Seen any good films lately? [3]

{{Largely- though not entirely.

Spoiler:

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watched Close Encounters again. I had forgotten how brilliant it is.

Sounds like Figgs has found the better way to spend a couple hours. It was difficult to sit through.

The best parts of the movie are when the titular character is talking to one of the children, when the kids are interacting in enjoyable kid-like fashion, and when something subtly horrible is happening.

The worst parts of the movie are when the audience's ear-drums are being imploded by non-diegetic screaming or smashing sounds, when yet another of the adult actors is sucking, and when pointless chase scenes involving tedious jump scares are being dragged out before our eyes.

Any lasting grace the good parts might grant the film are destroyed by the relentlessly-delivered dumb bits, which come back again and again to smack me over the head with obtuse attempts to scare me.

I've seen way too many shitty trailers for shitty horror films to be spooked by contortionist tricks, dolls, blood-writing on walls and ceilings, FUCKING ECHOING CHILD LAUGHTER HOLY CRAP IS THAT DEAD HORSE OVER-BEATEN, a spooky old house, large sprouting teeth, popping balloons, PIcasso-style ghostly women faces, clowns, SOURCELESS BANGING NOISES, sudden turn-arounds, and quickly decomposing faces.

I mean, reading these descriptions you might actually feel a tiny bit unnerved trying to imagine what these things might be look in a movie. But believe me, actually having to sit through them in this movie robs them of any interest. I was more annoyed than anything else during most of the "horror" scenes of this movie. T

The only two points of genuine dread for me were when the fat kid, Bill?, is flipping through a book of old photographs and the pictures begin to zoom in on a tree branch in which we realize there is resting the severed head of a child. That part was unnerving. But, of course, it was accompanied by a blasting BRRRRRHHHHH!!!! noise so that your brain wouldn't have time to process it properly.
The other unnerving bit being when a similar trick is used in the slide-projecter garage scene. Hearing the children react to the appearance of the clown with "what the hell is that?!" was spooky to me. But, of course, that scene is also dampened with a crashing explosion of CGI clown that would have been perfectly in-place in a circa 2011 movie re-purposed expressly for use with 3D glasses.

I wouldn't say the scenes I did enjoy with Pennywise in which he talks to the children were unnerving, but they were definitely "scarier" than watching a CGI clown vibrate at super-human speeds while gliding towards the camera amidst the sound of a dozen different Inception BWWAAAAAHHs smashing into each other inside an empty water-tank.
And anything with corpse-children just felt utterly gratuitous and exploitative to me.

In short: mostly great acting from the kids and good chemistry between them, atrocious jump scares and crashing sounds, and a few actually horrifying bits.

P.S.

Good point Petty about the adults being either abusive or evil. I didn't like any of the adult actors, except maybe the bully's father and Bev's dad. Eddie's mom was at-times comical and then very annoying in the contrived manner in which she helped "split up" the seven. I thought Mike's grandfather was fine acting-wise, but was given very poor dialogue. Telling his grandson that he needed to decide whether he was going to kill sheep or metaphorically become a sheep himself and be killed? All because he didn't want to kill sheep in a violent manner? I wanted to yell at him, "Lighten the fuck up grandpa!"
Sure, maybe this relates to the theme of the monster and the difficulty he faces in being the only black kid in town. But because this version of the story is set post-Civil Rights movement, and because the writers chose to do so, the theme of racial tension is skimmed right over, along with most of Mike's characterization.
I mean, if a sequel is made, what is Mike's character going to do? His role as chronicler and researcher has already been given to Bill, who needed something to fill the void left behind when the writers entirely did away with his engineering know-how.

Yes, IT was a very loud movie with cheap jump scares.

But there were some things I liked: the design of the clown, I found the woman from the painting to be extremely disturbing, all the kids did a good job acting (though I thought Bill's stutter didn't seem natural).

In terms of generating horror, it seemed like they knew what they were doing up to a point, at least in building tension, but after the loud noise (which was sometimes scarier than the actual horror element) what I was supposed to be unnerved by was just mostly startling.

I can't comment on this as an adaptation because I never did finish the book. I always thought "You'll float down here" was more of a metaphor than an actual description of bodies literally floating in the air. Was that ever in the book?

I did miss the inclusion of the turtle that connects this to the Stephen King universe. Would have been cool to see one of the guardians of the beam, but it wasn't necessary.

I think the best way to describe this movie is: Wasn't as a good as the hype.

I will stick to Spielberg.

Close Encounters is an excellent movie. They're releasing a 40th anniversary blu-ray, wonder if that will be worth getting.

