The Movie (and TV show) Watching Thread

[John Dule]

IDK why people are hating on this new Velma show. I never felt represented on TV until Fred.

[T'Chenka]

Women Talking
2022
director Sarah Polley

7.5 / 10

OSCAR NOMINATIONS
--- Best Picture
--- Best Adapted Screenplay

Luckily, this movie lived up to the hype for me. There's so much to like here, if you can enjoy a movie that puts plot in the backseat and shifts it's focus more to scenes with dialogue. This is very well directed, decently paced and edited, and every single actor / actress in the film gives a quality performance. What's not to love?

Buckley and Foy in particular stood out to me the most, but honestly we're being spoiled with acting here. Apparently this is Kate Hallett's first film... keep an eye out for her career. I've barely seen anything from Ivey and McCarthy before, but maybe they'll get offered more roles from now on. McLeod is good and I'm not sure why nobody has been praising Rooney Mara. Whishaw is getting attention, which is deserved.

I think what holds this back from being amazing is the script. Scene by scene, all of the writing is actually very good. The issue for me is that the overall execution story was a little underwhelming. It could have been more interesting if they made different creative decisions. I was really hoping for a great third act, and I was a bit underwhelmed. It's slightly frustrating because everything that you need to make an amazing movie is here. All that was needed was a different script. It's still very very good.

Do I recommend this? Absolutely yes, everybody should see this. It deserves the praise. One word of warning though is that people are going to be disappointed if they're expecting an amazing story. This is a smaller and more intimate story with more dialogue than usual and less plot than usual. That has to be factored into people's expectations, or a lot of them are going to be underwhelmed or disappointed. Somebody online called this "Twelve Angry Women", and there's truth to that.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Red Letter Media and their various video series are among my favorite film-based internet personalities that I consider when I determine what movies and television to watch, and that's especially true for bad movies which I enjoy and suffer through as much as them. I have watched many amazingly bad movies as per their recommendations, and very rarely will I have seen one of those infamous films before they do.

The film I'm going to talk about is one of those: 'After Last Season.' They made a video just this week trying to figure it out. I watched it last year though and to me it is the worst movie ever made, objectively speaking and also in my personal experience. And I have intentionally watched many movies that are considered for that title (many through Red Letter Media like 'Things'). It's cheap and atrocious in every way with virtually no amusement to be had, which even other movies considered among the worst usually have at least a little of. There is nothing worse than something being boring while also being abysmal in quality, confusing, and incomprehensibly nonsensical like this piece of frustrating beige-grey dogs*** is. I was never so infuriated and bored simultaneously like this. It was torture and I did it to myself out of morbid curiosity. I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess, what else can I say?

 Red Letter Media somehow managed to mine 42 minutes worth of comedy content from the movie, and I was amazed at that while also feeling something close to PTSD in revisiting it. But watch that video instead of the movie itself if you're even remotely curious. I fear that I may be selling some on watching it. It's not worth watching in full, no matter how many potent substances you are on or who you're with.

[John Dule]

Red Letter Media and their various video series are among my favorite film-based internet personalities that I consider when I determine what movies and television to watch, and that's especially true for bad movies which I enjoy and suffer through as much as them. I have watched many amazingly bad movies as per their recommendations, and very rarely will I have seen one of those infamous films before they do.

The film I'm going to talk about is one of those: 'After Last Season.' They made a video just this week trying to figure it out. I watched it last year though and to me it is the worst movie ever made, objectively speaking and also in my personal experience. And I have intentionally watched many movies that are considered for that title (many through Red Letter Media like 'Things'). It's cheap and atrocious in every way with virtually no amusement to be had, which even other movies considered among the worst usually have at least a little of. There is nothing worse than something being boring while also being abysmal in quality, confusing, and incomprehensibly nonsensical like this piece of frustrating beige-grey dogs*** is. I was never so infuriated and bored simultaneously like this. It was torture and I did it to myself out of morbid curiosity. I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess, what else can I say?

 Red Letter Media somehow managed to mine 42 minutes worth of comedy content from the movie, and I was amazed at that while also feeling something close to PTSD in revisiting it. But watch that video instead of the movie itself if you're even remotely curious. I fear that I may be selling some on watching it. It's not worth watching in full, no matter how many potent substances you are on or who you're with.

I saw their video too and looked that movie up afterwards. Some dude on the internet was saying that the movie was made just as some kind of tax scam, which is legitimately the only possible explanation I can think of for it (short of mental illness).

[Ferguson97]

I just finished watching The Sopranos for the first time. Wow, what a ride. Undoubtably deserves its reputation as one of the greatest shows of all time.

