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    1. The Matrix Resurrections: A review

      Just finished watching it, and while I’m sure I need to process and reflect a little more on it, I can at least give my initial impression: meh. I came in not expecting much because, to be honest,...

      Just finished watching it, and while I’m sure I need to process and reflect a little more on it, I can at least give my initial impression: meh.

      I came in not expecting much because, to be honest, the trilogy didn’t end as good as it started. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t end up a kaleidoscope of colors either, since the promotional material seemed to insinuate it might take after some of the other Wachowski’s works.

      The first hour felt like a rehash of the first Matrix. While the callbacks were good fan service, it felt uninspired and something I would expect from a Disney franchise. The second half seemed to lose the thread and the plot got rambled through to the point that you forget what the whole point of the movie was supposed to be. It basically ends as a…love story? The deeper philosophical elements of the trilogy were eschewed for predictable tropes and artificial suspense.

      The characters lacked depth, and I was particularly disappointed in the new incarnations of Agent Smith and Morpheus. The younger actors lacked the gravitas that the original duo brought to the screen. The bated, deliberate delivery that provided weight to the characters was replaced by trite, pithy lines that don’t do the original characters any justice. Neil Patrick Harris is also better suited for a comedic role rather than a dramatic one, and his character failed at both in this movie.

      The movie had a decent environment and art direction, but it got ruined by overuse of CGI and green screen. The action scenes either had stilted fights with aging actors, or had so much action that they lacked any real sense of danger (there were scenes with throngs of people attacking the main characters with bullets never seeming to hit anyone important).

      I had hoped that after 20 years there would be some real contribution to the canon, but this movie answered enough questions to explain why Neo is alive, without contributing any further philosophy into the series. It ends with a clear open ending for future installments, which would only serve as cash grabs.

      The movie started off with many meta-references to itself, making a joke about sequels being unoriginal. I had hoped this self-awareness would have translated to either a new level of meta-discussion or at least an attempt to not fall into the folly of most half-assed sequels. Apparently that line was solely a joke, and it cheapens the movie because of it.

      Was it a good movie? Not really. Was it a bad movie? Not necessarily. It was entertaining in the same way a Michael Bay explosion is entertaining, but those looking for intellectual stimulation will be left empty-handed.

      20 votes
    2. What are your favorite movies that came out in 2021?

      We had a wonderful thread where people commented their favorite movies that they watched this year, but they didn’t have to be 2021 movies. I listed a bunch of classics that I watched. But now I...

      We had a wonderful thread where people commented their favorite movies that they watched this year, but they didn’t have to be 2021 movies. I listed a bunch of classics that I watched. But now I wanna know your end of the year top lists. It could be as many movies as you want, 5, 7, 10, etc.

      I’ll start:

      1. In The Heights

      2. Belfast

      3. West Side Story

      4. Licorice Pizza

      5. Don’t Look Up

      6. Last Night in Soho

      7. tick, tick... BOOM!

      8. The Last Duel

      9. Spider-Man: No Way Home

      10. Candyman

      9 votes
    3. A list of movies from 2021 that have (or had) awards buzz

      I recently made a post saying what movies I currently am predicting to get Oscar nominations and someone commented that they use awards as a way to watch more interesting movies. So I thought I...

      I recently made a post saying what movies I currently am predicting to get Oscar nominations and someone commented that they use awards as a way to watch more interesting movies. So I thought I would make a list for you guys of all the movies that currently have (or had) buzz. Maybe you’ll want to check some of these out, maybe you’ll be introduced to some movies you haven’t even heard of from the past year.

      I will be giving two lists. The first is for movies that still do have buzz, and the second is for movies who’s buzz died off at some point in the year. In the first list I put parentheticals for films who have more specific buzz, and left solely the titles for films that have buzz for a lot of categories. I’ve also linked the trailer to each film.

      Just a little fyi, this list is from movies that released March 2021 - December 2021. This past Oscar season had the deadline extend to February 2021.

