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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Newer Films)


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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

It is.  The older generation needs to be comforted by fantasies about the importance of traditions and social order.

 

As opposed to fantasies about the importance of unorthodox social disorder?

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43 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

How patronising they must find you!

 

We’re all destined to switch roles with our parents!

 

28 minutes ago, Thekthithm said:

 

As opposed to fantasies about the importance of unorthodox social disorder?

 

This describes almost all young adult fiction

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Rambo: Last Blood. It was actually not bad, certainly better than the reviews would lead you to believe. But then, these movies were never really critic darlings. I suppose it has more to do with politics (both then and now) rather than actual films themselves. I never really read that much into those, except for the very first one, so it is not a problem. The film is exactly what it advertises and it does that well. It's ridiculous, of course, but brief and to the point. And I also thought it was somewhat more emotional and poignant than, say, 2 and 3.

 

Karol

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Haven't seen a Rambo flick since the second one, and my memory of that is some sort of ludicrous action fantasy whereby Rambo returns to 'Nam and single-handedly refights and wins the war.  

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As I recall, that is after the unfortunate Vietnamese officer has shot at Rambo several times on ground that provided no cover from about 30 feet away and failed to hit him even once. 

 

With aim like that, he should've been an Imperial Stormtrooper. 

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It To

Too many jokes, too many nostalgic callbacks to a movie that was released two fucking years ago. 

The score was good though.  The EDM jump scare music is gone and there are more traditional orchestral suspense gestures. 

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It Chapter 2

 

Not as bad as I thought I would be. It's well acted, well directed, has a few good jumpscares and jokes, so it's actually a good time at the movies.

 

I guess the duration is the bigger problem. The movie, like most Stephen King's books (including, of course, It) could have used an editor that cut out some excess. For example, during the second act the movie becomes very episodic and repetitive: one of the Losers goes to a place in Derry, remember being haunted by Pennywise in elaborate setpieces as kids, and then are haunted by Pennywise again as adults on the same place. And the third act is simply neverending, with an enourmous battle with Pennywise that just becomes tiresome at the end, followed by a huge epilogue. You thought Return of the King's finale was huge? Well, think again.

 

On the other hand, the duration works on the film's favor when it allows us to spent more time with the Losers and getting to know them well, so that we may root for them during their confrontation with the Dancing Clown. 

 

Wallfisch's score is great! He doesn't score it like your run-of-the-mill Conjuring score, instead, it's more like music for a dark fantasy film, performed by a huge orchestra and even some choir. I don't think I gave the dude that much credit, between this and Shazam, he might be one of the best on RCP right now, along with Powell.

 

3 red ballons out of 5.

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Ad Astra 

Ventured to the cinema for one of my rare out of home viewings evening last. Honestly, I was underwhelmed. I read a few positive comments, and had already been intrigued by the trailers I had seen, but at the end of the day I wasn't overly impressed with the result. Director James Gray employs space drama as a medium for asking philosophical questions about humanity as whole via a single father-son relationship. If one considers the symbolism of the gradually shrinking physical distance between Roy (Brad Pitt) and his father (Tommy Lee Jones) as the former ventures through space to recon with the long lost latter, and how the personal distance between them actually remains the same, if not increases, along the way, it's quite well thought out. I really do want to like it, because before I saw it I had predisposed it as one that'd hit near to the mark, but I never had that moment where I said to myself that this was exceptional, or at least pretty good. If anything it was something contrary to that, a bit of a 'meh' showing. Hoyte van Hoytema, best known for working with Christopher Nolan, is certainly firing on all cylinders when he can, but a great deal of time is spent with the camera almost exclusively on Roy's face, one that always seems not too far off from tears. All in all a bit of a wasted opportunity in a couple of ways, not really reaching the top in a few facets (especially score- even an ounce of memorable music could have aided in uplifting things). 

 

2.5-3 / 5

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On 9/29/2019 at 5:12 AM, Edmilson said:

It Chapter 2

 

 

The movie, like most Stephen King's books (including, of course, It) could have used an editor that cut out some excess. For example, during the second act the movie becomes very episodic and repetitive: one of the Losers goes to a place in Derry, remember being haunted by Pennywise in elaborate setpieces as kids, and then are haunted by Pennywise again as adults on the same place. And the third act is simply neverending, with an enourmous battle with Pennywise that just becomes tiresome at the end, followed by a huge epilogue.

 

If anything, they should have included the 'excesses' - i only saw part One - because the book has a much better, more lyrical sense of pace and doesn't shove clown attacks at you in rapid succession. 

