Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

[iolo]

Took kid to see 'The Big Friendly Giant' (BFG). It was passably amusing, but not, I thought, very suitable for children, except the jokes about trumps.

What wasn't suitable for children?

Too scary - the giants eating children and so on.

 

[KeepTalking]

Black Panther gets his powers from a combination of heredity, magic, and technology. Black Panther is the title of the King of Wakanda, which is the most technically advanced nation in the world (so advanced it has been able to hide itself from the rest of the world for centuries). Though the title is hereditary (and presumably the origin of Black Panther's power is as well) the holder of the title has to go through a ritual to become the Black Panther. I'm not too clear on the details, as I never read his origin story, but there seems to be something to do with a magic herb he had to ingest. His powers are augmented by the highly advanced suit of armor he wears, which is made of vibranium (Captain America's shield is also made from the same stuff).

What I'm saying is that pretty much none of that made it into the movie. He was the son of the king and inherited the throne, but apart from a fleeting reference to his suit containing vibranium, nothing else.

Civil War wasn't the movie for origin stories, I expect they will go into his background when the Black Panther movie comes out in 2018. I only really started reading Black Panther with the current run, which is only 3 issues old as of now, and there is no origin story there, either. They drop some hints, and I knew a bit about Black Panther already from single issues here and there in the past, and other titles that featured the character, like The Avengers. You kind of get used to that when reading comics, so many characters have been around for decades that it is impossible to have read all of their origin stories, so you have to look for clues in the current story line, or just find out by talking to friends and acquaintances that are into comics (there is also this thing called the internet, which sometimes provides useful info). And then, when you think you know a character's origin, and they become popular again, along comes a reboot...

 

[Shadowy Man]

I'm dead serious. Lucas used the monomyth as a template in the same way episode 7 uses episode 4. Heck, Lucas wasn't even clever enough to use some of the elements of the universal hero's journey as metaphors, everything is depressingly literal and by-the-numbers. The dialog is atrocious and the script is full of plot holes, but you overlook all of that because the action and pacing are well done, and the use of the monomyth virtually guarantees it will pull at your heart-strings as long as you can turn your brain off and go with the ride. Add to that the derring-do feel of the old Buck Rogers serials and liberal theft of the works of Kurosawa, add space ships and laser-swords and voi la! Star Wars!

Episodes 5 and 6 pretty much followed the same brainless template. Episode 5 was just darker because it was the second act of a trilogy and it did what second acts are supposed to do.

I enjoyed the original trilogy for the brainless ride, but let's not pretend there was anything all that innovative about it.

I don't think one needs to find Episode 4 as some kind of epic masterpiece to acknowledge that it was better than 7. The laziness of JJ's writing is astounding.

Here's one example. In Episode 4, the plot is driven around the plans to the Death Star and the efforts to get it to the rebel leaders. We understand how important it is, we see the Death Star's weapon activated, and in the end we root for our heroes to succeed. In Episode 7, the plot is driven around a map to Luke's location. We don't know why Luke is missing. We don't know why the good guys want to find him. We don't know why the bad guys want to find him. We don't know why there'd even be a big chunk of the galaxy uncharted given how easy it seems to be to travel across it in very little time. The major plot drive is one giant MacGuffin. Now, it's possible all will become clear in Episode 8, but as a stand-alone movie, Episode 7 is missing so much backstory I can't imagine Episode 8 being any improvement without a shit-ton of flashbacks.

There are plenty of more examples of lazy writing. No matter how simple or brainless you think the original trilogy was, it doesn't reek of laziness as nearly as bad as JJ's work. He doesn't seem to understand that for an audience to really connect with the characters we need to understand their motivations.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm dead serious. Lucas used the monomyth as a template in the same way episode 7 uses episode 4. Heck, Lucas wasn't even clever enough to use some of the elements of the universal hero's journey as metaphors, everything is depressingly literal and by-the-numbers. The dialog is atrocious and the script is full of plot holes, but you overlook all of that because the action and pacing are well done, and the use of the monomyth virtually guarantees it will pull at your heart-strings as long as you can turn your brain off and go with the ride. Add to that the derring-do feel of the old Buck Rogers serials and liberal theft of the works of Kurosawa, add space ships and laser-swords and voi la! Star Wars!