[John Dule]

Some stuff I've been watching lately:

Gangs of New York: Rewatched this 2003 Scorsese movie to see if my opinion of it had changed. Once again, I liked it but didn't love it. Daniel Day-Lewis is absolutely mesmerizing as usual, and the setting is historically interesting-- I love that it integrates oft-overlooked aspects of American history into its revenge narrative. However, I've always thought the story itself was pretty standard Scorsese fare, and this rewatch solidified my opinion. As a revenge arc with an interesting historical setting, it's really well-done, but nothing about the plot seems to stick in my head as much as the elaborate sets and cinematography do. I think all history buffs should give this a watch (for the atmosphere, not the accuracy of the events depicted), but I wouldn't say it ranks among Scorsese's best.

The Last of Us: I never played the video game this was based on, but the first three episodes of this show were very engaging and I'm interested enough to watch more. Pedro Pascal is a very likable lead and has great chemistry with the girl playing Ellie. I also think the series has done a great job of making the cordyceps fungus feel plausible on a level that other zombie thrillers have failed to do; the world-building alone places it in the high upper tier of this genre. The idea that the "zombies" are effectively not in control of their own actions, yet are aware as the fungus forces them to feast on other humans, is so disturbing that I actually lost a little sleep thinking about it-- which is high praise coming from someone as desensitized to gore as I am. The psychological aspect of this really won me over. I will say though, while episode three was well-done from a writing standpoint, it was pretty ballsy of them to completely break from the overall narrative only three episodes in. It was a decent enough departure, but I do hope they don't pull that again this season, because the heart and soul of the story is really Joel and Ellie.

Avatar 2: Not enough sex.

[T'Chenka]

Mulholland Drive
2001
director David Lynch

8.5 (almost 8.0) / 10

I could raise my score on a rewatch, possibly. Fairly good film, but a really great film once you start to understand some of the stuff that Lynch is doing. I had my own theories and then went online to see what other people's thoughts were. Highly recommended, but yes, it's a David Lynch film. Which means a lot of people will hate how avant-garde and seemingly nonsensical it is.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Seen this year so far

January:

1. Double Indemnity (1944): 9/10
2. Něco z Alenky (1988): 8/10
3. La belle et la bête (1946): 8/10
4. Solyaris (1972): 8/10
5. Lilo & Stitch (2002): 8/10
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977): 8/10
7. The Iron Giant (1999): 7/10
8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988): 7/10
9. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001): 7/10
10. Dumbo (1941): 7/10
11. Only The Brave (2017): 6/10
12. Der Himmel über Berlin (1987): 6/10
13. The Princess Bride (1987): 6/10
14. Sedmikrásky (1966): 5/10
15. Peter Pan (1953): 4/10
16. The Wizard of Oz (1939): 4/10

February so far:

1. The Father (2020) - 9/10
2. Midnight in Paris (2011) - 8/10
3. True Grit (2010) - 7/10
4. The Favourite (2018) - 7/10
5. Winter's Bone (2010) - 5/10
6. Vice (2018) - 5/10
7. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) - 5/10
8. A Star is Born (2018) - 4/10

Theme for january was mostly (but not exclusively) sci-fi/fantasy
Theme for february so far is Academy Awards (will now get to what i've unseen in 2019 for releases)

[T'Chenka]

Mulholland Drive (2001)
--- 8.5 (almost 8.0) / 10

The Reader (2008)
--- 7.5 (almost 8.0) / 10

Mulholland Drive HIGHLY recommended, The Reader definitely recommended as well. Both are somewhat divisive, both are worth watching.

[Mr. Illini]

Watched Banshees this week and was absolutely blown away by it. It is such an incredibly sad and complex and relatable film and still somehow humorous also. The acting and the setting are beautiful.

[John Dule]

Ok, here's my unironic, honest, and lengthy analysis of Avatar 2 that I know you were all waiting for.

-----------------

As stated previously, I enjoyed the first Avatar movie. Despite being trite, simplistic, and strangely unimaginative given its setting, it won me over solely because it was far more original than any other blockbuster of the modern era. And yes, I was looking forward to Avatar 2-- if only because James Cameron knows how to make a sequel.

So was it worth waiting the length of one Boyhood to see this? Well... yes and no. Avatar: The Way of Water takes every aspect of the first film-- the good and the bad-- and amplifies it. The stock storytelling beats, hackneyed environmentalism, and self-indulgent visual effects sequences are all back in full force. But no matter how much the film made me roll my eyes (and it was a lot), it's still clear that Cameron hasn't lost his edge. Far from repeating the story of Avatar (2009), Cameron plots an intelligent new path for the franchise, introducing new characters and concepts that logically follow from the first film's conclusion. Perhaps most importantly, he knows that lowering the stakes in a sequel can actually make it more engaging-- a lesson that most modern sci-fi writers would do well to learn. This film does not end with a giant laser shooting into the sky or a death weapon capable of destroying planets. For that, at least, it has my thanks.

