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[Raja]

10 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

 she's well-regarded,

She isn't, really. She's just been in a bunch of popular movies.

[Heartofice]

I watched both The Lost City and Bullet Train

What it made me realise is that Hollywood is forever changed by a certain style of comedy and 'script writing'. So much now has become this 'off the cuff', 300 different improvised takes to get the funniest one kind of thing, that even tightly scripted movies feel very much like they are doing that. Some people are generally pretty good at it, Channing Tatum is a genuinely funny guy with a talent for this kind of thing. I like it, but it's interesting how this is basically now the norm for most comedy, but it often feels like the art of comedy writing becomes lost because it ends up being some sort of lottery that someone says the funniest thing in that time. Lost city is decent movie for what it is however, like an old school romp / rom com. 

Bullet train I sort of liked, though again the 'banter' put me off early on and I wasn't sure I could handle 2 hours of faux Tarantino bollocks. However I pushed through and the movie is fun.

It also features one of my favourite cockney accents (Aaron Taylor Johnson) which felt incredibly authentic, whiney and spot on.. and maybe the worst cockney accent on screen since Dick van Dyke (looking at you Bryan Tyree Henry). So them both going back and forth to each other can really mess with your head.

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Heartofice

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

White House Plumbers is getting better with episode 2. Liddy looks hilarious in that baby blue leisure suit and wig, though they’re laying the Nazi fanboy stuff on a little thick. Hunt is becoming an oddly compelling character.

[TheLastWolf]

Really sad to see the mediocre brown exports from here is what the West holds in the same standard as the Asians. I mean, everyone after Dev Patel...duh 

Edited May 10, 2023 by TheLastWolf

[RumHam]

8 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I finished The Last of Us. It's definitely not as great as the hype surrounding it, but I did have a very good time watching it. The series was not as sophisticated as I was expecting (A 28 Days Later It is not), but it is excellent in the sort of wish fulfilment/power fantasy that is the hallmark of a lot of compelling post-apocalyptic storytelling.

In other words, I do get where its popularity comes from. As a younger person you can watch this and emphasise with the plight of the chosen one, as we all think we are fated for exceptional lives at that age.

<snip>

 

  Hide contents

It's not egregious yet, but this show does have a habit of dumbing down antagonists at convenient times. The last episode had at least 6 lot of these moments like:

1. Waking up Joel before the operation was done
2. Telling Joel their real plan
3. Allowing Joel to live...

 

 

Spoiler

I never got a "chosen one" vibe from the show. I mean she was "chosen" to be killed for science... 

I could be wrong, never played the game. But I figured they woke him up told him the deal and let him go because whats her name knew Joel as this emotionally closed off scary violent drug dealer guy. She never expected him to give a shit about the girl. 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by RumHam

[Kalbear]

On the ending of TLoU:

Spoiler

The game and show both basically do this handwavy bullshit where they say 'we owe you Joel so we're not gonna kill you despite it being the SUPER SMART THING TO DO' and just...let him go for no good reason. Both are absurdly abrupt and thoughtless about sacrificing Ellie as quickly as humanly possible. They knew that he'd give some shit about the girl or even would just give a shit about being beaten and treated badly; they hoped, bizarrely, that it wouldn't come to that.

It is a remarkably stupid move, especially in this universe where people kill others for even the slightest inconveniences. The game and show both care a lot more about giving Joel a specific horrible situation to deal with and do not particularly care about having that situation unfold in any reasonable way. 

 

[dbunting]

8 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I finished The Last of Us. It's definitely not as great as the hype

One thing I did find rather strange and did not really appreciate in the last episode was the antagonist's plan:

  Reveal hidden contents

It's not egregious yet, but this show does have a habit of dumbing down antagonists at convenient times. The last episode had at least 6 lot of these moments like:

1. Waking up Joel before the operation was done
2. Telling Joel their real plan
3. Allowing Joel to live
4. Not exploring any alternatives to scraping Ellie's brain. What if anything goes wrong? They might have killed their one hope of a cure... Seems like you'd have to be careful and first explore alternative options before embarking on such a risky prospect.
5. Not asking Ellie's consent if it turns out that brain scraping was the only possible option. The way I see it, if Ellie had said yes in the presence of Joel they would have had zero problems with him going berserk. It's one thing to make the choice for an unconscious Ellie who had been tricked into almost losing her life, but Joel would not have gone against her directly if it had been her wish to sacrifice herself on the operating table. 
6. Marlene putting her gun down at the end was also cringe. She must have realized that trust was broken between Joel/Ellie and herself. How could they ever rely on her to respect a bargain after her prior actions towards Ellie. I'm not as vindictive as Joel, but shooting her seemed like the only rational action as soon as she put down that gun.
 