      Movies that still have buzz:
      Being the Ricardos
      Belfast
      Belle (animated feature)
      CODA (Picture, Adapted Screenplay)
      Cruella (Costumes, Hair & Makeup, and Original Song)
      Cyrano
      C’mon C’mon (Picture, Original Screenplay, Lead Actor, Cinematography)
      Don’t Look Up
      Dune
      Encanto (animated feature)
      Flee (documentary, animated feature, international film)
      House of Gucci
      King Richard
      Licorice Pizza
      Luca (animated feature)
      Mass (supporting actress)
      Nightmare Alley
      No Time To Die (original song, sound, VFX, cinematography)
      Parallel Mothers (Lead Actress, International Feature)
      Passing (supporting actress)
      Raya and the Last Dragon (animated feature)
      Red Rocket (Lead Actor)
      Respect (Lead Actress)
      Spencer (Picture, Lead Actress, Original Score, Costumes)
      The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Lead Actress, Hair & Makeup).
      The French Dispatch (original score, cinematography, hair & makeup)
      The Hand of God (international feature, Director, Original Screenplay)
      The Harder They Fall (original song)
      The Last Duel
      The Lost Daughter (Picture, Lead Actress, Adapted Screenplay)
      The Mitchell’s vs the Machines (animated feature)
      The Power of the Dog
      The Tragedy of Macbeth
      Tick... Tick... Boom!
      West Side Story

      Movies that used to have buzz:

      A Journal for Jordan
      Blue Bayou
      Bruised
      Cry Macho
      Dear Evan Hansen
      Eternals
      In The Heights
      Last Night in Soho
      Stillwater
      Swan Song
      The Card Counter
      The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
      The Green Knight
      The Humans
      The Many Saints of Newark
      The Tender Bar
      Zola

      4 votes
    4. My current Oscar predictions

      I know that there aren’t a lot of film buffs here, and that a lot of you don’t care about awards. I love awards. The oscars are actually a really important thing that got me watching more...

      I know that there aren’t a lot of film buffs here, and that a lot of you don’t care about awards. I love awards. The oscars are actually a really important thing that got me watching more interesting movies. And I make it a point to watch all the Best Picture nominees every year.

      I spend a lot of time on trying to predict what will get nominated and will win at the Oscars. I’m pretty okay at it. I average about a 76% correctly predicting what gets nominated and an 80% what wins. Things change as more award shows happen. And the closer we get to the Oscars.

      But, I wanted to share with y’all what I thought would get nominated at the Oscars this coming year.

      In no specific order:

      Best Picture:

      Don’t Look Up

      King Richard

      The Last Duel

      Licorice Pizza

      The Power of the Dog

      Belfast

      West Side Story

      Dune

      Being the Ricardos

      House of Gucci

      Best Director:

      Adam McKay - Don’t Look Up

      Paul Thomas Anderson - Licorice Pizza

      Kenneth Branagh - Belfast

      Ridley Scott - The Last Duel

      Denis Villeneuve - Dune

      Best Lead Actress:

      Jodie Comer - The Last Duel

      Jennifer Lawrence - Don’t Look Up

      Penelope Cruz - Parallel Mothers

      Nicole Kidman - Being the Ricardos

      Lady Gaga - House of Gucci

      Best Lead Actor:

      Will Smith - King Richard

      Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog

      Leonardo DiCaprio - Don’t Look Up

      Javier Bardem - Being the Ricardos

      Adam Driver - The Last Duel

      Best Supporting Actress:

      Kirsten Dunst - The Power of the Dog

      Ariana DeBose - West Side Story

      Meryl Streep - Don’t Look Up

      Aunjaune Ellis - King Richard

      Caitriona Balfe - Belfast

      Best Supporting Actor:

      Jamie Dornan - Belfast

      Bradley Cooper - Licorice Pizza

      Mark Rylance - Don’t Look Up

      Jared Leto - House of Gucci

      Jon Bernthal - King Richard

      Best Adapted Screenplay:

      The Power of the Dog

      The Last Duel

      House of Gucci

      Dune

      West Side Story

      Best Original Screenplay:

      Belfast

      Don’t Look Up

      King Richard

      Licorice Pizza

      Being the Ricardos

      Best Cinematography:

