Decided to watch both of these as I had never seen them before but was extremely impressed by them. i’m such a fan of the originals that, after seeing rise, i’d just written them off. The effects work is obvs top notch but the performances & nuances in all of the characters are superb. The motivations behind every character’s actions are believable & not spelled out in a lazy, obvious way. There’s an allusion to Moses with Caesar that wasn’t lost on me. Spoilers if you haven’t seen it but not only does he lead his people out of bondage but he dies never entering the “promised land.”
idk i was just really surprised that you have these big budget genre films that are really well made character driven stories with some excellent visual storytelling, depth & performances.
Very good! A ton of fun & was really good watching a genre film like this that’s puts native ppl in the forefront and treated them with respect. Only gripes I have against it are some of the CGI did look a bit CG-y and the use of the wilhelm scream in a dramatic action scene which took me out of the story for a bit.
The Bourne Identity (2002) - The No Treadstone Edition
This is a fan edit of the original film that removes all the treadstone scenes so the focus of the film remains on Bourne and Marie (so no “oh my god that’s jason bourne!” CIA stuff. Sorry!) We stay with Bourne as he learns who he is. The original was already a pretty good film but thought this was actually a lot stronger and character focused. Some deleted scenes are brought back in that flesh out Bourne and Marie’s relationship a little more. A few edits were noticeable, particularly when music jumps around (which is a common issue in some fan edits) and the quality of the footage dips with the reintroduced deleted scenes, but apart from that the story flowed very well!
I recently watched this movie for the third time at a friends place. She has a beamer and huge screen. It was amazing, really elevated the experience. This is my favourite Predator movie (I watched all of them a couple of years ago). I also was not annoyed by the references to and quotes of the first movie, they fit the scenes. Not like some other sequels, looking at you Alien: Romulus.
I recently watched Citizen Kane again. It’s probably over ten years ago that I watched it the last time. With all the people praising it and all the people calling it overrated, it surely is just rated at this point. But I really enjoyed it. It’s not a subtle movie by all means and it can feel a bit to melodramatic at points (most of the actors had only done theater before). But when it hits it hits. This is just so much movie if you know what I mean.
Surely Kanes and Welles ego must be quite similar.
Recently watched Ju-On The Grudge 2 and found it to be a joy - it’s still following the formula of all the other films in the franchise, but the individual segments feel distinct, piecing together the non-linear plot is as fun as ever and there’s some very fun scares to be had.
Highlights for me were the segments for Tomoka and Chiharu. Without giving too much away, Tomoka’s segment ends with a wonderful reveal that pieces together the strange occurences throughout, whilst Chiharu’s is quite stylistically unique with a dreamlike feel that stands out from the rest of the film.
It’s not without flaws, with some of the effects having aged particularly badly (albeit in a way that’s charmingly lo-fi in places!), and of course it’s going to feel familiar to anyone who’s got more than a passing awareness of how these films work, but if you’re in the mood for what it’s offering I can highly recommend!
I’m going to have to rewatch the rest of the series now aren’t I shit
(Finding a screenshot that wasn’t a spoiler was tricky for this one!)
I haven’t, but may get to it at some stage! I’ve generally not had the best experiences with US remakes, but am usually always open to anything horror regardless
I wonder why . I just think its really interesting that the director of the original also made the US remake (the only case I know of).
I also really love Horror nothing grips me the same
I’ve watched Martin Scorceses 1967 short film The Big Shave also known as Viet '67. Very simple film, basically you just watch a man shave, while it gets bloodier and bloodier. The practical effects are impeccable and feel so visceral. This is also underlined by amazing editing and a great choice for the soundtrack. It is a critique of the Vietnam war. Which i have not that much knowledge about, being not that old and from another country. But I think it makes it’s point quite clear.
(I have not included a picture, since they’re all quite gorey)
I (re)watched Blade Runner and noticed (finally?) how basically every cyberpunk stuff is just that LA version.
