Cloud Atlas and Arrival - two of the best of that particular genre of mixed-up scifi affairs, Arrival particularly is one of my favourite scifi films of the last 10 years. I'd settled on the plot by about the 3rd flash but that didn't detract one iota from how awesome it was. See also 12 Monkeys (it's been going on for decades ).
I feel I should clarify a little bit, my flippant comment seems to have started taking on a life of its own.. I didn't mean to suggest that 'clever' films that employ this tactic are bad films, or that they're genuinely outsmarting people, or that the people they do outfox are dopes, just that it seems to be the 'in thing' to ping around the plot like a hyperactive kid with a bag of cocaine in a toy store to try and dress up a relatively mundane plot as something more. I pointed at Cloud Atlas because that was the film that made me sceptical of any other 'clever' film. Some of the bigger films in this vein have made discussions on 'em toxic (coughredditcough), and come across to me like the intent was to deliberately try and stop people getting the plot. Often the problem is that they fail at their attempt, IMO. Honestly totally forgot Arrival was even a film, never watched it because the trailers made it feel like it was going to do just what it sounds like it does - And from what's been said, I'm not sad I haven't watched it! S'why I compared them to horror films of late. Jump scares all over the place because no studio is going to back a creeping horror movie (In that it mostly just aims to instil a sense of dread and questioning instead of going 'oogidyboogidyboo' every X minutes) in this day and age's attention span. And possibly no one wants to make one, either. At least, going by horror movie artwork that routinely has the big bad front and centre.
I love his work and he's clearly got movie making down pat, but so much of his oeuvre seems to rely on a desaturated colour palette. Dune could have been a glitzy space opera but it looks like it's the music video for a humourless German techno band from the 90s. It's only a single reveal, and it's actually, like, part of the story, in the same way an unusual narrative sequence is used in Memento (a 20 year old movie written by... Christopher Nolan). It's not like an onanistic director having a knowing glance to camera for the sake of it like Tarantino (or Nolan in Tenet with his stupid bullets and his stupid car chase).
I've not watched Tenet and I'm not sure I will on the basis that someone referred to it as "Peak Nolan", and that was an immediate turn off. Once the man comes out from inside his own butthole I'll pay attention to his movies again.
Cinema, like music, is a form of art, and if you can find two people who agree 100% on art then I will eat my water bottle (closest thing I could find! ). If we all liked the same stuff it'd get pretty boring! I quite like humourless German techno bands from the 90s . In all srsnss though, what I saw in the trailer looks visually stunning, it just needs to not make a total hash of the extremely introspective story. People lambast the 80s Dune adaptation but visually that was an absolute spectacle - I thought the Harkonnens in particular were done really well, it tilted the needle just far enough to make you uncomfortable. And who could ever get bored of seeing Sting in those underpants? Honestly the high bar in terms of Dune adaptations were the two SciFi miniseries: Frank Herbert's Dune and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Especially the latter. Some of the character portrayals in the former were just... off. They just didn't "feel" right. But Children of Dune absolutely nailed it for my money. Of course it goes without saying (yet I'm going to say it anyway) that in either case you have to look past the ropey 20 and 17 year-old special effects/CGI...
I dont want to give the hard sell on Arrival but as stated by others there's a number of reasons why it isn't just another dumb reveal movie. It's well directed, and visually quite impressive. I'm not sure if this is a spoiler.... Spoiler it's about the moral implications of the reveal, and it asks a pretty big philosophical question, but it's framed in the context of a linguistic interaction with extraterrestrials For anyone that did enjoy Arrival, the guy that wrote it, Ted Chiang, has 2 books of short stories and i'm currently making my way through the first. Worth a look!
Nobody - 8/10 Pretty funny. Pretty fun. No complaints other than some pretty predictable plot progressions and weird use of artistic license here and there.
