Topic: Movie thread.

@jump
Ah man, I would love to watch 3D movies. Unfortunately I can't afford the investment for an extra 3D tv. However, I do have those XR glasses which support 3D playback. If I had that nice Panasonic UB820 player I could actually run 3D blurays through it. But... it's too much money when there's so little 3D content. If funds were unlimited I'd for sure do it- 3D is awesome.

I'll look into Severance- Office Space and Extract are some of my all time faves! That and Eurotrip (Idk why but I love that movie way more than I should... and Dead Man On Campus- Cliff is legendary).

@RR529
The advantage to collecting Bluray is, they're super cheap now that UHD BR is a thing. And tbh, they still look pretty dang good all things considered (DVD is unbearable to watch, no matter how much upscaling is done).

I invested all this money into a nice LG 4k OLED with Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar + SVS-1000 Pro subwoofer that does 5.1.4 Atmos, and I only ever use it for Switch games and Netflix! Like... come on. At least put the PS5 to use as a 4k Bluray player and get a nice collection of movies to throw in when not in a gaming mood.

I bought all 23 Marvel movies in 4k Bluray and all X-men movies too, but the first two Wolverine movies don't have a 4k release on Bluray, so I grabbed those as normal BR movies brand new off eBay for like $7 each. Money can stretch so far with Bluray, it's nuts. These UHD 4k Blurays will bankrupt you quick.

@JaxonH Yeah that's the reason I'm not gonna buy one. The 3D fad is over so there's nothing being made now worth seeing in 3D and after those three films I mentioned there's not really any other old films I'd want to watch. I suppose I could see Hugo or The Walk which I liked but I'm in no rush to see them again and it would feel like trying to get my monies worth from the 3D TV. It would be a different story if the likes of Netflix, All4, Iplayer etc has a 3D option though.

@JaxonH, most of the BD's I've been picking up are anime/Japanese films from somewhat more boutique publishers (like Discotek), so even those are usually in the $20-$30 a pop for me (and even whole series from more mainstream publishers can get quite pricy if they haven't had a re-release in awhile. I think I paid over $90 for the whole series of Code Geass), but that does make for a nice change of pace for when I go to pick up a Hollywood BD like Sin City or Basic Instinct and can get it for well under $15.

Every other week I post my new anime pickups in the appropriate thread, so maybe you could stop by sometime to see if anything catches your fancy.

EDIT: @jump, it's absolutely baffling there isn't a 3D option on Disney+ at least, given that they're practically the only studio who's entire theatrical output is still offered in 3D (that, and they have the distribution rights for THE 3D franchise in Avatar. You'd think they'd want to do what they can for the format just for the sake of those sequels if nothing else).

Watched Hop on Peacock tonight. A bit of a late Easter movie, and my mom and I had fun watching it. Funny thing, I keep forgetting it's an Illumination movie due to it being mostly live action, with a CGI rabbit. I get so use to seeing Illumination as an animation company, I forget this is part of their lineup.

@Colonel_Mustache Yes! The one where Donut Lord becomes co-Easter bunny.

@Colonel_Mustache You're welcome, if you have Peacock, I found it there. Mom and I wanted to watch it for Easter, but ended up watching Peter Rabbit 2, so we put it on tonight.

@RR529 Yeah it's odd, maybe they don't think enough people have 3D TV to make it worthwhile which is probably true. They did start adding Imax version of some films so maybe they will add it in eventually.

To be honest given the prefence I'd rather see flicks like Dredd or Life Of Pi on a massive cinema screen anyway but those cool indie cinemas which would show them don't have 3D projectors and most cinema chains would not be arsed showing older films in 3D unless it was kids cartoon/superhero films.

@jump I saw Irreversible on a giant screen in a fancy multiplex.
The cinema basically targeted LoTR type stuff, but during the week it was a bit dead, so showed arthouse at a discount, but still with the plush seats, free drinks, etc.
And huge sound. Massive, massive sound. I was pinned to my seat by the bass for the first few bits of the film.

@Rambler There’s two cinemas in walking distance to me. One is part of the Everyman chain so I get a sofa with my own blanket (I don’t know why they give you a blanket) but during their quiet times instead of showing indie, classics or arthouse films they will put on ballet and theatre recordings which doesn’t make much sense to me as you can get the tube to go to the West End and just see the real thing. I also think Daisy Ridley from that Star Wars thingy people like lives near me as I’ve seen her in the audience of that cinema before. The other cinema within walking distance to me is a proper cramp indie one and shows nothing but indie, classics and arty films however I'm 6'5 so my legs hurt from being jammed into the seats so I rarely ever go to it.

