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

Watched the most recent Knives Out movie.

Bit of a drag and not as good as the first two.

Very churchy based, probably why it dragged.

 

Honestly it's my favourite of the three, just watched them all.

I've noticed this with other media (e.g. The Witch; Battlestar Galactica) - religious themes are marmite and just turn some people off. For others, those who like religious thought and find it interesting, a good exploration of those themes can be the cherry on top.

It was for me, I honestly count this film as the best of the trilogy.

 

Avatar 3: The Sequel to the Sequel: probably time to call it quits/10

All I can say is this film delivered what I expected: a bit rubbish but pretty enough, and I've wasted time in worse ways. Felt like Cameron had taken the spare footage from the first two films, merged them together, and this is the result. Not as watcheable as the second one. Also, there were some really asinine Deus ex machina moments. At least it didn't make me angry at how crap it was (like the Rebel Moon films).

I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but if you have other folk who want to do something, it'll do. Sad thing is, when the next one comes out, I'll likely go see that too.

 

The 1st Avatar film came out while i was at uni and i walked out of the film. I didnt realise they had continued the story...

Did they mangage to get really hard to get material that they crativly named Unobtanium...


Ive been going through the godzilla and Kong films and godzilla seams to grow and shrink depnding on the film.. the scale seams to change allot..

Ive also watched allot of silly films the last few days

Deck the halls, candy cane lane, the percific rim films, all the transformers films, ive got the Newer TMNT films to watch.

 

Love it. I also love the first Avatar film, for all its plagiarism and derivation. When the soldier defects and fights with the natives, she appears in the battle scene with warpaint on her face...and on the front of her hovercopter. She facepaints her hovercopter to signal that she's pro-native. Truly a moment in the history of cinema.

But for every moment like that, there are a dozen that absolutely hit home. It's a cynical exercise at the top, a shallow grift, but these kinds of projects, being so huge, have the potential to bring under their umbrella vast amounts of talent. They only fail to do so when budget is constrained or executives meddle; the strength of an egomaniac like Cameron is that he allows neither to happen. So as well as Unobtanium, "kick his corporate butt," and warpaint on aircraft, we also got that opening monologue-montage of Jake losing his brother; his dreams of flying over jungle forests; the visual artistry of the jackals' night ambush; the design work on the flora and fauna; the excellent and underrated performances in the film. Lang is iconic, in particular. The scene in which he stomps out into hostile atmosphere to empty his revolver at a fleeing ship, only to belatedly put on a mask when a subordinate reminds him, was so rousing and satisfying that it drew laughs at the cinema and could later be identified as the "whoops" moment when the filmmakers (and Lang himself) accidentally nudged a lot of the audience into siding with Quaritch over the natives. Although the notorious "coffee sipping" scene earlier did a lot of nudging too.

The felling of the home tree is also one of the most emotionally impactful and visually stunning scenes I've ever seen in...well, anything, really. And the intervention of the little tree sprites to stop Neytiri from killing Jake, which cues in perfectly with one of the soundtrack's best refrains. The entire soundtrack is excellent, come to that. Sigourney Weaver knocks it out of the park, as always, and Sam Worthington is overlooked and underrated - his frequent journal-narration segments are perfect, and contain some of the film's most memorable and emotionally resonant lines.

People don't usually accept the efforts of critics to push one complaint over all other virtues. We call it out as a shallow, one-dimensional take. Films perform (or fail to perform) along at least a dozen different metrics; they attempt to do many things simultaneously. When a film fails on one point, critics have to be careful not to lambast it and ignore all other redeeming qualities; their readers will rightly call them out on it. But audiences are hypocrites, more than happy to dismiss a huge work of incredible skill on the basis of one disagreement. Interstellar's time paradoxes. Fight Club's endorsement of violence. Love Actually's joking endorsement of human trafficking. Kick Ass' use of children and violence. Avatar's plagiarism and occasionally clumsy writing.

The blazingly obvious fact to anybody who watches it twice is that Avatar is a stupendously well-made film containing numerous stand-out qualities. Even within the saturated market of giant VFX-driven blockbuster action films, it stands out on its visual and technical achievements alone; but the writing, much maligned and ridiculed, is also frequently excellent. Quite why it pendulates so wildly between the good and the awful is an interesting question, but I'm not in a position to answer it. But the ratio is palatable to me. It's about 80% great writing, 20% comically bad writing. Better than a lot of films I'll happily watch on an evening.