      Dune

      West Side Story

      Licorice Pizza

      The Last Duel

      The Power of the Dog

      Best Costume Design:

      House of Gucci

      The Last Duel

      West Side Story

      Dune

      Being the Ricardos

      Hair and Makeup:

      House of Gucci

      Being the Ricardos

      King Richard

      Dune

      West Side Story

      Best Production Design:

      Licorice Pizza

      The Last Duel

      Dune

      West Side Story

      Belfast

      Best Sound:

      Don’t Look Up

      West Side Story

      Dune

      No Time To Die

      The Last Duel

      Best Original Score:

      Dune

      The Power of the Dog

      The Last Duel

      Don’t Look Up

      King Richard

      Best Original Song:

      No Time To Die from No Time To Die

      Be Alive from King Richard

      Down to Joy from Belfast

      Dos Oruguitas from Encanto

      Just Look Up from Don’t Look Up

      Best Film Editing:

      Don’t Look Up

      King Richard

      The Last Duel

      Dune

      Belfast

      Best Visual Effects:

      Black Widow

      Spider-Man: No Way Home

      Dune

      No Time To Die

      Don’t Look Up

      That’s what I have for now.

      If this list is worth anything, it’s to let you guys know what films have a lot of buzz. The only films I think are certain of getting a Best Picture nomination are Belfast, King Richard, The Power of the Dog, and Don’t Look Up.

      If you haven’t watch Belfast or King Richard as of yet, I highly recommend checking them out.

      9 votes
    5. My thoughts on Denis Villeneuve's Dune

      OK, well. Dune then. Sort of a live review, as I watch. Some more in-depth thoughts at the end. Mildly spoilery, but not if you know the story already. Fair warning, I will not be judging this...

      OK, well. Dune then. Sort of a live review, as I watch. Some more in-depth thoughts at the end. Mildly spoilery, but not if you know the story already.

      Fair warning, I will not be judging this film on purely it's own merits. It exists in the world and also in the world are Lynch's film (for reference I consider the spicediver fanedit, Alternative Edition Redux, to be the canonical version of that), the Sci-Fi channel miniseries and obviously the books. Yes, even the prequels - the first of which is one of the worst books I've ever read and I've read The Davinci Code. Anyway, on to actually watching it...

      Well, it's pretty. One problem is that no matter how good the design is - and the design is VERY good - it's just not as good as Tony Masters and David Lynch building on material from Mobius and HR Giger. This film is obviously heavily influenced by them though.

      In my head Caladan is a lush, fertile, welcoming world. It's been colour graded to grey and desaturated. Feels wrong.

      He's lifting both shots and dialogue from Lynch's film. That's good. My brain is filling in the missing bits of internal monologing.

      Nice implementation of Chakobsa. I like that.

      Hans Zimmer can just fuck off with that big stupid honking sound he shoehorns into everything. So annoying.

      This film is missing Roger Deakins. I mean you can say that about a lot of films but this one especially. It is beautifully shot but Deakins would have taken it to another level.

      Why are people whispering at each other over like ten metre distances? I hate that. Speak up, you're outside, it's windy and you're far apart! It's not moody if you obviously can't even hear each other. Yes, small thing, but things like that which upset your suspension of disbelief are jarring.

      You can't put a crysknife away without it tasting blood. Pffft. That's just ignoring lore for the sake of it. Five seconds would be all it took to do that bit. We could have had one fewer lingering shots on the knife itself instead. As an aside, the Shadout Mapes as a means to explain bits of Arrakeen and Fremen lore to the Atredies (and us!) is horrendously under-used.

      The ornithopters in this movie are badass. There is an in-universe reason for them that I can't remember.

      I wonder how much of this works if you haven't seen Lynch's version (which has much more internal thoughts of characters) or read the books?

      Stellan Skarsgard is channelling Apocalypse Now era Brando pretty hard and that is in no way a bad thing. His Baron is absolutely superb, probably the best part of the whole film. Piter de Vries is nowhere near weird/creepy/insane enough. Leaving out Feyd-Rautha is a mistake, he's the anti-Paul and even though Sting did a relatively terrible job in Lynch's film, that doesn't mean he's not important.

