Movie/film thread: resurrected

The 5th Wave (2016)

A very pedestrian translation to film of the book. There's a part in the book, right at the start, where the main character, Cassie, says "Aliens are dumb". She explains why, and the book moves on from there. The movie, however, seems not to. Which is a pity. The book, which shouldn't be as good as it is, is fast-moving and exciting. The movie seems not to show any of that even as it stays a bit too literally faithful to the book. Maybe the sequel will be better.

 

ill Manors (2012)

Written, scored, and directed by the very multi-talented Brit rapper, Plan B. The movie is aggressive and the stories are harsh - it's a crime drama with a human toll - we spend 7 days with 8 main characters and the many people around them in one council estate in Britain. The movie has imperfections but it tells a lot of story anyway, as you might expect from a genuinely good rapper. Worth it.

 

Fantastic soundtrack in any case: Ill Manors - Plan B

The Running Man (1987)

hahahah oh lord

By 2017 the world economy has collapsed... 

And Mick Fleetwood is leader of the resistance!!!

Long, long ago, would have been late eighties, no later than 1990, I had a public access radio show... entirely crappy, and entirely volunteer, one hour a week... but I used to use samples. Watching The Running Man was surprising for just how much quotable dialogue I must have collected (and left running around my subconscious all this time).... oh lord, and I would have done it by VCR to cassette tape player too    

Who loves you? AND WHO DO LOVE!

 

Baby Driver (2017)

Very hype movie. "Baby" is a young getaway driver and music lover and he's stuck working for a kingpin who keeps putting him together with trenchantly cool robbery crews. Unfortunately for the momentum of the movie, this kid is about as charismatic on screen as a slice of white bread. Despite all the quirk and action (and music), that kid is just really opaque, which has everyone in-story keep hating on him, like I'm doing now, but he's a robot and I just couldn't find the heart of the movie. Imma fault the soundtrack too. I mean, yeah man, Bob & Earl's Harlem Shuffle and "Trex" Debora, but then I don't know what happens

Given how much hype this movie has, I'm probably missing something. It was ok.


 

Star Wars (1977) - Despecialized, v2.5

PRINCESS LEIA HAD FRECKLES?! Who even knew?

The Despecialized Trilogy is an unauthorised fan project that has attempted, to some considerable acclaim, to recreate the original Star Wars Trilogy. As we all know, George Lucas tinkered with the films between their original release and the various subsequent releases. The Despecialized Editions remove much of the added CGI stuff. Reviewers make a big deal about the colour corrections too, saying the Despecialized Editions are so much more colour accurate that they're a joy to watch. (Also, Han shoots first.)

Personally, I have little to no Star Wars nostalgia. Of the Lucas additions I recall only that I watched a newer edition once and kept noticing the CGI - the Mos Eisley alien thing in particular. But yesterday I just thought I'd watch the movie again, and the Despecialized Editions were a easy catch, so I watched A New Hope that way. I liked it, and it's the first time I've seen Star Wars in (mostly) 720p, and thus, for instance, Leia's freckles. I suspect, aesthetically speaking, the Despecialized probably is a better viewing experience than the newer Lucas versions. I enjoyed it.


 

The Man From Nowhere - 아저씨 - (2010)

Reclusive pawn shop owner lives next door to a junkie exotic dancer and her daughter. Then men from the criminal organization the mother tried to cheat turn up to recover their goods, and they decide the pawn shop owner can be their fall guy for the bad things that happen. Slick Korean action thriller movie ensues.
Imperfect but effective nonetheless.


 

Blade Runner (1982) - Final Cut - (2007)

I still find this movie opaque. I don't know why Deckard does anything nor, as far as the movie is concerned, why the replicants are so hated and feared. The existence of the Voight-Kampf test does not, in my humble estimation, provided indication enough of the movie's themes. You can work out for yourself from Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep that it's all about empathy and being human, but spotting that in the movie itself.....?


