The cinema thread

[mrbeuys]

To be honest, I wouldn't even know how to spoil mother!
There are quite a few different ways to read it. It's one of the most intense movies I have seen. Saw Darren after the screening I was at in a Q&A where he spoke about his motivations for making the film, definitely worth reading up on AFTER you've seen it.
But by all means, go and see it (although you know I am biased).

[Law]

Has anybody seen IT yet? I'm always dubious of modern re-makes of classics (especially in the horror genre), because well.....they're shit. Apparently this one bucks the trend though and is suppose to be quite good.

[Monoral]

Law

It's pretty good, Definitely worth your time.

[Ahimsa]

Watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets the other night. Not sure if it was the acting that was terrible or just the script. Probably both. Rihanna's acting was atrocious though, made very apparent by the ungodly amount of screen time she got. Definitely looking forward to seeing more movie appearances from her.
Actually, Ethan Hawke's acting was pretty bad too.

[Law]

Saw IT, was better than 90% of most modern horror films, I think they did quite well to tap into that 80's teen camaraderie with the cast having good chemistry. Ultimately, CGI (re:excessive) is not very scary.
Oh well, next up Blade Runner.

[upsilonkng]

It was very enjoyable, for some of the older guys here it reminds me of Nightmare on Elm Street 4? Dream Warriors, or how i felt when i watched that as a kid in the theater, fun and funny and sometimes scary but consistently enjoyable. Best modern horror film i think is It Follows of the last 5 years.

[Law]

It was very enjoyable, for some of the older guys here it reminds me of Nightmare on Elm Street 4? Dream Warriors, or how i felt when i watched that as a kid in the theater, fun and funny and sometimes scary but consistently enjoyable. Best modern horror film i think is It Follows of the last 5 years.

You mean NOES 3. Agreed, loved that one! The puppet veins 😂

[Law]

Saw Blade Runner last night, quite enjoyed it, great soundtrack and luckily they didn't fall back completely on using CGI for the sets and action sequences. It's a bit sluggish in parts and predictable, but overall well done. It's quite long too at just under three hours.

[Faust]

Saw Blade Runner yesterday. Utterly gorgeous and utterly pointless. I appreciate slow, but slow for the sake of slowness I can do without.

[Law]

Saw Blade Runner yesterday. Utterly gorgeous and utterly pointless. I appreciate slow, but slow for the sake of slowness I can do without.

Yes, could have easily cut 40-60 min from that without missing anything pertinent to the story.
With that said, surely there's a sequel (or prequel) to this.

[Arkady]

Caught Blade Runner this weekend as well; fairly pointless and undercooked exercise, which is a shame given Villeneuve is one of the better big-ticket directors working right now.

I’ll avoid spoiling anything directly, but you’ve probably worked out most of the story before walking into the theater. After a ramp-up promising some ambition, the plot quickly plateaus into the flat “point A to point B” narrative we’ve become accustomed to at this budget level. Realistically, you cannot shoot a film above $100MM if the plot doesn’t revolve around physically saving the planet or, at the very least, the human species. I was a little surprised the word “revolution” was deployed all the way in the third act; things were getting so tedious I thought they’d pull the ripcord earlier. I’ll grant a few novelties, like the successor to the Voight-Kampff test, did feel nostalgically fresh.

Joi’s arc is the only one that captured any growth or nodded to the audacity of the original film. Ana de Armas’ performance was solid here, buffered by some clever imagery, and I thought Robin Wright and Dave Bautista owned their brief screen time. Carla Juri was fine. Everyone else was purely disposable, although I suppose Gosling has found his ideal role here. Harrison Ford is enthusiastic to be out of the house. Jared Leto seems to have found someone with mushrooms at The Bowery Hotel.

At heart this was a very mechanical caper. Any clever stabs at commentary vis-a-vis the Joi vs. Luv juxtaposition, Wallace’s motivations and interrogation methods, Lieutenant Joshi’s power games or K’s non-journey of non-self discovery were washed away.

