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

He's there. The one who squawks loudest is Fisto, for... reasons.

 

He himself, or those with him?

 

Backrooms-Ass candy.
Disclosure Day-Double Ass Candy.

 

Spoilers!

 

Aren't they good things?

 

Hail Mary - good good good

seen it a few times but sat down with the full fat BR release today, my god you dont realise how badly the quality is butchered for release on streaming, compared to atmos the ddp5.1/atmos hybrid....thing they push is like listening to a fat man farting through a rolled up newspaper, its insulting. the infuriating thing is some films will never have a BR release so we're stuck with it. (im looking at you SPECTRAL)

good news tho the BR release is wonderful and the OST absolutely sings with the higher bitrate, well worth the punt if you've the hardware.

 

American Star, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19984386/

Only watched it as it has Lovejoy as the main character, no idea why I enjoyed it as it's a bit 'art house' for me, oh and the ending sucks.

 

Was trying to remember what film I watched last but, it was so long ago, certainly not this year, probably not last, that I have no idea. Another thing, whatever it was, I am very likely to have fallen asleep whilst watching it…

 

I too, have attempted to watch Lord of the Rings: The ultra-boring and sleep-inducing extremely long walk mega-hyper-super-duper-extended cut.

 

Just checked, apparently I last went to the cinema 7 years ago, 2019 version of Hellboy and before that Cpt. Marvel, bum notes to go out on indeed.

 

Re-watched Outpost 11

Definitely an art movie. Strange creation, just a wee bit psychedelic/psychotic here and there. If you're into eccentric off beat movies then watch this one

 

Yeah, it fits in series 3 and 4 I think. There's a few other X-filers movies if memory serves.

 

Nobody seen Odyssey yet? Think I'll give it a shot in cinema.

 

I've seen it, thought it was great. It's a long film but feels short because they had to cram in all the arcs of an epic adventure into 3 hours.

 

Greyhound https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6048922/

In an age of 180+ minute run times which I struggle to justify the ass time for this one reverts to an old skool run time of 90 minutes, and I was genuinely disappointed by the end of it that it didn't have a longer run time.

It's no Sink the Bismarck, but for a modern naval war film with a very traditional feel with all of the cinematics of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers it's a decent watch, right up there with traditional WW2 films that could be found on every TV every weekend back in the day.

 

I saw it (was dragged there by friends and wife). It was long. So long. It dragged on needlessly in some places and then skimmed too much over other parts. I think a bit tighter editing could have lost 30 minutes (it was also hot, so hot. It was the evening of one of the hottest days of the year, South of France, El Niño heat dome etc.; and the little town cinema didn't have aircon).

A neat touch is that Agamemnon's face is never shown in the film. He is like a god himself, setting this whole war in motion on a whim which will cause the deaths and suffering of thousands, but eventually ending up in the realm of the dead just another broken and desolate spirit indistinguishable from the others. The haunting trauma, guilt and shame of war (which is why the accusation that Odysseus does not really want to go home has some truth in it) is a solid thread throughout. Because the war, Odysseus knows full well, was won by dishonourable deceit and trickery; by violating the fundamental Zeus' Law of hospitality, the massacre of civilians and the violation of a temple of the gods, and a spectre which haunts Odysseus throughout the film (played by an alternatingly scowling and sad Zendaya) is ultimately revealed to be its murdered priestess. "Why can't the gods speak clearly to us?" Odysseus laments. "Who doesn't understand blood? Who doesn't understand death?" the spectral priestess retorts. It is this violation of Zeus' Law, in fact, what curses Odysseus and his men, not the blinding of the Cyclops on the way home.

Because, as the film makes clear right from the start: these are brutal times, and only a respect for the laws of the gods and civilisation keeps us from descending into savagery and chaos (as the encounter with Circe also illustrates). It opens with Sinon, clearly an unarmed messenger, getting summarily killed; but let's be well-mannered about it, one of the soldiers admonishes the other, after all we share common gods (this point is laboured throughout the film). Although the film then wimps out a bit on showing Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia for favourable winds to launch his ships, Odysseus' servant Eumaeus, otherwise maudlinly sentimental throughout the film, is shown casually throwing puppies off a cliff that he thinks won't make the grade as hunting dogs. Odysseus saves one of them and adopts it as his dog, jokingly naming him "Argos" (meaning idle, lazy, ineffective or useless; literally "without work"). This illustrates right off the bat that he is a more caring kind of guy. He is also reluctant to go to war; he has no illusions about honour or glory. He only goes because he knows that otherwise Agamemnon will sack his city. Argos thus represents Odysseus' humanity, left behind when Odysseus goes to war, withering as his master slowly fades from a man into a distant vague memory of a mythical war hero, and finally dying when Odysseus returns home to stroke him one last time. Odysseus recognises that some of his humanity is lost forever.

Despite the usual conniptions of transphobes, Eliot Page was well cast as Sinon and I think put in one of the better (if brief) performances. Anne Hathaway did a good rant as Penelope also, and along with Eliot Page feels to me the only really passionate performance. Penelope is shown as strong, smart, but frustrated by the powerlessness of being a woman in misogynist times. Not an ephemeral beauty stoically waiting for husband's return, but a real woman shown angry and harrowed by the passing of time, at the mercy of opportunist suitors because the city needs a king, even though she clearly could lead the city in Odysseus' absence all by herself. The suitors are shown as cruel, greedy, selfish, dishonourable; gratuitously abusing Zeus' Law of hospitality and behaving much like Circe's pigs. They will ultimately pay the price for this also.

Other aspects were epic fail though (literally); the underwhelming, unimaginative costumes and visuals (Cyclops excepted) stopped this film from being a proper epic. It lacked the sort of dreamlike visual magic that Terry Gilliam or John Boorman would have pulled off on a much smaller budget without breaking a creative sweat.

So all in all a 7/10; Nolan is good at editing a complex story, but that didn't save it. Could have been shorter and with tighter direction, and lacked the magic it could so easily have had with a bit more imagination.

 

Notwithstanding that it doesn’t interest me at all, there is no way I’m staying awake all the way through a 3 hour film…

 

Spider-Man: Brand New Day - 6.5/10

Haven’t been arsed about the Marvel stuff in a long time, but it was me bruvver’s birfday yesterday, and he wanted to go see it.

Pleasantly surprised. The more recent “MCU” Spider-Man films always seem to have a bit more heart than many of the other franchises, and this one was no different. Quite a lot of in-universe “lore” went way over my head, but I suspect that it would have made sense if I’d studiously kept up to date with whatever properties Marvel is farting out all over the place. For the most part, it doesn’t really matter - if you’ve even a passing familiarity with Marvel characters, you’ll probably be aware of who the main protagonists/antagonists are.

Perfectly adequate for brainless “summer blockbuster” fayre.

Side note: Vue have definitely upped their game since I was there last. Nice big comfy recliner seats, with your own decently-sized table. Bloody expensive, but I can count the number of times I go to the cinema in any given year on one hand.