Episodes 5 and 6 pretty much followed the same brainless template. Episode 5 was just darker because it was the second act of a trilogy and it did what second acts are supposed to do.

I enjoyed the original trilogy for the brainless ride, but let's not pretend there was anything all that innovative about it.

I don't think one needs to find Episode 4 as some kind of epic masterpiece to acknowledge that it was better than 7. The laziness of JJ's writing is astounding.

Here's one example. In Episode 4, the plot is driven around the plans to the Death Star and the efforts to get it to the rebel leaders. We understand how important it is, we see the Death Star's weapon activated, and in the end we root for our heroes to succeed. In Episode 7, the plot is driven around a map to Luke's location. We don't know why Luke is missing. We don't know why the good guys want to find him. We don't know why the bad guys want to find him. We don't know why there'd even be a big chunk of the galaxy uncharted given how easy it seems to be to travel across it in very little time. The major plot drive is one giant MacGuffin. Now, it's possible all will become clear in Episode 8, but as a stand-alone movie, Episode 7 is missing so much backstory I can't imagine Episode 8 being any improvement without a shit-ton of flashbacks.

There are plenty of more examples of lazy writing. No matter how simple or brainless you think the original trilogy was, it doesn't reek of laziness as nearly as bad as JJ's work. He doesn't seem to understand that for an audience to really connect with the characters we need to understand their motivations.

You mean like the Stormtrooper who all of a sudden has a change of heart after watching another Stormtrooper die, an occurrence that is as common as exhaling? The girl from a sand planet that farms moisture, where Hans' ship is located that is a POS, but works perfectly well because the girl, who scrapes parts from a large Empire destroyer and sells them (not fixes them and then builds things of worth she could really sell) can change something here or there and make it work. Also, became a Jedi in less than a week. Just to face off against another masked villain who sounds like the drive-up voice at McDonalds. Star Wars VII - Shit Just Happens was a lazy ass failure of a film that used inertia from the original trilogy to drive at the box office.

 

[prideandfall]

You mean like the Stormtrooper who all of a sudden has a change of heart after watching another Stormtrooper die, an occurrence that is as common as exhaling?

not to mention that per the movie itself he was conscripted into the program when he was basically a toddler and then spent the next 20+ years being trained and programmed to be a stormtrooper.
empathy and camaraderie and a conscience (in the context of the scenario in the movie) are learned traits, they are not biologically instilled reactions that would magically overcome a lifetime of conditioning.
at one point in the movie he says that what the first order is doing is wrong... how would he even have a sense of right and wrong to begin with, much less one that thinks what the order is doing is the incorrect choice?

while we're dog piling on this stupid thing here's some shit that really pissed me off (and yes i know a lot of this is nerdy nit-picking but there is a limit to the suspension of disbelief, and i don't recall any shit this glaringly stupid from the original trilogy):
1. starkiller base is supposed to be in another system from the planets it blows up, and yet the planet killer laser beam is slow enough for people to see it moving through the sky. just no.
2. a small planet/large moon sized base could not 'drain' the total mass of a star in 15 minutes, period. that would be like suggesting you could drain a swimming pool through a bathtub drain in 15 minutes.
3. you can't fit the mass of a star inside the mass of a planet!
4. even if you posit that the base is only siphoning off the plasma and fissile material, long before the weapon charged it would trigger a super nova.
5. either the base can move, or else it only has the ability to fire once. if it can move, eating a star would be a far more efficient way of destroying a solar system than blahblah mega laser blahblah blow up the planet. just eat the star and then wait a week, planet is dead, end of problem.

god this movie was fucking stupid. like... Interstellar levels of stupid.
one of those movies where you walk out after seeing it and go "well that was god damn stupid" and then the more you think about it the more you get pissed off at just how stupid it was.

 

[Underseer]

I know this is kind of a day late and a dollar short, but in this discussion of Captain America: Civil War:

http://www.jimchines.com/2016/05/civil-war/

...someone offered what I thought was interesting analysis of the motivations of Tony Stark from the first Iron Man movie to Civil War.

