General Movie Thread 2023

[RPS]

The new Ninja Turtles movie was excellent. Everyone should check it out.

[Ruki]

49 minutes ago, RPS said:

The new Ninja Turtles movie was excellent. Everyone should check it out.

Agreed! I took my son to it on Thursday, then as soon as I got home, learned it was coming out on digital the next day. 

[RPS]

1 hour ago, Ruki said:

Agreed! I took my son to it on Thursday, then as soon as I got home, learned it was coming out on digital the next day. 

The score was so good.  I thought it was so punky and electronic. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did it. Made a whole lot of sense. 

[Lint]

 

[Colly]

There's definitely a joke or two here.

 

[Benji]

More than once recently I've seen people reference Heath Ledger as having died after his Joker performance was released. It's just an odd curiosity to me that people seem to have forgotten that he passed months before the film was actually released.

[Maxx]

This looks pretty cool, good cast with Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Michael Shannon, Norman Reedus and Boyd Holbrook.

[Benji]

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is very funny and as a bonus has one of my very favourite portrayals of a non-binary character I've seen.

[Skummy]

I watched Cassandro last night, the first time I've gone to the cinema for a new release this year. 

It was a very surreal experience watching a biopic of somebody I've actually met, I don't think I've ever felt that before. 

To begin with, I thought Gabriel Garcia Bernal was very good but didn't really feel like Cassandro, but by the end there are moments where you honestly could be watching the real Cassandro on-screen, and then you realise that of course he doesn't seem like "Cassandro" early on because he's still growing into that persona and learning who he is, and he does an absolutely masterful job of that.

It's a flawed thing, both as biography/history, and in terms of structure - the third act feels a bit abrupt, and there's a sense that they knew what they wanted the emotional climax of the story to be but didn't really know how to end it there, knowing that Cassandro had years ahead of him. While his drug and alcohol abuse is a recurring theme, it's never really addressed, nor does it go into his years of sobriety or a lot of the trauma he experienced, so while it's accurate to show, it didn't really feel like it added to the narrative the way it perhaps could have done.

There are some choices made that I understand the logic behind, but are still a bit of a shame - his mentor being a female character rather than Pimpinella Escarlata and Babe Sharon is likely to make the Exotico role seem more of a fringe outsider, because he would seem like less of a lone trailblazer and outsider figure if it were clear that he were being helped by a previous generation of Exoticos. There's also a sense that the homophobia he experienced was quite isolated, and quickly overcome, rather than a gruelling, long-term effort of winning over audiences - it consistently shows him winning audiences over within matches, rather than over years, but I understand the narrative appeal of using the structure of a match to demonstrate how he won people over, and not wanting to dwell on the unpleasant aspects of his story that would make it a far bleaker film. There's also a thing where they never quite say that Lucha Libre is a work, and I'd love to know the logic that went into that decision - though I also suspect El Hijo del Santo wouldn't have agreed to do the film if they hadn't kept that ambiguity at least.

 

Mostly, I loved it. On one hand, I'm biased as a huge fan of Cassandro, but on the other hand, that means I know his story and I could have got bogged down in it being "historically inaccurate" and dislike it for irrelevant reasons. The fact that I found it a really good, really emotional, film, with a central performance that carries it in spite of its flaws, tells me it probably was actually good and not just me.

Stick around for the credits, to see how well you did at "spot the AAA luchadore".

[RPS]

That Across the Spiderverse movie was something else alright. We agree it's the best animated movie ever? 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

1 hour ago, RPS said:

That Across the Spiderverse movie was something else alright. We agree it's the best animated movie ever? 

I think a fair amount of people prefer the first one.

I think there's really only one knock on the movie imo

Spoiler

Which is the abrupt ending to make way for the third movie. I was waaaaaay less bothered than other people. There were literal boos in the movie theatre which I think came more from the fact that this movie was amazing and people didn't want it to end than being mad that it was a cliffhanger. 

 

[GoGo Yubari]

I liked it more than the first (very good movie that I think runs a little too long, Andy Garcia's Kingpin isn't quite enough for me as the central antagonist). Not my favorite animated movie ever but maybe my favorite of the last decade?