Irreversible is a good flick. I read somewhere when they tried to make it no one said yes, so they rejigged it to be backwards like Memento which had just came out was popular at the time. Forget adding CGI talking animals to the film, that's how you sell out credibly!

The nearby cinemas where I live are:

• An analogue celluloid 35mm film cinema in a mostly barebones mall that was super cheap. In the Philippines where I live, analogue film is considered a poverty film format instead of the premium limited nostalgia format it is in America. I saw most pre-COVID films since we moved to Metro Manila here, both out of practicality as it was across the street where I lived and it was super cheap, and because I loved the look of 35mm film. The last pre-COVID film I saw there was Sonic, which looked great in 35mm, since Sonic blended better with the live action in 35mm. It just reopened last month, and I got to watch Makoto Shinkai's Suzume in 35mm. It also looked amazing, especially since it isn't super clean digital like most animated films and shows nowadays. It reminded me of Studio Ghibli's digital films (which have an artificial 35mm film effect) or early digital animated films like Anastasia and The Prince of Egypt, which only survive as 35mm printouts as the original digital assets have become lost.
• A much larger cinema in a much larger mall that only used digital projection. They also sometimes showed films in 3D and they had an IMAX. Post-COVID, I saw most films in this cinema. I had my first IMAX experience here watching Makoto Shinkai's Weathering With You, and later I saw Avatar: The Way of Water in IMAX 3D HFR, which was amazing as well. These films fully sold me on IMAX.
• A smaller cinema in a different mall that also projected in digital. I have only been here once in a Japanese arthouse film festival where I saw Inu-Oh as a limited release.
• There is a 4DX cinema in a mall near my new place, but I have never been to that mall before. I am planning on watching the Mario movie in 4DX there, however, if all goes well.

My plans on watching the Mario movie would be:

• Plan A: Watch the film in 4DX.
• Plan B: Watch the film in standard 3D if going to the 4DX cinema is not an option.
• Plan C: If even 3D digital is too expensive, then go for the classic analogue 35mm film experience instead.

Analogue 35mm is my general favourite, but if 3D or IMAX is an option, then those would usually be preferred. It usually depends on the film.

Question for cinephiles.

Why is film grain considered a desirable trait? I've seen a lot of complaints in discussions and videos about certain 4k blu ray releases eliminating the film grain. People seem to hate it when a movie doesn't have it.

I'm just curious as to why. I've heard it adds more depth or something, and I've heard it's more realistic. But then I think... in real life there's no film grain that your eyes perceive, so to me it would seem more logical that a release without film grain is more realistic. Would like to understand the merits of film grain and why ppl seem to love it so much.

@JaxonH The allegory that speaks to me personally on the topic is imagine Nirvana or whoever but instead of having that distorted mud sound in their music it is now clean cut so it then become more like plastic pop which loses it's soul despite being the exact same song.

It's part of the greater digital vs analogue debate but simply it's an aesthetic texture choice as when you film something it's not filmed to look like real life anyway. They are lit up, put filters on it, played with so there are shadows, placed the cameras to have interesting angle, zoomed in and out of, have a composition for visual cues etc.

There's been a few times I have noticed a desperate need for grain, the biggest one that comes to my mind was the Cowboy Bebop remake where they have these lovely sets and costumes but it was too clean looking so it loses it's feel of being gritty bounty hunters in a sci-fi jazzed up westerner.

Also, to extend the music analogy, it's a "fix in the mix" approach. The film is designed to look a certain way - a digital remaster has the potential to smooth this out, therefore making the film something it isn't.
As jump says, giving a film an unnecessary sheen detracts from the original intent.
However, that's not to say film restoration done digitally is bad. Returning the negative to a version of it's original state is very difficult by hand, and AI is helping with that process.

Although I've not seen the remaster of A Touch Of Evil, it is apparently so cleaned up and high-res that you can see the make-up lines on the actors' faces.

Technically a 70mm print should be better than any digital process. But you need all the decent equipment to show that (but you do for digital as well I suppose)

Is this a bit of a vinyl Vs CD debate?

@Rambler I was thinking vinyl too but maybe autotune is more accurate?

@JaxonH Just curious, are you buying films that look pretty on a fancy telly now or just the films you like/want to see?

Ordered a complete Disney box set of 57 movies (bluray, not 4k bluray, since most of their films don't have a 4k bluray release). 5 of them are DVDs from the wartime era, and another 7 are region B so they won't play. The other 45 are region free. For the 7, I just ordered separate copies on bluray, though one day I may get a region free modded Panasonic UB820. But today is not that day.

