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

Lego Batman: Wayne Car/10

Yes that joke is in the movie.

Even sillier than The Lego Movie, somehow skewers dark Batman and camp Batman (and Superman, The Justice League, DC and Marvel comics). In places very good, in other places intolerably childish even for a kids movie.

 

T2 Trainspotting. 9/10
Emotional, nostagiaic, brilliant.

Really enjoyed watching the gang back togethet after 20 years.

 

Dr Strange - meh out of meh
Glad I skipped this in the cinema. It was soooo bad. The acting was flat. The set pieces were boring. The story sucked

Spoiler

(Deus Ex Agamoto)

. Arrival was the last movie I watched before it - now that's a movie who knows how to play with time and perception using visual storytelling.

 

Finding Nemo

i know it maybe over a decade old, id watched it before as a child and just wanted to revisit it

Out of ten id give it an 8

 

I'm okay with you not enjoying the film, but there wasn't a moment of bad deus ex machina going on. The only deus ex machina in the movie is when the cloak of flying "chooses" Dr. Strange, saving him during a fight. Everything else in the movie is either alluded to, makes sense as a possible logical leap, or fits within action that preceded that moment.

It's not like Thor Dark World where Thor and Natalie Portman travel to some random planet (out of trillions) to fight Loki, get stranded, wander into the first random cave they see (out of 1000s) and it happens to have a portal to Earth.

It's not like 007: Spectre where Bond has given up on his quest in the hotel and then in a sleepy daze a mouse wanders in to show him where the hidden room is.

I'm with you on hating deus ex machina. It's one of my biggest movie pet peeves. It's lazy and the audience can't stay ahead of the characters or story because it's unpredictable. But what I hate much more is when people just say "deus ex" for any plot advancement in a film they didn't love.

 

Spoiler

The ability to rewrite time is the ultimate Deus Ex Machina as it has the ability to resolve everything; Not just in his own movies, but in the entire MCU. Just because they found a way to introduce the MAGIC GOD-MODE THING before they resolved the plot with it, it doesn't stop fitting that description

 

The thing with deus ex machina is that it needs to be unexpected and the plot needs to be advanced by something other than the character's actions.

In Dr. Strange everything to do with the Eye of Agamotto is advanced by Dr. Strange's motivations. He is a voracious reader, curious, intelligent, and skeptical. He wants to know what happened to the lost pages of the book and finds a way to see them by turning back time on the book. He practices on something small, the apple, then the book.

And then he's caught and told that there are consequences for what he's doing and that things could go horribly wrong.

So we get a huge lead up to him using it to save everyone at the end (by reversing time), but things build before that point incrementally and just reversing time isn't going to be enough.

So it's at worst a very convenient power to change bad events in his favor, and it's magic, but it isn't magic in that he still has to change what will happen after reversing time and the Eye of Agamotto doesn't do that for him.

There's also a cost and a risk that's at least strongly implied by using it, meaning that it should be reserved for the most desperate times and that, even then, it might not work.

And this is a thing that the writer talked about: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/doctor-strange-end-screenwriter-explains-twist-944334

He said that they tried to get around the cloak issue by making it more of a personified character, and then they fix the Eye of Agamotto by eliminating its autonomy and adding limits/cost.

So it's not deus ex machina. It's just a powerful tool that could possibly be convenient, but certainly not unexpected, contrived, or necessarily convenient given constraints the writers can put on the effects of its use.

 

The Eye of Agamotto had autonomy? I didn't even know. I'm not a fan of the comics. I just saw a bad movie with a bad plot device that removes all sense of peril from the universe, like there wasn't already too little. Tahiti. It's a magical place. I'm out.

 

ISTR there was a line about "it having to choose you".

 

Krisha - 8/10
This is a drama about a woman in her 60's spending some time with her estranged family at the holidays.

The best things about this movie is how much it trusts the audience and how well the shots are crafted. There isn't any of the typical movie dialogue where the audience is informed about characters' relationships, etc. through contrived writing that an actual person wouldn't say. All of the dialogue and interactions are very real, and we are dropped into the middle of the drama as an audience and must interpret the actions/interactions of characters to figure out familial relationships, ideas about character, motivation, context and history.