      Zimmer teasing elements of Eno's original theme is a nice touch as well.

      You know what's cool? What's cool is that at certain key moments I get lines from the book appearing in my head, from whichever scene is happening. That's a really good sign. I haven't read Dune for years.

      So OK, overall, it's not as bad as I was expecting. It's pretty. It's stylish. It's annoyingly colour graded but what isn't these days? But this film doesn't add much to the telling of Dune over the Lynch's film or even, really, the Sci-Fi miniseries. Villeneuve is obviously a fan of both books and Lynch's movie and what he has made is good. A lot of what he's made is basically just a remake of what Lynch did, and I don't just mean because both films are based on the same book - there are multiple direct lifts straight from Lynch's film, and that is perfectly OK. But it's not about what is here, it's about what isn't.

      Because it leaves a lot out - it's shallow where it should be deep, it's straightforward where it should be mystical, simple where it should be weird. It's 8-10 characters when it should be twice that and worst of all a lot of it seems to rely on viewers knowing the lore rather than having time to explain it: and all that is because film is the wrong medium for this story.

      It misses out on exploring much about any of the characters simply because nobody has enough screentime to go into their motivations, which are generally multifaceted and complex - I do appreciate Villeneuve not wanting to have characters stand around expositioning at each other (MCU, looking at you), or doing a voiceover of character's thoughts like Lynch did, but that means you really need to spend time with them so they can show us what they're thinking, not tell us. "Show don't tell" is good filmmaking but it takes time.

      For example, Paul and Jessica get most of the screen time but we don't really learn much about them. Because you need a lot of lore to contextualise their motivations - Jessica's actions and desires need to be placed in the wider context of her relationship to Leto and the Bene Gesserit and their plans and while Villeneueve does try to do that a bit, it's one or two lines with Leto and one rushed (literally, they're doing a walk-and-talk) conversation in which Helen Moahim mentions the Kwisatz Haderach and little more.

      The Guild are barely even mentioned. You see some lower level navigators but you don't know who they are if you don't already know who they are. The Guild's influence is so important to so much of what happens in Dune but if you didn't know they existed already I'm not sure you'd leave this film knowing there was a spacing guild at all. Same goes for the Emperor and the Landsraad, they hardly come up at all. The thing about Dune is that it's not just about Paul. Paul is important but he's really just the pointy end of a lot of long-game players and systems and their interactions. That doesn't really come over in Villeneuve's film. Also it's not really a structural issue but I'd have loved to have seen more of the Heighliners. A Navigation sequence would have been fun too.

      The thing is, Dune deserves a TV series. A high budget one like Game of Thrones. I want an hour on Caladan, learning about the Atredies. I want an hour on Kaitain learning about the Padishah Emperors and the Bene Gesserit. Same with the Harkkonens. I want to be 3 or 4 episodes in before I even see Arrakis. Movies are great for telling short stories, maybe novellas at best. But big, long, complicated books need to be on TV where they can spread out, take their time, develop characters and fill in backstory and motivations.

      Overall, 7/10 and I really hope the second movie gets funded because stopping here would be even worse. It's worth watching but don't expect a great deal underpinning what is still a very beautiful film. I could have written that same sentence about Bladerunner 2049, thinking about it.

      27 votes
    6. Val (2021)

      I watched Val tonight. Its mostly old footage that Val filmed himself. He was quick to have a video camera and seemed to carry it with him everywhere. If you're unaware, Val Kilmer lost his voice...

      I watched Val tonight. Its mostly old footage that Val filmed himself. He was quick to have a video camera and seemed to carry it with him everywhere.

      If you're unaware, Val Kilmer lost his voice during his treatment for throat cancer. He can still speak, but with difficulty.

      Anyway, even if you're a mild fan of Kilmer's work, this is worth a watch. I much prefer this format for documentaries to the talking heads we get with other documentaries like Velvet Underground (2021)

      Val is from Amazon Studios and A24.

      6 votes