Movie/TV recommendations

[Nappi]

What Hollywood movie isn't dogshit these days?

Gravity apparently.

 

Can't wait to see it [checks the date for the Finnish premiere] in a month.

[melmer]

I haven't been to the cinema in ages and all of a sudden a bunch of movies have come along that I would quite like to see. Prisoners, Filth and gravity

I think the main reason why is because I know next to nothing about them and managed to miss all trailers. I'm not really sold on gravity but the reception has bowled me over

[Ben X]

Saw Filth. McAvoy's great but the film doesn't have much drive or depth, it's just "here's a completely fucked up guy, let's watch him for two hours".

[TychoCelchuuu]

Saw Filth. McAvoy's great but the film doesn't have much drive or depth, it's just "here's a completely fucked up guy, let's watch him for two hours".

So it's like babysitting then.

[Ben X]

It's like babysitting James McAvoy.

[melmer]

Just watched "The Bourne Legacy: The hunt for chem's" and was presently surprised, I had heard so many bad things about it that I had avoided watching it for months. But I took the plunge and I enjoyed it! I found it engaging and very watchable. It's a really simple story wrapped up in a high brow espionage facade. It is pointless and the final moments will leave you completely unfulfilled, but is a fun ride and worth a watch

I watched it on sky's nowtv app player thing. Went in intending to re-watch Prometheus (which comes with its own stigma) and Bourne popped up when I was scrolling through and just thought what the hell.

[Frenetic Pony]

Gravity is the most spectacularly entertaining plotless movie ever. It's the sort of thing that makes you want Alfonso Quaron to make a video game movie, because there's nothing there but action sequence after action sequence and spectacular sequence one after the other with only little tidbits of character in between. And yet it was damned worth it anyway.

 

I also see no reason whatsoever you wouldn't see it in 3D on a huge screen. IMAX or similar is a must.

[sclpls]

The camera shots from the 1st person perspective in Gravity were so amazingly tense. This and Cave of Forgotten Dreams are the only 3D movies I've seen where I was glad I saw it in 3D. Amazing director. People that haven't seen Children of Men should absolutely see that too.

[Argobot]

There is a lot to love about Gravity, but my absolutely favorite part of the film is the characterization of Dr. Stone. Finally a female character that feels like a real woman and not some coldly competent superwoman. She is allowed to make mistakes, panic, and be recognizably feminine in ways that are sadly rare in action films. The Dr. Stone character reminds me a lot of Ripley, and I hope that she gets the same kind of reverence among sci-fi fans.

[Gormongous]

There is a lot to love about Gravity, but my absolutely favorite part of the film is the characterization of Dr. Stone. Finally a female character that feels like a real woman and not some coldly competent superwoman. She is allowed to make mistakes, panic, and be recognizably feminine in ways that are sadly rare in action films. The Dr. Stone character reminds me a lot of Ripley, and I hope that she gets the same kind of reverence among sci-fi fans.

 

Spoiler about a major plot point of Gravity below:

 

There was the briefest moment of panic when George Clooney crawled inside the Soyuz capsule with her. I was like, "Oh god, Alfonso, really? There's really going to be some implausible excuse for why this dude has to come save her?" And then my brain stopped bitching and started picking up all the clues about the scene. Of course it's not some dude, it's her brain externalizing her own training in a very real and very personable way. God, what a movie. Loved every moment. Never going into space now though. Never.

 

Actually, on the topic of Gravity, did anyone read the review of the movie by Buzz Aldrin? It was the only thing about the movie I'd seen/read/heard going in, so it dominated my brain during the (scant) downtime during.

 

 

EDIT: Heard on a movie podcast that Bullock insisted that she cry but never scream. God, so much love for all of it.

[sclpls]

I hadn't seen that Buzz Aldrin review (thanks for the link!), but I've seen a lot of quotes from NASA people that were super impressed by the amount of realism in the movie.

[Patrick R]

Seeing Gravity tonight on a real-live actual IMAX screen. So excited.

 

In other film news, there's a new documentary about Bikini Kill and Le Tigre front-woman Kathleen Hanna and it couldn't possibly be more generic. If you are interested in Riot Grrl and know nothing about it, it's not a bad crash course, but man was it disappointing.

[Frenetic Pony]

I hadn't seen that Buzz Aldrin review (thanks for the link!), but I've seen a lot of quotes from NASA people that were super impressed by the amount of realism in the movie.

