Topic: Movie thread.

@Ralizah I will add to Kiki's Delivery Service being unfairly and oddly ignored.

Yeah it’s a coming of age story but I think it has another wrinkle in its themes about passion and burn out too. Which is shown by her no longer enjoying and able to fly with supporting sub plots of that boy wanting to build his own flying machine and the painter in the woods.

I did see a play version of it once which surprisingly translated well although it was more budget than it should have been when she was flying about compared to a more big budget play like Wicked however my baby brothers were happily entertained which is the most important thing.

Yesterday I watched Puss in Boots 2 The Last Wish and it was phenomenal! The first one was ok but this one really impressed me!

The message and the characters were just right!

Also:

And I could not be the only one, right?

I never got into anime. I was a bit too old and missed the Pokemon & Dragonball boom. But I've heard all the gushing praise and a couple years back my local theatre was screening the "Studio Ghibli Fest", a film every month or so throughout most of the year. I saw 5 of them in theatre: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro...I didn't like any of those.

But I did like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I immediately saw the influence on scavenger Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And also the skirt look of Alis and cat creature sidekick Myau in the original Phantasy Star. I thought it was a lot of fun and held my attention throughout. If I had seen this as a kid would have been a life-long favourite. Later I found out that the team of animators that worked on this had also just previously worked on the animated film The Last Unicorn, which actually was one of my sister & I's childhood favourite films. It all made sense.

@MontyCircus Anime is an odd one as it's not really a genre yet people think it is.

Anime fans do ruin it for not making it be inviting to others because I hear so much complete rubbish get championed rather than celebrating less cliche and more varied anime too. It kinda reminds me of people who say they like movies but then only ever watch Marvel whilst completely all other types of films.

It was only by discovering Ghost In The Shell, an anime knock off of Blade Runner but just as visionary and cerebral as Blade Runner is, which turned me around and kept me watching anime to discovere some other cool stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Studio Ghibli too.

I'm currently in the middle of The Ten Commandments from Cecil B. DeMille (the old one with Charleston Heston as Moses), and the quality is superb.

These older technicolor films look immaculate in 4k with HDR. It's hard to believe this movie is from 1956.

I'm enjoying it so much, I ordered Ben Hur (1959) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), as well as Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949).

Being born in the 80's, I never watched these older movies. They're really good! So much better than I was expecting. At least as far as The Ten Commandments (haven't yet watched the others), it's so much more character driven and story focused. Many movies today fall flat and rely on CGI and big action set pieces to entertain.

@Zuljaras
I bought both Puss In Boots movies, but have yet to watch them. I hear they're great movies, and I love the character. I also love the Ice Age movies, particularly Scrat the squirrel.

@JaxonH Dreamworks storylines are more complex than Disney for example. They touch on more mature and nuanced themes for children, and I love it.

Puss in Boots 2 is a masterpiece I am 100% sure that you will love it!

I also love Ice Age and Scrat's shenanigans never get old

@Zuljaras
It's astonishing how many great movies have yet to see a 4k blu-ray release, and even some that have are often rare and expensive.

Ice Age, for example, only has the latest in 4k blu-ray. The previous 4 I had to go with standard blu-ray. Even Lawrence of Arabia, which I mentioned previously- it does have a 4k blu-ray release, but it's sold out everywhere and selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Had to settle for the standard blu-ray (though it was from the same master as the 4k blu-ray so it still looks excellent). The Karate Kid movies? Only the first is widely available. The 2nd and 3rd were exclusively released as part of a Trilogy set that is, once again, sold out and selling for higher prices on eBay.

It feels like every movie obtained on this format is a win in and of itself.

I think that's more to do with the zeitgeist having been taken over by the likes of Marvel than movies have become bad suddenly as there are amazing films which get released all the time but are ignored.

I honestly thought last year was strong for genre blockbuster films with Nope, The Women King, The Northman, Everything Everywhere All At Once, RRR, Athena, Three Thousand Years Of Longing, Prey, All Quiet On The Western Front etc coming out but folk don't care as they aren't superheroes let alone all the indie/drama/art house stuff that got released too. A sad fact was Morbius the flop Marvel film even Marvel fans don’t like earned more than Everything Everywhere All At Once until it was released again because it won the best Oscar.

@jump
No doubt there's still good movies releasing, but nowadays they have so many crutches they can lean on, much like video games have graphics to lean on. Still plenty of games with quality gameplay releasing, but so much of the AAA fare has become complacent and/or stale due to the crutch of graphics and spectacle, ans I think the same is true of many movies. Back in the day, those crutches didn't exist, so movies had to have good stories and characters, much like games had to have quality gameplay.

I liked All Quiet On the Western Front. Not a movie I think I'll rewatch, but I liked it.

@JaxonHI think you're overthinking it as movies with bad writing existed in the past too, they just aren't as remembered so you're left with remembering the good ones.

I tried watching some of the Rat Pack's films, some are great but after watching a couple of the most stupidly written things I gave up. The charm of the leading actors and the lavish sets and costumes from films like Lawrence Of Arabia and Ben Hur were major selling points and can be considered crutches like CGI is today, it's just some are better than others.

