movies

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Wicked is fun. No excuse for it to be so long though, especially since no one told me in that inescapable deluge of marketing that it was Part 1. Literally learned in the opening credits.

I liked that it was a little weird—was expecting super dry and bland and neutral in today’s YouTube-driven world. The songs are meh, mostly. The leads are great, especially Ariana Grande, and I wasn’t expecting that either.

The songs in Moana 2 were worse than meh. Way worse than the original. Bad, even.


I liked Gladiator 2sical the best. It wasn’t nearly long enough. Need to see the non-musical version.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HC77saWLR ... ljYWwgc25s

[Jocephus]

here's another sale for you movie freaks, i guess amazon is doing 3 for $33 on select 4k/blu ray titles. dont know how long it lasts.

https://www.amazon.com/promotion/psp/A3 ... t_collapse

[heyzeus]

Just watched Oppenheimer for free on Amazon Prime. I liked it, obviously it has great performances, but it really misses what the spiritual heart of his story is. Nolan decides to focus on Strauss' senate confirmation hearing, and nested within that flashbacks to Oppenheimer's appeal of the denial of his security clearance. The story gets bogged down in a lot of the procedural aspects of both hearings and the orchestrations of the players. But the heart of the story is the moral dilemma of a genius tasked with creating a weapon that can wipe out humanity. That core gets lost in the shuffle, to me.

[ghostrunner]

Just watched Oppenheimer for free on Amazon Prime. I liked it, obviously it has great performances, but it really misses what the spiritual heart of his story is. Nolan decides to focus on Strauss' senate confirmation hearing, and nested within that flashbacks to Oppenheimer's appeal of the denial of his security clearance. The story gets bogged down in a lot of the procedural aspects of both hearings and the orchestrations of the players. But the heart of the story is the moral dilemma of a genius tasked with creating a weapon that can wipe out humanity. That core gets lost in the shuffle, to me.

Indy somehow has one of the few real IMAX theaters in the US and I saw it there but honestly I didn’t love the experience. Got seats a little ways back and it still just felt too close and big for what was mostly people talking in rooms. I’d like to see it again on a more normal screen so I might try to watch it soon.

Plus the sound design felt overwhelming, especially in that format. It seems like a mini-trend for movies to use this high pitched or loud droning sound. Poor Things, Oppenheimer, and Nosferatu all had some version of that. It reminds me of the long “eeeeeeeeeeh” during the later monolith sequence from 2001. It might also just be that I have a lot of good theaters available now, and if anything they’re generally too loud. Doesn’t help that I have tinnitus now and I’m a bit skittish about loud sounds.

[mikechamp]

Did anyone see "The Apprentice" (movie, not TV show)? If not, it sounds like it might get easier to find... if it delivers an Oscar or two:

A Trump movie that Trump hates is going to get a lot more attention, courtesy of the Oscars

Donald Trump didn't want you to see "The Apprentice" last year. And he got his way: The unflattering Trump biopic struggled to get to theaters and was a flop when it eventually got there in October.

But now "The Apprentice" is going to get a lot more attention, courtesy of the Oscars: Sebastian Stan just received a best-actor nomination for his portrayal of Trump. And Jeremy Strong's take on Roy Cohn, Trump's former attorney and mentor, earned him a nomination for best supporting actor.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tru ... 18802.html

[Jocephus]

[mikechamp]

Will his writing be prescient? For those fans of the Bond franchise, you probably hope not:

Spoilers:

Branded, Not Stirred: Now That the James Bond Series Is Controlled by Amazon MGM, Is It Set to Become…Content?

[SHOW]

It turns out they were right to kill off James Bond.

Three years ago, reviewing the final Daniel Craig Bond film, “No Time to Die,” I praised the filmmakers’ decision to end the movie with the death of Craig’s 007. I called it “the send-off he deserves” and wrote, “What happens in the climactic scene feels poetic: Bond, in a strange way, takes on the karma of all the people he has killed.” Of course, the film’s end title also assured us that “James Bond will return.” So he’s dead; and he’s coming back! I rationalized away the slight absurdity of this by figuring that they killed off Craig’s 007 to make way for a new one — which, in essence, is what happens every time a different actor takes over the role.

Yet in the months after I wrote that review, as I absorbed the mountain of negative reaction triggered by the decision to kill off Bond, I rethought my original judgment. As time went on, I felt less good about what they had done. It appeared less “poetic” to me and more like an odd and enigmatic stunt.

Now, though, I may have to revise my revised opinion. Because it turns out that in 2021, killing off the James Bond we’d known and loved for 60 years — the ultimate spy, the ultimate movie icon of danger and cool and masculine mystique — may have been a more prescient move than anyone could have known.

The announcement today, that Amazon MGM Studios is set to assume creative control of the Bond franchise, and that the series’ longtime producers and overseers, Michael G, Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, will be stepping back, marks nothing less than a paradigm shift in movie culture. It’s a shift we’ve actually been in the thick of for a while — the transition from movies to content, from curated popcorn to popcorn sold by the yard. But the seismic nature of the Bond news today marks that transition as a cultural done deal.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bra ... 19800.html

[ghostrunner]

I could easily live without another Bond movie, but if you care about it that deal seems pretty world-changing. Marvel is in a situation now where unless they just take a long break - which means profitable IP just sitting there, and we can't have that - they can't ever reset. Characters know other characters, and show up in other shows and movies. If they start expanding the world, it's hard go back to square one. Which is something Bond kind of does and that's part of the charm. There's a loose continuity between Connery and Moore but part of the charm is they don't really care about it. His wife isn't really mentioned by a couple movies after OHMSS, Bond and Blofeld both are played by different actors. Time goes by and the change is unacknowledged. You could watch a Bond movie without having seen the others. Then with Craig they really did reset everything.

[Jocephus]

i cant wait for the bond:origins tv show. and a family guy style cartoon. crossovers with lotr and fallout. the possibilities are endless.

i enjoy bond in a loose sense but its a shame they sold it off to amazon. it'll get the IP churn, no doubt. amazon's not going to just sit on that. we are barrelling towards 1 entertainment company, 1 news outlet, 1 phone/internet provider, etc. yay.

[CardsofSTL]

The Gorge is not a bad watch. It's not great or particularly noteworthy but it was worth watching on a rainy evening.