Movies

[govmentchedda]

Rewatched Rogue One, and it is officially my favorite Star Wars movie ever, and likely one of my favorite movies of all time. This, in spite of the scenes with the painful CGI of Princess Leia and General Tarken. I'm sure they'll clean this up in a future version.

It, and Andor, are so damn great.

[Johnnie]

White House Down is the hottest of hot garbage movies I've ever seen.

[A_B]

White House Down is the hottest of hot garbage movies I've ever seen.

You clearly didn't just watch The last Voyage of the Demeter.

[Giff]

White House Down is the hottest of hot garbage movies I've ever seen.

Is this the Jamie Foxx one or Gerard Butler one?

[Johnnie]

White House Down is the hottest of hot garbage movies I've ever seen.

Is this the Jamie Foxx one or Gerard Butler one?

Jamie Foxx. Gerard Butler's is Olympus Has Fallen.

[Giff]

I generally have a very low bar for those types of movies, but you are right. I haven’t seen Olympus Has Fallen yet.

[wlu_lax6]

Moana 2 was far weaker than the original.

[DSafetyGuy]

Watched Joker. Completely overrated. Complete early career Scorsese rip-off like Phillips Tried to just mash together Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and King of Comedy but decided to remove any of the nuisance of those movies.

Thought of this post when I read this part from a review of the Joker sequel:

Where Joker stole shamelessly from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy, Joker: Folie À Deux borrows from a much less revered Scorsese film: the flop musical New York, New York.

[rass]

That new Robbie Williams biopic looks… bananas

[rass]

Y2K was very silly, on purpose most of the time, but I laughed. Glad someone like Kyle Mooney can get money to making something dumb like that.

[A_B]

That new Robbie Williams biopic looks… bananas

I get this joke.

[L-Jam3]

Stick around until the end.

[rass]

That new Robbie Williams biopic looks… bananas

I get this joke.

Very positive review!

https://www.cgmagonline.com/review/movi ... an-review/

[The Sybian]

We just watched "Interstellar".

What the fuck was that? I didn't get it....it was well done, but made no sense at all.

I can skip the spoiler on a 10-year old movie, right?


I don’t know if this movie was incredible or Shlock. The opening 30 minutes had me fully immersed. I feel I like it should have been a 5 season series, as they just skipped past enormous plot points, but they had to keep it under 3 hours. Matt Damon fucking them over was an interesting twist. The scene where he was in the black hole was just really cheesy, but how the fuck do you accurately portray communicating through time and space while in a black hole?

[tennbengal]

Can we post the likely theories out loud?

[+] spoiler

He was dead the whole time

[The Sybian]

Can we post the likely theories out loud?

[+] spoiler

He was dead the whole time

[+] spoiler

Then what about seeing the daughter at the end, was that in heaven or something?

[tennbengal]

From that theory -

[+] spoiler

After his journey into the tesseract, Cooper is seemingly rescued and wakes up on Cooper Station, an idyllic recreation of the life he misses on Earth. Elderly Murphy (Ellen Burstyn) is on her deathbed after having saved humanity by solving the gravity problem, and Cooper visits her. The room is crowded, and only a few people briefly acknowledge his presence but don't seem to know who he is. In the context of the theory, Cooper is there to welcome his daughter into the afterlife after regretting leaving her behind. Later, he goes back into the unknown with TARS on their smaller ship, finally at peace.

[DaveInSeattle]

We just watched "Interstellar".

What the fuck was that? I didn't get it....it was well done, but made no sense at all.

A blast from the past! Is this the "ID your Post" thread?

[The Sybian]

We just watched "Interstellar".

What the fuck was that? I didn't get it....it was well done, but made no sense at all.

A blast from the past! Is this the "ID your Post" thread?

You had the best take of the numerous posts about the movie over the years.

[garyclark]

Conclave is on Peacock!

If you haven't seen it, have a watch.

[govmentchedda]

Conclave is on Peacock!

If you haven't seen it, have a watch.

Yes, it's very good.

[DSafetyGuy]

Great article on Netflix and what they have done to the movie industry (h/t David Roth on Bluesky).

[P.D.X.]

omg omg omg



this gonna break my streaming service embargo

[L-Jam3]

Great article on Netflix and what they have done to the movie industry (h/t David Roth on Bluesky).

That was sobering. And dispiriting.

[Nonlinear FC]

Great article on Netflix and what they have done to the movie industry (h/t David Roth on Bluesky).

Man, that is a fascinating and depressing article.

My wife and I talked about the rapid decline in the quality of these streamer-produced movies a few months ago. It really bugged us that the Clooney-Pitt movie was so bad, for example.

And Sandler movies are typically just an excuse for him to take his buddies to Hawaii or some other vacation spot. But... the Netflix-produced movies are fucking horrible. There are a gazillion examples of movies with a big-name actor or director, and it's obvious they are just phoning it in.

I am listening to The Rewatchables and The Big Picture podcasts over on The Ringer, which means I'm consistently re-exposed to movies from the 80s, 90s and aughts. Heck, even stuff from 2010-16 is enough in the rear view that I'd forgotten about some of those movies. The gap in quality from then to today is stunning.

