ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Presto is still my favorite short but on the other hand, "lava" sounds a lot like "love" with the right accent, so good on Pixar for recognizing that and then only doing that for an entire short.

 

I want to change my answer, Presto is the best Pixar movie.

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1. Incredibles

2. Monsters Inc.

3. Wall-E

 

Honourable mention to Ratatouille, 'cos its getting a right kicking on here. I think it's cute and funny.

Don't like any of the "Cars" series

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I like the concept of "A dude that can have all of his extremities controlled perfectly by a rat pulling on different parts of his hair" being "dumb goofy shit that plagues almost every other kids movie". Like, a world where THAT is a cliche, where every Madagascar and Ice Age movie has scenes of rats controlling men via follicles...that's a world I'd like to live in. That's a world worth being proud of.

 

Again, I acknowledge the line between "whimsical" and "corny" is a subjective one. But personally I think both Up and Ratatouille land way way way on the side of whimsical.

 

Meanwhile in Monster's Inc. INSTEAD OF A WALK AND DON'T WALK SIGN IT SAYS STALK AND DON'T STALK DO YOU GET IT, POO-POO PLATTER DO YOU GET IT.

 

To be honest, that subjective line is all over the place for me. It's weird that Ratatouille rubs me the way it does and yet I guarantee there are probably a bunch of other movies with similar "issues" that I totally love. I'll at least give Ratatouille credit that it is consistent with all that goofy stuff. Unlike Up, where you start the movie in tears and are led to believe you are going to see a movie about one thing (an old man flying his house around the world), but instead you end up with a movie about an entirely other thing (talking dogs flying planes (they're dogfighting! DO YOU GET IT?) and old guys that can't even walk down stairs ziplining between flying ships).

 

Also, I quite liked Monster's Inc. But Monster's University was a hot pile of garbage. They literally copy-pasted Revenge of the Nerds and made it into a kids movie. Actually, I think I've blocked that one from my memory because now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, Monster's University is the worst Pixar movie (maybe even worse than Cars if Cars didn't have Larry the Cable Guy in it).

 

Also also, I know it's not Pixar but I like Wreck-It Ralph a whole bunch. It's one of those movies that has been played in our house a lot over the years so I've probably seen it at least 30 times and never get sick of it.

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I was talking with my partner last night and I think I really hate Finding Nemo. So much dopey humor and I think animated fish are really boring to look at. And now they're gonna do a sequel focusing on the worst character? Cool cool cool, Pixar.

 

I don't agree with the complaints about Up being tonally inconsistent but ultimately I think the things people complain about are why I think it's such a great film: it's a mainstream adventure movie that utterly disposes of formula. There's nothing surprising about the world of Monster's Inc. because you know everything's just going to be about monster equivalents of our world. By that same tact, there's nothing surprising about the worlds of Finding Nemo or or Bug's Life or (to a lesser extent) Inside Out, because they all operate on the same basic premise: What if ___________ was a world like our own?

 

As someone who didn't watch any trailers or behind the scenes stuff for Up, it was consistently surprising. You don't expect the story of these two kids to turn into one of the greatest depictions of thwarted dreams ever depicted on film. I expected the house to fly because I had seen the teaser poster, but I was NOT expecting it to happen the way it did.

(Once a house flies into the air via balloons and you're still watching you've forfeited your right to complain about it not being realistic.)

 

Then when it finally lands a dog runs up and starts talking. What? That's not a formula, that's not an obvious corny joke, that's strange. It's unusual and weird and whimsical.

 

I think a lot of people go into movies with expectations and like to see the best version of what they expect the movie to be. They want to be promised a superhero movie about family and go in and see a good version of that. They want to know "this is the one where emotions are alive and working in a factory-like setting of your mind" and then see it.

 

Me, I want to be surprised. I want my expectations to be subverted. That's why I love Ratatouille and Up so much. They totally dispense with formula to do other crazy things, while still very much being anchored by strong ideas and good direction. And I think the fact that they aren't endlessly repeating the "GET IT, IT'S LIKE THE TOY EQUIVALENT OF A SPEAKER SYSTEM" kind of jokes means that their humor is stronger as well.

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I was talking with my partner last night and I think I really hate Finding Nemo. So much dopey humor and I think animated fish are really boring to look at. And now they're gonna do a sequel focusing on the worst character? Cool cool cool, Pixar.

 

Totally agree with you here. I don't necessarily hate it but it is really really middling for me.

 

 

(Once a house flies into the air via balloons and you're still watching you've forfeited your right to complain about it not being realistic.)

 

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My girlfriend and I were talking about Up earlier, and how we loved the first half, but were disappointed when the baddie and his canine army showed up.

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My girlfriend and I were talking about Up earlier, and how we loved the first half, but were disappointed when the baddie and his canine army showed up.

 

Yeah, that's my problem with Up. It runs out of ideas halfway through and reverts to a really banal formula: a half-mad antagonist with no discernible motivations besides stopping the protagonists from doing anything for no reason.