Underrated gem. 8/10? It surely loses two points for being just really, really grimy and boring to look at, the plot and ideas carry it but boy howdy, the cinematography was phoned in. It was a quick phone call, too. "Hello, our film is in the future." "Is it a bad future?" "It is." "Okay, you want grimy, badly lit and monochrome, and dress the sets with just garbage and stuff like it's New York." "Okay thanks bye." I haven't seen it in a few years so maybe I'm being uncharitable, it is on my list to rewatch. Excellent, I'll add that to the list - Spoiler the list of reasons to not watch the 80s adaptation of Dune.
Definitely worth a re-watch! One of my favourite sci-fi films. I agree that some of the set dressing was a bit sloppy, although with such a small budget (relatively, less than $30m), I feel like they managed pretty well.
The Tomorrow War: 5/10 Eh. Certainly not a terrible film that made me want to hurt people, but you'd be better off re-watching Aliens (which has the same runtime); there again, you can say that about the majority of films these days. Edge of Tomorrow is also a better substitute and will leave you with an additional 20 or so minutes to do something else. So. Many. Questions. About why the film decided to approach saving the future the way it did . P.S. Did also re-watch Arrival
Vanguard - China Man > Iron Man / 10 Oh boy, well the core summary is the evaluation: China Man > Iron Man One of the weakest Jackie Chan's ever, a miracle this blatant "China - Hell yeah" movie ever made it out of China. Don't get me wrong, it's not worse than any "'Murica - Hell Yeah" movies There goes my chance of ever getting a chinese visum again.
Not a movie but... Shadowhunters S01 - meh/10 So this looks strangely familiar....turns out, it's based on the same books as the movie "City of Bones". I'm in 4 Episodes, and so far it's....pretty tedious. The plot keeps finding reasons to put all female lead characters in the skimpiest possible outfit for no reason at all (okay so does "Game of Thrones", but there the story is GOOD) and everybody is obviously NOT talking about their feelings while talking about their feelings. Teen Choice Award - Bester Newcomer ... Pff that explains that. There's three seasons so far so I thought it can't be all bad. Does this get any better or do the vampires start to glitter at some point?
Guns Akimbo - erm...?/10 I have no idea what to make of this film. Radcliffe is actually rather good in it, possibly carries the whole show. However, whilst it isn't wildly different from most of the games we here spend our hours on, I do expect more from the medium of film than I do my pixels. In which case, although it does have its amusing moments, it's all been done before (also badly). I'm starting to think that anything prefixed "Sky/Amazon/Netflix Original" is destined to be a case of unfulfilled potential, sadly.
I've been thinking this for a long time now, going back to A Quiet Place - which although not terrible could definitely have been better IMO. The same goes for the most recent series of Stranger Things. That's not to say that everything bearing the Sky/Amazon/Netflix tag is crap, but increasingly I'm finding such movies (and some series) decidedly banal and derivative. As for what I'm watching, on a bit of an anime binge at the moment... Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust 8/10 Love this movie, possibly even more than the first. You simply cannot beat anime from this era. I'm probably going to go back and rewatch some of the other classics too.
The whole.. Straight to streaming thing feels a lot like they're throwing **** at the wall and seeing what sticks. It doesn't feel like they have any particular concern for the artistic direction or structure of the film. Like all the concern starts and ends whenever the pitch meeting does.
They're the modern iteration of Straight To Video, Netflix Movies, because it wasn't good enough for a theatre near you. It's kind of fascinating when Streaming has more or less usurped prestige TV, but can't get a hold on 'proper' movies.
I think streaming services are so desperate for a 'killer show' that they just don't give a **** about what they green light. Great for some projects getting a little limelight that they might not otherwise, but those don't attract the kind of people who could navigate the show to finding its legs quickly enough that it doesn't die in ignominy. And yet, somehow, Army of the Dead pleased someone enough that there's a prequel in the works? Like.. Why? Who gives a **** about pre-zombies times in that universe? Sure as **** don't need any more of about all of the characters in the film, that's for sure. Honestly wouldn't be surprised to see an adaptation of Battle Pope hit Netflix at some stage.