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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I finally got around to watching The Banshees of Inisherin last week. It was an incredibly affecting movie, and Colin Farrell was superb -- especially his change in emotion toward the end. I did feel like I didn't have enough of a grasp on Irish history to fully appreciate its allegorical depth. It's pretty obviously about the Irish civil war, but I don't know beyond that.
In Bruges may still be my preferred film with those three, but that's just because it's a bit funnier. Banshees is undoubtedly the better film.
I also watched The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13, both for the first time, in my efforts to catch up on Carpenter's filmography. The Thing was great (I'm not a big horror fan so I was bit iffy going into it). Assault was impressive for its low budget. It definitely had that classic western vibe to it.
I've seen every Carpenter film except Assault on Precinct 13. 70s cop action films have never been my thing, but knowing that it is closer to a western and, according to wikipedia, inspired by Night of the Living Dead, I may just add this to my movie queue.
The Thing is one of my favorite sci-fi horror films and I watch it with The Thing from Another World every Halloween.
Just watched The Creator. Loved it, the visuals, world and story were spot-on.
Especially loved the fact that USA was the bad guys. And not just slightly bad but actually "shooting puppies taken from children and bombing whole-ass cities with bus-sized bombs just to kill a few 'terrorists'" -evil.
I know The Internet will dissect the world and plot for any slight inconsistency going "Why didn't they just...", but I'll just ignore them :)
I loved the (small amount of) worldbuilding in that movie. I just wish there was more and it was a little more fleshed out.
Got round to watching the Uncharted movie. It's a pretty fun adventure flick and fits in nicely with movies like National Treasure, Tintin, Da Vinci code, etc.
It's not a thinker at all, and is more on the mindless fun end of the scale.
My main complaint is that Mark Wahlberg should not have been cast. He has no chemistry with Tom Holland, and he is such a bad Sully.
I heard somewhere (maybe a podcast, so must be true haha) that Wahlberg was only in it because originally when they were going to make the film, he was cast for the Tom Holland role, and he had some kind of contract about being in it. But they took so long to make the movie, with Wahlberg clocking on in years it made no sense being the young adventurer any more, so there he is as the old teacher role.
Edit: it says the same thing, kinda, on wikipedia too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_(film) "The film entered development in 2008... while Wahlberg was set to play Drake in early development", so I didn't totally make it up.
Interesting! He would have been better as the bad guy to be honest, but I suppose that wouldn't have given him enough screen time.
Watched Perfect Blue. I first saw it when I was a teenager, so I think the edginess of it and the style was probably top of mind. Watching it as an adult... it definitely left an impact on me and the person with whom I was watching it.
mild spoilers
It was disgusting to watch. I think I thought it'd be more gory / creepy, but the way the main character is treated for trying to work in show business is disgusting. Also, it was incredibly future-facing. The stalker sending a fax was kind of hilarious, but the idea that she's taunted by someone's parasocial relationship with a version of her that only exists online, a version she sort of wishes she was, is so layered and interesting.I saw that too recently. Amazing movie that also really shows that animation can also be for adults. Something the western movie industry seems to mostly ignore. The 90s computer aesthetic may be dated (but still cool in a sort of nostalgic way), but as you say - very much still relevant with its portrayal of online stalkers.
I watched this for the first time a few months back and it was a rough but excellent watch. Definitely a film that is forward thinking, if not a bit prescient, regarding online persona. I feel like Perfect Blue would make for an amazing but creepy double feature with The Net.
FNAF is looking to do pretty well this weekend.
I'm gonna assume most of you have no interest in the film, since I don't think most of you fall into the demographic primarily interested in it. And even if you do fall into that demo you probably don't have FNAF as an interest.
I am curious if anyone here is actually going to watch it, either in theaters or at home with Peacock.
I watched Guy Ritchie's The Covenant recently and really enjoyed it. While the first minute was a somewhat stereotypical aerial view of terrain with some 70s rock music playing, it's the text on screen that really sets the tone of the film. This is not going to be a feel-good war movie with a lot of incredible, high-budget action scenes. It's political, it's inconvenient, and it's based on recent events and wants to tell that story and just that story.
At that point I was deciding whether this was going to be a film I actively watched or one I listened to while my attention was elsewhere. The first scene with characters sealed the deal for me. The main characters were introduced in a clever, organic way. You're thrown into the middle of their deployment, but now you know everything about how this squad operates, how well they know each other, and you get a feel for how tense yet routine the situation is for them.
But what makes it a good film is not just the way they framed the story, but also that a lot of the videography and production is done thoughtfully. It's not artsy or trying to remake thematic elements from Apocalypse Now with poignant lingering shots, it's just that the camera knows how to make things important, which is the story and the context of that story, for a modern audience. And the dialogue carries things along, too. It's good. It's worth a watch even if you're not into war movies, because at the end of the day it's about more than a war. It's about loyalty, brotherhood, and a maverick Afghan interpreter.