ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I agree with most of what you said, and have to add my support of All-Star Superman as one of the, if not THE, best Superman volumes in existence. I believe there's also an animated film version of it, but I haven't seen it to know how much it lives up to the book.

 

I watched the animated version back when it came out.  It's OK, but nowhere near as good as the comics.  It gets a big chunk of the fundamental plot, but like most of DC's animated stuff, it's short, which means they have to excise a lot to make it fit inside 76 minutes.  They actually cut a large number of the issues in total.  It's kinda an adaptation of issues 1-3, 5, 11 and 12.  This means

none of the Jimmy Olsen vs Superman story, none of the Jonathan Kent story, none of the stuff with Bizarro World, and they skip over the awesome stuff in issue 10 regarding Superman's Last Will and Testament.

 

They also craft a different epilogue to the animated version.

 

Superman doesn't leave his genetic code to Quintum.  Instead, Luthor reverse-engineers the genetic code from the 24 hour super serum he stole, and gives that to Quintum.  After having had his moment of enlightenment, Luthor feels that giving Quintum the ability to create a new Superman is the only way he can even attempt to redeem himself for what he has done.

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The different epilogue actually sounds like it might be good, but yeah I imagine they really have to cut/compress that storyline to get it into a short film.

 

What you said about the epilogue reminded me of one of my favourite Luthor observations of Superman, I'm trying to remember what it's from... possibly one of the Earth One books?

 

Basically, Lex Luthor said he was initially suspicious of Superman because he thought Superman had some grand plan for humanity, and didn't think an alien should be allowed to execute such a vision for his species. However, after analysing the pattern of Superman's actions, he feels this isn't the case. Superman topples a warlord somewhere, but someone worse takes his place and the situation deteriorates more, so he doesn't do so again. He prevents a natural disaster or something somewhere else, and that actually does seem to improve things, so he continues to take that action. Luthor realises that Superman doesn't have a grand plan, he's just working on trial and error like most people.

 

And this bothers him more. He's even more annoyed that someone with so much power is just trying to muddle through like the rest of us, interfering with humanity in whatever way he thinks is best at the time.

 

I think Superman and Lex Luthor and the relationship between them are absolutely concepts and characters that scale with the ingenuity and skill of the writers who frame them. As thefncrow said, they are actually boring to the point of uselessness when devoted to a standard comic book story. Despite, or perhaps because of, their archetypal construction they really need an unusual perspective to shine.

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Re. The Guest and You're Next, these are both now on my watchlist, but only because of many hearty recommendations - they both look like derivative crap!

 

Just watched The Guest. Thought it was a rather dull pastiche with some trendy music on top.

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I just saw "Hard to be a God". Holy fuck, this is a really unique movie -- at least I had never before seen anything quite like this. It's almost Mad Max Fury Road kind of refreshing, and surpasses it in attention to detail and even in the physicality of everything. I'm glad it is in black and white because otherwise I would probably have thrown up in disgust numerous times. [Right now I'm imagining it in color and I am feeling a bit sick]

 

It's not without problems, but worth seeing even just for the camerawork and all the amazing props! Great movie!

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Oh man it really is time to revisit the Grant Morrison treatment of Superman.

I caught the first few minutes of Man of Steel the other day. The boy and I thought its future art-style couldn't shake off Warhammer 40k comparisons.

 

Anyway we saw Terminator Genisys and enjoyed it. It certainly does enough to let me forget the previous two instalments.

Still I was kind of hoping that The Singularity would be forced on everyone but that Doctor Who wouldn't win. Ah well. 

Also we rewatched In Bruges with his fam. gah I love that movie.

 

In Other Other news I'm really excited for another Ennio Morricone score in a western film. I mean I'm not expecting anything to topple what his Once Upon a Time in The West score is to me but damn am I thrilled.

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That reads like massive spoilers for Terminator...

I watched Predestination and overall was unimpressed. Some good performances, but all the

time-loop stuff was mostly predictable and rather unimpressive - anyone can write a time-loop so if that's the only thing your film is about, you're in trouble.