 

As to the spoiler, yeah the whole sequence spawned pages of debate in The Last of Us thread.

Spoiler

As to Ellie being the chosen one, I never got that either. I just got that they placed importance on her due to her immunity.

 

[dbunting]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I watched both The Lost City and Bullet Train

Bullet train I sort of liked, though again the 'banter' put me off early on and I wasn't sure I could handle 2 hours of faux Tarantino bollocks. However I pushed through and the movie is fun.
 

Had same feeling about Bullet Train. I knew it was a dumb action movie but I liked it for that more than I thought I would.  And The Lost City, yeah a cut rate Romancing the Stone.

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, Veltigar said:

One thing I did find rather strange and did not really appreciate in the last episode was the antagonist's plan:

  Reveal hidden contents

It's not egregious yet, but this show does have a habit of dumbing down antagonists at convenient times. The last episode had at least 6 lot of these moments like:

1. Waking up Joel before the operation was done
2. Telling Joel their real plan
3. Allowing Joel to live
4. Not exploring any alternatives to scraping Ellie's brain. What if anything goes wrong? They might have killed their one hope of a cure... Seems like you'd have to be careful and first explore alternative options before embarking on such a risky prospect.
5. Not asking Ellie's consent if it turns out that brain scraping was the only possible option. The way I see it, if Ellie had said yes in the presence of Joel they would have had zero problems with him going berserk. It's one thing to make the choice for an unconscious Ellie who had been tricked into almost losing her life, but Joel would not have gone against her directly if it had been her wish to sacrifice herself on the operating table. 
6. Marlene putting her gun down at the end was also cringe. She must have realized that trust was broken between Joel/Ellie and herself. How could they ever rely on her to respect a bargain after her prior actions towards Ellie. I'm not as vindictive as Joel, but shooting her seemed like the only rational action as soon as she put down that gun.
 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

On the ending of TLoU:

  Reveal hidden contents

The game and show both basically do this handwavy bullshit where they say 'we owe you Joel so we're not gonna kill you despite it being the SUPER SMART THING TO DO' and just...let him go for no good reason. Both are absurdly abrupt and thoughtless about sacrificing Ellie as quickly as humanly possible. They knew that he'd give some shit about the girl or even would just give a shit about being beaten and treated badly; they hoped, bizarrely, that it wouldn't come to that.

It is a remarkably stupid move, especially in this universe where people kill others for even the slightest inconveniences. The game and show both care a lot more about giving Joel a specific horrible situation to deal with and do not particularly care about having that situation unfold in any reasonable way. 

 

Question (and I didn't play the game)

Spoiler

How would Marlene know how Joel felt about Ellie, how he developed over the long journey? From the 1st episode, I got the impression that Marlene had worked with Joel before and knew of his reputation as a tough-as-nails smuggler. Did she know his background with his daughter?

So I'm not sure waking up Joel before Ellie's surgery was a dumb move. Granted, Marlene should have adapted when she saw Joel distressed. She also overestimated her people's capabilities, I guess. Two guys weren't enough to deal with Joel.

 

[Kalbear]

38 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Question (and I didn't play the game)

  Hide contents

How would Marlene know how Joel felt about Ellie, how he developed over the long journey? From the 1st episode, I got the impression that Marlene had worked with Joel before and knew of his reputation as a tough-as-nails smuggler. Did she know his background with his daughter?

So I'm not sure waking up Joel before Ellie's surgery was a dumb move. Granted, Marlene should have adapted when she saw Joel distressed. She also overestimated her people's capabilities, I guess. Two guys weren't enough to deal with Joel.

 

So on that for TLoU (and the game/show doesn't really differ here):

Spoiler

She wouldn't know specifically how much he loved Ellie or anything like that, and it doesn't matter - because Joel has a rep for getting back at people who fuck with him. He is kind of the pinnacle kind of 'don't fuck with him' dude in the game. That was one of the reasons that Marlene wanted him in the first place, and also one of the reasons that Marlene didn't want to owe him at all. 