The problem with the argument that “Tony’s realised he needs someone else to rein him in” is he canonically has been looking for this “someone else” all the way through his cinematic history – and then ignoring them or effectively destroying them every single time he finds them, because the other thing he also wants to do, equally strongly, is avoid taking responsibility for his actions.

The closest we see Tony Stark coming to owning his actions is during the first Iron Man movie – when he holds the press conference after returning from Afghanistan, and when he says “I am Iron Man” at the end of the movie. He’s owning the responsibility for the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the responsibility for the power of the suit, the responsibility for the destruction of Obadiah Stane. But by the start of the second Iron Man movie, we see him basically shucking all of those responsibilities off onto other people – Pepper Potts gets to handle the responsibility for Stark Industries, and putting that onto a “clean energy” footing rather than a “weapons manufacturer” one; James Rhodes gets to handle the responsibility for being Iron Man for the US military, and dealing with the chain of command about it. Tony gets to go back to being a billionaire inventor goof-off.

In Avengers: Assemble, Tony basically bounces hard off the idea of actually playing as part of a team, except when it suits him (Battle of New York). In Iron Man 3, he’s still rejecting the idea of being responsible for himself, for his reactions, for his relationship with Pepper – and it has consequences.

In Age of Ultron, it’s clear he’s already deteriorating – he’s gone back on his destruction of the suits (wonder why Pepper left? Clearly she got sick of talking to the walls all the time, because Tony sure as heck wasn’t listening to her!), he’s ignoring his team-mates unless it suits him, and he basically perpetrates a plan which is “Project Insight V2.0: This Time It’s The Private Sector” using a core component of a sceptre which was previously used to mind-control people (and which is, as a reminder to the viewers of its previous purpose, used again for this during the movie itself). He was relying on Bruce Banner to stop him, but seriously, the only way Bruce could have realistically stopped him was to hulk out and sit on him before he grabbed the staff, and then call for Steve and Natasha to explain “Why Building An Artificial Intelligence To Protect The World Whether The World Wants It Or Not Is A Bad Idea” in Hulk-level language. Instead, we see Tony attempting to hand all the tricky moral dimensions of being a superhero over to JARVIS (or his equivalent) – and effectively killing the JARVIS AI off (that JARVIS is effectively “reborn” as Vision is beside the point – Tony attempted to hand his responsibilities off to another entity, and it effectively destroyed them).

(I suspect at least 50% of the reason Bruce Banner ran off at the end of Age of Ultron is because Bruce could see the writing on the wall where Tony Stark was trying to shuffle the responsibility for keeping Tony’s conscience onto Bruce).

I can quite understand why Steve and Tony wind up on opposite sides in the argument, because one of the core concepts in Steve Roger’s personal moral lexicon is that everyone takes responsibility for their actions (Steve’s demonstrated doing this all the way along, from turning himself in after going AWOL in The First Avenger; to being willing to stand against the whole of HYDRA single-handed in Winter Soldier), while Tony Stark is terrified of the notion of being responsible for his actions – Tony wants someone else to control him, but I really don’t think he’ll like it when he finds someone who can.

Sorry, but I didn't duplicate the formatting of the original post (which included italics here and there for emphasis).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You mean like the Stormtrooper who all of a sudden has a change of heart after watching another Stormtrooper die, an occurrence that is as common as exhaling?

not to mention that per the movie itself he was conscripted into the program when he was basically a toddler and then spent the next 20+ years being trained and programmed to be a stormtrooper.
empathy and camaraderie and a conscience (in the context of the scenario in the movie) are learned traits, they are not biologically instilled reactions that would magically overcome a lifetime of conditioning.
at one point in the movie he says that what the first order is doing is wrong... how would he even have a sense of right and wrong to begin with, much less one that thinks what the order is doing is the incorrect choice?