@jump
Of course bad movies have always existed. I'm not arguing older movies were always good, merely that to be good they had to rely on actually... well, being good. Certainly more so than today where character and story can be secondary if the explosions are big enough.

Doesn't mean there weren't bad movies back then. Doesn't mean there aren't good movies now. But drawing in the masses now, while it can still be done by "being good", can also easily be done, perhaps more so, by action. Fast and Furious is a perfect example. At least for later films.

@JaxonH you had bad action films in the past too. I can’t remember the exact number but between the 30s-60s there were an insane amount of Tarzan films most of them terrible but still successful.

Funny you mention Ghost in the Shell, as that, along with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind are the only 2 anime titles I've enjoyed so far. After rave reviews I went to the theatre to see Jujutsu Kaisen 0, a prequel movie to the TV show (I went in blind), and...let's just say I did not enjoy it. I'm thinking I'll focus on exploring the more adult "seinen" genre than the kid-friendly "shounen" stuff.

I'm so done with this PS5.

It keeps giving me issues not playing surround sound. Just 2 channel. I have the settings correct- Bitstream in the blu-ray player menu, and it works sometimes, typically when a movie offers Dolby Atmos. But when it offers DTS:X... it just gives me 2 channel.

But play it in the Series X, and it works fine. Codex reads Atmos 10 channel in my Sennheiser app, but that's because on Xbox there is no DTS:X setting except for headphones. I think it's giving 5.1 and simply not using the 4 higher speakers. Idk. Plus it gives issues with some triple layer discs.

I'm just gonna buy the Panasonic UB820 as soon as it's on sale for $400. I'm done with this nonsense. Will have to buy an HDMI 2.1 splitter since I'm out of ports, but that's OK. Will run PC, PS5 and XSX through the splutter and run the Panasonic directly into the TV with its own input, just to ensure there's no audio passthrough issues.

@MontyCircus Yeah I'm not a fan of shounen, the world building is at times really impressive but I'm getting tired of lore being a replacement of good writing as more and more things become franchises.

You may want to try the late great Satoshi Kon's anime as he's like the Alfred Hitchcock of anime. Paranoia Agent, Paprika, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are all good but Perfect Blue is the one that really made his name. It's a psychological thriller about a pop star who starts getting stalked and then everything becomes surreal and murdery. Darren Aronofsky bought the rights to a Hollywood remake but not to remake it, just so he could liberally steal from it for his Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan films.

I've loved Hitchcock since I was a kid, so my interest is piqued! I'll definitely check him out, thanks a lot! And very interesting about Aronofsky as well.

@MontyCircus It doesn't stop with Aronofsky stealing from Perfect Blue either, there are also theories Inception was made because Nolan enjoyed Kon's Paprika movie. I'm not so convinced it's a rip off rather than having homages but there are enough similarities that the argument can be made like a story about exploring dreams, physics defying sequences, a lift takes you to different levels of the subconscious etc however at the very least it's not as blatant as what Aronofsky did.

People also say that Nolan ripped off Makoto Shinkai's early film Voices of a Distant Star for his film Interstellar.

@MontyCircus, if you end up liking Cowboy Bebop (which was already recommended to you), maybe check out Trigun & Outlaw Star as well. They're all kinda considered spiritual siblings, as they're all some sort of "space western" that released around the same time. Bebop is still probably the best amongst the 3 though, and Outlaw Star has the most "Shonen" vibe out of the group, so keep that in mind.

Maybe also check out Samurai Champloo. Made by the same director as Cowboy Bebop, it's a samurai centric series with a bit of a hip hop flair (currently watching it, and I'm liking it a lot more than I thought I would).

I'll also recommend Robot Carnival (this has a 4K BD release). An anthology film consisting of various robot/mecha themed shorts, some are more standard & cliche, but others fit the more deep & artful vibe that might appeal to you. The forces behind it also released Memories later on (a sci-fi anthology film), though I haven't yet watched it.

@RR529 I wouldn't say I had recommend Cowboy Bebop to them, I was just relating that it was something that got me into anime. I do think it's amazeballs though and I find there's not enough love for the movie.

In a lot of ways it's so non-anime like with its eclectic influences that I can see someone who loves Bebop not be into Outlaw Star or Trigun. I always see it get talked about as a sci-fi westerner however there's as much classic French cinema in its DNA as anime with influences from Jean Luc Godard and Jean Pierre Melvill (I suspect Rambler will be the only one who knows them in the thread) with references to Pierrot le Fou (which I specifically watched because of Cowboy Bebop) and having its sensibilities and mumbling philosophical dialogue.

Samurari Champloo by Watanabe is good too but I really like Kids On The Slope from his other works even if it's less actiony. There is an amazing scene which if I close my eyes I can remember every beat of what happens as it's left that strong of an impression on me where one of the kids start playing and the other joins in and there's a bit of dialogue to explain what is happening (which kinda ruins it as I hate over explaining in things) of them both being in unison and challenging each other which shows their dynamic and jazz playing style.