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So I finally saw Song of the Sea* at the week end. It's a damn good movie in a lot of ways. Obviously the art style, it's so wonderful and different that it is 100% worth the occasional bit of clunk from it. The story is great, a nice way to look as nostalgia without trying to force the idea of reliving the past, it's more about remembering it properly instead of letting it fade away and  I thought they did a good job on the sibling relationship. It was also fun having the mix of modern and old irish culture moments. The bus driver's conversation is 100% irish.

I was a little bit sour on bringing the mother back at the end and all the magical folk leaving. It felt like a plot mandated thing, that it was decided to go that way for dramatic effect. In retrospect, that is how the old stories go. In particularly, Selkies are only able to live on human land for a specific limited time, which is why the mother had to leave and Saoirse had to choose what she would do. It's still not totally clear to me why Saiorse had to be the one who sang and not her mother, but I suspect that's another part of the legends that they chose not to explicitly spell out. I prefer that it was left mysterious, even if at first I was less happy with it.

 

I also saw Inside Out too. I thought it was pretty good, with some caveats. Their way of modelling personality was a little weird. The girl's defining traits are honesty, friendship, family, goofy and hockey? None of that paints a unique individual, and I feel like it's a poor representation of how personality is shaped, as if a single key memory can build one whole trait.

Though someone pointed out how the rebuilt traits are more complex, and that's supposed to match the idea of a child growing up and becoming more complicated. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I might buy it as their conceit.

 

Also the short film before IO involved 2 volcanoes and it's terrible that even a female volcano is molded to look like a pretty womantm even though the other one just straight up looked like a volcano with a face on it.

 

(Both films)

It's funny that both films have a similar core message about not restricting emotions, but I felt like SotS did a better job because IO had it weirdly muddled in their representation of inner reality, while SotS just straight up had a solid metaphorical representation for what withdrawing from emotion does to you.

 

* I'm not biased cause I didn't work here while they were making it, so everything's fine! You cannot disprove my logix.

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I just watched Rebels of a Neon God. Utterly devastating portrait of loneliness. Even if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, it's worth seeing just for all the 1992 location shooting in Taipei. Those loving shots of streets crowded with motor scooters, arcades packed with smoking teenagers, neon signs everywhere, a subplot involving stolen arcade cabinet motherboards, a 90's roller rink. It's a very specific sort of urban setting that's just catnip to me.

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Oh and one more thing about Inside Out. At the end I discovered that Kyle McLachlan played techbro dad. That was a fun reveal to get after the fact, cause I didn't notice at all.

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That reads like massive spoilers for Terminator...

 

Well after one of the main trailers spoiled what could have been a huge plot twist I kinda took the view that most people were there for big dumb robot action and the chance to finally see a good Terminator movie. But whatever.

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I didn't watch the trailers, in order to avoid spoilers.

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I guess I'm in the mood to watch movies lately because I knocked out a handful this past weekend.

 

Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods - Pretty good! Out of all of the enemies that the DBZ crew has had to face, this one had one of the more interesting ones. It was nice seeing that art mixed with pretty modern animation. It's also nice seeing Vegeta lose his shit at new heights. Getting pumped for the new DBZ series.

 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - I really, really enjoyed this one. The CG on the apes was amazing and I really enjoyed Caesar's arc. Pretty much all of the human stuff was subpar, it's really getting to the point where I can't take James Franco seriously in the least. Tom Felton was at least as big of a d-bag as ever, which is entertaining. Going to check out the sequel soon, really want to see how this world breaks down and more Ape domination.

 

Olympus Has Fallen - I kinda ironically enjoyed White House Down, which is the strange mirror universe version of this movie that was directed by Roland Emmerich and featuring his weird sense of humor + love of huge, gratuitous explosions. This movie I liked even more on a different level, as the grittiness wasn't too much and the poor humor of WHD was instead replaced by lean, spartan human interactions that I actually believed. Gerard Butler was at his best and Aaron Eckhart is always a pleasure to watch. This is another one that I watched in anticipation of a sequel, whose trailer just came out and had the Butler/Eckhart duo going to London.

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I didn't watch the trailers, in order to avoid spoilers.

 

I guess I'm on yer hit list then. Look its been a long day and I'm sorry I spoiled the movie.

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Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods - Pretty good! Out of all of the enemies that the DBZ crew has had to face, this one had one of the more interesting ones. It was nice seeing that art mixed with pretty modern animation. It's also nice seeing Vegeta lose his shit at new heights. Getting pumped for the new DBZ series.