But again, it's just an incredibly stupid move. This is a guy who emphatically does not want to be a Firefly and has no ethical guidepost to appeal to, who Marlene knows takes bloody violent revenge as needed, and is someone who is incredibly competent at fucking people up - and you just gave him a reason to fuck you up. The ONLY thing that vaguely makes sense to me is that Marlene wanted to kill him but knew that the rest of her people would see that decision as too ruthless and cruel and would revolt after seeing someone singlehandedly save the human race be subject to arbitrary execution...but this is the fireflies. They do this kind of shit all the fucking time. And she could justify it easily, because she could easily say that he would be a threat to discovering the cure and must not know. Hell, say that he is a threat to exposing the origin of the cure which would potentially weaken their political position. So many ways to fix it.

And her overestimating her people's abilities is also beyond stupid, as she just got done explaining to Joel how incredibly impressed she was with him getting Ellie there in one piece and how her own best men got cut down like wheat getting Marlene there. 

It's dumb. It's dumb in the game (and arguably the game is even dumber in this sequence) and in the show, and it serves entirely to act as a way to tell us something about Joel and show how far he's willing to go. But it's clear that they had the destination and choice as the thing they wanted to do and tell and then filled in the rest along the way. 

 

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

Had same feeling about Bullet Train. I knew it was a dumb action movie but I liked it for that more than I thought I would.  And The Lost City, yeah a cut rate Romancing the Stone.

I couldn't finish Bullet Train and I thought it'd instantly be one of my favorites. The banter was nails on chalkboard to me. I don't mind many absurd, flashy films where no single character ever speaks like any actual human being would ever speak in any given scene. 

I know a bunch who liked it, some that didnt, but AFAIK I definitely liked it the least. Possibly my least favorite ever Brad Pitt role, though he annoyed me far less than the manic pixie character or the Cockney stooges.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I’mwatchingQueenCharlotteandOHMYGAWDILoveBridgertonsoooomuchandthisshowisamazingandQueenCharlotteissobeautifulandKingGeorgeissohandsomeandomygodohmygodohmygodIthinktheQueenquotedAC/DCormaybeMeatballsgottagobecausethenextepisodeisstartingBYEEEEEE!!!

[Raja]

Watched Children of Men again - it remains a Cuaron classic and really is a masterpiece. It's also unfortunately quite prescient on how most of the world talks about immigrants.

[Veltigar]

This is a response to both @RumHam and @dbunting as you both made a similar comment on my chosen comment (I'll just quote one of you gentlemen for brevity's sake, my apologies):

12 hours ago, dbunting said:

As to the spoiler, yeah the whole sequence spawned pages of debate in The Last of Us thread.

  Reveal hidden contents

As to Ellie being the chosen one, I never got that either. I just got that they placed importance on her due to her immunity.

 

Spoiler

I guess it depends on how you define "Chosen One". For me these type of stories come in several gradations. The original Star Wars offers a very high grade of Chosen One storytelling in the sense that the main character is special due to his magic powers and everyone is obsessing about how those magic powers basically make him important to restore balance to the universe. In that sense Star Wars plays the trope in a more straightforward way.

The Last of Us has a more subtle sense of Chosen One storytelling. Ellie is exceptional as the faith of humanity is placed on her shoulders. Her body contains the cure to this horrible disease that has destroyed entire civilizations. The fact that the main backers of the belief in a cure want to sacrifice her does not diminish her status as a Chosen One. It just makes it more complex, as her immunity is simultaneously a curse. At the end of the day, she's given a choice that none of the other people in her world have.

So that is something a lot of people yearn for, because it does mark her out as specifically gifted and being in the possession of a divine destiny.

 

11 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

So on that for TLoU (and the game/show doesn't really differ here):

  Hide contents

She wouldn't know specifically how much he loved Ellie or anything like that, and it doesn't matter - because Joel has a rep for getting back at people who fuck with him. He is kind of the pinnacle kind of 'don't fuck with him' dude in the game. That was one of the reasons that Marlene wanted him in the first place, and also one of the reasons that Marlene didn't want to owe him at all. 

But again, it's just an incredibly stupid move. This is a guy who emphatically does not want to be a Firefly and has no ethical guidepost to appeal to, who Marlene knows takes bloody violent revenge as needed, and is someone who is incredibly competent at fucking people up - and you just gave him a reason to fuck you up. The ONLY thing that vaguely makes sense to me is that Marlene wanted to kill him but knew that the rest of her people would see that decision as too ruthless and cruel and would revolt after seeing someone singlehandedly save the human race be subject to arbitrary execution...but this is the fireflies. They do this kind of shit all the fucking time. And she could justify it easily, because she could easily say that he would be a threat to discovering the cure and must not know. Hell, say that he is a threat to exposing the origin of the cure which would potentially weaken their political position. So many ways to fix it.

