film. One of the aspects of John Carpenter's film that I love is how it can be seen as an examination of masculine power and relationships. Adding a woman to the mix -- especially when the character is so blandly written that it doesn't matter what gender they are -- doesn't do anything good for the story and ends up being a distraction.

 

 

As a side note, I have seen the first adaptation of "Who Goes There," 1951's "The Thing From Another World." It's pretty crummy and not recommended.

 

I watched that movie with my grandfather when I was six or seven. I didn't sleep for a week afterward.

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On a scale of 1 to snikt, how snikt is The Wolverine?

I'd give it four fifths of a snikt probably.

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I finally watched Upstream Color this weekend. I love that this is his followup to Primer. I think the connections in UC are spectacular, the color coordination of the scenes, and the narrative, and the audio. Really something else, and surprisingly coherent for a movie this dreamlike. 

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The Thing From Another World is so great. Amazing script, great dialogue, great performances. It's not as scary as The Thing, but as far as 50's sci-fi goes, it's hard to find one more fun.

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I'd give it four fifths of a snikt probably.

 

Well, considering Wolverine has exactly six snikts to his body (three on every hand), four fifths on a scale of ten would translate to 4,8 snikts to six. Good show.

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I finally watched Upstream Color this weekend. I love that this is his followup to Primer. I think the connections in UC are spectacular, the color coordination of the scenes, and the narrative, and the audio. Really something else, and surprisingly coherent for a movie this dreamlike. 

 

Saw this recently too, and loved it. I'm not sure why some people were so confused by it: The storytelling is sparse, but I understood most things on first viewing.

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The 'whats' of Upstream Color are pretty straight forward, but the 'hows' and 'whys' are a little less clear. I think people tend to get too wrapped up in the second category and are bogged down in trying to unravel a 'mystery' that isn't meant to be solved.

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I think the film intentionally tells it's story in an obscure way to put you in the mindset of characters who know SOMETHING has happened, but are lost as to what it is and why & how it happened. It's really not so surprising that people find a purposefully nebulous movie nebulous.

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The Thing From Another World is so great. Amazing script, great dialogue, great performances. It's not as scary as The Thing, but as far as 50's sci-fi goes, it's hard to find one more fun.

 

Really? Because I remember really hating how they switched out the really interesting mimic angle for a generic dumb-looking plant monster. I also dislike on principle that the guy who wants to learn about and attempt to communicate with the Thing is made to be the clear-cut villain. Maybe I'll have to watch it again.

Also, for better 50's sci-fi I recommend The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), The Fly (1958), Forbidden Planet (1956), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

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It's a different and inferior movie to the remake, to be sure (haven't read the short story, so I can't comment on that). But it's got really sharp dialogue, the pacing is good, the characters are well-drawn. And the monster and the violence he causes are both strong enough for me that it's a pretty effective threat, even if it's not as interesting or scary as the remake. I really can't say the same for Creature From The Black Lagoon (as much as I love that film and it's beautiful 3D underwater photography).

 

The rest you listed are also really great, but none of them are quite as fun and enjoyable to me as The Thing From Another World. But it was a pretty great decade for the sci-fi film, so there's a lot of great examples to choose from, for people of any taste.

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In case you were wondering (and I'm sure you were), the movie Ironclad from 2011 is not very good, neither as an entertainment experience nor as a historical document.

 

Just about the only good moment is about an hour and a half in, when Paul Giamatti as King John rants about the divine right of kings for two minutes solid. He actually scores some good points, but we're supposed to start cheering and flashing our American flag/Union Jack tattoos because the rebel at whom he's yelling shoots back some shit about "freedom" and "the people."

 

God, I have no patience for historical epics these days...

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I've got one episode left of Hannibal (which I've just been informed we're going to watch in about 10mins, excite!) it's really fucking good. Would definitely recommend :tup:

 

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Network: one amazing dialogue after the other. Less of a coherent movie, perhaps, more an incredibly interesting set of scenarios and situations, with people reacting in believable yet surprising ways.

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on a scale of Plan 9 from outer space to Kondom des grauens, how aweful are we talking?

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I've somehow managed to miss both of those movies so I can't compare :) The google image results for kondom des grauens can not be unseen

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