Watched Operation Mincemeat at cinema recently. Hard film to review. If you don't know the story, it's fascinating and educational, but if you've already read the wikipedia page, it contains no surprises, and if you've flicked through the book by Ben Macintyre, you might fall asleep. That's the difficulty with historical stories: people might already know the story. So you've got to do something else with it, offer some character depth. This film does a passable job of that, but not enough to be interesting on its own merits to somebody who already knows the historical events. It's also a bit of a 'bottle episode' production, all small sets and limited cast. For a film taking place in the second world war, it doesn't really capture the scale or significance of the stakes. It feels more like a stage play, and would probably work well as one (maybe it already has, idk, I don't follow theatre). As it is, it's a solid 6.5/10 if you know the history, 7.5/10 if you don't. Tried to watch Million Dollar Baby last night, but either I wasn't in the right mood or Clint Eastwood is a one-trick pony lately, because it felt very slow, obvious and hokey, made up of overly-familiar tropes. Maybe it subverts expecatations in the second half and gets more interesting, but the first half is just standard setup for standard ageing-grumpy-sensei-trains-unlikely-but-tenacious-underdog-kid we've seen a million times before.
Rewatched it the other day, not a boxing fan but really enjoyed it, could loosely remember/guess the story but was still surprised when what happened happened.
Don't Look Up - Too much like reality to be funny/10 Yeah, it wasn't too different from real life to be entertaining. More stressful than anything.
Venom II Didn't strike the right balance for me, funny but not funny enough, violent but not violent enough, for cripes sake either make a comedy or an action film because you suck at trying to make both at the same time / 10
Downton Abbey: A New Era 9/10, Maggie Smith is a national treasure. Pacing issues from first film are resolved, consistently holds your attention, feels clever and interesting. The plot is more film-like (the first one felt a bit small) and character arcs are more significant and satisfying. Overall it condenses almost every strong quality of the TV series and resolves many of the major plot elements and feels like a perfect tying-off of the entire franchise. Downside: you need to have watched all the preceding TV series and film to get the most out of it.
Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - 8/10 I've been a fan of the Marvel MCU since the beginning, but some of the recent movies have started show cracks at the seams. Eternals was junk. Shang-Chi had a lot of issues. Black Widow was underwhelming, but fine. So I went into the latest Dr Strange with low expectations. I'll start with the bad. Post-Disney, the MCU has suffered from a sort of "Disney" look to many of the VFX. There's a cheapness that wasn't there before. I noticed it in the first few seconds of Shang-Chi with the fake looking bamboo (even before it started moving I leaned over and commented to my wife) and especially when the crew goes to Ta Lo. It looks like crap. The first monster fight has a monster that looks really cartoony. The MCU has never gone for gritty realism, but the worlds have often felt grounded, real, and lived in. Dr. Strange had a mix of decent locations to really fake-feeling ones. It sucks and I don't think it's going away. The Disney MCU seems set to keep this moving forward. It's part of why I really hate the "live action" Disney remakes and I really hate that it's seeping into the MCU. Another negative is the lack of exposition. The movie starts off with an action scene to get things started. Then there's another action scene. Then there's some narrative-progressing dialogue, the reveal of the bad guy (like, immediately), then a huge battle with the big bad guy. And then, finally, we get a little exposition. Look, Wandavision was a fine enough series, but I don't want to have to keep up with all of them, especially since many of the shows are quite bad. Previous movies did a pretty decent job of bringing the audience up to speed without belaboring the audience with exposition they'll likely already know. This movie doesn't do that. It feels like this week's sports game and you better not have missed last week's. Final negative I'll note is that the movie relies on the trope of having a character essentially say, "I can't do it," and then one second later say, "I can do it" and then they save the day. If only someone had told them to believe in themselves sooner . . . There's plenty of other things to criticize, but I actually really enjoyed the film, despite its issues. On the positive side: Sam Raimi is a great director. The film feels like a horror movie throughout. It really should have come out near halloween. There are macabre nods to the Evil Dead. It's ghoulish and funny. The Bruce Campbell cameo is hilarious. Don't skip the two post-credits scenes. It's worth the wait. Rachel McAdams is great and I like the thought of there being an infinite number of her in the universe. America Chavez is a fun addition to the MCU. I look forward to seeing more of her. This movie, more than any of the others in the MCU, really leans into the idea that it's a movie and that it's a silly comic book movie. Hollywood can do some navel gazing at times, but this felt so much more like an inside joke with the audience. It made me remember that movies are fun, silly entertainment. It was this self-love for cinema expressed by the film (via Sam Raimi) that really helped me overlook its many flaws to enjoy my experience watching it.
Sonic the Hedgehog - solid 5/7 My expectations were quite low so I was pleasantly surprised. The interaction between CG and real characters was ropey at best, but not surprising given the history of the CG in the film. Dumb as heck but a lot of fun nonetheless. Jim Carey absolutely steals the show every time he's on screen, by far the best thing about this film. The Matrix Resurrections - I have... thoughts.../10 So let me just say right off the bat: I enjoyed this film. Let me also clarify that I recently re-watched Reloaded and Revolutions not too long ago and I don't hate them; they do not match up to the original but they're not quite as bad as I remember. Resurrections also does not live up to the original, but nothing else in that franchise could. I definitely enjoyed this, but I need to cogitate a little more.