Watched Prey, kinda okay I guess but felt way too much in-your-face forced diversity because its now not okay to have misogynistic and racist shit like the og Predator. But it felt unnatural, fake and obviously so which sucks. Same for the theme in general.
Also watched Badlands which has more or less the same issue.
I think if viewed from a less serious perspective its ok, but both films really lack any sort of interesting characters/script to really make it authentic in the intended way.
Then I watched Alien Romulus and it was okay but not great. Way too many horror movie tropes (f.e. the Alien(s) always hesitate when its convenient or necessary, the timing in pursuit scenes doesn’t really work and so on) - think the entire last scene should’ve been cut and just been a cliffhanger.
I don’t think I quite understand what you mean by that. There are racist and sexist characters in this movie, but it’s not their point of view. How is the diversity forced? It is a story about an encounter of native americans with the predator; is that forced diversity?
Yeah sorry it was badly articulated rambling. It did not feel authentic, but forced in the way for marketing/pc reasons. Like pinkwashing and so on, shit corpos do for money, not because they actually believe it - maybe it was simply because the plot was kinda weak overall. Worked a tiny bit better in Badlands I’d say.
Girlfriend and I typically watch at least one movie every day –last night we didn’t, but we watched Saw a couple of days ago. I had already seen it, but it had been nearly a decade (I was 14 when I initially watched it), it was her first time watching it. Great film. The editing is incredible and the performances have a layer of authenticity in their amateurishness. Would be curious to watch James Wan’s other movies after seeing that –and tracing whatever else the editor had worked on, too. The way the final scene comes together stylistically is crazy.
I think Welles’ ego can often be overstated by historians; but maybe that’s just because I’m a Welles historiographer. While he did believe in having complete creative control over his films, that was less because he thought of himself as a unique genius (over the course of his life he always said actors were the most important part of a film) and moreso because he felt without his guiding vision his films couldn’t really function. I disagree with this notion because I do think even his most tampered-with work like The Magnificent Ambersons and Lady from Shanghai is still great, but I don’t think it’s necessarily him being an egomaniac like many seem to think he was.
I’m starting to really gain an appreciation for how quality editing can really elevate a film. when I started to get into movies a little deeper my focus was initially on cinematography and directing because those are the most tangible things that you can pick apart at any given moment. editing is fluid, in both positive and negative ways it can be subtle, extreme, intrusive, or absent.
memento’s editing is incredible, I’m still thinking about it a week or so after watching it. even outside of the general nonlinear structure of the movie, the speed of the cuts and the way they’re matched to each other is stunning. it’s used to convey so much.
Girlfriend and I are back into the habit of watching Christopher Nolan’s filmography just out of curiosity. Haven’t had much to say though, because stuff like The Dark Knight and Inception sorta washed over me. (Of course, Heath Ledger’s performance in the former is incredible, but the rest of the movie doesn’t really do anything for me.) Inception has some interesting ideas about the process of filmmaking itself (via the metaphor of using dreams to plant ideas in people’s heads… what is a film if not that, even if unintentionally?), but I think the way they are conveyed and the extent to which that rhetoric is pushed are both really surface-level. Would’ve been curious to see a version of that film that leaned more into the horror elements and surrealism.
Films from him I really liked: Following, Memento, Insomina and The Prestige. Starting to think that he left behind that directorial style in favor of something far too self-serious (in spite of how pop it is.) Curious to see what I think of his next few films though. I get the sense I could like Interstellar.
We watched The Dark Knight Rises last night. Probably the funniest of the three Batman films he did, but definitely has the issues of Batman Begins but exaggerated. Surprised that to so many people these three movies are Batman –outside of The Dark Knight, they’re kind of laughable ventures.
I think it still works better than Batman Begins, though, because the soap opera maximalist culmination stuff is really funny + I am just a total sucker for the IMAX shots. Did not have to be two hours and forty four minutes though…
. I just think its really interesting that the director of the original also made the US remake (the only case I know of).