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

Watched the original Mad Max, courtesy of the boxed set that includes all four movies plus a black and chrome version of Fury Road. Mad Max remains a very interesting movie because it is an early work by a talented director with plenty of ideas.The pacing is uneven, veering from tense confrontations and thrilling chase scenes to slow burn drama and relaxed scenes with a bit of humor. And yet, the movie does most of these things well. There is a definite b-movie aesthetic, and yet the cinematography soars above that level. The villains are quirky, memorable, and very menacing. The cops also quirky though less memorable, and young Mel Gibson has decent acting chops and a riveting presence. One scene reminded me of Hitchcock in a good way. There are a few scenes that could have been cut, but overall the story is told well.

With 20/20 hindsight, it's interesting to note the warning signs in this movie of the impending apocalypse of the later movies. A road sign notes 57 deaths on that stretch of highway within the last year. The police headquarters looks rundown and underfunded. And the police scanner spews out an endless narrative of criminal incidents, most of which seem to go unanswered by the cops on screen.

To be honest, after the first couple of minutes, we turned on the English subtitles so we wouldn't miss out on any lines due to the Australian accents or background noise like loud engines. The subtitles were a nice size, not as small as in some modern movies, but occasionally placed at the top of the screen instead of the bottom, to avoid being lost against a pale background. That was a thoughtful touch, though slightly distracting at first.

Michael Barnes wrote: OK, I finished Arrival. 2.5 out of 5.

Here's the thing. The core SF concept of the film,

Warning: Spoiler!

which is that our perception of time is generated by LANGUAGE

, and NOT "OMG Space aliens!"...is BRILLIANT. But I kind of had a feeling it was going in that direction when the characters started talking about

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Sapir-Whorf

. I really loved that, and I thought it was handled really well and explained really well. I also really liked how it

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explained why the heptapods came, since they knew that they would need humanity's help in the future

. That little bit right there gave the film a scope it didn't previously had, it really opened it up and THERE was the sense of wonder it had been missing.

However, I still don't think it was a very good movie. Good ideas don't always make for good movies, and here I just did not feel any connection to the characters or events in the story. It was all very remote, and it was also plagued with contrivances like what I listed above- things that just weren't grounded in logic or stylistic context. The whole twist where we find out that

Warning: Spoiler!

the flashbacks were actually flash-forwards

was a great idea, but it felt cheap- it undermined the film's attempt at establishing an emotional core in the first 10 minutes. I am really not a big fan of the "everything you thought you knew was wrong" plot twist where everything is upended but there is no evidence prior to support the twist. I think this is very different than the twists in, say, The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable where you can look back through the film and see that it was all plain as day- you were just missing a key piece of information that the characters may not have had.

But whatever, it's not a terrible movie overall, worth a look because of the concept. Not sure why it's best picture-worthy, but you could say that about a lot of the picks.k

Just saw this and agree on almost all points. The bummer for me: as I started watching this, the beginning voice-over and montage sounded eerily like Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life"... and of course a quick google lookup later and I realized this movie had been pre-spoiled for me.

Albeit it would be like realizing that I'd already read some Theodore Sturgeon adaptation that I was watching (which is in the works, right? I thought I'd heard More Than Human was being adapted).

The amazement of having an adaptation of a story I didn't think that many people knew about nearly offset the spoiled plot premise. A Ted Chiang adaptation... I never thought I'd see the day.

If anyone hasn't read the collection of his short stories Story of your Life And Other Stories, I highly recommend them. All of them.

Frohike wrote: If anyone hasn't read the collection of his short stories Story of your Life And Other Stories, I highly recommend them. All of them.

Seconded.

oh boy, i hope this is good

I was really worried until I saw the trailer. Definitely excited now. LOOKS like they are trying their hardest to keep it feeling. . . classic.

Yeah I agree but I'm not sure I like the jhorror vibe of Pennywise

Looks good. Probably the first of several upcoming movies/shows with a Stranger Things vibe, but in this case I assume it was being made before ST became a huge hit. Eh, so hard to really gauge from a trailer, but it's encouraging.

Life is well, still a dumb title and sometimes a pretty dumb movie, but also does some things well enough to be an entertaining sci-fi thriller. To say that it's an Alien ripoff is selling it a bit short, though it certainly is that some extent. Fold in some Gravity and you're closer. Some genuinely good scenes and ideas, though, enough to recommend for a Redbox. Not great, though.

Are the effects in Life worthy of the big screen?

