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Post by berkley on Dec 12, 2017 2:43:52 GMT -5
I agree: the attraction - and the only attraction - was seeing those amazing animals brought to life on the big screen.
One problem with Jurassic Park for me is that it's built on a false premise: the Tyrannosaurus Rex is meant to be a scary monster, and Spielberg succeeds in getting this across much of the time - the scene with the kids trapped in the car, for example - but I can never escape from the underlying feeling that this monster is actually the victim, at the mercy of our technology. A big enough transport truck could probably make it road-kill, never mind actual weaponry like tanks and bombs or whatever.
King Kong gets around this by making us sympathise with the monster to some extent, but it's harder to do that with a T. Rex. Godzilla (the original) gets around it by making the monster so huge and powerful that our best weapons are ineffective. Jurassic Park tries to get around it by creating situations where anything that could threaten the T. Rex simply isn't available, but this always strikes me as contrived and is therefore relatively ineffective.
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Post by rom on Dec 14, 2017 0:14:54 GMT -5
Just saw War for the Planet of the Apes on Blu.
Amazing film, and IMHO the best of the three newer Ape films - and, I was a huge fan of the earlier two (Rise & Dawn). Great story, amazing battle scenes, and definitely very epic in scope. Visually, the film was stunning as well - especially the landscape & the winter scenes in the humans' battle camp. I was also extremely impressed by the CGI effects re: the Apes; if anything, there has been an improvement over what we saw in the first two films - and they looked great in the earlier movies, so that's saying a lot.
Visually, The Apes Winter & the Red Donkey Ape (the Ape who worked for the humans) were especially impressive; I'm not sure if these Apes had been in Dawn (I definitely don't remember the Red Ape).
I liked how the WH character admitted to Caesar that he realized the Apes were stronger than the humans, and he was also obviously impressed by the Apes' intelligence (specifically Caesar's). It was evident here that the humans didn't want to kill the Apes just because of simple hatred, they were genuinely & justifiably frightened that the Apes were going to take over the world.
Going along with this, I liked how there were no real clear-cut "bad guys" in the film. Yes, the humans were obviously the enemy & you were rooting for the Apes. However, as I said above, you could kind of see where the humans were coming to some extent, even if you didn't agree with their views. Also, I could even see the point of view of Winter (the traitor Ape), since he explained to Caesar that he had been threatened - which is why he gave away the hiding place of the Apes.
It was cool that the mute child (that the Apes took after they killed her father in self-defense) was eventually named "Nova", an obvious homage to Nova (Linda Harrison) from the original '68 film.
I did want to address a point that was discussed over the summer here, which is the idea that War is supposed to eventually tie in to the original 1968 POTA film. I can definitely see the intent & the connection(s) here, notably:
1) The most obvious is the "explanation" as to how the humans become mute. As was seen in War, the muteness & seeming lowering of intelligence of the humans is becoming evident with some of the human soldiers as well as with Nova. As the WH character mentioned, the supposition is that the virus that started killing humans off (as seen at the end of Rise) somehow "mutated" and started affecting the surviving humans in this way. Presumably, this means that all humans will eventually become mute/animalistic; this also doesn't seem to be related to anything hereditary (i.e., parents passing this along to their children), but is specifically related to the mutating virus. Very creative way of "explaining" this phenomenon.
2) More Apes being able to speak. In the first two films, IIRC only Caesar actually spoke. However, in this third film the little Ape from the Zoo w/the Blue jacket (the "Bad Ape") also spoke, and was also wearing clothes.
However, despite the film-makers' intention and claims (apparently they've mentioned this), I still don't see how War would tie into the '68 film, even if you don't take the subsequent films into account (Beneath, Escape, Conquest, and Battle). I.e., as has been discussed, in POTA when Taylor saw the remains of the Statue of Liberty it was evident to him & to the audience watching the film that there had been a nuclear war. However, there is no nuclear war in the world seen in these new films. Presumably, after the events in War the humans eventually become more animalistic & the apes slowly take over the world. I get that.
So, essentially, I saw War as having obvious homages to the original films, without tying in specifically to the '68 movie. Just my .02 - I know others may disagree with this.
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Post by impulse on Dec 18, 2017 10:25:23 GMT -5
By some miracle, both my wife and I managed to see Star Wars opening weekend despite having two small kid at home. anyone else see it yet? I'd love to discuss it. Apparently it is pretty polarizing, though We both enjoyed it. I can see why, though I disagree with the major hangups I've read about. There was one thing I wanted to go differently, though what they went with was still very good.
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Post by Jesse on Dec 21, 2017 14:47:52 GMT -5
Upcoming Peter Jackson film looks interesting. I'm not familiar with the source material but the first thing I thought of was that they could definitely pull off a live action adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle given the special effects in this.
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Post by brutalis on Jan 15, 2018 8:26:25 GMT -5
Saturday went and saw Paddington 2. Dang this movie series is fantastic! Incredibly fun, lighthearted and good willed fantasy. A wondrous world where we should all be living and/or trying to create. Even the bad guys are not so bad and everyone learns life lessons from a little bear who in the end is smarter and wiser than us all... I smiled, I laughed and I cried. Damn fine movie experience!!!