The girl from a sand planet that farms moisture, where Hans' ship is located that is a POS, but works perfectly well because the girl, who scrapes parts from a large Empire destroyer and sells them (not fixes them and then builds things of worth she could while we're dog piling on this stupid thing here's some shit that really pissed me off (and yes i know a lot of this is nerdy nit-picking but there is a limit to the suspension of disbelief, and i don't recall any shit this glaringly stupid from the original trilogy):
1. starkiller base is supposed to be in another system from the planets it blows up, and yet the planet killer laser beam is slow enough for people to see it moving through the sky. just no.

And maneuver the beam post firing!

2. a small planet/large moon sized base could not 'drain' the total mass of a star in 15 minutes, period. that would be like suggesting you could drain a swimming pool through a bathtub drain in 15 minutes.
3. you can't fit the mass of a star inside the mass of a planet!
4. even if you posit that the base is only siphoning off the plasma and fissile material, long before the weapon charged it would trigger a super nova.
5. either the base can move, or else it only has the ability to fire once. if it can move, eating a star would be a far more efficient way of destroying a solar system than blahblah mega laser blahblah blow up the planet. just eat the star and then wait a week, planet is dead, end of problem.

There was a Facebook thing where liking Zuckerberg would get you a Starkiller. I didn't see the movie in the theater because of my Star Wars ban, so I just figured the StarKiller was a fucking joke. When I was watching the movie at home and saw the starkiller, I said to myself, 'are you fucking kidding me'?! Death Star -> Star Killer. Seriously, not only could they not come up with another weapon of doom, they couldn't name it anything but by using simple synonyms of the original weapon.

god this movie was fucking stupid. like... Interstellar levels of stupid.
one of those movies where you walk out after seeing it and go "well that was god damn stupid" and then the more you think about it the more you get pissed off at just how stupid it was.

I didn't pay to see it, so I only lost a couple hours of my life, instead of time and money. Some people were raving about the awesomeness of this film plagiarism. If the title was anything but Star Wars, it would have led to a lawsuit for copying the film.

Nothing was really good about the film but Han Solo, and his death was quite possibly the most anti-climatic ends he could have possibly had. Even worse than the poorly thought out Boba Fett death. You knew it was going to happen, but expected that it would actually mean something, but then it was just a stupid, *pokey* death at the hands of McDonalds Drive-Through voice man. Oi!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I know this is kind of a day late and a dollar short, but in this discussion of Captain America: Civil War:

http://www.jimchines.com/2016/05/civil-war/

...someone offered what I thought was interesting analysis of the motivations of Tony Stark from the first Iron Man movie to Civil War.

The problem with the argument that “Tony’s realised he needs someone else to rein him in” is he canonically has been looking for this “someone else” all the way through his cinematic history – and then ignoring them or effectively destroying them every single time he finds them, because the other thing he also wants to do, equally strongly, is avoid taking responsibility for his actions.

I don't understand the issue here. He isn't exactly looking to put a leash on himself, but rather he is again, rushing to the wrong decision to solve a problem he probably shouldn't be trying to solve in the first place.

 

[credoconsolans]

I don't think one needs to find Episode 4 as some kind of epic masterpiece to acknowledge that it was better than 7. The laziness of JJ's writing is astounding.

Here's one example. In Episode 4, the plot is driven around the plans to the Death Star and the efforts to get it to the rebel leaders. We understand how important it is, we see the Death Star's weapon activated, and in the end we root for our heroes to succeed. In Episode 7, the plot is driven around a map to Luke's location. We don't know why Luke is missing. We don't know why the good guys want to find him. We don't know why the bad guys want to find him. We don't know why there'd even be a big chunk of the galaxy uncharted given how easy it seems to be to travel across it in very little time. The major plot drive is one giant MacGuffin. Now, it's possible all will become clear in Episode 8, but as a stand-alone movie, Episode 7 is missing so much backstory I can't imagine Episode 8 being any improvement without a shit-ton of flashbacks.

There are plenty of more examples of lazy writing. No matter how simple or brainless you think the original trilogy was, it doesn't reek of laziness as nearly as bad as JJ's work. He doesn't seem to understand that for an audience to really connect with the characters we need to understand their motivations.

Totally agree.