I thought the second one was genuinely dreadful, though. The visuals - often praised as its only redeeming feature - didn't impress me, because they didn't sell it. It's like the Gollum CGI in his first scene in Two Towers, where you go "gosh that's impressive, what big computers they must have" but your brain doesn't actually buy it. It doesn't look real. The Avatar 2 VFX never looked real to my brain, somehow, even as the first film did. But more importantly, the writing went from film 1's 80/20 ratio to more like a flat zero. Awful, awful writing, as though they'd sacked off everyone responsible for the first film's good moments and replaced them with chatGPT.

I didn't even know film 3 was out. It's quite striking how this series spanned the death of cinema, the end of film media as shared spectacle. Nobody I know is talking about Avatar 3 - or any other films, any more. Nobody is going to the cinema. Avatar packed out cinemas, it was truly gigantic. I think Star Wars Episode 7 and Avengers: Endgame were the last times I noticed that happen. Hype can no longer defeat post-COVID lethargy.

 

Finished silicon valley so watched search party, old movie now, but had tj miller and thomas middleditch in it, was passable, your run of the mill 6-10 comedy

 

TL;DR Avatar’s story is a bit pants, but Avatar’s storytelling is the dog’s danglies and that makes it watchable. In which case, I agree!

Hope that summary is okay, I’m on phone and you put a lot of effort into a very thoughtful post

 

I know it's shallow, but that's where I'm at with films now. I love good execution, even if there's very little intelligence behind it. It's the artistry, more than the writing, for me. Like Star Trek Into Darkness. I didn't like that film, at all. It was gratingly dumb and lazy. But I've rewatched certain scenes (like the Enterprise emerging out of the water) multiple times just because the spectacle of it makes me tingle.

When I was about 18 I hated Roland Emmerich (2012, Day After Tomorrow) for his brainless, "films as rollercoasters" ethos. I thought it was crass. But in hindsight - having delighted in brainless spectacle like Gravity - I realise I always felt the same way. The problem with his films was that the spectacle was actually quite bad and uninvolving. All basic tourist protagonists blindly running in one direction while an endless green-screen abyss of CGI destruction nips harmlessly at their heels.

Dune 1 & 2 are more films that I appreciate more for the spectacle and experience, the artistry of the scenes, than for the writing. The writing of Dune is quite basic, but they do a clever thing - they hide it. They reveal story beats so slowly and confusingly that you're not really paying attention to the overall plot (which is the same Roman Empire In Space we've seen from a hundred sci-fi franchises at this point).

A friend of mine explained to me that this is what the young uns mean when they say "mood". As in, Blade Runner 2049 is a "mood". They mean it's deeply emotionally impacting, it makes your hairs stand on end, it forms a lump in your throat. It's tempting to deride it as terribly shallow, filmmaking with no attention span, cheap thrills. The problem is, if it's so basic and gauche, why is it so hard to do? Action blockbusters have been trying to make us feel in this way for decades, and they almost always fail. It's deceptively difficult and masterful to pull off. Terminator 2 remains one of the most rewatched and most cited action blockbusters, decades later, but nobody's talking about The Matrix Reloaded. The latter had every advantage and was created in objectively simiilar creative conditions - a doomed big-budget sequel to a cult hit, delivered into a saturated market. They both contain incredible action setpieces and very talented actors, directors and crews. Yet T2 still gives me goosebumps, and The Matrix Reloaded still makes me cringe. Why?

Creating a "mood", a perfectly affecting cinematic moment, is not so obvious or easy. The details on which individual moments in films live or die are so particular, they involve a synthesis of so many crafts. So many people have to perform their roles in harmony - like an orchestra. The vast, vast majority of all films ever made fail to create such moments. The moments that tug at something deep within you and compel you go to and rewatch them multiple times on Youtube. It's probably not a coincidence that they often involve particularly excellent moments in the film's score - I can always remember the first tree seed appearance in Avatar vividly, because music and visual design come together so well. Other times, it's particularly well-delivered dialogue that perfectly signals a turn in the entire film's tone right when the audience needs it - like Neytiri's line in Avatar's third act, "I was afraid, Jake.. I was afraid for my people. I'm not anymore." which sits at about the same position in the film, and serves about the same purpose, as Neo and Trinity's "Morpheus means more to me than he does to you" conversation in The Matrix and the "I can't lose you again!" argument in The Incredibles, signalling the union of the film's lead couple against the big bad. These scenes stand out in my memory because they're pivotal for the final act of each film but they live or die by how well the actors deliver the lines, and how well the lines are written. All three films nailed it.

But it bears restating - Avatar is a perplexing film because alongside this masterful handling of so many moments, it has some absolute fckin' stinkers in there. Like it's a decade ago but I still genuinely don't understand - why is it called Unobtanium? Why does Grace say "I'm gonna kick his corporate butt"? Why is the CG on that one guy's face in the first Pandora scene so, so bad? Why is Laz Alonso's incredibly goofy delivery of "I will fly with you!" the line they left in the film?

