The Movie (and TV show) Watching Thread

[Mr. Smith]

Lots of The Walking Dead TV Series.

[Mr. Smith]

JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1978): C+

Creepy animation and waaay too compacted storyline, but very nice music and excellent vocal performances from John Hurt and Anthony Daniels. Also a far better Frodo than that c^%t in Peter Jackson's movies.


Better than The Hobbit Trilogy for sure.

[Mr. Smith]

I went to see The Batrman. Boy, was that intense. Compared to The Batman The Dark Knight is lighthearted comedy and Christian Bale's Batman a cheerful fellow with a positive attitude. Pretty good movie, albeit a tad long. A little trimming was required.

This is literally what Nolan's Batman is on the grand scale of Batmen, just because it's "grounded and realistic and philosophical" doesn't mean it's dark and edgy.

Hopefully it's not as bloated as those Nolan movies were.

#BurtonOrBust.

[Mr. Smith]

Just saw Mario yesterday.

Needed an extra minute on each scene for the characters to sink in, but it did the job. Definitely the best visual experience thus far.

[Mr. Smith]

Ghosts.

A sitcom where a NYC couple move upstate after inheriting a falling-apart mansion.

[Mr. Smith]

Just got out of Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse...still processing, but....holy sh&^ that was amazing. 

Is this what people were thinking 40 years ago after Episode 5? Wtf?


As for Howl's Moving Castle...just read the book. So much better. Different. But better,.

[Mr. Smith]

My thoughts on Asteroid City:



After seeing Asteroid City, I've finally identified what it is about Wes Anderson's style that irritates me so much. It's not the aesthetic of it-- his camera angles, color palettes, models, and sets are all intricate and beautiful. It's truly impressive that in an age dominated by committee-created blockbusters, one man's unique vision can still draw such an audience.

But increasingly, Anderson seems incapable of tailoring his style to fit the story he's telling. After The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, no longer do the Wes Andersonisms feel like natural products of the narrative. Rather, they are shoehorned in for the simple purpose of hitting particular stylistic beats. The Jeff Goldblum cameo. The sudden close-ups of vibrantly colored inanimate objects. The ironically deadpan delivery of a character expressing deep emotional grief. Every element must be thrown in at some point, lest Wes feel like he's letting down his dedicated fanbase. For a filmmaker with such an unconventional vision, he has ironically become a slave to his own formula.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story layering of Asteroid City. Framing this film as a stage play (and then constantly interrupting its momentum with digressions to a secondary plot) adds nothing to the narrative. With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson used his story-within-a-story technique brilliantly-- the layered structure made the film's tale feel like it came from a time that had long since passed, and most importantly, the story itself was allowed to unfold without interruption. But now that he's begun employing that approach in every film-- regardless of whether it's appropriate-- I've begun to wonder if Budapest was simply a massive fluke, the rare instance in which Anderson's default style actually elevated the story rather than detracting from it.

Despite what I've said here, I enjoyed Asteroid City. Multiple scenes made me laugh out loud, and the conclusion subverts the audience's expectations in a way that's actually satisfying. It's just frustrating to see Anderson once again smother an interesting story under layers of his trademark irony. Either his directorial choices are operating on a level I don't understand, or he is simply playing paint-by-numbers with the structures of his screenplays. I fear the latter is the case.

The Royal Tenenbaums and Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox were elevated by the style.

[Mr. Smith]

My thoughts on Asteroid City:



After seeing Asteroid City, I've finally identified what it is about Wes Anderson's style that irritates me so much. It's not the aesthetic of it-- his camera angles, color palettes, models, and sets are all intricate and beautiful. It's truly impressive that in an age dominated by committee-created blockbusters, one man's unique vision can still draw such an audience.

But increasingly, Anderson seems incapable of tailoring his style to fit the story he's telling. After The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, no longer do the Wes Andersonisms feel like natural products of the narrative. Rather, they are shoehorned in for the simple purpose of hitting particular stylistic beats. The Jeff Goldblum cameo. The sudden close-ups of vibrantly colored inanimate objects. The ironically deadpan delivery of a character expressing deep emotional grief. Every element must be thrown in at some point, lest Wes feel like he's letting down his dedicated fanbase. For a filmmaker with such an unconventional vision, he has ironically become a slave to his own formula.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story layering of Asteroid City. Framing this film as a stage play (and then constantly interrupting its momentum with digressions to a secondary plot) adds nothing to the narrative. With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson used his story-within-a-story technique brilliantly-- the layered structure made the film's tale feel like it came from a time that had long since passed, and most importantly, the story itself was allowed to unfold without interruption. But now that he's begun employing that approach in every film-- regardless of whether it's appropriate-- I've begun to wonder if Budapest was simply a massive fluke, the rare instance in which Anderson's default style actually elevated the story rather than detracting from it.

Despite what I've said here, I enjoyed Asteroid City. Multiple scenes made me laugh out loud, and the conclusion subverts the audience's expectations in a way that's actually satisfying. It's just frustrating to see Anderson once again smother an interesting story under layers of his trademark irony. Either his directorial choices are operating on a level I don't understand, or he is simply playing paint-by-numbers with the structures of his screenplays. I fear the latter is the case.

The Royal Tenenbaums and Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox were elevated by the style.

Yeah, those are good-- it's mostly his movies since Budapest that have dropped off for me. I think he's started to just plug in elements that worked in his past films with little regard for how they fit into his new ones.

I can agree with this. I was kinda underwhelmed by that dog movie.

[Mr. Smith]

Saw Oppenheimer yesterday, but BBC also has a mini-series...I might check that one out soon. Most of these epics work better that way.

[Mr. Smith]

Decided to see Fall Guy on a whim. Not bad. Great escapism. Didn't expect Ryan Gosling to pull off such a a role.