I watched the Ghost in the Shell original 1995 animation last night. I started out (based on a recommendation) with the series, Stand-Alone Complex (SAC for short)* and I have to say that the movie doesn't live up to the standard of that later serial. I did appreciate the moments where they were able to stretch a scene out for artistic purposes, but also felt they really abused that duration in other scenes, at the detriment of fleshing out the plot, which was pretty bare-bones as stories go. No doubt a lot of the original material was left out of the first animated feature.

Both the movie, and the later serials suffer from that nebulous, flexible technology level, where capabilities are determined by the plot rather than cohesive world-building. It's quirky to notice that over a run of 20+ episodes (why can't they do X that they did in episode Y?) but more jarring when it's in a 82 minute feature.

I liked what GitS had to say about the nature of self-identity and personal development; the destruction of static, codifed self being a natural progression, even a required process for being human, and not something to be feared but embraced.

Even so, the Cinema Sins video on it is pretty egregious for "We were playing Puzzle Quest on the phone while we watched this" for the staggering levels of inattentiveness on display, with a dozen "sins" answered on the screen or in the next scene.

*I started with SAC, then did some digging on the chronology of the universe, and moved onto the later (but earlier, chronologically) Arise OVAs, then the 1995 movie.

I watched the original Ghost in the Shell in the theater more than 20 years ago. Aside from the nudity, the only thing that I remember is an exciting fight scene involving an invisible opponent. The minimal story was so decompressed that it felt like a mere pretext for the visuals. I don't have any plans to see the new live-action one because the original was so forgettable. I do find the whole white-washing drama to be excessive, given that so much anime, including Ghost in the Shell, was already white-washing. The round eyes, the white, skin, the non-black hair color. Oftentimes the only thing Japanese in anime is the names.

Sure they make aesthetic choices in anime in the way you describe, but the characters absolutely distinguish between themselves and "caucasians" in the movie*. That being said, I have no time for asinine identity politics, so I agree with you.

If I had not watched SAC/Arise prior to seeing the movie I'd be hit more by the lack of a cohesive/any narrative.

*Not sure on the hair thing- Mokoto has purple/blue hair in the shows, but it's black in the movie. Also she's a cyborg made in a factory. Tosuga has black hair in the movie, though he's a kind of dirty blond in the shows. Aramaki and Batou have white hair, but they're both geezers. I always thought Ishikawa had a kind of Toshiro Mifune thing going on (black hair, also). There's the blonde, but that's also an artificial/cyborg. BUT I AM SPLITTING HAIRS.

A while back, someone here at F:AT shared a link to an article about decoding anime characters based on hair color. I don't remember details, but it was interesting.

IT looks pretty good, but yeah...at some point, there was a production meeting where a studio exec said "we need this to look more like Stranger Things". And probably needed to be reminded that Finn Wolfhard was in that show as well as IT.

I don't know how some of it could even be relevant if they set it in the 1980s. A big part of the book was that It took on the forms of classic monster movie monsters, things that would have scared kids in the 50s but would be laughed at or be inconsequential to most kids in the 80s. Even in the 1990 miniseries, they altered that piece and at the end It was just a big dumb spider or something like that. I also don't really see how they can do this if it is JUST set in the kids' time...another major component was that the kids go back to Derry when they are grown up to combat It again. Will there be a second film set in the current time with the kids as adults?

I also wonder how much of the really weird stuff will wind up in it...the Ritual of Chud, the deadlights, the hallucinations, the universe-creating turtle...all stuff that didn't make it to the miniseries either.

Anyway, watching Fantastic Beasts at last tonight.

Just over a month away, I bought my 3D, IMax, super Dolby sound, center theater reserved seating tickets for the Guardian of the Galaxy Vol 2. Friday, May 5th. I was tempted to book tickets for the May 4th vol 1 and 2 double feature but my Spawn has class Thursday nights. I almost booked VIP ticket where you get super reclining chairs a table, drinks and expanded food menu but that seemed over the top.

I'm really glad they're bring in Mantis, she's a perfect add to Vol 2. she's a great side character and my second favorite female super hero. She' almost a female version of Drax. Both are totally socially awkward both in completely different ways. In the comics, Mantis has appeared in Avengers, Silver Surfer, Fantastic 4, DC comics (as Willow), and Guardians of the Galaxy but I'm glad she landed with the Guardian's of the Galaxy for the Vol 2. Did I mention Kurt Russel?

Next week (April 4th, to be exact) some independent theaters are screening 1984 in protest of Trump. Whether you are politically motivated or not, this is an excellent adaptation of the novel, and a rare opportunity to see it on the big screen. Here's a list of theaters: www.unitedstateofcinema.com/