Oblivion. I heard it wasn't very good. It's actually a very good movie, with some really great acting for a science fiction movie.
EXCEPT... it's probably the most derivative science fiction movie I've ever seen. I'd heard it was like that, but I couldn't believe just how much it resembled so many other movies.
It also showed more clearly why Independence Day is a better movie than those that came after it.
How many times have we seen the "Blow up/destroy the thing above, and all the minions below stop working" storyline? It happens time and time again, from The Phantom Menace to The Avengers.
In all these cases destroying the thing upstairs makes the battle going on below on the ground less important. The struggle of the lowly troops is almost worthless. They're just trying to hold out against whatever is fighting while the real heroes do the real damage.
Except in Independence Day they don't destroy the alien mother ship right away. They take out the shields with a virus. This then allows all the people on the ground to take the fight to the aliens. It lets the President and the drunkard be useful while Will Smith and Dr. Malcolm are in space.
This brings up a small plot hole, in that they might have been able to blow the mother ship up right away and save those below all the effort... but at least it makes for a more satisfying ending where all the characters have something to do, rather than wait for Anakin or Iron Man to do the real work.
If a huge alien invasion force comes to earth and there is no one-shot way to take it all out, then the only way the movie can end is some sort of peace treaty.
If a huge alien invasion force comes to earth and there is no one-shot way to take it all out, then the only way the movie can end is some sort of peace treaty.
The Matrix trilogy has a stupid battle in Zion where everyone waits for the real heroes above to win the day. That kinda ends with a peace treaty... and unlike Independence Day those below are just killing time too!
If a huge alien invasion force comes to earth and there is no one-shot way to take it all out, then the only way the movie can end is some sort of peace treaty.
Or maybe it could end with the humans getting annihilated, enslaved, and/or forcibly resettled.
If a huge alien invasion force comes to earth and there is no one-shot way to take it all out, then the only way the movie can end is some sort of peace treaty.
Or maybe it could end with the humans getting annihilated, enslaved, and/or forcibly resettled.
Or lead to aliens re-educating the man beasts to mine gold for them while accidentally starting a revolution destroying them. Sorry I have been in the Battlefield Earth mood lately.
Jobs (the Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher) was not a good movie and I was very disappointed at it. It tried really hard to show Steve Jobs not just as a visionary genius ("the Thomas Edison of the 20th Century), but as a man with flaws and darkness in his life. I'll give the filmmakers props for having their hearts in the right place; but the execution was just overall bad. Ashton Kutcher wasn't awful as Jobs, but his performance was inconsistent and there were times where I either believed he was him and there are times where it almost becomes a parody. Jobs relied way too much on tired cliches and obvious story setups we've all seen a billion times before in other, better movies. It's biggest flaw was that it tried to advance a disingenuous narrative of Steve Jobs being a wunderkind right out of college, which I call bullshit on. Granted, he was a man who definitely had immense ideas, lots of passion, and was surrounded by talented people who helped him get there; but he wasn't a genius right away.
While it does go over the most important aspects of his life such as working with Wozniak on the original Apple Computer, his messy relationship with his family which he initially denounced, Apple's rise to fame with the Apple II and the Macintosh, Jobs' removal from Apple, and his triumphant return. It doesn't, however, either mention or barely explore other important events and aspects of his life such as him founding NeXT Computers, Jobs discovering and helping Pixar, or his ) that I felt would have both helped and flavored the film a little more.
It also made the sin that so many biopics make, where very recognizable celebrities (e.g. J.K. Simmons, Matthew Modine, Pam's old boyfriend from The Office, etc) portrayed characters (both major & minor), but they were too transparent and didn't sink into the characters. Put another way, it wasn't "Ashton Kutcher portraying Steve Jobs", it was "...and Guest Starring: Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs"; if that makes any sense.
I won't go too long on the technical aspects, but it had some of the worst I've seen in a very long time. Granted, it had really almost perfect production and set design, but that was about it. The lighting, camerawork, and editing, were really sloppy and jarringly obvious. I kept getting taken out of the film as a result which enraged me both as an audience member and as a filmmaker.