The original captured a real yearning for completion and spiritual equity beyond the flesh — none of that here whatsoever, even in pantomime. Archetypal Roy Batty raged against death itself, while these replicants are swatting at a status quo they’re barely concerned by. The production’s anxiety at this failing is made clear through the constant repetition of Bautista’s “you’ve never seen a miracle” scene — as if to insist that you're watching a miracle rather than a decent fan-fiction. Hammering the only line in the film delivered with conviction does not build inertia here.

Motivations were smeared out rather than grey-area. This may have been owed to a careless treatment of artificial consciousness — for one, the replicants’ permissioning system was wholly inconsistent, so there was no sense of wonder to the machines suddenly exhibiting human traits. Suspension of disbelief on this point is tough as a few recent efforts have completely outclassed this film in their depiction of machine intelligence, and the audience is more sensitized to the subject than they were in 1982.

In the end, any opportunity to reclaim that rare wonder is squandered on self-reference and a cliffhanger that felt sloppily arranged to anchor a sequel. Using Hampton Fancher was a nice touch, but I might have reconsidered bringing in the co-writer of Alien: Covenant and The Green Lantern. These studio minders tend to trash promising projects, though it’s hard to tell who screwed the pooch here.

Visually the film was well-crafted — the world feels lived-in, dense while desolate, and imminent. CGI was tasteful and the compositing was clean, with a fairly analog-feeling grade on the metropolitan scenes that added to the realism. The more captivating scenes like Las Vegas were brief. There was a typically sparing Villeneuve aesthetic deployed — which is a good thing — but it failed to a settle into an adventurous style of its own.

Sound was decently well done — good rendering on the bass in the theater and some creative use of sound design to build tension. The music felt aimless, like an accent element in search of a lead, in stark contrast to Part 1’s Vangelis OST. I got the impression they were hesitant to emulate it, although Roly Porter, Amon Tobin, or Noisia could’ve nailed a similarly unique atmosphere.

The wardrobe was quite poor — zero attempt at originality, with many garments appearing to be off-shelf items that lacked dedication or vision.

To be clear, the original is not a big childhood influence on me — I’m more of a Dune man — but it was a powerful film driven by masterclass improvisational performance from Rutger Hauer and supported by Ford and Young. Scaffolded around that performance, we were gifted aesthetics that hadn’t been achieved at such scale before. The first time Gaff dropped the paper unicorn truly felt like you’d experienced a new dimension of mysticism.

Given near unlimited budget and an unlimited talent pool, 2049 could have broken entirely new ground in service to the spirit of the original — rather than its selling points. Instead we got a well-intentioned case study in playing it dangerously safe.

[Faust]

/\ Cosign under everything! The costumes were horrible and inconsistent, too. The main robot chick was dressed in a combination of Zara after InAisce and Uniqlo.

[Ahimsa]

They also really rushed the in-between smaller films, specifically the animation by Shinichirō Watanabe (of Cowboy Bebop fame), which unfortunately utilized CGI intermixed with the animation which is an extremely jarring juxtaposition, thus is highly disappointing considering his directorial skills. This was a really poor attempt to produce something akin to the Animatrix, which in contrast was an extremely good short collection release with a matching OST.

[Arkady]

They also really rushed the in-between smaller films, specifically the animation by Shinichirō Watanabe (of Cowboy Bebop fame), which highly utilized CGI intermixed with the animation which is an extremely jarring juxtaposition. Which is highly disappointing considering his directorial skills. This was a really poor attempt to product something akin to the Animatrix, which in contrast was an extremely good short collection release with a matching OST.

I haven't taken a look at these yet but that's unfortunate. The Animatrix was quite a bit better than the live action sequels -- especially The Second Renaissance -- and I rarely enjoy animation.

[Sufi]

Recently watched The Shape of Water and I was fairly impressed by it. Visually stunning and it was refreshing to see minorities in the lead and the white guy as the as the villain.