In Episode 4, the plot was driven by missing structural designs of the Death Star. Perfectly understandable why the Empire wants them back and kept out of the hands of its enemies.

But a map to Luke's location? No one is going to follow a map to find a person. They want his location NOW. No one cares about where he's BEEN, just where he IS.

Gods, that was lame.

 

[James Brown]

Hooray! A Star Wars VII pile-on!

I didn't like:

* That BB-8 had no one to interact with. It played the role of loyal puppy dog charged with carrying around a thumb drive.
* That Rea somehow had the ability to understand astromech droid beepdy-boops. She had to because BB-8 didn't have a translation droid nearby to translate like Artoo always did.
* In keeping with the Death Star criticism, in Ep. IV, we saw the results of such a weapon. We saw a named world destroyed, we saw the intense reactions of Leia (and to a lesser degree, Kenobi) when the planet was destroyed, so we were more invested when it came down to the final countdown. The Death Star was seconds away from destroying the rebellion before it blew up.

Meanwhile, in Ep. VII, we see five unamed, uknowable worlds destroyed, and no one seems to be all that concerned. Oh sure, let's all conduct a frontal attack against it, but the Star Killer could have wiped out uninhabited moons for all the emotion punch it had.

* I don't believe for one second that Rea could pilot the Millennium Falcon as well as she did. There's precocious, and there's completely unbelievable.

 

[Underseer]

I don't think one needs to find Episode 4 as some kind of epic masterpiece to acknowledge that it was better than 7. The laziness of JJ's writing is astounding.

Here's one example. In Episode 4, the plot is driven around the plans to the Death Star and the efforts to get it to the rebel leaders. We understand how important it is, we see the Death Star's weapon activated, and in the end we root for our heroes to succeed. In Episode 7, the plot is driven around a map to Luke's location. We don't know why Luke is missing. We don't know why the good guys want to find him. We don't know why the bad guys want to find him. We don't know why there'd even be a big chunk of the galaxy uncharted given how easy it seems to be to travel across it in very little time. The major plot drive is one giant MacGuffin. Now, it's possible all will become clear in Episode 8, but as a stand-alone movie, Episode 7 is missing so much backstory I can't imagine Episode 8 being any improvement without a shit-ton of flashbacks.

There are plenty of more examples of lazy writing. No matter how simple or brainless you think the original trilogy was, it doesn't reek of laziness as nearly as bad as JJ's work. He doesn't seem to understand that for an audience to really connect with the characters we need to understand their motivations.

Totally agree.

In Episode 4, the plot was driven by missing structural designs of the Death Star. Perfectly understandable why the Empire wants them back and kept out of the hands of its enemies.

But a map to Luke's location? No one is going to follow a map to find a person. They want his location NOW. No one cares about where he's BEEN, just where he IS.

Gods, that was lame.

Both the Death Star plans and Luke's location are mere McGuffins.

 

[James Brown]

Totally agree.

In Episode 4, the plot was driven by missing structural designs of the Death Star. Perfectly understandable why the Empire wants them back and kept out of the hands of its enemies.

But a map to Luke's location? No one is going to follow a map to find a person. They want his location NOW. No one cares about where he's BEEN, just where he IS.

Gods, that was lame.

Both the Death Star plans and Luke's location are mere McGuffins.

I disagree, if you're using McGuffin as a pejorative. Without the plans, the rebel's wouldn't have known how to attack the Death Star and would have either been killed or forced into perpetual hiding.

 

[prideandfall]

Meanwhile, in Ep. VII, we see five unamed, uknowable worlds destroyed, and no one seems to be all that concerned. Oh sure, let's all conduct a frontal attack against it, but the Star Killer could have wiped out uninhabited moons for all the emotion punch it had.

actually they weren't unnamed, but having them be named makes it even more stupid.
in the film they explicitly state the planets are Coruscant (ie the big city-planet from the prequels where the galactic senate building is located) and the other planets in its star system which house the rest of the galactic governmental apparatus.
now, since the starkiller base would have had to eat a star before firing the mega death beam, that means the starkiller base was NOT in the same solar system as the planets it blew up (since they still had a star) - so supposedly it was at a neighboring star, which would means it was likely several dozen lightyears away (and yet the laser moved slowly enough to be watched in horror by human eyes, and didn't take 170 years to get there) but still in the same general region.
so that means this space faring galactic civilization which knows the first order exists wasn't aware of a planet sized doom cannon being built a couple stars over, and there was no military or intelligence gathering group in place that picked up on this threat coming from the next star over to the political body of the entire galaxy.

