On September 19 2018 12:08 Dark_Chill wrote: Saw "Searching". 7/10, where an average movie is 5/10. This is the first movie I've seen where most of the movie takes place on the computer and is actually good. There were some solid performances in the film, with the main actor doing a really good job. The use of social media was outstanding compared to other movies that use it. The plot itself was engaging, and I honestly did not see the twist coming, even though it was foreshadowed well.
Just got back from watching it. I really really liked it, up to the twist ending, which although was kind of foreshadowed, I didnt find believable.
Specifically, the father really had very little evidence to convince the police chief that the detective was the cuprit. From what I understood he had three arguments to support his theory: 1) The detective lied about being assigned to the case 2) The detective had worked with the ex con previously 3) The detective lied about calling Hannah
Argument 1 is kind of weak, as the detective could have claimed she mispoke (it's not a really important distinction whether she was assigned or volunteered without knowing about her son's involvement, which the father had no idea of). Argument 2 can just be a coincidence Argument 3 is the only one that would raise some eyebrows, but is it really enough for the police chief to order an arrest on her? I mean, upon hearing it from the father, the police chief doesn't really have evidence if what the father is saying is true or if he's just confused (and understandably so)
After thinking about it some, I can kind of accept that the police chief might have taken to himself (or whoever) to review the case files and found the discrepancies, but to do that so quickly? And conveniently fast enough so the girl could still be saved?
I dunno, I guess at that point in the movie I was thinking that the movie was going to make a clever point about the internet culture of people following conspiracy theories with very tenuous links (filling in the blanks with what they want to believe), so I was a bit disappointed at the twist.
Avengers Infinity War - was quite epic. Thanos is a great villain. There were fight scenes in this movie that I just cackled with delight for sheer spectacle. All the other Marvel stories were nicely incorporated in this movie. Hope the next one is just as epic.
On September 25 2018 02:32 CosmicSpiral wrote: Mission Impossible: Fallout
When I first watched it, I had the uneasy feeling the script was still being hashed out just as principal photography started. It turns out the script was merely rewritten, but that only highlights the disjointed mishmash of plot elements duct taped together to maintain a steady stream of action. Fallout is essentially a sequence of set pieces with very weak/irrelevant connective tissue and character motivations. You get your quintessential Tom Cruise(TM) performance, but beyond the movie's reverent myopia on Hunt the focus is as scatterbrained and spastic as a ADHD child. The supporting cast with the exception of Ilsa are all but ignored. The main villain has no buildup and no thematic relevance to his existence. The grand action climaxes lack imagination and urgency. Half of the driving elements in the main plot arise from contrivance. The movie is devoid of the style and excellent composition of Ghost Protocol; it doesn't possess the compelling subplot and main villain of Rogue Nation. In the end Fallout turns out to be a middling action movie and nothing more.
5.5/10
how do you account for the fact that most critics thought this was a great version of the mission impossible genre
I really liked this one. Story telling and directing was well done. I didn’t get a strong political agenda shoved down my throat, it was fairly neutral throughout. Not much else to say. I’d recommend this with no expectations in mind.
Got back from seeing My Hero Academia: The Movie in theaters. If you like the anime, you'd be a fool to not see it.
I'd recommend it to anyone that doesn't explicitly hate anime. It was literally the best movie I have ever seen. (not looking to start an argument with that, just my personal tastes).
For some reason I'm super hyped about this movie. Bradley Cooper's directorial debut, starring himself and Lady Gaga. Trailer looks amazing
the 1976 version of this thing isn't bad if you can stomach barbara streisand.
personally , i prefer this version.
its pretty hilarious how Silverman and Schumer try to pass themselves off as these groundbreaking female comedians when women like Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara had 1000 times the talent and 1000 times the comedic range back in the 70s.
There are jumpscares and sudden loud noises in this horror film, so much so that it got annoying for me. I wanted to care about the characters but in the back of my head I know the director is just going to resort to cheap jumpscares and I just don't like to jump out of my seat every few minutes. Its too bad because I like the premise of the movie, where you have to be very quiet to avoid the monsters.
