General Movie Thread

[Jimmy]

I mean, after Carol was snubbed, it was just nice to be rooting for a film. I definitely have a childish kind of backlash against The Revenant because it just didn't live up to the hype, and certainly doesn't live up to the self-importance Innaratu heaps on his own work. I absolutely loved the style of Birdman, because it had a self indulgent style which absolutely mirrored what was going on in front on us in the theatre, I just don't think it suited The Revenant at all (that incredible action-sequence at the start, aside). Either way, despite the overarching and obvious issues of female representation in film, it's very satisfying that both Lead and Supporting Actress were much stronger categories than the Male ones -- it was a really great year for some females roles, hopefully 2016 builds on this. Oh, and I'm so hoping that Mad Max's number of wins leads to great things for similarly ambitious works, it winning that much was totally great. 

[Arjen Robben]

I am forever swooning over Saoirse Ronan. She's so consistently great.

[Benji]

14 hours ago, GA! said:

Ugh, the 9/11 porn halfway through.

My mind automatically added "parody" in there. Troubling.

[GA!]

5 hours ago, Benji said:

My mind automatically added "parody" in there. Troubling.

...I'll get the camera, you get the stars - we'll be RICH! Like, Corporate @Rich rich!

[Rich]

Those damn terrorists!

We will fuck to show them how great this nation is.

[GoGo Yubari]

19 hours ago, GA! said:

Ugh, the 9/11 porn halfway through.

how is it porn? If anything, it was almost treated as an inconvenience. 9/11 legitimately fucked up the entire country's train of thought for months.

[GA!]

28 minutes ago, GoGo Yubari said:

how is it porn? If anything, it was almost treated as an inconvenience. 9/11 legitimately fucked up the entire country's train of thought for months.

I always judge 9/11 porn by if it fits into the remit of that fucking stupid 9-12 Project. Spotlight, like many films have done, portrays it as a chance for all parties, including the priests on TV, to unite momentarily. We even get a '9/11 NEVER FORGET' bumper sticker on the fridge for good measure.

Yes, you have to acknowledge 9/11 given when the film's set (although the 'AOL Everywhere' billboard immediately before it to remind everyone it's 2001 is laughably bad), but these events are a meaningless blip in the narrative; its sole purpose to manipulative a reaction out of those old enough to remember that day.

Granted, you're right about the 'inconvenience' bit as Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo see it that way eventually. It's just shown in an Oscar baity way before then.

[GoGo Yubari]

See, I never got any of that for even a second. If it was meant to be emotional manipulation (and to be honest, I thought Spotlight was mostly pretty bad at appealing to emotion in general until the credits) or make you feel some sort of unity with the rest of the country, it was pretty bad at it. I felt like from pretty much within a scene it became an obstacle, and if anything its inclusion in the movie is almost a lightly critical reminder that 9/11 completely derailed focus on everything else. There's no big, sappy "I can't believe this happened to us" or "we're gonna get these guys" moment, and if the movie's intent is to exhaustively document the process of getting the story to paper it'd be irresponsible to not acknowledge the elephant in the room.

[GA!]

9 minutes ago, GoGo Yubari said:

See, I never got any of that for even a second. If it was meant to be emotional manipulation (and to be honest, I thought Spotlight was mostly pretty bad at appealing to emotion in general until the credits) or make you feel some sort of unity with the rest of the country, it was pretty bad at it. I felt like from pretty much within a scene it became an obstacle, and if anything its inclusion in the movie is almost a lightly critical reminder that 9/11 completely derailed focus on everything else. There's no big, sappy "I can't believe this happened to us" or "we're gonna get these guys" moment, and if the movie's intent is to exhaustively document the process of getting the story to paper it'd be irresponsible to not acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Pretty much, Mark Ruffalo was full-on yelling after the 9/11 section to generate some kind of emotion.

I think Spotlight was scripted to be far more emotional than what eventually plays out - the fear Brian d'Arcy shows when he realises there's a doss house for these priests just around the corner from his home is great - but Tom McCarthy creates a cold piece of filmmaking probably to compensate for how dark the subject matter is. The methodical approach does help in portraying the investigation, but any emotional element is mostly skipped over in favour of obvious signifiers and imagery (hence my 9/11 porn comment).

[Lint]

Paramount releases hundreds of full movies for free on Youtube

[RPS]

I don't know if my body is ready for how great this movie could possibly be... 

[Benji]

I really want to get excited for it, but that excitement is always going to be limited for any movie that has Melissa McCarthy in it

[RPS]

She is really good in some movies, though. Like I really enjoyed her in Bridesmaid and Spy. Everything else I've seen her in has had a really terrible script and therefore not been very good, but it was never because of her. I think post-Bridesmaids she just took on a lot of movies and wasn't very discerning with how bad the scripts were. 

[Benji]

Never seen a movie nor TV show with her where I liked her. I hope she proves me wrong, but going in I'm unfortunately already assuming based on history that she'll be the worst part of the film.

[Benjamin]

1 hour ago, RPS said:

She is really good in some movies, though. Like I really enjoyed her in Bridesmaid and Spy. Everything else I've seen her in has had a really terrible script and therefore not been very good, but it was never because of her. I think post-Bridesmaids she just took on a lot of movies and wasn't very discerning with how bad the scripts were. 

Yeah, from what I can see she's a workaholic, she does like 2 or 3 movies a year, then also has Mike & Molly.

Anyway, I'm gonna' watch this no matter what, because Leslie Jones is the fucking best.

[RPS]

And Kate McKinnon! I actually really enjoy everyone in the movie, so there is no possible way they can fuck this up. Right....? 

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

Slimer!

EDIT: Yo, and Paul Feig directing and co-writing with Katie Lippold, who wrote on Parks & Rec. It's gonna be good. 

[RPS]

I did not love The Heat, which Feig directed, but maybe it'll be more Bridesmaids and Spy. 

[Hobo]

RE: The Ghostbusters trailer:

 

 

[GoGo Yubari]

Kate McKinnon made me chuckle. So that's good! I don't really have any emotional attachment to the Ghostbusters franchise (unbelievably, I've still never even seen the first one), so that's about where I'm at.