But as much as I'd like to sing The Way of Water's praises-- to hold it up as the last bastion of barely-original filmmaking compared to the doldrums of Marvel and Star Wars-- it's far from revolutionary. While its underwater special effects are of course impressive, at this point audiences are so desensitized to these visuals that they leave very little impact. In fact, I'll be the first to say that the Avatar films suffer from the same problem as the Star Wars prequels: The animated landscapes look too perfect and clean to be believable, which often breaks the immersion. Fully CGI environments don't have the gritty imperfections that sets do, and the advantages they bring are sometimes canceled out by how sterile and staged they feel. I don't have anything against using CGI to depict things that couldn't be achieved with practical effects (the size difference between the Na'vi and humans will always be impressive to me), but when you get to the point that you're using it on simple background items, I start to feel like I'm watching Toy Story.

Just as the visuals alone aren't enough of a reason to see this film, neither are the characters (though you already knew that). The movie follows the Sully family-- now including four children-- as they abandon their home in Pandora’s floating mountains to seek refuge on the islands of Space Tahiti. The decision to leave is triggered by an incident in which marines briefly capture some of the children, which is enough to convince our main character that the time has come to completely abandon the home for which he had once fought so hard. It comes across as a strange departure from Jake Sully's character-- the man literally organized a multinational guerrilla war in the first film-- but I understand that the oh-so-deep characterization of Jake Sully is not really the primary concern of these movies, so I gave it a pass.

The rest of the Sully family is a bit of a mixed bag, dramatically speaking. Sigourney Weaver stands out as a CGI’d young Na’vi girl with a primal connection to the planet’s deity, which further explores one of the more novel sci-fi concepts from the first film-- the idea that the planet’s life is all connected by a supernatural hive mind. Not only is the CGI for Weaver’s character impressive, but she pulls off shockingly believable childlike acting for the role. The character of “Spider” (a human child raised by the Na’vi) is also interesting, though the movie doesn’t give him much of an arc. Cameron tries to give him some temptation to turn to the “dark side” (in a father-son relationship that is more than a little reminiscent of Luke and Vader), but Spider never seems likely to succumb to this temptation, so the stakes feel low. Nonetheless, Cameron’s exploration of plot points that build on existing material from the first film demonstrates once again his uncanny understanding of film sequels. He knows how to introduce a concept, develop it, and explore its logical effects and conclusions-- as opposed to just rehashing the same plot as the original film. JJ Abrams could learn some lessons from this movie (but he won’t).

But the focal point of the film is the relationship between Sully, Neytiri, and their two sons. This dynamic is occasionally charming, but the character development is shallow and predictable-- especially the relationship between the brothers, which is basically a Blue Man Group retelling of the prodigal son parable. The conclusion to their arc is so obvious that it almost had me convinced it was going to subvert my expectations. But true to form, it ended with one character literally having another character’s blood on his hands.

This visual trope is ultimately a perfect microcosm of The Way of Water as a whole. While the film does an excellent job of exploring concepts and plotlines from the first movie in more depth, it’s also punishingly unsubtle-- even more so than the first film, which is saying something. From the whale hunters with Australian accents to the liberal borrowing of Vietnam imagery, the movie seems determined to double down on all the crudest political and historical analogies from Avatar ‘09. When the first film’s villain was reincarnated as a Na’vi, I expected the movie to explore his perspective more, and to show his inner conflict as he came to appreciate the beauty and splendor of Pandora’s wilderness. But no-- even after riding a pterodactyl through floating mountains, he still seems utterly convinced that there is no value in this planet’s nature, and he sides with the colonizers until the bitter end. Perhaps there will be some redemption for this character in future movies, but as it stands now, it’s almost comical how unmoved he is by these experiences.

I can’t say whether The Way of Water was worth the wait. I mostly enjoyed watching it, and despite lacking even a hint of subtlety, it at least tried to convey a message deeper than “We’re a family” or “No one’s ever really gone.” But if I’m being honest with myself, I do wish that the legions of computer animators and visual effects designers were working in service of a story that was a little less conventional. Pandora’s oceans may be deep, but this movie isn’t.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Watched a few movies recently, and to John Dule's inevitable chagrin one of them was a Marvel movie:

-'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever:' I sort of came into this movie with a chip on my shoulder regarding Letitia Wright and her anti-vaccine sentiments which were only compounded when it took paying her more to actually get the COVID vaccine to be in the movie and especially considering the science appreciating character she plays. It was very hard to separate that from this film where she is now the main protagonist of the franchise. I tried my best but it was difficult. Granted, the writing of the film did its best to explain well enough why she becomes the new Black Panther and all that her character goes through to rationalize it. She was also great in the role, I won't discount her talent as a performer. Still, it didn't make sense why she was suddenly able to fight as well as she did upon donning the suit. We never saw her train or anything prior. Gaining abilities is one thing but Shuri was never shown to be a warrior as much as her brother's Q or something akin to that. I still think I would have preferred almost literally anybody else to be the new Black Panther to her, even discounting the real-world controversies of the actress. I think it should have been Okoye personally. Even a redeemed Killmonger would have been cool (if Martin Freeman could survive his wounds from the first film thanks to vibranium, Killmonger could have too!), he was the best part of the first film after all.