also, since the starkiller base ate one star to fire once, then had to eat another star to fire again, that means the whole planet can move and presumably at warp speed - which again makes you wonder why they'd even bother building the giant fuck-all cannon if they can just light-speed around the galaxy and eat an entire star in 15 minutes.

ALSO what the fuck... so by the details of the movie, whatever democratic government the Rebel Alliance set up after the fall of the Empire (after episode 6) is what's currently running things, a return to the pre-empire galactic senate.
the first order is basically a neo-nazi movement that sprung up afterwards that wants to revive the galactic empire.
so why the hell is the military organization, presumably that works for (or at least in conjunction with) the official galactic government called 'the resistance' against the upstart first order?
episode 7 is literally trying to say that the official galactic government military body is a rag-tag bunch of scrappy underdogs barely managing to stay alive beneath the thumb of a gang of space skinheads - who by the way have evidently been left alone for at least 20 years to build the starkiller base and start the stormtrooper conditioning program.

 

[Shadowy Man]

* I don't believe for one second that Rea could pilot the Millennium Falcon as well as she did. There's precocious, and there's completely unbelievable.

More laziness: and the one time when Rey is not a mechanical genius is when her error saved Han's life by pushing the wrong button, releasing the monsters in Han's cargo hold, thus saving Han from a completely fabricated danger that served no purpose in the film using a plot device that had no reason to exist other than this. The stupidity of that whole scene is only second to George Lucas' inclusion of the droid factory scene in Episode 3 even after the concept *had already been spoofed by Galaxy Quest*! Sigh...

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Founding of a Republic, 2011 (7/10)

A Chinese film, financed by the government of China, about the formation of said republic. This is all out propaganda. What is interesting is that it's big budget, and it's on par with the many similar American propaganda films from Hollywood. Stuff like Independence day, Black Hawk Down, Argo and so on. The acting is perfect. It's a star studded cast. They got all the biggest Chinese stars to do this. And you can tell. Both Jackie Chan and Jet Li have minor supporting roles. Their stars aren't bright enough to crowd out the better talent. So that's saying a lot. Great dialogue, as well. Anyway, cool to see a film like this where USA is the villain.

There's zero soul searching going on. In this film Mao is the best guy ever. Truly loved and respected by all who know him. Although Chiang Kai Shek didn't actually kick a dog on screen... you just knew he did off camera. This is a bad man. Which is a bit silly, since the Chinese communist party has already declared Mao an incompetent leader, and purged all his "henchmen". They did that in the 70'ies. So there should be zero controversy, in China, to do an accurate portrayal of both Chiang Kai Shek and Mao. But they chose to do it this way instead. Which took me a bit out of the drama. It's fun when the American ambassador is shown as a coward who doesn't stick up for his friends. Americans in general, in this film, are cowards who only care about Europe.

They do a quite good job dramatising, what essentially just is, a series of talks where a bunch of elderly men negotiate at various tables. There is a lot of smoking, and talking about smoking. I never figured out the symbolism of that. Or perhaps it just was historically accurate? The film does get a bit boring at times. There's a fun segment where Mao has taken sleeping pills but needs to get to safety in a bomb shelter. But he's high as a kite from the pills, and has no intention of cooperating with his handlers, who end up having to carry him by force on a stretcher.

They do show some of the fighting. But this isn't a war movie. This film is only about the, behind the scenes, negotiating that later led to what became the formation of the republic. It spends a lot of time explaining why and how each member of the Central Committee was elected. Which might be more fun if I knew more about recent Chinese history (which I don't). Most of these names mean nothing to me. But it's pretty clear the viewers are supposed to be impressed. Which is another thing I like about it. Just like American propaganda films, it's shot for a domestic audience. It's obvious that this is shot for a Chinese audience, and only a Chinese audience. So they don't bother explaining, lots of stuff, you just have to know. I've read a lot of history, so I could mostly follow it. But far from everything. I did a lot of pausing and looking up stuff on Wikipedia. I must admit that I liked that aspect of it. It adds to the immersion, somehow.