It's more confusing given the scale and production length. They had so long to craft and polish this film, which is why most of it is pitch-perfect and textbook. Then at several points in the runtime you come across these absolute turds on the lawn and are left dumbstruck wondering how the biggest production in history spent years and years manicuring the lawn without picking them up.

edit - sorry, I know I'm going on, but this film just fascinates me, because it's such a cherished yet ambivalent experience. Like getting to go on a date with Mila Kunis, but every hour she hawks and spits on the floor for no reason. Like...you still went on a date with Mila Kunis. Everything else was enchanting and unforgettable, obviously. But the floor spitting is all the more objectionable and disturbing for that.

Then again, Cameron has spent - by the sounds of it - two sequels, now, doing nothing but spit on the floor, so perhaps the more important question than "how was Avatar 1 infrequently so bad" is "how was Avatar 1 mostly so good".

 

Primate (cinema) - 5/10
I'm not sure this really even warrants a 5, to be honest. It's a trope-laden re-work of every "trapped in a place with a horror" film but one that just feels like there's actually not much danger. Maybe it's because I underestimate chimpanzees. There are a couple of disturbingly good bits, like when the

Spoiler

boy is in the bedroom

and I didn't want to get up and leave, but then I rarely do, on the basis I can't justify disliking something I've only seen fifteen minutes of. By golly, does it take some time to get going though.

We get it, you have previous trauma, trying to escape to get over it etc., but look! Here is Random Uninvited Friend, Disposable Love Interest, Best Friend Forever and a Bunch of Random Guys Introduced at Start That "May Come Into Play Later". We all know where this is headed, so don't put lipstick on it.

It's films like this that make me wonder how they ever got past the creative stage.
"I wanna make a film about x"
"It's been done, mate"
"Yeah, but this has y in it"
"Also been done, mate"
[What is the argument that gets this greenlit?]

In summary, if it's on TV, you're in, you're bored and/or trying to find an excuse to cuddle up to someone/put your arm round their shoulders/willy through the bottom of the popcorn bucket, then go for it. But it's not a film to pay for.

 

Rental Family - 8.5/10 (Cinema)
This was definitely not the film for me to be watching right now with everything going on. Cried in public in the bl00dy cinema. Really well done and Brendan Fraser was great in it - the cardboard action guy from The Mummy has come a loooong way. It's an 8.5 because you can tell where the basic plot developments are going to be (although not all of them, there were a couple I was expecting that never happened and one that did happen that blew your mind a bit) but if you're not fussed about that then it's a 9.

You'll have to look up what it's about because I've no idea how to describe it - "people in Japan rent actors to stand in for people in their lives because therapy is frowned upon" is about as close as I can get. I wasn't going to walk out (I had my dinner with me anyway after the gym) but I did think during the first ten/fifteen minutes "If there ever was a film that I would walk out of, it's this one". It didn't help that one of the trailers was for Shelter, which looks like it might be a half-decent Jason Statham-Bourne generic action walking weapon effort, but I was clearly wrong. It's a "film about life", bit like Lost In Translation, so pick the moment you watch it. Maybe not one for the big screen as such but without a doubt worth your time.

 

Honestly, Brendan Fraser has matured excellently. He’s had a really rough time of it, but despite everything he’s doing some of his most critically acclaimed work in his career so far.

 

Kermode review of Avatar:
Mark Kermode reviews Avatar: Fire and Ash

 

TRON Legacy is like this for me. And to a lesser extent Interstellar, as subjectively I like that story more. But what makes me keep watching them is the spectacle of the thing.

 

I have no interest in the film at all (bit like Kermode) but that review was hilarious!

 

Strange how views can be so polarising.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...rendan-fraser-japanese-role-play-drama-hikari

 

Yeah, definitely. I read it and as they say, everybody's entitled to one, but I think he missed the point with a few of the remarks. I won't pull it apart but one example was how he says it's an unrealistic premise and then a few lines later says that those rental families actually do exist. So not completely unrealistic then?

Personally, if you liked Lost in Translation, I think you'd find this similar. But then I've just made myself a blueberry chicken salad with chilli vinaigrette for dinner, so my taste might not be the same as everyone's .

 

That opinion piece clearly reads like someone who has not read up into Japanese culture. Which is fine, it's a film, it's entertainment. But it seems like they made no effort into seeing _why_ this film is like this. It's not like they plucked the premise of the film out of thin air.

I haven't seen the film, but I'm gonna maybe this weekend or the next. I very much enjoyed Lost in Translation. Another film in a similar vein is a French-Belgian film Fear and Trembling, also strongly recommend it, especially for a woman's perspective.

 

Loved LIT. And I think everyone who I recommended it to hated it!