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Just going to quickly say that Monsters University gets a bad rep. I wasn't into it on the first viewing, but I've come to really appreciate much of it on repeated viewings. It's like an inverse Pixar story curve, in that it starts out a mess but gradually gets better until it really nails the ending in a very simple and efficient way. It also refreshingly dumps the almost standard “you can do ANYTHING you want, as long as you put your mind to it!” kids movie message, which it seems to be building up to.

 

It's definitely less of a mess than Cars. :tdown:

 

Also, DORY IS THE BEST, YOU ARE BOTH WRONG! :( :(

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I was talking with my partner last night and I think I really hate Finding Nemo. So much dopey humor and I think animated fish are really boring to look at. And now they're gonna do a sequel focusing on the worst character? Cool cool cool, Pixar.

 

Oh man, really? Finding Nemo might be my favourite. Although that's probably still the first Toy Story.

 

I think my ratings would probably go:

 

1. Toy Story

2. Finding Nemo

3. Toy Story 2

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My two favourites are Toy Story and The Incredibles, with Wall-E and Inside Out as runners up. I'm not a big fan of any of the others, though they're mostly fine. I was actively pissed off at Toy Story 3 (and to a lesser extent 2), though - I don't want to watch those characters accept their impending death or listen to a soppy ballad about getting abandoned by their owner. If Pixar want to make adult dramas they shouldn't crowbar them into sequels to a light, fun movie.

 

Double-post just to say that I'm not sure this complaint is quite fair, insofar that the original Toy Story gets pretty dark and dramatic in a lot of ways too (the whole sequence at Sid's place, mainly). I agree that Toy Story 3's tone varies really wildly, though, which is why I don't like it as much as the first two.

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Man, there's a surprising amount of variation on opinions here.

It's kind of funny that we all pretty much agree on Cars though.

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Double-post just to say that I'm not sure this complaint is quite fair, insofar that the original Toy Story gets pretty dark and dramatic in a lot of ways too (the whole sequence at Sid's place, mainly). I agree that Toy Story 3's tone varies really wildly, though, which is why I don't like it as much as the first two.

 

TOY STORY SERIES SPOILERS: Woody getting momentarily scared by some hodge-podge toys before realising they're all really nice is not the same as all the heroes slowly going to a horrible death, looking at each other, holding hands, closing their eyes as they accept their doom. I really like that momentary creepiness of the former (and also when they reveal themselves to Sid); the two just don't compare.

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Started watching the Leftovers. Hate the name and the opening but it's a pretty fun character show. I'm watching in the hope that it's like Lost without the overarching mystery to ruin it.

Eccleston is my favourite character. I really wish it had less of the American style family focus though. I don't know why it's always such a theme of American drama but it gets old.

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Started watching the Leftovers. Hate the name and the opening but it's a pretty fun character show. I'm watching in the hope that it's like Lost without the overarching mystery to ruin it.

Eccleston is my favourite character. I really wish it had less of the American style family focus though. I don't know why it's always such a theme of American drama but it gets old.

 

I really like it! It's basically Lost but with a big "Fuck you, there are no answers" right there in every line of dialogue almost. I only started watching a couple months back and I liked s1 but s2 is much stronger. Aside from Eccleston, Carrie Coon is also fantastic! And Justin Theroux has grown on me after almost two seasons!

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Yeah that's exactly what I was hoping. I do wanna see some Carrie Coon! She hasn't done much in the episodes I've seen so far. And I do kinda like the character, it's what his story revolves around that's turning me off.

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Kingsman: The Secret Service was so bad that I'm even grumpy at Film Crit Hulk for his big post praising the film. Just finished it and the only two things I liked were the production design and 

the sequence where everyone's head explodes

. Vaughn still directs every action sequence like the speed-ramping warehouse fight in Kick-Ass and so much of the film's content comes off as a mix of trite commentary and gross stuff. It's a mess that consistently squanders its opportunities, uggggh.

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Saw Carol. You know how from the trailer and press it looks like one of those empty, worthy, "give us an Oscar" films? It's not that. At all. Really liked it. Anyone seen it?

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It was disappointing that the ending couldn't just be "It's better to try a desperate, maybe hopeless attempt than give up", instead it had to be that as soon as they put in effort the whole world was reborn.

He shouldn't have got his memory back either

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I finished True Detective Season 2, am listening through the Idle podcast right now.

 

I was cold on it but by the third episode I was hooked in.

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Wow, Master of None might be the most faith-in-humanity-restoring thing on "TV" (ever?). Also binged on Jessica Jones on the weekend and it was great!

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Wow, Master of None might be the most faith-in-humanity-restoring thing on "TV" (ever?). Also binged on Jessica Jones on the weekend and it was great!

 

Yes. And one of the episodes (of Master of None) actually made me cry. So yeah. Watch that thing.

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