And her overestimating her people's abilities is also beyond stupid, as she just got done explaining to Joel how incredibly impressed she was with him getting Ellie there in one piece and how her own best men got cut down like wheat getting Marlene there. 

It's dumb. It's dumb in the game (and arguably the game is even dumber in this sequence) and in the show, and it serves entirely to act as a way to tell us something about Joel and show how far he's willing to go. But it's clear that they had the destination and choice as the thing they wanted to do and tell and then filled in the rest along the way. 

 

Very eloquently put and I agree completely. It was needlessly stupid writing. The show is overall good enough to ignore it for now, but I hope that it doesn't double down on that in the future.

EDIT: I need to go and read up on what was said in The Last of Us thread. I'm curious now  

Edited May 11, 2023 by Veltigar

[Argonath Diver]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Watched Children of Men again - it remains a Cuaron classic and really is a masterpiece. It's also unfortunately quite prescient on how most of the world talks about immigrants.

I am the sort of sci fi/genre type that I rewatch great films far more often than most just to take in the visuals or vibe. Children of Men is such a beautifully immersive film - from the stunning world Cuaron builds to the outstanding long-shot sequences. 

 

I'm a lightweight movie watcher though - I'm content with stoner comedies, well made action films, and trippy sci fi stuff. I just rewatched Heat for like the 15th time last night. I don't think I'll have it in me to rewatch Children of Men for years yet. That film exhausted my emotions me more than near any ever. What a triumph.

[Heartofice]

The Black Phone was a pleasant surprise, well I say surprise but I knew it had a sort of buzz about it when it came out, so I was expecting something decent.

I think the bar for horror is generally pretty low so any movie that is better than average gets really hyped up. I found this recently with Barbarian which was pretty good but really nothing special. With Black Phone the marketing made it look like one more in a long line of 'ooh it's a scary guy in a mask...oooh' slasher horror pics that make zero effort and rely on a cool poster to draw people in.

Feel like Ethan Hawke did a good job with the probably 2 days on set he spent working on the movie and he was suitably creepy behind a mask, and Scott Derrickson made the movie look like it came from that time period. I'd say a couple of scenes are a bit hokey, but otherwise it was quite effective.

What I did like is that the main kid felt like he had motivation and background that lined up with his actions during the movie. Quite often the victim kid just feels generic and does a series of dumb things, but here at least he seems to be influenced by how he is treated at school and by his dad and I felt like I knew him. 

It was good. 

[Raja]

6 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I am the sort of sci fi/genre type that I rewatch great films far more often than most just to take in the visuals or vibe. Children of Men is such a beautifully immersive film - from the stunning world Cuaron builds to the outstanding long-shot sequences. 

I'm a lightweight movie watcher though - I'm content with stoner comedies, well made action films, and trippy sci fi stuff. I just rewatched Heat for like the 15th time last night. I don't think I'll have it in me to rewatch Children of Men for years yet. That film exhausted my emotions me more than near any ever. What a triumph.

Yeah, I hear you. I haven't watched it in a long time, but went back to it yesterday and it's still as captivating as it was when I first watched it. I find it difficult to rewatch these movies too, and generally stick to ones like you mention ( Like I've seen the new Dune way too many times)

Funny that you mentioned Heat though, I watched that for the first time a few months ago. I haven't seen the director's cut of the movie but it plays quite frequently at one of the independent cinemas here.

[dbunting]

4 hours ago, Raja said:

Funny that you mentioned Heat though, I watched that for the first time a few months ago. I haven't seen the director's cut of the movie but it plays quite frequently at one of the independent cinemas here.

If Heat played near me as a throw back I might go see it for the shoot out scene alone. I didn't see it in the theatre originally so not sure if the size would improve the experience even more.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Queen Charlotte is hands down the best season of Bridgerton I’ve seen IMO.

Also there’s a lot of humping. And visual aids… about humping.

[Raja]

5 hours ago, dbunting said:

If Heat played near me as a throw back I might go see it for the shoot out scene alone. I didn't see it in the theatre originally so not sure if the size would improve the experience even more.

I enjoyed Heat but I'm not sure I was *that* into it to be honest. And yeah, I'm lucky in that I live in a place where there are a couple of independent cinemas that show all kinds of older stuff, which is pretty neat.

I saw The Matrix there last year and will be catching 2001 soon, which is another classic I haven't seen.