TLDR: Don't see the Steve Jobs biopic "Jobs", because it is really poorly made and isn't the epic the filmmakers want it to be. Just see "Pirates of the Silicon Valley", "Steve Jobs: One Last Thing", or read the official biography instead". That having been said, I cannot wait for Aaron Sorkin's biopic on Steve Jobs, it'll at least be a million times better than this. Then again, it's Aaron Sorkin, so how can it not be?
Might be a bit dated but I watched "Cloud Atlas". Has a pretty amazing cast with 5 or 6 stories flashing between each other set in different times in the same universe.
Seems to have a theme of reincarnation, life and death plus themes that are specific to each story.
I don't know I feel; I need to watch it again.
I hadn't heard about it because it had a short release in Australia but it seems to be polarising.
Smoke Signals was very good, but I couldn't get it. I understood it just fine, on the surface it is a very accessible movie, but it seemed to be that the audience really needed to be familiar with abandonment to fully get it. Still a solid 4 star movie, though.
We watched Hitchcock, but before that we watched Psycho. Psycho is a much better movie than Hitchcock. This always annoys me when I watch movies about making movies... the movies in the movie are never of the same quality. Either the movie is bad, and the movie about the bad movie is playing for laughs, or the movie is a classic, and the movie about the movie can't hold up.
I watched Spring Breakers the other day. That is a very good movie and Harmony Korine is a very good director. The color pallette and imagery from it lingered in my mind for hours afterward.
I watched Spring Breakers the other day. That is a very good movie and Harmony Korine is a very good director. The color pallette and imagery from it lingered in my mind for hours afterward.
Does it have that "Korine touch" that all his other films have? From first glance, it looks like a very commercial film, which is very odd considering Harmony Korine made it.
It's definitely the most accessible of his films (that I've seen, at least) in terms of have a more straightforward narritive, but the montage/vignette aspect of his style is still totally there. Though even the parts that are more "traditionally" shot are still totally brilliant, there's one scene early on that sticks out in particular where there's a long-shot of the girls robbing a restaurant, but you only see it through the perspective of the girl driving the getaway car and what can be seen through the windows, which has a symbolic importance later. Also the cinematography is beautiful all around.
I saw a movie that I had something of an experience with several years ago (more on that in a minute). I saw the 2007, Frank Oz directed, British black comedy film "Death at a Funeral". I had seen Chris Rocks' version of it when it came out in theaters (my friend dragged me to see it kicking and screaming), and I hated it to death. I was really young and I foolishly said I would never see any version of it again. Having seen the original film now, I have to say that I loved it; and I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. It is a very dry movie compared to the remake (which is just stupid, gross-out humor), and dry humor is more my style. The only true link between the two (other than having very similar plots) was Peter Dinklage's role (he is called Peter in this movie, but called Frank in the remake), and both are the same role yet played differently. It's on Netflix Instant Streaming if anyone wants to see it. If you want a good night of laughs or just feel in the mood for a British comedy, this is a great one to watch.
My Fair Lady - good acting (mostly) and good songs. That's about it. Everything else is just terrible. The sets are all (except for the library set) are ALL GREY. The choreography is terrible, if there is any. The camera work is flat and boring. The story is bloated. The whole thing runs long.
Mary Poppins - better than My Fair Lady in every possible way. Better music, better singing, better acting, better sets, better colour, better camera work, actual choreography... I could go on and on. It's just a really, really good movie. My only complaint is that it goes slightly too long in places.
And yet My Fair Lady won the best picture oscar in 1964. How? I've no idea.
These movies are superficially similar, but one is a good stage music made into a shoddy movie, and the other is a musical written and designed from the ground up to be the best movie possible.
The bad accent of Dick Van Dyke is famously terrible, but at least the terrible accent isn't a plot point. In My Fair Lady it IS a plot point, which makes the far-from-perfect accents even more noticeable and annoying.
The Oscars are US-centric. As internationally unaware as the US is now, it was even less aware in '64. The accents in both movies all sounded great, and still sound great, to almost all Americans. I love Mary Poppins, have seen it tons of times, and never knew there was anything wrong with accents until the Internets.
There is nothing "wrong" with the accents in Mary Poppins. That's my point! One accent is nothing like the cockney accent the actor is aiming for, but it doesn't matter in the context of the movie.
But in My Fair Lady, the main plot revolves around bad and good accents, and the expertise of those speaking them. Audrey Hepburn has so little control over he voice she famously didn't even do the singing parts herself.
