Topic: Movie thread.

Just ordered my ticket for Tenet on opening day here in Belgium, 26th August, on the biggest IMAX screen available in this small country. Can't wait to go back to the theaters. It's been over 6 months. 😬

Over the weekend I watched Rebirth of Mothra (Blu-Ray)!

The Premise:

• After a Hokkaido logging company accidentally unearths an ancient seal, the family of the company boss finds themselves in the middle of an ancient battle between Luna & Mona (Mothra's tiny little retainers that regularly appear beside her) and their evil sister Belvera (new for this film, I believe) who aims to undo the seal and unleash Desghidorah upon the world, a prehistoric threat Mothra sealed away millions of years ago. With the titular Kaiju near the end of her natural life, she may not have the strength left to go another round. It has an environmentalist tone, and doesn't feature Godzilla (the first of a late 90's solo Mothra trilogy).

The Takeaway:

• In many ways it differentiated itself from the typical "Godzilla VS" films (beyond the lack of the big guy), with the rivalry between the sisters giving it a slight "Magical Girl" vibe at times, it included a memorable aerial dogfight inside a living room which is just so different to what you'd expect in a Kaiju film in terms of the small scale destruction & quick speed, which I enjoyed. That said, when it came to the big fight it was no slouch either, with Desghidorah having an awesome design more akin to a traditional dragon (in comparison to King Ghidorah), with some weighty combat (the way it tore into Mothra's catipillar form was surprisingly brutal), and a plethora of special attacks (each monster had at least a half dozen, including a bizzare moment where Mothra bombarded her opponent with a swarm of glowing moths, which is a greater variety than you usually see in Godzilla flicks, outside of Mechagodzilla's diverse loadouts). Of course the special effects can be pretty hoaky, which is par for the course when it comes to the genre, but I actually had a pretty good time with it (dare I say I enjoyed it more than any "Godzilla VS" films I've seen in recent memory).

The Package:

• It didn't have a lot of bells & whistles, but as with the Godzilla films I have, it has the film's Japanese Theatrical & TV spots. These seem to be translated more literally than the film itself, with the subtitles referring to Belvera as Berbera, and more interestingly, Desghidorah as Death Ghidorah (I imagine this was changed in the film itself as the American distributors probably didn't want to have a monster with Death in it's name in a movie largely marketed towards kids, though that's just a guess).

I saw Tenet today.
Like many of Nolan's movies, this one's a real puzzle. Slowly but surely all the pieces fit together and you start seeing the bigger picture. I love it when he succeeds in doing that. Only this time, about halfway through the movie, he manages to turn everything you thought you knew back on its head and it will make you rethink everything you saw until that point. Great soundtrack, great acting, great cinematography, great practical effects,...
I LOVED IT!

Draw me like one of your French girls

I’ve been rewatching the Nolan Batman films today just because I’m off to see Tenet tomorrow and I like Batman in general. These are still incredible films even with their flaws. One thing that bugs me is how I didn’t noticed the white washing before or maybe I did and just forgot about it. You have the Middle Eastern Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul and the Latino Bane played by white Brits and a French lass who can’t act in English.

Also Ledger is still the best Joker! I wasn’t overly keen on the Phoenix version (the movie was too ham fisted), Leto was trying too hard and Nicholson & Romero were charismatic but hollow.

@Rexenoboy Where did you watch Tenet?

Dances with Wolves. Timmons death is one of the only movie scenes that make my skin crawl.

The burbs as well. The dark comedy is right up my alley.

Tomorrow Never Dies (Blu-Ray)

The Premise - Elliot Carter is a global media mogul who makes the news, quite literally. With the launch of his satellite news network quickly approaching, he attempts to instigate a military confrontation between the UK & China, and of course his new station will have the scoop before anyone else. It's up to film's most famous super spy James Bond (teaming up here with Chinese femme fatale Mai Lai) to cancel the show.

The Takeaway - This is the epitome of popcorn entertainment. It has nothing particularly deep to say (outside of maybe an OTT parody of cable news/Rupert Murdock) and there's some suspension of disbelief, but it's simply a fun time. The opening sequence at the black market arms deal was cracking (especially the moment where Bond ejected his attacker into an enemy jet), it had possibly the most tricked out car chase in the franchise, and the motorcycle chase was fun too. I also liked the tension between the Chinese & British militaries, giving it that element of international tension that makes the best Bond flicks.