Love and Monsters - 7/10 Finally released for rental in Germany. Unexpetedly creepy for a "Family fun movie" (it is rated 16 here though). The special effects (the monsters) varied a lot in quality, but in general the movie was nice because it was unexpected in a lot of ways. I liked it, even the missus liked it. The Ice Road - 5/10 Liam Neeson is in a lot of "smaller" productions lately, and this looks like one of them. the movie starts off promising but then quickly descends into an action romp, which isn't a bad thing really. Entertaining, but nothing new.
Dune - want the sequel/10 No apologies, loved it. The feel did remind me a little of the original which is no bad thing.
I missed this in cinemas, and am considering waiting until I get a VR headset to watch it on big screen. It also seems highly appropriate that d_stilgar liked your post
Yeah, pretty much this. It would've had to be a stinker of massive proportions for me not to, at least, enjoy it.
Frak, didn't even think of that. May see if I can get it playing on my VR. I don't know much about VR other than a bit of gaming, have to find a big screen player.
Steam's BigScreen thing is kinda neat: https://store.steampowered.com/app/457550/Bigscreen_Beta/ I use it whenever I want to watch something in 3D.
Say it quietly, because we're on bit-tech, after all, but I think some of the blame for this may lie with video games. I've noticed a lot of modern action films are really, well, all about the action - classics weren't. Even stupid action films like Total Recall, which we remember as a non-stop head-exploding gorefest, actually ramps up with a lot of worldbuilding, visual storytelling and dialogue. The modern CGI-driven action film seems to treat action as an end in itself, and I wonder if that's partly because a whole two generations playing computer games has made both creators and audiences complacent with the conceit that meaningless visual noise of objects smashing into each other is desirable and sufficient. It's like the focus has shifted away from narrative, towards set pieces; away from script, and towards VFX. The tone of these films always distinctly reminds me of video games, because they pendulate between mindless chaotic action and slow talky interludes. When you think about it, that's not a very natural storytelling tone to aim for. It's awkward. You want action to be part of the storytelling, storytelling to involve action. The schism, where we have a bunch of one and then a bunch of the other, may be a bad habit unconsciously absorbed from video games, where mindless self-serving action is interrupted by cutscenes. I watched Into The Spiderverse today and it suffers from this in places. I still love it visually, but the tone is a bit iffy. It does this same thing: sombre cutscenes dialogue, mindless smashy action. Not all the time, but sometimes. Some of the action sequences are so mad and manic that my brain just turned off; it wasn't comprehensible or engaging, just tiring. Also it's such a wokefest. [runs for the door]
People praise the spectacle of Marvel films - And if we're gonna go with game comparisons, IMO Marvel films are the S-Ranked levels from spectacle fighters of movies. Same stuff, with a huge pile of bloom and sparkles. I'd blame the multi-billion dollar success of the Marvel cinematic universe sooner than I would video games for the current state of action films. I think my enjoyment of John Wick is almost exclusively because of the relatively unmolested action scenes. It's not forty thousand cuts per sequence, and although there are cuts to hide things, they don't become this incomprehensible cluster **** like so many films do these days. Cough Tak3n 12 cuts to jump a fence cough. I gave up watching Marvel films because the fight scenes always feel like they have to 'one up' the previous fight scene - Going through the films, too. The first Captain America film was the least horrendous because all the jumped up nonsense was pretty much the climax. Now, it's jumped up nonsense from the getgo and there's basically no stakes at risk at all. Even more so now they've started throwing in the multiverse stuff, with Loki or Dr. Strange/Spiderman. I do see your point about the whole.. Mindless explosions-quiettalky-more explosions! thing feeling very video-game-y - But I feel like the movie industry is waaay too up its own arse to be taking cues from video games. Oh, and while I'm on one. Post credit/mid credit scenes can pack up their bags, **** off so far that they come back again, and **** right back off some more. I hate post credit scenes. In fact, no, let me go a bit Dr. Cox. I mega-loathe them. They're not tricking me into watching the credits, they're not tricking me into excitement, they're tens of seconds at best of something that should either have been in the movie to start with, or is just some trashy fan service. You want me to not hate watching credits? Put bloopers in the mother*******. I have positive memories of the Jackie Chan films with bloopers. I have nothing but loathing for the ******** 'teaser' credit interrupters. Oh, and if you want me to watch credits, **** right off with the stylised credits followed by the white text on black background. Nothing pisses me off more than watching a name appear half a dozen times because ????. I don't need opening credits, closing credits, and then extra closing credits in case I missed the jazzy ones. Pick ****ing one.
True - And it is in service to making the films as good as they are to watch, I just.. Don't happen to believe that Keanu is irreplaceable in those films. I think any other similarly reputable actor could be John Wick. The fact that Halle Berry also put at least some of that same training into her role just solidifies that for me. I like Keanu, and I think he's an okay actor, but I don't think he's particularly.. Unique, if that makes sense.