And speaking of the other characters, the villain once again was probably the best part of this film as well. Namor and his civilization's similarities to Wakanda and their shared history of colonization while addressing it differently was very compelling to me. I initially thought the choice to make them blue was a stupid idea but they explained it well enough and the weird, dumb wing ankles too that I was able to buy it enough as silly as it still is. What these films do the best is world-building and that held up here too. Though some of the special effects were kind of awkward.

Now, what I really disliked the most about the film was how bloated and overly long it was. There was an entire subplot with Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus that felt completely unnecessary outside of creating links to other properties or to have a certain amount of white people in the movie. If I had it my way their plot would have been cut and its slight relevance to the main plot reworked. That goes for Riri Williams too who was uninteresting to me and little more than a human McGuffin that exemplifies one of my least favorite Marvel tropes: the young genius who can build impressive works of engineering out of junk. It annoyed the s*** out of me in 'No Way Home' (really? Everything they needed to cure the villains was in a high school?) and it irked me here too. I don't care how talented and brilliant an MIT student is, it would require more than one at least working with whatever to build everything she did in this film. If they had nixed all those characters and found a better way to introduce conflict between Wakanda and Talokan it would have been better in my opinion and probably also shortened the movie's run-time. I don't want to blame the writers as much as the producers for those decisions though. I'm sure they were required to work those characters in and I suppose they did their best.

Overall, in spite of my faults with the movie and how inferior it is to the first one I think they did the best they could under the circumstances of their main star tragically dying way too young in a surprise to most. The movie was also a very effective tribute to Chadwick Boseman and probably succeeded way more at doing what DC's 'Aquaman' wanted to do.

Of the Marvel movies from 2022 I would rank it above 'Thor: Love and Thunder' but below 'Doctor Strange 2,' which I didn't even love. Marvel movies really are kind of losing their luster, and that looks to be continuing given what I've been hearing about the newest 'Ant-Man' movie.

The next movie I watched was 'T2 Trainspotting.' I'll be briefer with this one. As a fan of the first movie the sequel has eluded me for a long time. I never found anywhere to watch it until yesterday. But even then, how could one make a sequel to 'Trainspotting' in the first place? Well,  they somehow succeeded. I still don't know if it was all that necessary, but it was definitely inspired. The director and writers truly had ideas of where to take these characters and it translated to the screen almost without missing a beat. It had just about everything that the original had and even went further with some of its fun and unique visual film-making techniques and humor. For a sequel made twenty years after the first it didn't fall into the pitfalls that many late sequels do. It actually progressed the characters in ways that made sense and also managed to have fan service for fans of the first in ways that were appropriate and subtle enough that didn't stop the movie or alienate those unfamiliar with the first one. It also managed to be a bit less misanthropic and nihilistic than the first one. Well okay, there was still plenty of cynicism  but it didn't feel quite as in-your-face and dark as the first movie had with some of its more iconic moments that stick with you. Now, that might be a flaw to some, but I kind of appreciated this film trying to be a bit more hopeful and optimistic than the first. I think this is another contender for one of the best sequels ever made, and I'm surprised it never received as much attention for that after it came out.

Mulholland Drive
2001
director David Lynch

8.5 (almost 8.0) / 10

I could raise my score on a rewatch, possibly. Fairly good film, but a really great film once you start to understand some of the stuff that Lynch is doing. I had my own theories and then went online to see what other people's thoughts were. Highly recommended, but yes, it's a David Lynch film. Which means a lot of people will hate how avant-garde and seemingly nonsensical it is.

This is my favorite film of his, actually. And it also contains the best, most earned jump-scare in cinema history.

[T'Chenka]

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
director Barry Jenkins

8.5 (almost 8.0) / 10

Amazing and beautiful directing and cinematography. Good acting from the entire cast. Good musical score, good production design. The weakness of this film is that it doesn't tell it's story in a more interesting / captivating way. This is underrated and under-praised. Definitely worth a watch, if you enjoy period piece drama films.

