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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.
Project Hail Mary was really good! I loved the book and was a bit skeptical about the movie but it turned out great.
My wife who is not a huge sci-fi fan absolutely loved it.
The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender --- it leaked, I'm watching it... I think they watched this and realized that it isn't really a movie theatre movie. The noses look super weird, too.
not a spoiler but sort of
edit: I think my issue with this is that its good -- but its basically a blur of fighting. Its neat.. but a lot of the same. It also pulls some common tropes. I think its good it got leaked. Hopefully they take the hit and release it to streaming early.
Does anybody want to talk about:
Double Indemnity (1944): ★★☆
Notorious (1946): ★★☆
The Kid (1921): ★★★
Avengers Age of Ultron (2015): ★☆☆
Billy Wilder is really one of the all time great directors of that era in Hollywood. Clearly a noir, with everything that comes with that, but closer to something like Sunset Boulevard with its witty dialogue. It is impressive how a movie can basically start with the ending, and still be gripping all the way through.
I think that helps me with noirs. I usually can't jive with jerk protagonists, but when the movie is straight up about "they get their comeuppance, so just go along for the ride," it actually does help me go along with it.
I splurged and got a 4K player and Ben Hur as my first UHD title. Hard to imagine a better showcase with the absolute greatest of all film epics. A story and a film that is larger than life in all aspects. Still as engaging from start to finish as the first time I saw it. This film manages to circumvent my usual taste, as it is more or less the opposite of subtle, melodramatic, clear cut good and evil, and heavy in religious message. But the epic music, the classic heroic characters, and the biblical scale of events simply wins me over in a way that is impossible to resist. There is no dull or bad scene across the almost 4 hours. The pacing holds, without missing a beat. The high paced scenes like the chariot race is just as gripping as the scenes with the big emotions like the valley of the lepers. The big budget Hollywood blockbuster peaked here.
I finally got to see Project Hail Mary. I went in thinking that I was going to like this movie. It was based on a novel from the same author as The Martian, so I thought it was going to be a slam-dunk. Nope.
When reading or watching any work of fiction, you have to employ suspension of disbelief, to enter that world and immerse yourself in its structure and meaning. This holds true especially for science fiction, which often breaks what we know of the universe. But this story kept pushing my boundaries on what I could accept. The handwavium just got piled on too thick for me to ignore. A menace that conveniently also provides enough power for us to go nearly light speed? Meet an alien, then have conversations in a week or two?
And then the sappy story line began. A buddy movie where they sounded like a couple of frat boys was too much to bear.
Somehow, I made it through this pile of treacle, but it was not worth the effort. Worst disappointment of the year so far for me.