Spoiler

My theater was also one where people basically went "are you being serious right now?" at the ending, which I thought was pretty funny. I think they were right to split it into two movies but the ending does feel very abrupt. You can feel them building to it but for some reason it has a "oops we used all our allotted time folks, tune in to WCW Saturday Night where we'll air the finish to this main event" air to me.

It didn't help that I saw it the week after I saw Fast X, which also drops a cliffhanger ending in a franchise that you wouldn't expect to see something like that in (though Spider-Verse's was much more effective because you can't possibly take a cliffhanger in the Fast series all that seriously).

 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

4 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

I liked it more than the first (very good movie that I think runs a little too long, Andy Garcia's Kingpin isn't quite enough for me as the central antagonist). Not my favorite animated movie ever but maybe my favorite of the last decade?

  Reveal hidden contents

My theater was also one where people basically went "are you being serious right now?" at the ending, which I thought was pretty funny. I think they were right to split it into two movies but the ending does feel very abrupt. You can feel them building to it but for some reason it has a "oops we used all our allotted time folks, tune in to WCW Saturday Night where we'll air the finish to this main event" air to me.

It didn't help that I saw it the week after I saw Fast X, which also drops a cliffhanger ending in a franchise that you wouldn't expect to see something like that in (though Spider-Verse's was much more effective because you can't possibly take a cliffhanger in the Fast series all that seriously).

 

Fast X spoilers

Spoiler

That is possibly one of the worst movie cliffhangers of all time because there are absolutely no stakes to it. Oh, you're going to kill off Vin Diesel at the start of the next movie? Okay...

 

[LL!]

4 minutes ago, Mx. Canadian Destroyer said:

Fast X spoilers

  Hide contents

That is possibly one of the worst movie cliffhangers of all time because there are absolutely no stakes to it. Oh, you're going to kill off Vin Diesel at the start of the next movie? Okay...

 

Would be wild if they did though. 

[GoGo Yubari]

10 minutes ago, Mx. Canadian Destroyer said:

Fast X spoilers

  Hide contents

That is possibly one of the worst movie cliffhangers of all time because there are absolutely no stakes to it. Oh, you're going to kill off Vin Diesel at the start of the next movie? Okay...

 

Spoiler

Also "oh, the plane with most of the rest of the crew crashed! They're dead now! For real! We promise!" in the same movie that ends with revealing that Gisele isn't dead.

Just about the only thing that maybe lands is that John Cena's character might actually be dead, and that's not great because he was one of the only characters in the entire movie who didn't feel completely played out (though he does go from being an actual character in 9 to "here's John Cena doing John Cena things" in X).

 

[ThrillhouseMAX]

 

 

[Maxx]

Merry Christmas, let’s get sad

[livid]

Killers of the Flower Moon is incredible.

[gunnar hendershow]

9 hours ago, livid said:

Killers of the Flower Moon is incredible.

I've been thinking about it non-stop since I saw it on Friday. Truly brilliant. Scorsese has always been a master with putting on full display some of America's many sicknesses. I can't help but view Killers as somehow showing even more of America's sicknesses, and even moreso of humanity's.

[RPS]

Asteroid City was outstanding.  A+. It's fascinating to see his growth as a filmmaker. He was somewhat of a joke amongst many film goers with his early films. But he went on to really nail his formula of bold visuals, deadpan acting and Hollywood magic with the Fantastic Mr Fox, Grand Budapest and Isle of Dogs. He's now in his experimental phase. French Dispatch was challenging, but Asteroid City has zero interest in sticking to expectations,  explaining itself or being approachable. Visually and acting wise, it's a Wes Anderson movie. But he feels not bound by traditional approaches to cinema. The way the "movie" has three acts split into two narratives being told at the same time is an interesting commentary on reality, identity and truth. 

I actually watched the movie because I couldn't find Syndedoche, New York and I watched this instead. Wes Anderson seemed inspired by that movie for Asteroid City.