I knew basically nothing going in except that it was praised a lot and categorized as a comedy. I think that categorization is wrong. This is more of an adventure movie than anything else. I don't think I laughed once, but that isn't a condemnation. Instead I had was delightfully amused throughout the whole thing.
The movie is very artistically shot and has an extraordinary sense of framing and casting. It is a bit extreme in this in having so many characters with unique and distinguishable facial features but it works well and adds to the overall Münchhausian feel I got. I am particularly honored by one of the principal characters sporting a port-wine stain, a feature I myself have on my own face (smaller but in a more prominent position).
The movie is based on the writing of austrian author Stefan Zweig, whose writing I am not familiar with but it definitely has strong austrian flavor to it despite only german and no austrian involvement in the production apparently. The overall flair has definitely an austrian imperial feel that has been romanticized around here in early austrian cinema with for example the Sissi movies which were still shown routinely on TV when I was young.
Anyhow, this is a wonderfully bizarre piece that everybody should watch,
Today's T-Mobile reward is $2 tickets to any movie you want to see today. We're going to check out La La Land tonight.
This Christmas break has been movie season so far. I've watched Civil War, Sicario, and The Little Prince. I very rarely have time to watch movies at home.
Having nothing better to do in my wife's hometown over the weekend, we got in a couple movies we'd been meaning to watch.
Guardians of the Galaxy - Knew this was good, but I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. Really funny, great characters, and didn't hit you over the head with anything. I appreciate that it just assumed its viewers would be older and smarter, so it just went with whatever seemed natural and didn't over-explain.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 - Many people claimed this is better than the original, which I don't agree with. I enjoyed it a lot, but it doesn't quite reach the highs of the first because it's not doing as much world or relationship building. Still a lot of fun and I liked how it just starts running from the very start since you should already know the characters and world. It ends up being a dense movie but still easy to digest.
We ended up coming home with a bunch of borrowed movies, so we are a little more incentivized to watch more in the coming weeks. Which is good, since we are generally bad at watching stuff we want to see.
Oh yeah, we also saw Rogue One on Christmas Eve. Having seen both it and TFA once, I'm leaning more towards Rogue One as the one I liked more. It just felt a lot fresher, even though I agree that the characters aren't as good as those in TFA. Need to watch each one again to know for sure.
Star Wars: A New Hope This is a very promising movie. On rewatch, the lack of ethnic diversity is damning. Also the droids immediately being thrown into a situation where they are clearly sentient and have emotions while having an undercurrent theme of slavery around them was probably not intended, however was an interpretation on re-watch.
Wow the rebels really are religious fanatics.
Princess Leia is the best character.
Also if you want to piss off a right wing / racist nut job that loves Star Wars, argue the point that the Rebels are all Muslims. It's so hilarious.
It stands by itself as a fine film, without the audience expecting a follow up movie and easily able to sell merchandise.
Also the score is amazing in comparison to the recent movies I've seen, it bolsters the acting to no end.
This movie is excellent and definitely deserves all the praise it got. I am biased of course because this movie hits all my buttons like an anvil dropped from orbit. Basically the movie is the scene from Apollo 13 that is "solve this task with this box of garbage and give the instructions how to do it with little communication ability to people floating in space miles away or else they will die" stretched into movie length and I fucking love it.
My only real criticism is that Matt Damon as Mark Wattney is a bit too much of typical Hollywood hero but that can be overlooked and gives him a little bit of a charm and some of this is genuinely funny too. Oh, and two astronauts on the same mission being in love with each other is also kind of BS but whatevs, didn't really intrude.
Amazing cast, great acting, wonderfully shot. Just a great movie. However, one thing that went through my head watching it was just what the fuck went wrong with Ridley Scott on Prometheus.
A solid premise and story for The Martian already existed, and Ridley Scott did a great job with it.
Prometheus never had a reason to exist, and obvious lacked a premise, plot, or even a halfway decent script. No amount of directing capability would have made it into a good movie.
A solid premise and story for The Martian already existed, and Ridley Scott did a great job with it.
Prometheus never had a reason to exist, and obvious lacked a premise, plot, or even a halfway decent script. No amount of directing capability would have made it into a good movie.
It's true that Prometheus is just WTF? But for some reason the trailer for Alien: Covenant, which is a Prometheus sequel, is showing some promise.
Finally got around to watching The Martian. … Basically the movie is the scene from Apollo 13 that is "solve this task with this box of garbage and give the instructions how to do it with little communication ability to people floating in space miles away or else they will die" stretched into movie length and I fucking love it.
If that's your jam, you should also read the book!
Prometheus is dumb as all fuck. Alien: Covenant has different writers, but doesn't look like it will do any better IMO.
Judging from the trailer, it's obvious the intent is to create certain moments in the film, all emphasis are on these moments. Everything in between is contrived as means to connect them.
Whether it's: a chest burst, a character being stalked and killed, a particular 'one line' from one character to another.
Without the right amount of nuance, it will fall flat and disappoint.
The 2016 Ghostbusters remake is perfectly fine. I mean it's still unnecessary and it has its problems, but it is far from franchise ruining, childhood destroying or terrible in any way. One of the big issues is just how stupid the Chris Hemsworth character is which is just way too corny and overdone. The rest of the main characters are perfectly fine though and perform up to expectations.