The folks doing these Paddington movies know exactly what they are doing and it is pure magic. I wish they would turn their visionary enlightened skills upon a Calvin and Hobbes series of movies...
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jan 15, 2018 9:53:02 GMT -5
Life (2017)  Interesting premise with decent casting, eerie mood and some tense moments. While it doesn't necessarily add anything new or original to the genre it uses the existing tropes well enough to be entertaining. I'm not a big fan of CGI but the evolution of the alien from single celled organism to downright scary monster made for some disturbing and cool looking visuals. Finally watched this, and outside of the creature itself, you can see how heavily influenced it was by Alien in of itself, more so than even the usual tropes. At least to me. I still enjoyed it. And I really felt something for most of the characters. That Ryan Reynold's death scene though. Almost made me gag and yarf myself. Worst one in the movie to me. My son even watched it from the start, once he walked in on it, about 30 minutes from being done. And he mostly just wants to watch the action parts of it. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 1, 2018 11:18:54 GMT -5
Apparently a new super Mario movie is in the works with Illumination animation. I think I'm the only person who actually kinda liked the live action original so I'm down for an animated one.
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Post by brutalis on Feb 12, 2018 8:00:37 GMT -5
Saw Peter Rabbit on Saturday. What a truly genuine fun and funny movie! Truly laughed out loud during portions of the movie and the crowd was really into it as well. Not just a kids movie at all and the theater was full of folks from age 8 to 80! Another movie which inhabits its own world view and is more enjoyable and watchable than most anything from Hollywood and shows more creativity and inventiveness than any of the Star Wars movies. Domhnall Gleason is hilarious in this live action Tom and Jerry like movie. With this and Paddington striking a comedic gold mine of silly and fun entertainment you would hope that other studios would do well to take a cue from them.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 12, 2018 13:39:53 GMT -5
Saw Peter Rabbit on Saturday. What a truly genuine fun and funny movie! Truly laughed out loud during portions of the movie and the crowd was really into it as well. Not just a kids movie at all and the theater was full of folks from age 8 to 80! Another movie which inhabits its own world view and is more enjoyable and watchable than most anything from Hollywood and shows more creativity and inventiveness than any of the Star Wars movies. Domhnall Gleason is hilarious in this live action Tom and Jerry like movie. With this and Paddington striking a comedic gold mine of silly and fun entertainment you would hope that other studios would do well to take a cue from them. I'm glad it was fun, I'm probably going tomorrow night with the wife. When I first saw the original trailer I was really turned off by the tone but the subsequent ones really caught my interest. |
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Post by brutalis on Feb 12, 2018 14:38:40 GMT -5
Saw Peter Rabbit on Saturday. What a truly genuine fun and funny movie! Truly laughed out loud during portions of the movie and the crowd was really into it as well. Not just a kids movie at all and the theater was full of folks from age 8 to 80! Another movie which inhabits its own world view and is more enjoyable and watchable than most anything from Hollywood and shows more creativity and inventiveness than any of the Star Wars movies. Domhnall Gleason is hilarious in this live action Tom and Jerry like movie. With this and Paddington striking a comedic gold mine of silly and fun entertainment you would hope that other studios would do well to take a cue from them. I'm glad it was fun, I'm probably going tomorrow night with the wife. When I first saw the original trailer I was really turned off by the tone but the subsequent ones really caught my interest. True enough the early trailers didn't really have me feeling enthusiastic about it but the last one helped me decide to go ahead and I like James Corden well enough so I went. Glad I did. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 25, 2018 21:06:31 GMT -5
I tried telling my mother about A ghost story on the phne, and couldn’t... I choked up trying to describe one of the scenes.
That movie is a magical moment. It has so little dialog that it would be pontless to translate it for foreign markets, but it packs an immense emotional wallop.
What a beautiful, beautiful piece of art.
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Post by impulse on Feb 26, 2018 11:57:53 GMT -5
It likely goes without saying but Black Panther was great.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 9, 2018 12:53:33 GMT -5
I watched about half of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets last night. I knew going in that it was probably later than I should start a movie that long. But I thought I'd give it a shot. It's admittedly a beautiful film. But lord was it plodding. I kept waiting for a plot...or a character with something more than the most superficial personality traits...but it didn't happen. So I went to bed. I may get around to finishing it at some point...but probably not.
Contrariwise I watched Get Out with my youngest son a little while back and HOLY MOLY if there's a movie that deserved its hype it's that one. I'm not a horror film fan (and it is a horror film) but this was just a great suspenseful film with uniformly good performances. An absolute delight to watch.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2018 14:53:43 GMT -5
I watched about half of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets last night. I knew going in that it was probably later than I should start a movie that long. But I thought I'd give it a shot. It's admittedly a beautiful film. But lord was it plodding. I kept waiting for a plot...or a character with something more than the most superficial personality traits...but it didn't happen. So I went to bed. I may get around to finishing it at some point...but probably not. I've completely agree with your assessment ... Spot On! |
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Post by berkley on Mar 10, 2018 0:45:27 GMT -5
I found Valerian thoroughly entertaining and visually as spectacular as I'd hoped and expected from a Luc Besson movie, but yeah, it didn't really work on the whole. For me the two biggest flaws were the unappealing male lead and the romantic relationship between Valerian and Laureline, which really didn't need to be there at all, IMO.
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