And as with most films produced by the Chinese government, they don't give a fuck about copyright. So it's available free on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SIlHptiWYU

The Founding of a Party, which is the sequel to this, but chronologically before it, is also available on Youtube. But not with subtitles So if anybody finds it, please send the link my way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRh-Un_pl4

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Hunger Games Part 72 - This Tripe is Finally Over - 3/10

This totally unnecessary extension of what should have been the last movie was mostly dull and unmemorable. Lawrence was phoning it in and her dead weight in the middle of the screen along with the tepid performance of not-not-Thor really brought down some of the other characters who were actually trying to do a good job. There were elements of an actual movie scattered around here and there, but they were few and far between.

Also, one thing that really bugs me about action movies today, if you're surrounded by a group of enemies who are jumping forward to grab you, a fucking bow-and-arrow is not an effective weapon to use against them. They are long range weapons, not melee weapons. I am willing to concede that if you are an immortal elf who has been willing to put in the time and effort and dedicate a couple thousand years of intense practice towards it, that statement may not apply. Otherwise, however, it's not the right choice of weapon. Drop the goddamned bow and use literally anything else to defend yourself.

 

[bilby]

Hunger Games Part 72 - This Tripe is Finally Over - 3/10

This totally unnecessary extension of what should have been the last movie was mostly dull and unmemorable. Lawrence was phoning it in and her dead weight in the middle of the screen along with the tepid performance of not-not-Thor really brought down some of the other characters who were actually trying to do a good job. There were elements of an actual movie scattered around here and there, but they were few and far between.

Also, one thing that really bugs me about action movies today, if you're surrounded by a group of enemies who are jumping forward to grab you, a fucking bow-and-arrow is not an effective weapon to use against them. They are long range weapons, not melee weapons. I am willing to concede that if you are an immortal elf who has been willing to put in the time and effort and dedicate a couple thousand years of intense practice towards it, that statement may not apply. Otherwise, however, it's not the right choice of weapon. Drop the goddamned bow and use literally anything else to defend yourself.

So you are saying that a bow may only be used at long range, or in elf defence?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

The Founding of a Republic, 2011 (7/10)

A Chinese film, financed by the government of China, about the formation of said republic. This is all out propaganda. What is interesting is that it's big budget, and it's on par with the many similar American propaganda films from Hollywood. Stuff like Independence day, Black Hawk Down, Argo and so on. The acting is perfect. It's a star studded cast. They got all the biggest Chinese stars to do this. And you can tell. Both Jackie Chan and Jet Li have minor supporting roles. Their stars aren't bright enough to crowd out the better talent. So that's saying a lot. Great dialogue, as well. Anyway, cool to see a film like this where USA is the villain.

There's zero soul searching going on. In this film Mao is the best guy ever. Truly loved and respected by all who know him. Although Chiang Kai Shek didn't actually kick a dog on screen... you just knew he did off camera. This is a bad man. Which is a bit silly, since the Chinese communist party has already declared Mao an incompetent leader, and purged all his "henchmen". They did that in the 70'ies. So there should be zero controversy, in China, to do an accurate portrayal of both Chiang Kai Shek and Mao. But they chose to do it this way instead. Which took me a bit out of the drama. It's fun when the American ambassador is shown as a coward who doesn't stick up for his friends. Americans in general, in this film, are cowards who only care about Europe.

They do a quite good job dramatising, what essentially just is, a series of talks where a bunch of elderly men negotiate at various tables. There is a lot of smoking, and talking about smoking. I never figured out the symbolism of that. Or perhaps it just was historically accurate? The film does get a bit boring at times. There's a fun segment where Mao has taken sleeping pills but needs to get to safety in a bomb shelter. But he's high as a kite from the pills, and has no intention of cooperating with his handlers, who end up having to carry him by force on a stretcher.