Some of the new Ghostbuster tech also seems kind of just there for an action scene, or more likely, for merchandising and/or as a cannonized asset for a shooter type tie-in game. The humor is a bit crude in places but that's what I expected from a Paul Feig movie, and he has done worse. Got a couple good chuckles and guffaws out of me though.
Seriously, this movie is perfectly fine B-, standard Hollywood fare. Definitely not as good as the original (though appreciate all the cameos from the original cast) but nothing to cry and whine about. The internet manbaby brigade were, as was to be expected, creating a tempest in a teapot.
Comments
I knew basically nothing going in except that it was praised a lot and categorized as a comedy. I think that categorization is wrong. This is more of an adventure movie than anything else. I don't think I laughed once, but that isn't a condemnation. Instead I had was delightfully amused throughout the whole thing.
The movie is very artistically shot and has an extraordinary sense of framing and casting. It is a bit extreme in this in having so many characters with unique and distinguishable facial features but it works well and adds to the overall Münchhausian feel I got. I am particularly honored by one of the principal characters sporting a port-wine stain, a feature I myself have on my own face (smaller but in a more prominent position).
The movie is based on the writing of austrian author Stefan Zweig, whose writing I am not familiar with but it definitely has strong austrian flavor to it despite only german and no austrian involvement in the production apparently. The overall flair has definitely an austrian imperial feel that has been romanticized around here in early austrian cinema with for example the Sissi movies which were still shown routinely on TV when I was young.
Anyhow, this is a wonderfully bizarre piece that everybody should watch,
This Christmas break has been movie season so far. I've watched Civil War, Sicario, and The Little Prince. I very rarely have time to watch movies at home.
Guardians of the Galaxy - Knew this was good, but I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. Really funny, great characters, and didn't hit you over the head with anything. I appreciate that it just assumed its viewers would be older and smarter, so it just went with whatever seemed natural and didn't over-explain.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 - Many people claimed this is better than the original, which I don't agree with. I enjoyed it a lot, but it doesn't quite reach the highs of the first because it's not doing as much world or relationship building. Still a lot of fun and I liked how it just starts running from the very start since you should already know the characters and world. It ends up being a dense movie but still easy to digest.
We ended up coming home with a bunch of borrowed movies, so we are a little more incentivized to watch more in the coming weeks. Which is good, since we are generally bad at watching stuff we want to see.
Oh yeah, we also saw Rogue One on Christmas Eve. Having seen both it and TFA once, I'm leaning more towards Rogue One as the one I liked more. It just felt a lot fresher, even though I agree that the characters aren't as good as those in TFA. Need to watch each one again to know for sure.
This is a very promising movie.
On rewatch, the lack of ethnic diversity is damning. Also the droids immediately being thrown into a situation where they are clearly sentient and have emotions while having an undercurrent theme of slavery around them was probably not intended, however was an interpretation on re-watch.
Wow the rebels really are religious fanatics.
Princess Leia is the best character.
Also if you want to piss off a right wing / racist nut job that loves Star Wars, argue the point that the Rebels are all Muslims. It's so hilarious.
It stands by itself as a fine film, without the audience expecting a follow up movie and easily able to sell merchandise.
Also the score is amazing in comparison to the recent movies I've seen, it bolsters the acting to no end. agreed
This movie is excellent and definitely deserves all the praise it got. I am biased of course because this movie hits all my buttons like an anvil dropped from orbit. Basically the movie is the scene from Apollo 13 that is "solve this task with this box of garbage and give the instructions how to do it with little communication ability to people floating in space miles away or else they will die" stretched into movie length and I fucking love it.
My only real criticism is that Matt Damon as Mark Wattney is a bit too much of typical Hollywood hero but that can be overlooked and gives him a little bit of a charm and some of this is genuinely funny too. Oh, and two astronauts on the same mission being in love with each other is also kind of BS but whatevs, didn't really intrude.
Amazing cast, great acting, wonderfully shot. Just a great movie. However, one thing that went through my head watching it was just what the fuck went wrong with Ridley Scott on Prometheus.
Prometheus never had a reason to exist, and obvious lacked a premise, plot, or even a halfway decent script. No amount of directing capability would have made it into a good movie.
Judging from the trailer, it's obvious the intent is to create certain moments in the film, all emphasis are on these moments. Everything in between is contrived as means to connect them.
Whether it's: a chest burst, a character being stalked and killed, a particular 'one line' from one character to another.
Without the right amount of nuance, it will fall flat and disappoint.
I will like to be proved wrong, but we'll see.
Some of the new Ghostbuster tech also seems kind of just there for an action scene, or more likely, for merchandising and/or as a cannonized asset for a shooter type tie-in game. The humor is a bit crude in places but that's what I expected from a Paul Feig movie, and he has done worse. Got a couple good chuckles and guffaws out of me though.
Seriously, this movie is perfectly fine B-, standard Hollywood fare. Definitely not as good as the original (though appreciate all the cameos from the original cast) but nothing to cry and whine about. The internet manbaby brigade were, as was to be expected, creating a tempest in a teapot.