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

You have to admire Vin Diesel's commitment to realising these films should just be bat **** crazy. Its the movie equivalent of games like Just Cause or Goat Simulator. Does it make sense? No. Is it fun? Yes (sometimes).

I'm no fan of the 'Fast' series but I admire that they ignore all the critics and continue to be stupid movies.

 

Oh god, this one is the ****ing dumbest but yeah. It was occasionally funny. Perhaps not intentionally.

The worst thing, though, about this film was that everyone on the good guy team looked like they'd been through an industrial grade fake tan sprayer, and then dolled up by the least qualified hair person they could find. Somehow worse even than the space scenes.

Vin's commitment to making ridiculous nonsense is admirable, and they really are turning into the Just Cause of movies.

 

I just saw that you put "space scenes" in the same sentence as a description of a Fast film.

I don't quite know what to do now.

 

Whatever you're imagining, they're dumber

 

I lasted 10 whole minutes, the acting, the filming, the dialogue, it was all terrible

 

Off to see FreeGuy tonight, hope its decent, first time in the cinema since Covid!

 

The Wrexham screening? Because the London premiere was last night, and the rest of the country have to wait till Friday.

 

Local one in Basingstoke. Got some free tickets.

 

Ghost Protocol, again. Still a solid 7/10 well-made action film. I rewatch it mainly for the Burj Khalifa scenes, which will always be breath-taking because it's live and real on location and Tom Cruise refuses to let stuntmen save him the trouble.

I also really like how these films occupy a niche between basic action and intellectual espionage thriller. The first film struck the balance best, but all the sequels have been excellent too. I think it speaks volumes that the latest Bond films have played like weak imitators of the MI formula.

This one (film...4?) has some rather implausible tech silliness, which is its biggest weakness, but otherwise everything's just right. I recall Rogue Nation being bloody good as well, so I might revisit that next.

 

Didn't he learn to stunt fly a helicopter for 6? And they recently finished filming 7 in Yorkshire, so he probably learned how to drive a steam loco for that.

 

And hung himself off the side of an actual plane during takeoff for film...5, I think.

They remind me a lot of Archer, come to think of it. There's this careful balance of silly comedy, character banter and actual peril and drama, all at the same time. It's very well executed.

And the writing is consistently good. Even when the plot is as clichéd as "bad guy Russian have nuke, bad guy Russian go buy codes to use nuke, stop bad guy, get codes" I am somehow fully involved throughout.

 

Vanessa Kirby will do that.

 

FreeGuy - BlueShirtGuy/10

Both myself (Gamer) and my wife (non-gamer) really enjoyed it. Lots of things to pick up on in the background, story is decent. A lot of pop / gaming culture references and Ryan Reynolds is always good.

It was really good to be back in the cinema and the action parts of the film definitely benefit from it.

I will likely want to watch it again to look at the all the stuff going on in the background.

 

My one disappointment is that they didn't get Peter Graves to play Jim Phelps in the first one.
Heck, most of the OG "Impossible Mission" team were still alive then. I would've liked to see them all cameo as a "ruling council" for the team.

 

I really do respect Tom Cruise as an actor.

As a human being however... he's quite possibly the most batshit person in the whole heap of batshit Scientology wa***rs.

 

Ahhh they're just doing a job though, aren't they. The guy who fixes my radiators when they spring a leak probably believes that Bill Gates and Huawei are injecting nanobots into people, but it doesn't impact his ability to fix radiators. I just regard actors as random strangers, who I know nothing about, who do a job I enjoy the fruits of.

 

Ah, and now we get to the sticky moral/ethical questions around separating the art from the problematic artist.

Tom Cruise: fantastic actor, but arguably the most prominent figure in a corporation masquerading as a religion that causes active harm to current members, former members, and critics.

Kevin Spacey: again, another great actor... who has credible accusations of sexual assault against him.

Also, all the metal bands that have really great music... but have vocally racist and white supremacist members.

There's no easy or universal answer.

Edit: There's also no right or wrong answer!

 

Music is icky for me because it's a true expression of self, so music made by angry, hateful people is hard to enjoy because I know I'm directly emotionally engaging with their anger and hate, and indirectly, with their values and beliefs.

Acting is simpler because the actor is just one worker in a factory line of workers making the film happen, and the result has nothing to do with their values, usually. Note the lack of scientology propaganda in MI films, and the lack of sexual exploitation of minors in Roman Polanski films. (Although directors are another kettle of fish - I do begrudge giving a director money if they're a total tool, like Polanski, because I know I'm directly supporting them, as an individual.)

Kevin Spacey is an especially easy one because in his two greatest films he plays, respectively, a lecherous middle-aged creep dad with inappropriate desires, and a maniacal serial killer. So finding out that he was a creep in real life didn't really disrupt the way I consume those films at all

edit - same deal for Louis CK, strangely. His live comedy takes the form of a confessional by a self-loathing, depressed middle-aged loser pervert, so finding out he has a history of behaving like a loser pervert was not disruptive at all to what his comedy shows offer.

edit - also I can't find the TV Shows thread any more, it seems to have died, so I'mma try and set a precedent and just dump it in here instead: Loki. I am thoroughly underwhelmed. Maybe it's not their fault but it seems really derivative of lots of pop sci-fi in recent years - Umbrella Academy, Rick & Morty, probably loads of others. And the acting and dialogue was cringe-worthy at times. Every time Sylvie started warbling on about how she's strong and independent and makes her own choices and controls her destiny and has worked too hard to get where she is, and oh my god, we get it, director/writer. You like and support women's rights. Message received. How about an ounce of subtlety?

Also they terribly under-used Tom Hiddleston, he's got the acting chops but they didn't use them at all, he mostly had to stand around looking confused and surprised by things.

Also sorry Byron for editing after the like to make it look like you, too, hate Loki. You're in this unpopular opinion with me now I guess.

 

In this case I recommend watching "The Night Manager"

 

Oh yeah 100%, that's the frame of reference that made me lament his wooden plank role in Loki!