Having recently been to LA for the first time in decades, I was struck by the amount of billboards with movies and streaming TV shows. I didn't think much of it... industry town and all that. But the article made a fascinating point... It's not about advertising, really, it's about the illusion of advertising to make the film producer, director, actors feel like "something" is being done to market the film when they visit these streaming studios.

Two quibbles:

1) I think the article kind of skims past the impact that IP-based movies have had on the industry. It's in there, and I know that's probably a meaty-enough topic to warrant another essay. But that shit has really done a number on the quality of theater-released movies.

2) I would've liked some empirical data on how the movie industry, particularly theaters, are actually doing financially.

[mister d]

And Sandler movies are typically just an excuse for him to take his buddies to Hawaii or some other vacation spot.

Like Essex County, NJ.

[wlu_lax6]

Amazon Studios are just as bad as Netlifx...

Saw something about Sandler saying you forget he can actually act on occasion (Uncut Gems, Spaceman, Hustle, Funny People, Spanglish). And all of the ones listed he is not a screenwriter nor executive producer.

[Nonlinear FC]

Amazon Studios are just as bad as Netlifx...

Saw something about Sandler saying you forget he can actually act on occasion (Uncut Gems, Spaceman, Hustle, Funny People, Spanglish). And all of the ones listed he is not a screenwriter nor executive producer.

Article goes in on them, too.

[sancarlos]

That article was equal parts interesting and depressing.

[P.D.X.]

I only glanced through it but I've always felt (and maybe they touched on this) that because it's a subscription model that there's little incentive to provide quality content for current subscribers, while the real incentive is to produce snappy trailers and hype to bring in new subscribers - which of course has no bearing on a final product.

[DSafetyGuy]

Great article on Netflix and what they have done to the movie industry (h/t David Roth on Bluesky).

Two quibbles:

1) I think the article kind of skims past the impact that IP-based movies have had on the industry. It's in there, and I know that's probably a meaty-enough topic to warrant another essay. But that shit has really done a number on the quality of theater-released movies.

Netflix makes few, if any, IP-based movies, so that's why there was no mention of that (as noted, they want the guaranteed revenue of subscription money). The thought process behind making IP-based movies is that the people who run studios now are most concerned with making money, regardless of movie quality, so making projects with a "built-in audience" appeals to them because it has the best "guaranteed" return on investment. I use quotation marks due to "Kraven the Hunter" currently shitting through the bed.

2) I would've liked some empirical data on how the movie industry, particularly theaters, are actually doing financially.

I don't know how you would accurately parse how movie theaters are doing between coming back from the pandemic, the improvement in the home viewing experience, studios eliminating exclusivity windows (there's no/minimal break between theater release, DVD/digital download release, release to a pay-television network like HBO, network release to TNT, FX, etc., where that cycle used to be about 18 months from movie theater to cable television), etc.

[Nonlinear FC]

Totally agree/understand about the IP stuff, which as you say is really all about risk aversion. As I said, it's worth a completely separate breakdown.

And I guess I'm just asking for a breakdown of revenue today vs. pre-COVID or something. I know Arclight went out of business, but AMC seems to be ... fine? I don't really know. I'm not really asking for a big rundown on the obvious stuff that's chipping away at the theater-going side of things, I just thought it was an angle to explore, even if briefly.

The fact that there are very few numbers overall is understandable because the article lays out quite well that the streamers are full of absolutely dogshit.

[DSafetyGuy]

Regarding quality of theatrically-released movies, one thing that has gone away is the mid-budget movie. Those movies that cost around $30-60 million that were just solid movies, regardless of genre, are DOA because there is no way for the studio to know when committing to the cost, how it is going to turn out. All stars/directors/genres have had underperforming movies, so movies at that price point are viewed as too risky. Everything now feels like an epic with giant set pieces and CGI and so on. There's hardly any middle ground any more.

We all shit on David Zaslav, but the same guiding principle of money trumping everything else runs almost the entire industry.

[rass]

In for Krypto. But the heavy metal Williams theme doesn't hurt.

[A_B]

Superman stories are hard to tell. This one is drawing from the All Star Superman stuff which is apparently one of the best storylines in a while for Supes. That said, superman is still very boring to me. Of course i'll watch it.

[Shirley]

Is this ANOTHER Superman reboot? I admit I haven't watched the last several Superman movies, because they always look bad (and the reviews agree), but are these meant to each be standalone or part of an overarching story of some sort?

[GoodKarma]

Is this ANOTHER Superman reboot? I admit I haven't watched the last several Superman movies, because they always look bad (and the reviews agree), but are these meant to each be standalone or part of an overarching story of some sort?

It's another "reset" (I think the 347th) of the DC universe. They brought James Gunn in to try and right the ship...this is his first shot.

[rass]

Gunn made a plant that says three words a near Baby Yoda level star. I want to buy stock in Krypto.

[A_B]

Gunn made a plant that says three words a near Baby Yoda level star. I want to buy stock in Krypto.

He had a fourth and fifth ready though!

[Shirley]

I watched the new Netflix movie Carry-On last night. Maybe it's the big(ger) budget exception to the rule of that article from the other day, but I thought it was pretty good! Of course there were a few plot holes, but they were mostly minor, probably editing cuts for time.