[T'Chenka]

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
director Peyton Reed

6.0 (almost 5.5) / 10

This was a pleasant surprise, and better than all of the 2022 MCU films. The script has a lot of issues, and this isn't exactly a great film, but it was enjoyable and not lifeless. Paul Rudd does a good job, and we get an interesting villain this time. Gave me SOME faith that the MCU might get back on track. At least, possibly.

[John Dule]

My review of Glass Onion:

It's hard for a professional director-- even the great ones-- to avoid putting out some duds over the course of a long career, just by the sheer law of averages. But with Glass Onion, Rian Johnson's filmography has officially cemented itself as among the most bipolar in the history of Hollywood. After directing the brilliantly plotted high school mystery Brick, Johnson ventured into science fiction, first with the nonsensical-yet-competent Looper and then with the crime against humanity known as Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Around this time, Johnson also directed both the highest and lowest-rated episodes of Breaking Bad ("Fly" and "Ozymandias"), right before returning to form with Knives Out, a decently plotted and engaging mystery thriller elevated by well-written plot twists and a fantastic cast.

What's frustrating about Johnson is that he clearly knows how to make a good movie, but his affinity for misguided experimentation is often his own undoing. His latest experiment is simple: Remake Knives Out, but in the style of a first-year film school student with an inflated budget. Remove the diverse and treacherous cast of suspects, and replace them with a group of whiny sycophants and one clear, obvious perpetrator. Tone down the subtle characterization and instead amp up the shallow, forced political commentary. Transform your capable, eccentric leading man into an incompetent bumbling comedy relief with a funny accent. For good measure, end it all with a big explosion.

It's hardly an overstatement to say that everything in this "mystery" is dumber than its predecessor. Rather than dropping subtle clues for the audience to pick up on, Johnson literally shoots two different versions of certain scenes in order to confuse and deceive the viewer. This deception is in vain, however, because the resolution to the mystery is head-slappingly obvious from virtually the beginning of the film. This leaves the audience desperately fishing for alternative theories-- because of course it couldn't possibly be that simple, right? But no-- it really is that straightforward, and Johnson's endless distractions (including reshoots, endless flashbacks, cringe-inducing celebrity cameos, and an absurd twist involving twins) cannot mask the laziness and stupidity of the writing. Even Johnson seems to acknowledge this, with one of his characters repeatedly observing that the plot is "just dumb." Sorry Rian, but self-awareness is not laudable unless it's accompanied by self-improvement.

Ultimately, Glass Onion misses the mark on what a mystery should be. A good murder mystery is a magic trick-- the writer gives you all the information needed to unravel it, but he still manages to shock his audience at the end by employing trickery and misdirection. But Glass Onion is the opposite of shocking. With a straightforward plot, shallow characters making stupid decisions, and tame "social commentary," it's exactly what we all expect from Hollywood at this point. Although the first film in this series clearly dabbled in themes of race and class warfare, those elements played second fiddle to the solid writing and performances. Here, Johnson lazily populates his film with stereotypes he hates and then repeatedly makes them look venal and dumb. While this approach might earn applause from certain circles, it isn't good writing-- and most importantly, it isn't engaging to watch. For a director so obsessed with experimentation and "subverting expectations," Glass Onion is ironically formulaic.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I watched the sort of classic, 'The Amityville Horror,' the original from 1979. Now, what needs to be said first off is that the alleged "true story" that the film depicts has largely been debunked aside from the initial murder-suicide of that first family who lived in the house. I don't really have much else to say about this film aside from the fact that Margot Kidder does not get enough credit for being one of the most beautiful actresses of her era. She has one scene in here that is particularly entrancing.

Anyway, my other real takeaway was how much this film resembles 'The Shining' and a little bit of 'Poltergeist' too. I can't help but wonder if at least the original story helped inspire Stephen King's book, and especially Kubrick's film adaptation of it. The similarities are very eerie, though 'The Shining' does almost everything better. All of the scares in 'The Amityville Horror' are kind of meek, consisting of cliches like doors opening up on their own, spooky voices, and nightmares sequences. The best and most original scare involved the demon/imaginary friend of the daughter: "Jodie." There was one scene where Margot Kidder looks out the window and sees a pair of glowing eyes in an effective jump scare and then later those eyes are shown to belong to a weird demon pig. And as a pig-lover that kind of worked for me on a different level.

Otherwise, it's not a bad movie overall, but a bit on the generic side considering how many better haunted house movies came out after it. It was a huge success the year it came out, so it does have some deserving place in film history, all things considered. Its ending is really anticlimactic though.