Well so far the new series just retelling that movie, so. ):

 

The second episode did feature Vegeta going on a family vacation, though, which was top-tier Vegeta, let me tell you.

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Just watched The Guest. Thought it was a rather dull pastiche with some trendy music on top.

 

 

Yup, The Guest is great if you like the films it is succesfully aping. I sat through it and came out the other side hating it because it is such a perfect rendition of a cheesy 80s thriller/horror that all I could think of was how much I hated those films. My wife, who is a huge fan of Nightmare on Elm St and all the other schlock from that period loved it.

 

I still bought the soundtrack because, well, it was pretty great.

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Anyway we saw Terminator Genisys and enjoyed it. It certainly does enough to let me forget the previous two instalments.

Also we rewatched In Bruges with his fam. gah I love that movie.

I was going to ask what was wrong with Terminator 2. But then I remembered there was a that Christian Bale movie.

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I just saw "Hard to be a God". Holy fuck, this is a really unique movie -- at least I had never before seen anything quite like this. It's almost Mad Max Fury Road kind of refreshing, and surpasses it in attention to detail and even in the physicality of everything. I'm glad it is in black and white because otherwise I would probably have thrown up in disgust numerous times. [Right now I'm imagining it in color and I am feeling a bit sick]

 

It's not without problems, but worth seeing even just for the camerawork and all the amazing props! Great movie!

I don't think that the grotesqueness of the film would have been as powerful if it was in color; I think the B&W gives it that power.

 

I LOVE long takes/shots and Hard is filled with them; it's easily to get lost, plot wise, but that fades away as the film continues.

 

I just watched Rebels of a Neon God. Utterly devastating portrait of loneliness. Even if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, it's worth seeing just for all the 1992 location shooting in Taipei. Those loving shots of streets crowded with motor scooters, arcades packed with smoking teenagers, neon signs everywhere, a subplot involving stolen arcade cabinet motherboards, a 90's roller rink. It's a very specific sort of urban setting that's just catnip to me.

I always hear that of Tsai Ming-liang's films. I saw parts of Goodbye, Dragon Inn and man; loneliness, loneliness, and more loneliness that's pervausive through that film.

I've been dying to see his recent film, Stray Dogs.

 

Yup, The Guest is great if you like the films it is succesfullyaping. I sat through it and came out the other side hating it because it is such a perfect rendition of a cheesy 80s thriller/horror that all I could think of was how much I hated those films. My wife, who is a huge fan of Nightmare on Elm St and all the other schlock from that period loved it.

 

I still bought the soundtrack because, well, it was pretty great.

most definitely.

 

I enjoyed the film, especially towards the end. Also, maikamonroe, great actor! I love her in It Follows.

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I like cheesy 80s horrors/thrillers! I just didn't think The Guest fulfilled any of its promise or did anything interesting with its influences.

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Fair enough, I will admit that it lacked the spin that "You're Next" put on the home invasion flick.

 

That said, I think that as an homage it nailed everything that I expect from a bad 80s genre film. Sometimes, like Hobo with a Shotgun, all the directors want to do is make a film exactly like what came before.

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The Guest was great and it's influences are far from schlock. Go watch Assault on Precinct 13! And everything else Carpenter put out in the 80s!

Anyway, the Criterion sale is going on at Barnes and Noble so I got a couple more blurays. In super excited to finally watch The Seventh Seal! Yes!

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The Guest was great and it's influences are far from schlock. Go watch Assault on Precinct 13! And everything else Carpenter put out in the 80s!

Boom, this by x10000000000000000000000000000000000

But you can' deny there is a level of schlock in there

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B movie cheese and low budgets are not schlock! I feel very strongly about this! I will say They Live kind of sucks. The pacing is goddamn atrocious. The Thing though? Fucking masterpiece.

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Never said those movies weren't masterpieces--They Live is fabulous, fuck the haters--, but there were a good amount of B movie cheese and low budget that were schlock; not all of them of course, but there were many of them. Now this doesn't make them bad or any less important

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Oh for sure. But The Guest is a love letter to all the best bits of that scene and to label it's influences as schlock seems awfully unfair and reductionist to me.

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Hmmm, I think I can get down with that.  

 

In all honesty, I just have to re-watch The Guest again.

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