 

The biggest problem with it is that the ISS and Hubble aren't nearly on the same orbits. Now changing orbit in terms of altitude isn't that hard, you burn going towards apogee (farthest point from earth) or perigee. But changing your orbit direction requires a lot more fuel, more fuel even than the shuttle has for going from Hubble to the ISS, let alone a measly jetpack thing. Because if you don't, lets say the ISS is moving laterally to you, and at orbital speeds that lateral movement is hundreds of miles and hour faster than you're going, so you try to grab on you go "splat!" on one of the few available windows if you aim that lucky.

 

Still, it was highly entertaining, so what do I care? Also the best use of 3D since The Hobbit last year (though The Hobbit still did it better). I think that's the problem with 3D by the way, it's another tool like depth of field or etc. If the director really makes use of it well, it can look good, but not every director is going too, so paying extra for it is a gamble, it's like paying extra for color, you don't really know if it's worth it.

[tegan]

I finally saw Mimic and Pitch Black this week, but I found both kind of disappointing.

[clyde]

Oooh, ooh! Go watch "The Conversation" ok, joke.

This was an excellent suggestion. No joke.

[sclpls]

The Conversation has one of my all time favorite endings for a movie.

[clyde]

I had never seen it. The original context of the suggestion was my request for cyberpunk that doesn't depend on action sequences, and I think The Conversation satisfied those requirements in spirit. Even the surveillance-equipment-porn was satisfying. The equipment may be dated, but having an array of gadgets in front of an operator who can use the hardware with illicit expertise to unlock secrets is the thing I like about cyberpunk. I actually really enjoyed the aesthetic that allows me to see a managable set to capacitors and circuitry, it's more expressive of the technology's complexity than the touch-device in Minority Report which seems focused on accessibility of information in an established network. The information in The Conversation is unique, authentic, and fragile on the tapes. that makes the brokerage of the information so tense.

[brkl]

For great Gravity trivia see Neal deGrasse Tyson's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/neiltyson

I meant petty-ish criticism of its logic and realism.

Or this: http://mashable.com/2013/10/07/neil-degrasse-tyson-gravity/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it

[Twig]

Haha that does seem kinda petty, but he at least said he did enjoy it in one tweet, so that's good!

 

Also, a lot of that seems like pretty basic space physics - stuff of which I've been consciously aware for a long portion of my life - being broken, so I'm a little wary of my own suspension of disbelief. In what is supposed to be a hard science fiction movie, if I see stuff like that, I'm likely to roll my eyes AT LEAST a little. But, well, it's not like that would destroy the plot. Just some of the circumstances.

 

I need to see Gravity. Gonna try to talk my friends into doing so this weekend. U:

[sclpls]

To be sure, just because there is a high degree of realism in the movie doesn't mean that it is a completely realistic movie. There are plenty of unrealistic elements in service of the narrative of the movie. They had physicists as consultants though, so they were at least aware of what rules they were breaking I'm sure. I think the balance struck is totally reasonable.

 

But I guess if you are more of a space nerd than a film nerd some of that stuff might bug you. Film nerds will lose their shit over that opening 15 minutes shot though because that stuff is the best.

[elmuerte]

I watched "The Man Who Sued God" again. I really love this movie, but that's probably due to my feelings towards religion and law.

[Zeusthecat]

I watched "The Man Who Sued God" again. I really love this movie, but that's probably due to my feelings towards religion and law.

 

Did he win? I imagine god might have some pretty good lawyers.

[elmuerte]

Yes he did. And nope, God didn't have lawyers, it didn't even show up. The man basically sued religion as representatives of god.

[clyde]

Is George Burns in it?

[Hermie]

I saw Hot Fuzz and The World's End as a double bill yesterday, having caught Shaun of the Dead on DVD the day before. Everybody knows Fuzz and Shaun are fun movies, and TWE holds up the same raunchy, yet emotionally honest tone that works so well in the other movies.

 

 

It's fascinating to see the characters reflect the different parts of life that Pegg & Wright are in while writing the movies. In terms of the action plot, TWE and Shaun are very similar ("fight off mindless creatures, get to pub"), but the group dynamics are completely different.

 

Also, I desparately want to see...

The movie that appears in the ending. Or rather, I would want to play Fallout: London as The King.