The original also stars Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly and King Candy from Wreck It Ralph).
I never saw the remake but the original was great.
What's really crazy is that the remake stars Ron Glass (Book in Firefly), which has to be intentional casting. You are better off never seeing the remake.
Comments
EXCEPT... it's probably the most derivative science fiction movie I've ever seen. I'd heard it was like that, but I couldn't believe just how much it resembled so many other movies.
It also showed more clearly why Independence Day is a better movie than those that came after it.
How many times have we seen the "Blow up/destroy the thing above, and all the minions below stop working" storyline? It happens time and time again, from The Phantom Menace to The Avengers.
In all these cases destroying the thing upstairs makes the battle going on below on the ground less important. The struggle of the lowly troops is almost worthless. They're just trying to hold out against whatever is fighting while the real heroes do the real damage.
Except in Independence Day they don't destroy the alien mother ship right away. They take out the shields with a virus. This then allows all the people on the ground to take the fight to the aliens. It lets the President and the drunkard be useful while Will Smith and Dr. Malcolm are in space.
This brings up a small plot hole, in that they might have been able to blow the mother ship up right away and save those below all the effort... but at least it makes for a more satisfying ending where all the characters have something to do, rather than wait for Anakin or Iron Man to do the real work.
While it does go over the most important aspects of his life such as working with Wozniak on the original Apple Computer, his messy relationship with his family which he initially denounced, Apple's rise to fame with the Apple II and the Macintosh, Jobs' removal from Apple, and his triumphant return. It doesn't, however, either mention or barely explore other important events and aspects of his life such as him founding NeXT Computers, Jobs discovering and helping Pixar, or his ) that I felt would have both helped and flavored the film a little more.
It also made the sin that so many biopics make, where very recognizable celebrities (e.g. J.K. Simmons, Matthew Modine, Pam's old boyfriend from The Office, etc) portrayed characters (both major & minor), but they were too transparent and didn't sink into the characters. Put another way, it wasn't "Ashton Kutcher portraying Steve Jobs", it was "...and Guest Starring: Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs"; if that makes any sense.
I won't go too long on the technical aspects, but it had some of the worst I've seen in a very long time. Granted, it had really almost perfect production and set design, but that was about it. The lighting, camerawork, and editing, were really sloppy and jarringly obvious. I kept getting taken out of the film as a result which enraged me both as an audience member and as a filmmaker.
TLDR: Don't see the Steve Jobs biopic "Jobs", because it is really poorly made and isn't the epic the filmmakers want it to be. Just see "Pirates of the Silicon Valley", "Steve Jobs: One Last Thing", or read the official biography instead". That having been said, I cannot wait for Aaron Sorkin's biopic on Steve Jobs, it'll at least be a million times better than this. Then again, it's Aaron Sorkin, so how can it not be?
Seems to have a theme of reincarnation, life and death plus themes that are specific to each story.
I don't know I feel; I need to watch it again.
I hadn't heard about it because it had a short release in Australia but it seems to be polarising.
I never saw the remake but the original was great.
My Fair Lady - good acting (mostly) and good songs. That's about it. Everything else is just terrible. The sets are all (except for the library set) are ALL GREY. The choreography is terrible, if there is any. The camera work is flat and boring. The story is bloated. The whole thing runs long.
Mary Poppins - better than My Fair Lady in every possible way. Better music, better singing, better acting, better sets, better colour, better camera work, actual choreography... I could go on and on. It's just a really, really good movie. My only complaint is that it goes slightly too long in places.
And yet My Fair Lady won the best picture oscar in 1964. How? I've no idea.
These movies are superficially similar, but one is a good stage music made into a shoddy movie, and the other is a musical written and designed from the ground up to be the best movie possible.
The bad accent of Dick Van Dyke is famously terrible, but at least the terrible accent isn't a plot point. In My Fair Lady it IS a plot point, which makes the far-from-perfect accents even more noticeable and annoying.
But in My Fair Lady, the main plot revolves around bad and good accents, and the expertise of those speaking them. Audrey Hepburn has so little control over he voice she famously didn't even do the singing parts herself.
As can be expected, the people who vote on the Oscars are all US-based, so they'll be focused on US films.