Two shrugs up:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No Tears for the Dead - 우는 남자 - (2014)

Surprisingly poor reviews for a movie so not bad. Korean-American hitman kills a bunch of people by choice and then a child by accident and if you look closely he was already on the path of hating who and what he was, which puts him at odds with his organization when he has to go to Korea and kill the mother too. The dramatic elements may be a little undercooked but there are just so many of them! Slick, compromised action movie about a slick, sick, and fatally compromised man. Boom.


 

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Outstanding! Vince Vaughn doing better than he did in True Detective and S Craig Zahler (the writer/director) doing better than he did in in Bone Tomahawk. I thought I was watching one thing and then I was watching something else. Maybe you should know going in that this is throwback grindhouse prison cinema. Perhaps the title is a giveaway. Worth it.


 

Suddenly Seventeen - 28岁未成年 - (2016)

An optimistic and mostly cheerful version of dissociative identity disorder the Chinese fantasy of youth. A 28-year-old woman isn't proposed to by her boyfriend of 10 years and seeks solace in magical chocolates that make her "young at heart", which is to say, 17 again. She regains her youthful exuberance and gets into trouble. Billed as "fantasy", but more interesting if considered a very lightweight vision (with minor darkness in the undercurrents) of how being an attractive nutcase can (almost) be good for you.


 

The Warriors (1979)

Still good. Technically a heavily bowdlerized version of Sol Yurick's novel, but still fun. Nine gang members travel to a city-wide conclave in the Bronx, which quickly deteriorates after the star attraction is shot, and for the rest of the movie they have to bop their way back to Coney Island with everyone thinking they did the shooting. Based on Xenophon's Anabasis (which the Director's Cut portentously and needlessly informs us). Even the entirely needless comic book transitions in the Director's Cut can't ruin the good time.


 

Atomic Blonde (2016)

Confusing. In a timeless 1989, an undercover MI6 agent (Charlize Theron) is called in to debrief on her violent and undermotivated recent mission to (Cold War) Berlin. She's cold and hard and snarly. We see flashbacks to all the crosses and double crosses and some tremendous lengthy one-take fist fights, but the whole thing is pretty garbled and supposed to be all Fight Club cool but isn't which kind of just leaves the mystery of what the hell's going on which isn't much..... The movie is notable I guess for allowing the female lead to be as thuggish as any James Bond, but there's some missing element that for me left the rest of the movie incoherent.


 

American Werewolf in London (1981)

If I were telling my thirteen-year-old self anything, well, it'd be quite a long lecture and would cover much ground, but I'd say, kid, you might not need this movie just yet. Kid, I'd say, 35 years later you're still going to be exorcising that stuff... It's not that scary to me these days of course. Or........ it's the ease with which the nightmarishly surreal just slips into David's life and how easily he accepts it, how the freakish (and violent) was real and present and just there in an everyman's life....... totally freaked me out as a kid. That and the jump scares. That first setup on the moors in particular.


 

Singularity (2017)

Artificial intelligence, abrupt technological growth, killer robots exterminate most of humanity, John Cusack.... the movie had it all... and was so very boring even I couldn't watch it. Wooden acting, vacant script, not even camp...


 

American Werewolf in London (1981)

If I were telling my thirteen-year-old self anything, well, it'd be quite a long lecture and would cover much ground, but I'd say, kid, you might not need this movie just yet. Kid, I'd say, 35 years later you're still going to be exorcising that stuff... It's not that scary to me these days of course. Or........ it's the ease with which the nightmarishly surreal just slips into David's life and how easily he accepts it, how the freakish (and violent) was real and present and just there in an everyman's life....... totally freaked me out as a kid. That and the jump scares. That first setup on the moors in particular.


 

Oddly enough, I didn't like it the first time I saw it, but ended up loving it the second time around and have enjoyed seeing it every few years since then.  Maybe it had something to do with that really big dog that bit me one night sometime between the first and second times I saw the movie.