They do show some of the fighting. But this isn't a war movie. This film is only about the, behind the scenes, negotiating that later led to what became the formation of the republic. It spends a lot of time explaining why and how each member of the Central Committee was elected. Which might be more fun if I knew more about recent Chinese history (which I don't). Most of these names mean nothing to me. But it's pretty clear the viewers are supposed to be impressed. Which is another thing I like about it. Just like American propaganda films, it's shot for a domestic audience. It's obvious that this is shot for a Chinese audience, and only a Chinese audience. So they don't bother explaining, lots of stuff, you just have to know. I've read a lot of history, so I could mostly follow it. But far from everything. I did a lot of pausing and looking up stuff on Wikipedia. I must admit that I liked that aspect of it. It adds to the immersion, somehow.

And as with most films produced by the Chinese government, they don't give a fuck about copyright. So it's available free on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SIlHptiWYU

The Founding of a Party, which is the sequel to this, but chronologically before it, is also available on Youtube. But not with subtitles So if anybody finds it, please send the link my way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRh-Un_pl4

I'm going to watch this right now. I'll be back to either rep and thank you, or ... give it a bad review.

 

[credoconsolans]

Last Days in the Desert 5/10
Because Ewan McGregor is in it 9/10

OK, should I feel guilty that I watched a Jesus movie because I was lusting after the actor who plays him?

He also played the Satan character. The movie really picked up and was very enjoyable when they were talking.

Strange little movie by Rodrigo Garcia. Kinda like a Terence Malick lite. Sweeping desert vistas, strange little things that happen that have no relevance, odd scenes that go nowhere.

This is IMDb's storyline: Ewan McGregor is Jesus - and the Devil - in an imagined chapter from his forty days of fasting and praying in the desert. On his way out of the wilderness, Jesus struggles with the Devil over the fate of a family in crisis, setting for himself a dramatic test.

There is no 'dramatic' test. Actually I'm happy that what you expected to happen didn't. It's unclear what happens for some. The final shot is also a non-sequitur that did nothing for the overall movie. Good mood piece, but nothing else spectacular.

Thing that bothered me for some reason:

Did the ancient Hebrews wear shoes? I know the ancient Romans did, but did the Hebrews? The character all wear shoes that look like Toms. No one wears sandals. Are my expectations tarnished by Hollywood? Did the Hebrews actually have a real shoe industry?

 

[Jayjay]

I don't think one needs to find Episode 4 as some kind of epic masterpiece to acknowledge that it was better than 7. The laziness of JJ's writing is astounding.

Here's one example. In Episode 4, the plot is driven around the plans to the Death Star and the efforts to get it to the rebel leaders. We understand how important it is, we see the Death Star's weapon activated, and in the end we root for our heroes to succeed. In Episode 7, the plot is driven around a map to Luke's location. We don't know why Luke is missing. We don't know why the good guys want to find him. We don't know why the bad guys want to find him. We don't know why there'd even be a big chunk of the galaxy uncharted given how easy it seems to be to travel across it in very little time. The major plot drive is one giant MacGuffin. Now, it's possible all will become clear in Episode 8, but as a stand-alone movie, Episode 7 is missing so much backstory I can't imagine Episode 8 being any improvement without a shit-ton of flashbacks.

There are plenty of more examples of lazy writing. No matter how simple or brainless you think the original trilogy was, it doesn't reek of laziness as nearly as bad as JJ's work. He doesn't seem to understand that for an audience to really connect with the characters we need to understand their motivations.

Totally agree.

In Episode 4, the plot was driven by missing structural designs of the Death Star. Perfectly understandable why the Empire wants them back and kept out of the hands of its enemies.

But a map to Luke's location? No one is going to follow a map to find a person. They want his location NOW. No one cares about where he's BEEN, just where he IS.

Gods, that was lame.

Yep. Not to mention, how is it possible that there is a map of the galaxy that is MISSING a piece, not just the route that Luke took but all the planets and stars and shit? No galactic cartographer ever noticed that hole during the hundred-thousand year history of the Star Wars civilization?