What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

On that subject, I think this (and every other video on this channel) is worth a watch:

Ha! I was going to post that. Yeah, Jackie Chan gets it right. Edgar Wright is another one that just kills it in post-production. Editing can get you laughs.

I am watching THE VVITCH, streaming on Amazon. Loving it so far, about 30 min in. Reminds me of home. All bucolic and scary. Folks here in SoCal would get scared by sewer tunnels and stuff. That's something a guy made like 20 years ago. Go to New England and head into the woods at night. Who knows what freaky shit is out there?! At least they cleared out the wolves.

I also watched TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, the Gary Oldman remake. Really good. Made me miss the Cold War a little. (sniff)

Egg Shen wrote: Oh man...that first Police Story is incredible. The action and stunt work is so exciting and well done. Whenever there is a chase scene or action sequence I would always find myself verbally "awwwing" or wincing in reaction. And yeah that final scene was damn good it was worth seeing three times!

Christ, I miss the days when action movies had fight scenes you could actually follow and enjoy. Now everything is just shaky cam bullshit that sucks the life out of every scene. Whoever thought seeing shaking footage with ultra fast cuts and a dizzying amount of nonsensical camera angels actually made action scenes better needs to be tossed into the middle of the Atlantic with a pair of concrete ADIDAS.

Although I agree with you whole-heartedly, there are differences between good, quick-cut fight scenes and lazy, shaky-cam editing. The second Borne movie at least made sense in the action scenes, even though I don't care for the style. Most imitators after that are nonsensical.

I think this came to be the dominant style because it is cheap. I imagine it saves the filmmakers a ton of time and money to just use close-ups and quick-cuts rather than hire stunt teams and coordinators, block out and rehearse the scene, then however many takes it requires to get it right.

There are very few directors who can use the style correctly. The Bourne films popularized it and now every dip-shit wannabe action director follows that trend. Like you said it's a lazy tactic used to hide the fact that the actors/actresses involved in the fight haven't been trained and the director doesn't have a clue how to block out a believable looking fight/shootout.

Sadly, most moviegoers seemingly LIKE this style and think it's "realistic" or "gritty". Two descriptive words I personally despise when talking about films/shows/comics/videogames. Whenever someone describes something as either my bullshit detector immediately goes off.

Gregarius wrote: I think this came to be the dominant style because it is cheap. I imagine it saves the filmmakers a ton of time and money to just use close-ups and quick-cuts rather than hire stunt teams and coordinators, block out and rehearse the scene, then however many takes it requires to get it right.

I agree, though it also seems to me that these scenes are taken for granted, as if they thought that characters fighting is already enough of a thrill to require little in the way of additional work. To me it's a bit like how in many movies or books or games the bad guy isn't actually evil, but is treated as if he were simply because he opposes the protagonist.

I totally agree with JEM, by the way, that channel has a lot of great sstuff, I've only seen two or three videos and every time I've been impressed. They are not only insightful but also clear and really well presented.

Paul Greengrass uses shaky cam really well in the Bourne movies as well as United 93. But almost everyone else uses it in a really stupid way.

jeb wrote: I am watching THE VVITCH, streaming on Amazon. Loving it so far, about 30 min in. Reminds me of home. All bucolic and scary.

What did you think by the end?

The Shallows - A solid movie. Definitely in the upper tier of shark movies. Its the cold logic of her situation that makes it tense. Don't be confused by the found footage in the first few minutes. Its not a found footage movie and is well shot.

MattDP wrote:

jeb wrote: I am watching THE VVITCH, streaming on Amazon. Loving it so far, about 30 min in. Reminds me of home. All bucolic and scary.

What did you think by the end?

IT'S FUCKING ME UP. I can only watch like 20 min in a stretch. This is some deeply creepy shit!

What they convey extremely well here is that witches are real. They are really real things that tempt your soul and will annihilate you body and soul for eternity. There was no fucking around for these folks. Spirituality infused every aspect of their lives and witchcraft is as real as weather and furniture and all that.

That is the genius of The VVitch...the core concept is "what if everything the puritans believed about evil was REAL?" I think it has one of THE greatest scenes in any horror film ever made (is he going to or not???), and one of the best endings. Such an amazing, amazing film. Best of 2016.

I finally saw Civil War. Black Panther was great! Spidey was great! The big airport fight was great! The whole ensemble was great!

But...so what?

I dunno, I have a really weird opinion about it. I think it's that by now, seeing the Marvel characters As You Like Them and true to the source material has actually gotten a little old. I mean, this movie was STUPENDOUSLY competent on every level. It is a extremely well-made action picture and it is probably just about as good as Winter Soldier (which is the best Marvel film). It's a better Avengers movie than even the first one, I think, and I would probably say it is the second best Marvel film overall.

I just don't really care about it!

It's just strange, I guess it is kind of like the bar is raised so much for superhero films at this point that when another really good one comes along (meaning: a Marvel, not a DC one) it's just sort of like "yep, here we go again" and then that's it. I think some of it may have to do with Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage- those shows are really sort of the "vanguard" of the MCU right now, giving the characters a lot more time to breathe and develop and to get a little more down-to-earth.

I guess I'm more interested in Doctor Strange right now and whatever the hell Thor and Hulk were up to during CW than CW itself.

I watched it like four times, so it's definitely entertaining and has some good stuff. Just do not care about it one bit!

At this point, I don't care to see Marvel films in the theater. I've tapped out.

I agree...they're generally really well made, but it's just too much and I've lost interest.

However, I'd love to see Civil War, but for some reason, despite the Marvel deal to make these great TV shows....Marvel movies seldom seem to be on Netflix. I mean, I have yet to see Winter Solder...not on Netflix...

EDIT: Is Luke Cage any good? I loved the two seasons of DD. Passed on Jessica Jones (don't know the character and content sounded depressing). I do like Power Man and Iron Fist though, so hope Cage is great!

Michael Barnes wrote: I guess I'm more interested in Doctor Strange right now and whatever the hell Thor and Hulk were up to during CW than CW itself.

This is a funny short of what Thor and Banner were up to.

JEM wrote: On that subject, I think this (and every other video on this channel) is worth a watch:

This is one of my favorite YouTube channels. I've seen all of them, and while I don't always agree with the choices in them, they are always well thought out and bring up interesting filmmaking points. The ones mentioned here as well as the Buster Keaton ones were fantastic.

I haven't seen The VVitch yet, but I want to. It's on my list of October movies to watch this year.

Watched The VVitch last night with the brother and the ladies. The use of music was brilliant, setting the girls on edge. My SIL had to close her eyes at a few key points, asking us what was happening! That black hare...
This is not a comfortable movie to watch.

I watched Love & Friendship and Deadpool this past week.

Love & Friendship is based on a Jane Austen novel I'm not really familiar with, so it took a little while to catch up with what's going on. It stars Kate Beckinsale and she's great in it. There's also a character who's basically the Victorian-era version of The Office's Michael Scott. He really made the move for me.

Deadpool was better than OK. I don't really see what all the fuss was about, though. I like cleverness but there were definitely parts that were too clever for me. It wasn't an amazing plot or anything, but then compared to the rest of the x-Men drek out there, I guess it ranks pretty highly.