 

Another important thing: King sets up 'It' as eternal force of evil - like the place was is haunted by some mystic indian curse or something like that - while the film pretty much invites you to think it's about a clown in a drainage. In the book, It's many incarnations were manifold and the narrative with the cycle made much more sense. They really should have made a tv series out of 'it'.

 

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57 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

If anything, they should have included the 'excesses'

 

They really should have made a tv series out of 'it'.

 

Yes, I felt the same way about Chapter 2. The plot of the film is super thin, stretched out over three hours. Characters appear, reappear, go to places in the same mechanical motions Edmilson was talking about that it felt as if there was a ton of stuff they had to cut or didn't film just so they could wrap it up. 

 

If they were going for such a leisurely length, and still cut everything that would've fleshed out characters (all of them) why didn't they just consider making this a series on Netflix. They could've shit out ten seasons. 

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From what i remember, King's narrative - while full of clutter, some delightful, some just superfluous - lived by its juxtaposition of past and present and to my never-ending regret, they neither zoned in on the more colourful incarnations of It (the giant bird) nor did they include many good moments that flew off the page as film scene. Instead we get never-ending attacks in the old house and many other familiar situations (form horror movies). While they did understand that it basically is a story of friendship they seem to have lost much of that in the edit. 

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

From what i remember, King's narrative - while full of clutter, some delightful, some just superfluous - lived by its juxtaposition of past and present

 

For what it's worth, from those King stories I've read, the climax often seems to be their weakest point, and yes, the book not only lives and breathes on the juxtaposition of the past and present timelines, but the present draws much of its life from its roots in the past. I haven't seen the new films yet (and the old one only more than 20 years ago, whereas I just finally read the book the other year), but splitting the past and present into two separate films doesn't seem a wise idea to me.

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To be honest, while I do think that the movie could have cut out some about 30 minutes of repetitive jumpscares setpieces, I also think that the larger duration was good to develop the characters, their interations to each other. The Losers are charismatic characters, and we root for them.

 

For example,

 

Spoiler

Richie and Eddie's arc. I liked their interations evolved during the movie, and I also think that the conclusion of their arc was very touching.

 

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56 minutes ago, Quintus said:

I seem to recall the true nature of IT was that it was essentially a Lovecraftian elder god.

 

Oh, how I wish that would be the truth on this movie. I'm a Lovecraft fan, and I would love to see some lovecraftian horror on a big budget horror movie (both It movies costed around US$ 100 millions). 

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10 hours ago, Edmilson said:

 

Oh, how I wish that would be the truth on this movie. I'm a Lovecraft fan, and I would love to see some lovecraftian horror on a big budget horror movie (both It movies costed around US$ 100 millions). 

 

I still hold out in vain that someday Del Toro will be able to adapt Mountains of Madness. :(

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Late Night

 

Emma Thompson is great as always.  All movies about comedians suffer from the fact that their fake stand up acts are never funny, but I did laugh a few times at the character humor (not the fake jokes) and it was an enjoyable, nice comedy. 

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Joker - I really enjoyed a lot about this. It's very stylish, has a great little "retro soundtrack", and Phoenix's performance as The Joker is nothing short of remarkable. He manages to convey insanity while not truly"breaking down", or going OOT. Also I thought they did a solid job of laying out the anarchistic "eat the rich" themes, without it ever truly becoming "problematic".

 

However, I do admit that I agree with the criticisms that the characters outside of Arthur aka The Joker are paper-thin for the most part (I guess DeNiro's talk show character has a personality, but we don't see not enough of him anyway). Also there's the issue of trying to center the movie entirely around a "villain". It's often a case of not trying to make him too sympathetic, and not making him too repulsive that it turns off audiences. I'm not sure the movie entirely succeeded in finding a middle ground, but I really need to think it over. - 7 / 10

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Just another movie. Nothing wrong with it as such, you just get a real sense of déjà vu. We've already seen A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, The Dark Knight. Hell, even Watchmen! it's all been done before, and better. This brings nothing new to the table. Joachim Phoenix is really good...but even that's not a surprise.

 

Karol

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This Joker film was supposed to be a standalone but even here they shove in all the references to the Wayne family and such. It actually hurts the film because it starts feeling like a tie-in.

 

I am a comic book person. I was raised on these. And even I don't buy this.

 

The film is "fine". And that's not much.

 

Karol

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On 10/4/2019 at 11:30 PM, Fancyarcher said:

Also there's the issue of trying to center the movie entirely around a "villain".

 

Lots of films used to do that.

 

Its like people forgot how the watch tragic heroes.

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