The Package - Like the other Bond films I have this one is full of special features. Not that I'm going through all of them, but it has the Theatrical trailers, cast & production photos, commentaries, and more. The menu (shared across all the Bond films, I believe) is probably my favorite one, too.

@RR529 Jonathan Pryce's performance as Carver is supremely underrated imo. The commentary about manipulating the press and weaponising the naivety of the collective population has aged surprisingly well considering this is the same movie that has a remote controlled BMW chase sequence (which has one of my favorite reinditions of the Bond theme tbf)

I watched Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, and having never watched that kind of movie before really helped me appreciate it. No spoilers, obviously, but paying attention to even minor details in that movie is extremely rewarding, not that I managed to come to Poirot's conclusion...

Am I the only one to find Ready Player One over rated? Take away the references and it's another just another YA dystopian, it's not a bad flick and I enjoyed it but there's nothing special about itself.

I much prefer how Scott Pilgrim encapsulated it's geek culture influences without being so blatant whilst also creating it's own unique moments.

@jump
Never saw it myself. If i want a fun Videogame themed movie then the Wizard starring fred savage will do just fine! Scott Pilgrim wasn't half bad either.

@jump I’ve only read the book and it’s pretty good.

@jump I thought the reaction to Ready Player One was pretty tepid. It's a lot of flash and little substance. However, it showed a xenomorph bursting out of Goro's chest, so it's okay by me.

Scott Pilgrim is a classic.

I got the Gamera box set that recently came out and I've been going through the Showa era movies (1966 - 1980). I've seen em all before but it was nice to watch them again. They rarely reach Godzilla quality, but they have this charm to them that warms my soul. It's like they were made by children instead of for children.

The one I finished most recently was Gamera vs Zigra and, while it has some fun moments, it's pretty bad. I think I'm going to skip Gamera Super Monster. With it's abundance of stock footage I've pretty much watched the whole movie anyway (save for the awesome star destroyer rip off). Friday night I'll start the Hesei movies.

For whatever reason YouTube has been recommending me clips of an early 90's live action/animation mash up film called Cool World, which I don't think I've heard of before (maybe a vague recollection).

After looking it up it's apparently regarded as pretty terrible (apparently the director wanted it to be an R rated horror flick involving cartoons, while the studio rewrote the script behind his back as they wanted to piggyback off of the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. They hacked up the edgiest bits of the film, but didn't do a good job patching it up, so it apparently feels unfinished, while still being too adult for a family film), but despite all that I'm actually interested in checking it out one day.

Last film I saw in theatres was also Sonic. I honestly don't get the hype. I saw nothing more in that film than just a generic and derivative kids flick and I've seen people hold it up as the saviour of video game-based films. It kinda reminds me of when Men in Black came out after a string of summer blockbusters that were unoriginal garbage and even though it was at best, pretty good, people treated it like the secondcoming of cinema

@jump I read the book first, so the film was kinda disappointing. I think the main issue the film has is the villains aren't particularly intimidating, and the relationship between Parzival and Artemis was super rushed. The best part of the film for me was a Gundam jumping out of the Serenity. That made me smile, but I was a little bit disappointed there was no Ultraman.

@Slowdive The Joker bothers me as ultimately it's not a Joker film. It's an unrelated indie film with it's title crossed out and the Joker sharpie in so people will pay attention to it. In all honesty Jared Leto is a better Joker!

Besides it being a terrible Joker I found the social commentary was really ham fisted and I've got no idea why people keep celebrating it. I found the take away isn't really more free drugs for crazy people as he was already killing before the therapy was cut and it should have be kind and less judgy with those escalation points coming from those situations which could have been prevented if people had been. However it then doesn't apply it to itself as it seems to interested in class warfare by promoting all the rich folk in society as scumbags.

@Wargoose for me it comes down to it relies too much on it's references, the pinnacle of that for me was there's a scene which is basically about him getting the girl because she will understand the Buckoo Banzai reference. For lack of a better word it's very Mary Sue, an average person saves the world because he loves 80s pop culture more than anyone else rather than him actually do something.

@Slowdive That's kinda my point, it's chasing a divide on social classes so rich people are blamed for society's ills rather than talking about a broken healthcare system.

My bigger problem is it's a rubbish Joker film though, unless The Joker is gonna be a dim-witted pensioner fighting a 20/30 something Batman ;p