Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

Yeah I wasn't saying the philosophical bits are the secret ingredient, rather that The Matrix (and Inception, and Terminator 2, and so on) proved that you can make a huge, game changing blockbuster with philosophical elements: they won't kill it. Execs seem to think they will. I want more brainy blockbusters!

 

Thor Love & Chunder

I think in threw up a little in my mouth, not even a bangin' GnR soundtrack could save this.

 

I had to stop Dune about ten minutes in to watch again on my own later. My OH was not following it (iirc most of it had been pretty silent up to that point anyway lol).

That was infuriating for both of us for different reasons. "What do you mean you can't follow it?!?!? I don't understand how you don't understand"

Done that more than once. It usually gets an apology and understanding once I say it'd be like me eating an apply during the Sewing Bee.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3: Eh/10

Watched this at the end of a long day, so wasn't in the most receptive of moods. Anyway, wasn't that impressed, the first two films are better. Missable.

 

This is sad to hear.

The last few Marvels have been a combination of shockingly bad and meh so I was hoping Guardians would get it back on track.

 

Oppenheimer: Incredible/10

I'll admit before getting into it that I have a soft spot for films based on ~1914-1960s, or as I like to call it, "The Era of Men*". First Man, Dunkirk, Darkest Hour etc, they get me right in the feelies, and for me, these are the people I hold myself to when I'm under pressure or feeling down.

Am I going to write a huge Boiled Elephant type review? No, because I enjoy reading his reviews, and my life as of late has been extremely busy, so I need to be concise. So, is Oppenheimer a film worth watching? If you like WWII documentaries and the like, then Hell yes. Three hours flew by for me, and it was a fascinating look into the thought processes and politics going on at the time. The people involved were incredibly smart, and very aware that for the first time in history, an utterly terrible power was being developed that truly could bring about a man-made Apocalypse. The film also highlights the tendency for the people working on these projects to have a better understanding of the nuances than the people who make the decision to use them - as an engineer myself, I can draw (very distant) parallels between the work I do and its deployment by upper management/commercial.

The portrayal of Oppenheimer himself is amazingly handled by Cillian Murphy. I really like the fact that the film shows Oppenheimer for what he is - a man with flaws. He is neither likeable or unlikeable, and certainly is not a character of outstanding moral virtue. However, the weight of responsibility is felt, and the internal conflict is evident. On a side note, my Grandfather (deceased) met Oppenheimer after the war in an academic capacity when he did a stint in an American University (I can't remember which one, but it was one of the big ones, either MIT or CalTech). Had my Grandfather been on the other side of the pond during those years, there's a high probability he would've been involved in the Trinity project.

How good is the film? I'm genuinely considering going to watch it again at the cinema, which is something I've not done before. The film fully utilises the full volume range, and it is needed to fully hit home THAT MOMENT. Unless you've got a good personal cinema type affair set up at home, you're missing out if you don't go see it.

And don't be a fudging cretin and watch Barbie on the same day - it's disrespectful to the core material. Though the "My product was first launched in Japan" meme does stir the dark side humour in me.

*And the ladies at the time were also not to be trifled with. People were tougher back then.

 

You boys keep flirting with me about my amazing film reviews, at this rate it'll be mentioned in my epitaph. I'm not even joking. I looked into it, you can write almost anything. (Currently the most likely candidate for me is Mogwai's immortal t-shirt slogan, "Blur are shite".)

I can't figure out why I didn't enjoy Oppenheimer. I found the structure really weird. I usually don't mind nonlinear storytelling, and I didn't struggle to follow the plot, but it sort of felt like a film without an end in some ways. It lacked closure for me. Because it's a biopic that only covers a few years, I suppose. There's probably a lot of material in there that I'll appreciate on second viewing that I brushed past because of the cinema atmosphere (being surrounded by people and hype is very distracting).

 

Oppenheimer.
It was way way too long. The 3rd act, lasting a whole hour was extremely painful.

 

Asteroid City - I just don't "get" Wes Anderson/10

Gave up after 10 minutes.

 

Oppenheimer 6/10
Cillian Murphy's acting and portrayal are fantastic, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. It didn't even feel like 3 hours. The plot was largely easy to follow, though some of the time jumps took a moment as they were so close together.

Spoiler

As mentioned above, the film does not use dynamic range compression, the quiets are quiet and the louds are loud. This does mean though, that quiet dialogue parts are hard to hear in places because we seem to have forgotten how to record the spoken word clearly, and the loud parts (the disappointing explosion being one of, but not the loudest part in my opinion) are staggeringly loud. The explosion is loud, as mentioned, which is great as you feel the impact etcetera, but there is at least one louder point, after the explosion where Oppenheimer is talking to a crowd seated on wooden flooring. They're stamping their feet and screaming, and the sheer volume of the cacophony is unnecessary.

The much vaunted practical effect explosion was one of the most disappointing bits of cinema I've witnessed recently. It looked nothing like a nuclear explosion. It looked like any number of Mythbuster's explosions from 15 years ago (that's not to detract from Mythbuster's, a show I dearly love). In fact, a number of the practical effects were rubbish. The part where Oppenheimer "sees" the injuries to the Japanese people, in particular where flesh is peeling, looks like B movie fodder from the 50s. Shocking in such a high profile film.

Would I recommend seeing it? Yes, but not necessarily at the cinema and I wouldn't put it at the top of a "must watch ASAP" list.

 

And then there's me - I genuinely enjoyed every minute of Oppenheimer. It didn't feel like 3 hours and I generally love nonlinear storytelling.

 

Guardians 3
They rather handily included the review score in the title to save me typing it. The only bit of thought that went into this film, really.

 

Watched the first three episodes of Robodoc over the past couple days. Didn't realise the last bit isn't out yet. Very good, well worth a watch for fans.

 

M3gan
They tried to copy Guardians and include the score in the title with this one too, but they sadly overstated it by a factor of three.

Move along, people. Nothing to see here.

 

Anon(-ending) 4/10
Started out interesting but failed to pick up any great pace before finishing somewhat abruptly and without any big fanfare or thoughtfulness. Although I suppose there was a summary "think about what you've just watched and how it applies to real life" line as it closed, to get you to engage first gear mentally for a minute or so. Another Sky Original, so that's clearly where the issue is, as I've mentioned before.

I'm also thinking that if a film doesn't end properly, it should be called unfinished and marked as such, since it is meant to be consumed as a whole. It may however score marks for any fantastic set-pieces, ideas or other showy bits that help you feel that it wasn't a completely wasted journey to unfulfillment.

 

The Continental 8/10 only the first ep but pretty decent first ep only gripe is winston is a born an bred new yorker which makes ian mcshane accent odd and mayebe one to many characters like the cops who were none exsistant in the movies .

Spoiler

lots of foreshadowing and hints so far seems like J Wick is most likely Frankie's and Yens yet unborn son making him winstons nephew

 

FYI part 2 is out next year

 

remember folks, this is the movie thread, the TV one is somewhere else ....

/mutter, mutter, shake fist at sky

 

Post over here and keep the force in balance

 

God is a Bullet
He certainly wasn't the producer of this film. They should have followed recent trends and called it "G0d is a Bull3t". And I should have prefaced this text with "It's a Sky Original".

In fact, I think that can be a new rating - anything rated Sky Original/10, which this one now is, means it starts out with promise, if a bit generic and then after not really developing that promise much, the considered writing finishes before the actual film ends ie. they just fill the last few metres of tape with some late homework ideas they quickly scrawled down on the way into the final script meeting (including in this case the one where all guns use vaporising ammo).

From intriguing to confusingly empty.