My review of Glass Onion:

It's hard for a professional director-- even the great ones-- to avoid putting out some duds over the course of a long career, just by the sheer law of averages. But with Glass Onion, Rian Johnson's filmography has officially cemented itself as among the most bipolar in the history of Hollywood. After directing the brilliantly plotted high school mystery Brick, Johnson ventured into science fiction, first with the nonsensical-yet-competent Looper and then with the crime against humanity known as Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Around this time, Johnson also directed both the highest and lowest-rated episodes of Breaking Bad ("Fly" and "Ozymandias"), right before returning to form with Knives Out, a decently plotted and engaging mystery thriller elevated by well-written plot twists and a fantastic cast.

What's frustrating about Johnson is that he clearly knows how to make a good movie, but his affinity for misguided experimentation is often his own undoing. His latest experiment is simple: Remake Knives Out, but in the style of a first-year film school student with an inflated budget. Remove the diverse and treacherous cast of suspects, and replace them with a group of whiny sycophants and one clear, obvious perpetrator. Tone down the subtle characterization and instead amp up the shallow, forced political commentary. Transform your capable, eccentric leading man into an incompetent bumbling comedy relief with a funny accent. For good measure, end it all with a big explosion.

It's hardly an overstatement to say that everything in this "mystery" is dumber than its predecessor. Rather than dropping subtle clues for the audience to pick up on, Johnson literally shoots two different versions of certain scenes in order to confuse and deceive the viewer. This deception is in vain, however, because the resolution to the mystery is head-slappingly obvious from virtually the beginning of the film. This leaves the audience desperately fishing for alternative theories-- because of course it couldn't possibly be that simple, right? But no-- it really is that straightforward, and Johnson's endless distractions (including reshoots, endless flashbacks, cringe-inducing celebrity cameos, and an absurd twist involving twins) cannot mask the laziness and stupidity of the writing. Even Johnson seems to acknowledge this, with one of his characters repeatedly observing that the plot is "just dumb." Sorry Rian, but self-awareness is not laudable unless it's accompanied by self-improvement.

Ultimately, Glass Onion misses the mark on what a mystery should be. A good murder mystery is a magic trick-- the writer gives you all the information needed to unravel it, but he still manages to shock his audience at the end by employing trickery and misdirection. But Glass Onion is the opposite of shocking. With a straightforward plot, shallow characters making stupid decisions, and tame "social commentary," it's exactly what we all expect from Hollywood at this point. Although the first film in this series clearly dabbled in themes of race and class warfare, those elements played second fiddle to the solid writing and performances. Here, Johnson lazily populates his film with stereotypes he hates and then repeatedly makes them look venal and dumb. While this approach might earn applause from certain circles, it isn't good writing-- and most importantly, it isn't engaging to watch. For a director so obsessed with experimentation and "subverting expectations," Glass Onion is ironically formulaic.

Thank you! I said much of this in a review I posted on the film a few pages back. It as my biggest disappointment of the year and I have grown to hate it over time after initially just being underwhelmed, especially in being such a significant minority versus the general reception towards the film and recognizing that Tyler Perry films and soap operas are written on a similar level.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

FEBRUARY

1. The Third Man (1949) 9/10
2. The Father (2020) 9/10
3. Marriage Story (2019) 8/10
4. The Secret of Kells (2009) 8/10
5. Midnight in Paris (2011) 8/10
6. Ford v Ferrari (2019) 8/10
7. The Favourite (2018) 7/10
8. True Grit (2010) 7/10
9. Pocahontas (1995) 7/10
10. The Great Mouse Detective (1986) 7/10

11. Jojo Rabbit (2019) 7/10
12. J'ai perdu mon corps [ I Lost My Body ] (2019) 7/10
13. Casablanca (1942) 7/10
14. The Aristocats (1970) 6/10
15. The Black Cauldron (1985) 6/10
16. Robin Hood (1973) 6/10
17. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) 6/10
18. Winter's Bone (2010) 5/10
19. The Sword in the Stone (1963) 5/10
20. Dinosaur (2000) 5/10

21. Vice (2018) 5/10
22. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) 5/10
23. A Star is Born (2018) 4/10
24. The Lion King (2019) 4/10
25. The Rescuers (1977) 4/10
26. Saludos Amigos (1942) 3/10

[Meclazine for Israel]

The Head Hunter (2018)



This is a well made (Spanish?) film about a medieval world some have compared to SkyRim. The main antagonist is a warrior who goes about his business. I really ike the addition of magic to this film. The film making here is superb. Short on dialogue, a real surprise on quality.

Reminds me somewhat of Hagazussa which I recommended on Page 3 of this thread.

[John Dule]

The Last of Us returned to form somewhat with episode 8, but it hasn't completely washed the taste of that godawful episode 7 out of my mouth. That flashback episode added very little to the story; it once again interrupted the flow of the show and distracted pointlessly from the relationship between Joel and Ellie. And why are TV writers so terrible at writing for kids? They just throw curse words into random places in their dialogue, and it comes across as forced and cringeworthy. I have never heard anyone under the age of 20 refer to someone as a "sick f**k." That episode reminded me of Stranger Things, and in the worst way possible.