My wife was sick, so we canceled a trip to see WW2 propaganda post cards exhibit and watched movies:
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Solid fun and a good light weight Marvel movie that continues the very nice trend of the stakes not being the end of the world(Black Panther stakes were world with more super weapons). It gives you all the stuff you liked in the first film, including the shrinking tech that the movie practically dares you to avoid thinking about. The movie is a little bloated with to many characters and way to much talking about super science. And though it has the guts to not put the fate of the world at stake, it did feel the need to explain a super villains powers and the tragic back story behind them. This the 20ish Marvel movie, we only need the cliff notes.
8/10
Hereditary:
Tense and troubling, Hereditary is some real high quality, well plotted horror. But I never liked any of the characters. The horror itself is a puzzle box that the viewer is struggling to figure out through a sea of unreliable narrators. Actions in the movie make sense when the final context is in full view. But as they are happening I struggled to justify them with the puzzle pieces presented to me, which distracted me. I’m not sure I liked it, but I am glad I watched it.
6/10
Mandy:
This movie is real good and gets a lot done with very little dialog. Nick Cage gives a great performance and reminds us all that he can be good if you put a good script he likes in front of him. The visuals and camera work are stunning and really made me struggle with what was on sight filming and what was on a sound stage. And the music is so good I might get it for our beat up record player just to keep with the spirit of the film.
I won’t talk spoilers because the film, but it wins best laugh.
10/10
Note: After we were done, we determined that we watched these in the wrong order.
What a pile of crap. How anyone could enjoy this, is beyond me. Its just soooo bland... If there is any stereotype a generic action flick can hit, this one hits it. If not for the Videogame cameos, no one would ever have cared about this movie.
I guess it see's itself as some sort of loveletter to nerd/gamingculture and makes sure to represent it in the most boring and obvious way possible.
Ready Player One is like taking the worst parts of nerd/gamer culture and lionizing them, while also feeding into the heavily commercialized tropes of nerds in media. Complete with Trophy Girlfriend that is somehow not the protagonist of the film. It’s like Willy Wonka, but the heroes are all the worst people you know that hang out in a comic book store. The honest trailers about Ready Player One is the only good part of Ready Player One.
On October 04 2018 23:37 Plansix wrote: Ready Player One is like taking the worst parts of nerd/gamer culture and lionizing them, while also feeding into the heavily commercialized tropes of nerds in media. Complete with Trophy Girlfriend that is somehow not the protagonist of the film. It’s like Willy Wonka, but the heroes are all the worst people you know that hang out in a comic book store. The honest trailers about Ready Player One is the only good part of Ready Player One.
Reminds me of this video essay which i mostly agree with:
On October 04 2018 22:17 Velr wrote: I just saw "Ready Player one".
What a pile of crap. How anyone could enjoy this, is beyond me. Its just soooo bland... If there is any stereotype a generic action flick can hit, this one hits it. If not for the Videogame cameos, no one would ever have cared about this movie.
I guess it see's itself as some sort of loveletter to nerd/gamingculture and makes sure to represent it in the most boring and obvious way possible.
Well, that's what you get when you take a single 20-minute episode of Danny Phantom, sprinkle in some 80's and 90's geek references and turn it into a book and then feature-film...
I really don't know what was the author thinking. Writing a young-adult book with references that only people 30+ could feel nostalgic about.
On September 28 2018 02:48 IgnE wrote: how do you account for the fact that most critics thought this was a great version of the mission impossible genre
The fact that professional criticism, especially in literature and film, in the modern era is a cloistered niche obsessed with self-reference and what sensibilities are en vogue. The majority of critics waste print space in attempts to appear loquacious and clever while lacking fundamental knowledge of the medium and appreciation for the technical aspects. Therefore aggregate reviews are all but worthless for evaluating a work's quality as they parasitically rely on other reviews to guide them. For a trivial example, see below:
On October 04 2018 23:37 Plansix wrote: Ready Player One is like taking the worst parts of nerd/gamer culture and lionizing them, while also feeding into the heavily commercialized tropes of nerds in media. Complete with Trophy Girlfriend that is somehow not the protagonist of the film. It’s like Willy Wonka, but the heroes are all the worst people you know that hang out in a comic book store. The honest trailers about Ready Player One is the only good part of Ready Player One.