The movie also has a huge variety in the types of shots it uses. There are long takes creatively interweaved into typical shots as well as series of fairly short shots and all of the shots reinforce the ideas we are supposed to be having about different character's experience.

To top it all off the sound design is also very loose/nontraditional while still feeling completely deliberate at all times.

The only major drawback is that there's nothing profound in the message of the film. We get a slice of life very expertly communicated to us through film, but it's not a particularly unique or enjoyable slice we are served.

Lego Batman Movie - 8/10

My biggest complaint would be that the shots are incredibly busy, especially in the first action sequence of the film (which lasts 20 minutes). This may be a film that is better watched on a 55-75" screen at home rather than a large theater screen.

The good aspects are the typically good, self-aware writing of the Lego games and movies and the physical humor produced from simulated stop-motion. The pieces never bend or do anything that a real piece couldn't do. The head movements could all be achieved by cutting the head post off of a minifig and using some putty to hold it in place instead. Weird arm movements are achieved by pulling the arms out of their sockets, etc.

There are also a lot jokes about the 50+ years of Batman in film which are really funny. The more you are aware of the different ways batman has been portrayed (and criticized), the funnier the jokes will be.

It isn't quite as good as the first Lego Movie, and there's a Ninjago Lego Movie slated to come out in November of this year that I'm worried won't be very good at all since the Lego Movie was anchored in nostalgia for the toys and Lego Batman is anchored in a general pop culture awareness of Batman. Ninjago is a whole other thing that very few people have any connection to other than young children . . . so we'll see how that goes.

 

Moana 8/10

was expecting it ber very sassy, my eldest wanted to watch it as he working on 3D animation at his junior school and they looked at a docu about this film. ( i remember showing my teacher to use silicon vision's 3d/cad apps on bbc micro back in the day)

any ways pretty good story, and the songs were bearable

 

"bearable" holy ****




How can you not sing along??!

 

Bad Santa 2 - 5/10
I enjoyed the first one when it first came out. It was different, childish, loud, etc.
The second one... much less so. As i feared, it's the same shtick, without adding anything new to the recipe.
Several "MEHs" are the result.

 

Some people just want to watcht he world burn whenever unmotivated singing starts in movies.

Not knowing Lego Ninjago, I managed to see five just minutes of the Lego Ninjago series and the typical "Lego" humor was definitely there.
So don't give up yet

 

Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children - 7/10

Nice, shot with very little colour and a good story.
The plot was vaguely familiar, but I can't put my finger onto it.

Never read the books, I suppose that helped

 

my kids and my self love ninjago.

but the movie judging from the trailer is animated differently, seems to be based of bits of season 1 and season 2 with a somewhat different take on the story. dont sounds like the orignal voice actors are used and my kids agree that its a shame specialy jackie chan (im a massive JC fan) who just down right sounds wierd compared to the orignal master wu in the tv series. the orignal tv cast had all the voices perfect for thier roles.

what does seem much better are the lego mech designs and the humor has been ramped up.


on another note Dotcor Strange 3D 8/10
managed to dust of my 3D glasses for my projector and was very suprised how good the 3D is in this movie compared to avagers Ultron

 

Jason Bourne - 4/10

I went in not expecting too much and that's what I got, story felt very bland, action scenes felt short and dull and what was the point of the Vegas car scene, thought I was watching Con Air.

 

John Wick: Chapter 2: John Wick dialed all the way to 12.

If you liked the first movie you'll love the second one. The fighting scenes are incredible. And just like in the first one the camera actually shows what's going on instead of having five cuts a second. Reeves has spent a lot of time training, and it shows.

If you haven't seen the first movie, watch that one first.

 

I tried watching the first one again recently and I couldn't finish it. Yes, the gun fights are good but the acting and script is just SO BAD I can't make it through.

 

X-Men: 1940's edition?