[Ferguson97]

And why are TV writers so terrible at writing for kids? They just throw curse words into random places in their dialogue, and it comes across as forced and cringeworthy.

Teenagers often act and behave in ways that feel forced and cringy. I think that Ellie constantly using profanity in order to seem more intimidating and mature is perfectly in-character for a 14-year-old forced to become an adult earlier than she should have been.

[John Dule]

And why are TV writers so terrible at writing for kids? They just throw curse words into random places in their dialogue, and it comes across as forced and cringeworthy.

Teenagers often act and behave in ways that feel forced and cringy. I think that Ellie constantly using profanity in order to seem more intimidating and mature is perfectly in-character for a 14-year-old forced to become an adult earlier than she should have been.

It's not the fact that profanity is used, it's the way it's used. Kids curse in artful and creative ways that adults simply cannot replicate. They also don't just straight-up tell people how they're feeling. The line "If you're going through some s**t, you're supposed to, I dunno, talk to your best friend about it?" is a good example of this. I have never known a teenager to be this straightforward about how they feel in a given situation. Classic case of telling rather than showing.

When adults write for kids, they also tend to fall back on making the kid seem edgy, calm, and confident in order to relate to a younger audience. But this inevitably comes across as forced and lame. In that flashback episode, Riley joins a terrorist organization, evades the military by jumping across rooftops, and sneaks into a government facility-- and she seems completely unfazed by it. "We prefer the term 'freedom fighters,'" she says smugly, as if she's talking about joining a high school clique. It is neither believable nor interesting for a character (especially one this young) to behave as if she's in such total control of this situation, but the writers wrote her that way because it made her seem cooler.

This is one of my most hated tropes from our present era of crap screenwriting: When you need to introduce a new character and make the audience like them fast, you place them in complete control of the situation and have them act extremely cocky. Meanwhile, you sideline the existing characters and make them look confused and clueless in comparison to the new character. This trope is more common in "torch-passing" soft reboots, but that episode of The Last of Us was a spot-on example of it. It's extremely lazy writing.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The Last of Us returned to form somewhat with episode 8, but it hasn't completely washed the taste of that godawful episode 7 out of my mouth. That flashback episode added very little to the story; it once again interrupted the flow of the show and distracted pointlessly from the relationship between Joel and Ellie. And why are TV writers so terrible at writing for kids? They just throw curse words into random places in their dialogue, and it comes across as forced and cringeworthy. I have never heard anyone under the age of 20 refer to someone as a "sick f**k." That episode reminded me of Stranger Things, and in the worst way possible.

To be fair, Episode 7 was necessary for the sake of the fans since it encompassed the well-received DLC from the game. But the fact remains that it could have been one of the moments that works better in interactive game form than as a narrative episode of a series.

But Episode 8 is the one I was waiting on to really gauge if I would watch the series or not since that was my favorite part of the game by far. David was one of those "love-to-hate" antagonists and I found him and his cannibal cult far more compelling as threats than the infected, and them apparently going more overt with his villainy in the show actually makes me more intrigued. If the stick the landing with the finale next week I think I am going to finally watch the entire series.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I guess I'm bumping this thread after making the last post. I hate to do that, but relevantly, I just finished watching 'The Last of Us.'

I waited until all episodes aired and there was confirmation that it wouldn't decline in quality before it ended. I was also hesitant to watch it since, as someone who played the game, I thought I'd be going into it with baggage and expectations based on it simply not being bad and accepting a low standard of how it compares to most video game adaptations.

Despite that low bar I do think the show shines on its on, separate from its source material. As evidence of this, my 57 year old mom watched the show and found it riveting. An adaptation that can stand on its own like this surely has something to it. So that made me more encouraged to watch it.

So I indeed enjoyed it and it actually exceeded my expectations. They expanded upon a lot in the game, and for the better in most instances. While the game still did some things a bit better than the series, I think the series actually ended up doing just as much better than the game since that's what a TV format can allow. In the game you never played as or saw the perspective of anybody other than Ellie or Joel, so adapting it to television allowed for expansion and I thought it all worked. All of it fit into the property's themes of attachment, grief, and the costs of survival fairly brilliantly.

I had a few minor complaints mostly relating to some TV tropes that couldn't seem to have been helped as well as some unconvincing CGI for some of the wild animals in the show. But that's mostly it. Overall it was very satisfying and faithful to the game while still allowing new audiences to get into it.