On October 05 2018 00:28 Velr wrote: Hey, the hot Girlfriend thinks she is ugly because she has a birth mark... I think my brain melted when i heard this.
On October 05 2018 02:08 Manit0u wrote: I really don't know what was the author thinking. Writing a young-adult book with references that only people 30+ could feel nostalgic about.
These disgusted, bemused reactions belie how the literary establishment acclaimed Ready Player One when it was first published. It received glowing recommendations from the New York Times to Huffington Post, and staked a spot on the NYT bestseller for years. The saturation of nostalgic references and hamfisted writing, the qualities internet reviewers rip into, were the same things that made RPO "the grown-up's Harry Potter" and "a deeply felt narrative [that] makes it almost impossible to stop turning the pages". All the stuff complained about on this page was glossed over or excused back then.
Also, marrying the young-adult sensibility with popular 80's references was the point. This book was written for faux-nerds and older Millennials fiending for a trip down memory lane. Calling it a bad example of "gamer culture" is a diversion and completely falling for the smoke-and-mirrors routine Cline sets up.
I’m not sure what this literary establishment is, but book reviewers sometimes like a book that later turns out to have a really shitty, terrible through line. Opinions change over time as more discussions take place about a piece of art.
I read Ready Player One at the recommendation of a tech podcast I was listening to. They had recommended the Martian, which I liked and so I went into reading RPO assuming it would be fine. But being a long time table top board game player, I had a weird experience with the book and its nerd elitism, treatment of the female lead and recycling of pop culture. I was already uncomfortable with how “nerd culture” was becoming this commercial cultural identity, rather than a hobby that I liked. And I was super uncomfortable with every hobby I liked having this culture of treating women like shit. So the book landed like a wet fart with me. I finished it, unclear why I didn’t love it like everyone else. And over time, my point opinion has evolved to understand the book is a series of “I get that reference” for several hundred pages. And its written like trash.
And for a guy who is mocking people for tying to sound smart, you sure put in a lot of effort into detracted pontification on the subject of differing opinions. While also assuming anyone who doesn’t like the book and movie dislikes it because someone told them too.
On September 28 2018 02:48 IgnE wrote: how do you account for the fact that most critics thought this was a great version of the mission impossible genre
The fact that professional criticism, especially in literature and film, in the modern era is a cloistered niche obsessed with self-reference and what sensibilities are en vogue. The majority of critics waste print space in attempts to appear loquacious and clever while lacking fundamental knowledge of the medium and appreciation for the technical aspects. Therefore aggregate reviews are all but worthless for evaluating a work's quality as they parasitically rely on other reviews to guide them. For a trivial example, see below:
On October 04 2018 23:37 Plansix wrote: Ready Player One is like taking the worst parts of nerd/gamer culture and lionizing them, while also feeding into the heavily commercialized tropes of nerds in media. Complete with Trophy Girlfriend that is somehow not the protagonist of the film. It’s like Willy Wonka, but the heroes are all the worst people you know that hang out in a comic book store. The honest trailers about Ready Player One is the only good part of Ready Player One.
On October 05 2018 00:28 Velr wrote: Hey, the hot Girlfriend thinks she is ugly because she has a birth mark... I think my brain melted when i heard this.
On October 05 2018 02:08 Manit0u wrote: I really don't know what was the author thinking. Writing a young-adult book with references that only people 30+ could feel nostalgic about.
These disgusted, bemused reactions belie how the literary establishment acclaimed Ready Player One when it was first published. It received glowing recommendations from the New York Times to Huffington Post, and staked a spot on the NYT bestseller for years. The saturation of nostalgic references and hamfisted writing, the qualities internet reviewers rip into, were the same things that made RPO "the grown-up's Harry Potter" and "a deeply felt narrative [that] makes it almost impossible to stop turning the pages". All the stuff complained about on this page was glossed over or excused back then.
Also, marrying the young-adult sensibility with popular 80's references was the point. This book was written for faux-nerds and older Millennials fiending for a trip down memory lane. Calling it a bad example of "gamer culture" is a diversion and completely falling for the smoke-and-mirrors routine Cline sets up.
