First Martin Scorsese this time around with the animated The Aviator from 2004.
Are you familiar with other of Martin Scorsese's movies and how do you like this compared to his other movies? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
First superhero movie this time around with the animated Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse from 2018.
Are you familiar with Spiderman, from other movies or the comic - and how does it compare? Have you seen the sequel Across the Spider-Verse? All comments are welcome.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
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.
Voiceover: In space, there is SPACE WAR. Once there was a king or something, but he died. Honestly, it doesn't really matter. The Space War continues.
[We open to shots of bucolic farmland -- in SPACE.]
Village Chief: Everyone! We have to make love so the harvest gods make our crops grow! (This is a real line from the film.)
Village Chief: I am going to talk for a bit about religion. It will never come up again in any way for the rest of the movie, and our folksy ways will seem a lot weirder when the main characters walk to a spaceport that's, like, 20 miles away. But that doesn't happen for like another 30 minutes of screentime, so I'm going to go for it.
[Suddenly - Nazis in SPACE. They were presumably mentioned in the opening narration.]
Admiral Noble: Everything about me screams evil. Give me your grain.
Village Chief: Oh, uh, we don't have any.
Gunnar: Even though it's been shown that the whole village loves and trusts the village chief, and he explicitly told me not to do this, I will publicly contradict him in front of Admiral Noble and suggest that we sell the Nazis some of our massive amounts of grain.
[Admiral Noble kills the village chief. He demands all of the grain!!! He leaves some Space Nazis behind for the purposes of terrorizing the village and then leaves while they.. grow the grain? I guess?]
Gunnar: Noooo the consequences of my actions!
[The Space Nazis are evil to the villagers and also each other. They have a robot. He is conflicted about things.]
Robot: Have you heard about the king?
Village Girl: No.
Robot: There was a king. All we combat robots had a prophecy about how he would have a daughter. Then he did. Then they both died. We decided to stop fighting because all the light had gone out of the world.
Village Girl: Well I think you're carrying the light inside you, Nazi Robot That I Just Met.
Robot: That's kind of a weird thing to say, but thanks.
[The concept of combat robots who prophesy, worship a human god-king, and can choose not to fight - by far the most interesting idea in the movie - is never touched again. The Nazis try to rape the village girl, in case the audience needs a reminder that they are evil.]
Old Villager: Kora, when I found you on that crashed ship being all badass and stuff, I thought you were a badass. Please help us!
Kora: No, I don't feel like it. I'm going to leave. If the Space Nazis learn I'm here, they'll kill all of you. Wait, are those guys going to rape that village girl? Well, if I don't help, it'll introduce some moral ambiguity to my character, and we can't have that, so....
[Kora beats the shit out of the Space Nazis, mostly in slow motion. The robot helps, then runs away. He is never seen again, which is very confusing for the watchers since he has had a significant amount of the dialogue thus far.]
Kora: Well, shit.
Gunnar: We have to go find some more fighters to protect the village!
[Gunnar and Kora walk to the spaceport.]
Kora: The Space Nazi Emperor found me as a child and raised me as his daughter. I had to become an assassin or something. Now you know my darkest secret.
Gunnar: Honestly, I'm not surprised at all.
[They go to a bar. A weird alien disses Kora. She shoots him and a bunch of his friends in slow motion, but not before giving them lots of chances to surrender because she's a good guy.]
Kora: Anyway, now that those guys are all dead, we're looking for the super secret rebel leader. You know, the one whose very name means death to mention. Does anybody know how to find him?
[Kai stands up. Kai is sketchy and rougish.]
Kai: Yeah, I do. Plus I have a spaceship, which is convenient. We just need to run some errands first.
Kora and Gunnar: Tight.
[They visit a variety of locales. At each one they find a new member for their crew. Each new character gets a five-minute fight scene in slow motion. None of this is relevant to the plot. None of them get any more lines in the entire movie, because we have a lot of exposition to dump.]
Kora: At one point I was the bodyguard for the princess. She had space magic. It was wild. Anyway, just wanted you to know.
Gunnar: Wait, didn't that robot imply that the king and his family got killed, like, a hundred years ago?
Kora: Nah. Well, maybe. Don't worry about it.
[The crew finds the rebel leader.]
Rebel leader: Fuck off, we don't want to help you and your shitty village.
Gunnar: ...please?
Rebel leader: Good point. Okay, I am going to go help these guys. Team, this is exactly what we have been working towards. Who wants to come with me?
[Basically none of the rebels go with him.]
Rebel leader: Fair enough.
[They go to somewhere. Suddenly, Kai betrays the crew! And the Space Nazis are there!]
Gunnar: What the hell, man? You've acted sketchy this whole time, and now you're just going to go ahead and do an obvious betrayal?
Kai: The space nazis didn't just destroy my planet. They tortured every man, woman, and child living on it first. (This is an actual line from the film.)
Kora: Okay...? You'd think that would make you hate those guys instead of work for them, but whatever I guess.
Kai: Anyway, the whole point of all of this is that I want to collect the bounties on all of these rebel fighters I took you to visit, and I figured they'd come with you when you asked. Because I know your secret identity as the adopted daughter of the space emperor!
Kora: Wait, so you knew where they all were the whole time? And instead of just selling that information you cooked up this insane plan to bring me to them so that they'd join my crew? Why?
Kai: Don't think about it too hard.
[For inexplicable reasons, Kai and the Space Nazis force Gunnar to execute Kora instead of just doing it themselves. Or not doing it, since the whole point of the plan was to take her alive. But wait! Gunnar sets her free instead!]
Kai and Noble: Oh, bother.
[There is a fight. The good guys win - in slow motion. The rebel leader dies, but since he is one of a dozen minor characters, the audience doesn't really care.]
Djimon Hounsou: Guys, this is awesome. It could start a whole... rebellion! I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but actually it really IS. (This is an actual line from the movie.)
Djimon Hounsou: I am wasted in this film. Also, Snyder paid how much for me and gave me literally 35 words of dialogue?
[The Space Nazis get the body of Admiral Noble. They pump him full of juice and he has a vision of the Space Nazi Emperor. At one point the closed captions read "astral ice crepitates," which is just incredible.]
Space Nazi Emperor: I am going to briefly recap the backstories of all of the crew, since you probably forgot as they haven't spoken since they were introduced.
Space Nazi Emperor: Ok, now that that's over - find them!!!
[Admiral Noble comes back to life. The heroes ride horses through a sea of grain, despite this ostensibly being a movie about space. The last shot in the film is of a Nazi Robot in the grain holding a stick and wearing antlers on his head. It is unclear why.]
THE END
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.
Final movie for January is Brad Bird's animated The Iron Giant from 1999.
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The schedule for February is:
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.
Edit: Voting closed
Lets try something a bit different for February, with one of the favorite discussion topics among cinephiles - with setting up superheroes against Martin Scorsese. We will need 4 movies for February and we will need 2 from each category. Directed by Martin Scorsese or a superhero movie (interpret that however you seem reasonable). Based on top number of votes the schedule will be:
Not a hard rule per se, but I would recommend to at least consider that especially the superhero movies should be reasonably standalone and not require having seen several other entries in a series.
Rules
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
Fourth movie with a running time of 100 minutes or less is Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (90 minutes) from 2021
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The final movie for January is next Monday on the 29th with The Iron Giant