The two biggest complaints I've seen from fans of the game relate to a relative lack of the infected's presence in the show and it potentially being rushed and having too few episodes. The latter I disagree with entirely. I think they efficiently fit all of the game's major moments and story into those nine episodes without feeling bloated or too short. I actually appreciate that they didn't stretch the show for 13 unnecessary episodes or anything. As for the infected, I get why they didn't include them that much. In the game they are a consistent threat for the sake of gameplay but Ellie and Joel encountering them as much as they did in the game, in a TV format would get old quick. Well, okay, there were maybe two instances where a small conflict with some infected like from the game could have worked with me: the part where Ellie meets David and they hold off an infected swam together, thus Ellie gaining some trust with him; and the final confrontation with a horde from the game before they get to the Firefly hospital. Hell, they could have just fought one bloater together and I think it would have been enough. That's about all I would have wanted though, and I guess it wasn't entirely necessary. I kind of hate infected/zombies as a concept anyway, so I'm mostly glad that the show stuck to the human conflicts.

Now, as characteristically long as this post has been, I want to go into one more detail: which is better? The game or the show? And I have an answer for this, having experienced both: the show. Don't get me wrong, the game is a masterpiece, but that's because of its characters and writing, not because of its game-play. Its game-play is fine, but nothing special or even that memorable. I always felt like it was an after-thought to this compelling story the creators wanted to tell. Meanwhile, in the show I got the same emotional resonance (minus not knowing what was going to happen, of course) without having to deal with the frustration of stealth game-play. Stealth is a big part of the game and I personally hate stealth games. I just don't have the skill or patience to play through segments of games that feature it without getting irritated by the near-constant trial-and-error. It's also a less time-consuming experience to watch the show versus playing the game in its entirety. I still would recommend you experience both to get the most out of the property if one interested you and it made you intrigued by the other.

Finally, let me just say, that I am very conflicted on how to feel about the inevitable second season. If it adapts The Last of Us Part II, I am on the critical side of the polarized response it received, so I can't say I am eager to see that adapted unless they change some significant parts of the story. But I'm still going to give it a chance, like I did with the game, when it comes out. Regardless, it should not sully the first season's claim to be the pinnacle of video game adaptions so far. It finally happened!

[LAKISYLVANIA]

MARCH:

1. Fire of Love (2022) 8/10
2. Big Hero 6 (2014) 7/10
3. Wreck-It-Ralph (2012) 7/10
4. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) 7/10
5. The Emperor's New Groove (2000) 7/10
6. Free Solo (2018) 7/10
7. The Grey (2011) 7/10
8. Brother Bear (2003) 6/10
9. Winnie The Pooh (2011) 6/10
10. Onward (2020) 6/10
11. Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018) 5/10
12. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 4/10

Worked a bit on finishing the Disney anim canon, and i suppose at this point i've viewed almost every film i want to see, barring some exceptions and barring some that i would just watch to be a completionist, like the wartime era films. I've seen 48 films now. Though to properly rank them, i would have to rewatch some...

It's clear by now that i'll never be a Wes Anderson fan. Fantastic Mr. Fox made that painfully clear, and I suppose Isle of Dogs isn't going to be my thing either (seems very likely now). I appreciate the art (music, use of sound, visuals), but its just not my thing. In particular wasn't able to be engaged into the story (which has always been an issue with Anderson, tho The Grand Budapest Hotel was good enough to overcome that obstacle for me).

Ralph Breaks the Internet, while not boring, wasn't a good viewing experience either. I mean lots of people call arthouse films pretentious, but this is an example of a pretentious blockbuster lol in terms of messaging and setting etc. Yes, blockbusters can be pretentious as well. Feels like the setting while potentially interesting has lots of untapped potential and that the evolution of the characters from the original film isn't believable. There's a lot that feels wrong in the film, end battle isn't fun either. But boring would be the wrong word, more like a sour aftertaste while watching.

Onward and Brother Bear are okay but generic (def. weaker films from both Pixar and Disney). I'm not the audience for Winnie The Pooh but it's fine. The Grey is a bit underrated and just an enjoyable watch. Free Solo was fun and good, so was Fire of Love where the theme and good narrator voice also helped. Big Hero 6, Wreck-It-Ralph, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and The Emperor's New Groove are all solid, maybe above average Disney films and the Emperor's New Groove is a good example of a fun animation, something some animations seemed to have trouble with and Atlantis is underrated.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

IDK why people are hating on this new Velma show. I never felt represented on TV until Fred.

I only watched the first two episodes. I felt I should at least see what everyone was hating on before hating on it myself. It didn't seem... good by any stretch. But it seemed like there was a nugget of something that was entirely overlooked by the haters. By the end of episode 2, it seems like the show is about a protagonist who had habitually attributed everything she didn't like to race and class and sex, and was realizing that this wasn't actually the case. Did the show abandon this for cheap attempts at jokes and lazy ideologizing?