RPO is obviously garbage. i wish you had written a post about the latest Mission Impossible instead. maybe ill have to watch it myself and write a review
see this NYT review on the HYPERHUMAN tom cruise (i love tom cruise; eyes wide shut is great)
"It’s easy to get cynical at the movies. With eight sequels in the top ten last week, more and more people see the Hollywood machine as just that, something that spits out product instead of art or even entertainment. Perhaps the best thing I can say about “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is that it destroys cynicism. It truly does what so many people have looked for in entertainment for over a century—a chance for real-world worries to take a back seat for a couple hours. You’ll be too busy worrying how Ethan Hunt is going to get out of this one to care about anything outside the theater. It's a rare action movie that can do that so well that you not only escape but walk out kind of invigorated and ready to take on the world. “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” is one of those movies. "
On October 05 2018 03:53 Plansix wrote: I’m not sure what this literary establishment is, but book reviewers sometimes like a book that later turns out to have a really shitty, terrible through line. Opinions change over time as more discussions take place about a piece of art.
When I say "literary establishment", I specifically mean publications such as The LA Review of Books, LA Times, NYT, The New Yorker, Boston Globe, etc. For obvious reasons these are located in major metropolitan areas. I'm also making a distinction between old institutions and new websites/podcasts like Birth.Movies.Death, even though they largely share the same tastes.
This isn't a generational shift like how Bukowski and Roth are now accused of misogynist undertones. RPO was published in 2011: the backlash occurred in the span of half a decade, and it was as uniform as the effusive praise back then too. It's very peculiar for professional opinions to change so quickly en masse. When Roger Ebert revised his opinion of The Brown Bunny based on a new edit, he didn't make a 180 degree turn and praise it as a masterpiece. He admitted it was a much better movie (still not good). Everyone else also didn't agree that the Cannes version was improved.
On October 05 2018 03:53 Plansix wrote: I read Ready Player One at the recommendation of a tech podcast I was listening to. They had recommended the Martian, which I liked and so I went into reading RPO assuming it would be fine. But being a long time table top board game player, I had a weird experience with the book and its nerd elitism, treatment of the female lead and recycling of pop culture. I was already uncomfortable with how “nerd culture” was becoming this commercial cultural identity, rather than a hobby that I liked. And I was super uncomfortable with every hobby I liked having this culture of treating women like shit. So the book landed like a wet fart with me. I finished it, unclear why I didn’t love it like everyone else. And over time, my point opinion has evolved to understand the book is a series of “I get that reference” for several hundred pages.
I don't buy RPO as an example of "nerd elitism" because of how the references work in the book. Nerd elitism myopically focused on one domain/genre in extensive detail to the detriment of everything outside that purview. If RPO was written by a nerd exclusively to satisfy his own interests, I'd expect it to be either full of seemingly pointless minutiae on whatever topic Cline was obsessed with or full of specific allusions Cline assumes everyone else would undersyand. But that would also be coupled with the natural enthusiasm and scrupulousness "nerds" have for their subject matter.
When I read RPO, I get the impression it's a cynical cashgrab by someone with a superficial grasp of the subject. The references are all scattershot and shallow to the point it resembles something generated by a Markov chain. There's no focus or elaboration on anything in particular that couldn't have been done with a 2 minute Wikipedia search.
On October 05 2018 03:53 Plansix wrote: And its written like trash.
You're just making my point for me. Maybe all those critics in the past didn't notice the "problematic" elements when they were struck by one conjoined episode of tone-deafness. But how did they all agree that the writing, perhaps the most loathed aspect of RPO, was good? FFS these people are getting paid to identify the difference!
On October 05 2018 03:53 Plansix wrote: And for a guy who is mocking people for tying to sound smart, you sure put in a lot of effort into detracted pontification on the subject of differing opinions.
Believe me, I'm even more insufferable in real life. :D But not as insufferable as the introduction for a review like this, which simultaneously flubs its primary metaphor (mange is exclusive to mammals) and contradicts its own claim (how is "naturalistic acting" and "warm lighting" conductive to "aggressive self-importance"?). This is the type of film writing that's very popular these days.
On October 05 2018 03:53 Plansix wrote: While also assuming anyone who doesn’t like the book and movie dislikes it because someone told them to.
I don't know how you reached that conclusion. I don't like either version and the criticisms by ordinary people (i.e. the ones in the thread) are well-justified.
EPT