In the book, It assumes the form of an enormous Shelob-like spider while in the deepest portion of her lair. The bodies of many of It's victims are held aloft within an enormous web including, when the children are adults, the comatose body of Bill's wife.

Watched 'Catch me if you can' with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, really enjoyable film.

Yeah, that was pure fun.

Wrote a long review, but lost it before I could post it. So i'll be quick, just watched Arrival and that it got such good reviews, found it a pretentious empty husk of a film.

Great production values and some intriguing ruminations on the science of language and grief, but it told such a generic poorly plotted story with boring characters, wonky pacing, and a cliched 'twist' that had rather horrible implications for its lead characters.

4/10.

Watched Blade Runner 2049 earlier, my initial thoughts, avoiding any major plot spoilers or thematic discussion (frankly I'm probably too tired/thick to pick up on most of the latter after just one viewing-I still notice new things about the original):

Spoiler:

This isn't a spoiler, simply a moan-Jared Leto was hammier than a pig farm.

Goodness. Usually he's only about as hammy as a delicatessen, so that's really saying something!

Are you talking about a Jewish delicatessen or something more like a diner?

I was thinking of a place that sells lots of pork products, so that sounds definitively un-Jewish to me.

Ah. Around here most delicatessens are Jewish, hence the need for clarification.

Frances Ha.  Came out a few years ago, about quirky 20-somethings in New York; the main character is a quirky loser who you can't help but love.  Incredibly beautiful in its observations of the little things of life which never really make it into the movies.  The co-writer never saw herself in the main role, but the director informed her it really was her.  And it was.

Edit: on seeing one of the extras where the main character/writer was being interviewed, it clearly wasn't her.  She talked about doing 30 takes for this one simple scene which seems like a one take shot. the whole film felt spontaneous but it completely wasn't.  a real accomplishment.  One interviewer said it was totally non-derivative, but the director said it was inspired by European art films.  Anyway, babbling...much greater movie than I ever expected.

Edit2: They had filmed in digital, then converted to black and white.  They had a beautiful statement: the problem with the modern approach to digital is that everyone is trying to reproduce reality as well as they can.  But film was never about reality, it was about interpreting reality.  Hence one of the problems with the Hobbit movies: why ever would you be trying to recreate reality in a fantasy film?  These guys in Frances Ha were actually defocusing certain color layers, etc in order to manipulate the view of reality.

I saw the new Blade Runner last night. Too long! Almost three hours. I fell asleep three times, and felt like I didn't miss anything crucial to the plot. I really liked the soundtrack, lots of really cool sounds.

This is completely unrelated to the film: at the beginning of the movie there was this theater worker in the theater with a walkie-talkie, and the thing is going at full blast, and he's just standing at the opening to the hallway for like 20 minutes with chatter and crackling on his walkie. WTF? I'm supposed to silence my cell phone, but you can just waltz around the theater making as much noise as you want just because you work there? And then the guy sits down in the row I'm in, again with the walkie going at full blast. So I turn to him, give him a look and ask "Seriously?" and then he finally left.

Man I hate theaters, noisy people, and plus with all the mass shootings that have been going on I don't feel completely safe all the time when I'm in a vulnerable situation like that. You're in the dark in an unfamiliar place, and the exits are like 30-40 feet away with a lot of obstacles in your path, not the best place to be if you need to make a break for the door. Honestly I'd rather not subject myself to that anymore.

You may as well decide not to cross the street anymore - better chance of being killed that way, methinks.

Yes, but if I cross the street I can take precautions to ensure that I avoid hazards. If some psychopath decides to go and shoot up the theater you're in, there's nothing you can do to prevent it from happening, and very little you can do to stop it once it begins.

halfwise wrote:You may as well decide not to cross the street anymore - better chance of being killed that way, methinks.

Clearly you're crossing the wrong kind of streets Halfy. I prefer to cross this kind:

Edit: I just popped in to say "DONE WITH HARVEST!!!!!

But the Forumshire site seems to be punishing me for my absence. Eating an earlier post, now double posting. I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! OK???

I'm more accustomed to country roads, myself.

Congrats and good to see more of you, Dave.

bungobaggins wrote:Yes, but if I cross the street I can take precautions to ensure that I avoid hazards. If some psychopath decides to go and shoot up the theater you're in, there's nothing you can do to prevent it from happening, and very little you can do to stop it once it begins.

I don't like movie theatres either but its mostly the coughing sneezing, mobile phone lights, and popcorn bucket grazers behind my head. I like to go in the middle of the day when there is about 4 people.