Also got all the Pixar movies in 4k bluray, except Lightyear because ya, that movie looks terrible. Not all the Pixar movies are great, just like not all Disney movies are great, but enough are at the very least good that I figured I may as well get em all. Same was true for the Marvel films.

I'm a big fan of classic Disney animation. Even though many of their fairy tale stories don't have the same appeal as when I was a kid, there's something timeless about those movies. They're innocent and make you feel good watching them. So it's nice having a selection of family/kid-friendly films to watch when in the mood.

Started watching the 4th Matrix movie last night and, while I paused it and went to sleep with 40 min left in the film, it's actually pretty good so far? I'd heard nothing but complaints deriding this movie, and while I don't think it compares to the original, it feels like the best they could have done given the circumstance. I'm rather quite enjoying it. But maybe I'm easy to please. Who knows.

@jump
Do you think the fact movies used film for so long, and people just got accustomed to it for so long, plays a factor?

@jump
Just saw your question.

Started just buying the films I love dearly and want to own because I like watching them, irrespective of how good they look. But once I got all those I also bought all the Marvel, Disney animated and Pixar animated films, despite the fact I'm not the biggest Marvel, Disney or Pixar fan. I'm a fan, no doubt, but not a super-fan or anything. I just thought they're appealing to add to the collection.

I do like when movies have good conversions with Atmos audio, and look/sound great. But I'm not sure I'd buy a movie solely because it looks/sounds great. I think it would need to be a movie I like enough to want to own, or if it's a movie I haven't seen, appeals to me enough that I think I would like it enough to want to own.

@JaxonH I think there’s two debates for this, one the merit of grain in general (since most films are digital now the grain is added in later) and two seeing films how they were intended to be seen.

For they had grain originally it depends, I imagine something like Lawrence Of Arabia or 2001: A Space Odyssey might show off the movies better without grain as they are so visually striking (but I don’t really know as I’ve not seen them without it) but a lot of older films don’t feel right without the grain as it’s a product of their times.

For grain in general I have noticed tweens like a cleaner digital sheen on their movies/shows rather than grain because they are more use to it from watching junk Youtube vids all the time but most films fans do like it because it's an added layer which gives feeling to certain films. Like a recent big budget blockbuster I doubt many would care about grain as they are cleaner films but more horror films or gritty dramas it adds to the experience.

Let's forget grain for one moment and just talk film in general as it might be easier with this example. The goal is not to film something so it looks like you are seeing it in person, it's to make it fit the feeling of the film. Below is an example from Amelie (which I really fancy rewatching again at the moment) which uses a colour grade throughout it to add a magical realism feel to the film to fit the story of a sweet but kooky girl living in her head too much, on the left is the film itself and the right is of what it would have looked like in real life. The lack of a colour grade would make it a weaker film as the added colour is placing you in her mind and all films go through some level of this.

Animated films are good choice for watching on a fancy telly as they pop better in higher resolutions.

@jump autotune might be a good analogy, yeah. Creating the best that is so good it becomes artificial and that is the actual standard. You hear about people with body dysmorphia due to the filters on their own online photos - an extreme comparison, but that artificially becoming the norm, and the real becoming the lesser.

You sometimes see it with people praising cartoons not for the art direction, but solely due to how realistic it looks as if that somehow trumps everything. That makes Chuck Close the best painter ever and Monet not even worth considering. It's a funny lack of curiosity and imagination.

Like I was saying, restoring a film to it's original picture quality is great, but making everything look like the phantom menace is sheer lunacy. It's like when they colourised all those old comedies due to the mistaken belief that nobody could feasibly watch something in black and white. Not taking into account the cinematography and lighting, never mind the lack of culture that process represents.

@jump
I recommend the book 'Perfecting Sound Forever' by Greg Milner. It's the history of recording of music. Very interesting.

@Rambler Someone mentioned Perfecting Sound Forever to me before so I probably do need to read it.

Yeah it is weird, the lack of wanting something vividly different looking so everything that’s big is becoming homogenised. Maybe it’s globalisation so less risks are being taken as not all markets would “get it”, in the time of inter social media webs has resulted in people wanting easily comparable films so they can be clicked baited, people are just getting more boring (which seems likely), creatively has been driven to tv as demand for content on streaming has increased whilst big budgets dominate in the cinema or fudge knows. I do feel there needs to be a counter culture movement to change attitudes so things aren’t so basic but there’s still good and different movies out there, it’s just more of a pain in the ahole to find them now despite having the world in your phone.