Whatcha Watching?

[kissdbyfire]

4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

For me it was House of Gucci (no better place to release style over substance than there) and The Last Duel right before that I really thought was great.

I didn’t watch either of those, the former b/c I didn’t really feel much interest in it and the latter went under my radar at the time and then I kept forgetting to look for it; the cast alone would make it worth a try. Scott has always been hit and miss for me, and after going through the list of his films I was surprised to see how much more of a miss than a hit he is (for me obviously). Although I should say that there are many films of his I didn’t watch, and that was in part because of not being particularly interested. So the last one I found that I liked was The Martian. But before that, I have to go all the way back to Matchstick Men, and from there to all the way back again to Thelma & Louise and Alien and Blade Runner and The Duelists. But then that’s it, of the ones I’ve seen these are the ones I like. And there are some that I did see and didn't like at all,  like 1492, G.I. Jane, Hannibal, Alien:Covenant, Prometheus and yes, Gladiator -

What I find interesting is that I’m clearly in a small minority who aren’t really huge Scott’s fans and there are many more films of his I didn’t like than like, and yet some of my all time favourites are his. 

[Heartofice]

52 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Although I should say that there are many films of his I didn’t watch, and that was in part because of not being particularly interested. So the last one I found that I liked was The Martian. But before that, I have to go all the way back to Matchstick Men, and from there to all the way back again to Thelma & Louise and Alien and Blade Runner and The Duelists. But then that’s it, of the ones I’ve seen these are the ones I like. And there are some that I did see and didn't like at all,  like 1492, G.I. Jane, Hannibal, Alien:Covenant, Prometheus and yes, Gladiator -

Yeah this was exactly my reaction when looking at his IMDB. I was walking around with this idea that he’s a mostly very good director with a stack of amazing movies under his belt. But when I looked I couldn’t find any since about Alien and Blade Runner! And you’ve listed out a ton of duds as well. 
 

Im sure there are a bunch of directors we tend to automatically assume are great, but don’t add up when you actually look at their body of work.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Prometheus doesn't deserve all the crap it gets. Are there some dumb parts? Yes, but overall it's pretty good. It's just not the movie people were expecting. 

 

[Buckwheat]

I actually liked the 2010 Robin Hood. I am surprised by the dislike for it.

[polishgenius]

Glad to see us all come to the collective realisation that Tony > Ridley.

 

 

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Prometheus doesn't deserve all the crap it gets. Are there some dumb parts? Yes, but overall it's pretty good. It's just not the movie people were expecting. 

 

 

I don't think it's a good movie but I do think there's something to it being a better movie than it is an Alien movie. But then a fair portion of its badness comes from trying to balance the two. 

 

Also it gets added downmarks for two things: first, how completely it failed to live up to the absolutely incredible trailer, and second, Ridley claims he was gonna shock and surprise audiences coz he was gonna answer a question from the first no-one in the audience ever thought to ask, aka 'who was that alien pilot and what was his deal', and it was like Ridley: everyone asked that. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah this was exactly my reaction when looking at his IMDB. I was walking around with this idea that he’s a mostly very good director with a stack of amazing movies under his belt. But when I looked I couldn’t find any since about Alien and Blade Runner! And you’ve listed out a ton of duds as well. 
 

Im sure there are a bunch of directors we tend to automatically assume are great, but don’t add up when you actually look at their body of work.

Kingdom of Heaven (extended cut) and The Martian are great. The Martian isnine of my favourite films to rewatch

[Mexal]

So we've been watching Obliterated this weekend and umm... it's pretty funny. My wife and I are embarrassingly entertained.

Other than that, we've been working our way through The OC (at end of Season 1), Fauda (at end of Season 3) and just watched Slumdog Millionaire for first time since 2008. We are still fans.

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I don't think it's a good movie but I do think there's something to it being a better movie than it is an Alien movie. But then a fair portion of its badness comes from trying to balance the two. 

Also it gets added downmarks for two things: first, how completely it failed to live up to the absolutely incredible trailer, and second, Ridley claims he was gonna shock and surprise audiences coz he was gonna answer a question from the first no-one in the audience ever thought to ask, aka 'who was that alien pilot and what was his deal', and it was like Ridley: everyone asked that. 

I don't think it's very good as a movie. It's really, really bad as an Alien movie, but it is incredibly dumb as a movie. The biggest problem is that almost all the actual drama happens largely because people act completely idiotically and against all their professional skills and viewpoints. The second big problem is that the mythology of the story is pretty lame on its own (again, wtihout any actual reference to the Alien universe). 

There are some stellar set pieces and it looks cool as shit, and there is some quite good acting (especially from Fassbender), but the movie doesn't hold well together at all. It very much has Lindelof problems all over the place, mistaking being confusing with being profound. 

[Heartofice]

Maybe this is a Ridley Scott thing but I was holding judgement on Prometheus till I saw Covenant. Prometheus was disappointing but could have been saved had it been setting up something incredible. 
 

Turns out it was setting up an incredibly generic Alien knockoff. 
 

So final judgment is:  it’s shit.

[Zorral]

YAY!

The Slavs, or Slovania, (2021), set in the Carpathian Basin of the 7th C, an historical fantasy adventure series arrived on amazon Prime.  It's the most expensive Slovakian television production made, so far.  For some reason all the PR mentions this, "most expensive." 

https://cultartes.com/after-the-great-success-of-the-vikings-series-the-slavs-have-been-released/

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Zorral

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think it's very good as a movie. It's really, really bad as an Alien movie, but it is incredibly dumb as a movie. The biggest problem is that almost all the actual drama happens largely because people act completely idiotically and against all their professional skills and viewpoints. The second big problem is that the mythology of the story is pretty lame on its own (again, wtihout any actual reference to the Alien universe). 

There are some stellar set pieces and it looks cool as shit, and there is some quite good acting (especially from Fassbender), but the movie doesn't hold well together at all. It very much has Lindelof problems all over the place, mistaking being confusing with being profound. 

It's those two things that cause most people Imo to not like it. It's not an Alien film. It's a movie about faith that also explains the origins of the xenomorphs and engineers. That's not what fans of the franchise really wanted, but if you can set that aside it's an interesting film that doesn't deserve the hate it gets. There's no argument on the second bolded part though, the characters do some incredibly dumb shit and that's used to move the plot multiple times. 

All that said, since Alien and Predator are now shared universes, Prometheus might be the fourth best film in the collective franchise. 

[Heartofice]

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

t's those two things that cause most people Imo to not like it. It's not an Alien film. It's a movie about faith that also explains the origins of the xenomorphs and engineers. That's not what fans of the franchise really wanted, but if you can set that aside it's an interesting film that doesn't deserve the hate it gets. There's no argument on the second bolded part though, the characters do some incredibly dumb shit and that's used to move the plot multiple times. 

Honestly I don’t think that’s true, it certainly isn’t true for me. I really wanted a really powerful sci fi movie that asks questions about the universe, creation and faith. I don’t think Prometheus really achieves any of that outside of the first 5 minutes. 
 

The problem isn’t that it isn’t enough of an Aliens movie, it’s that it’s too much of an Aliens movie. And it’s a bad one. 

[kissdbyfire]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah this was exactly my reaction when looking at his IMDB. I was walking around with this idea that he’s a mostly very good director with a stack of amazing movies under his belt. But when I looked I couldn’t find any since about Alien and Blade Runner! And you’ve listed out a ton of duds as well. 
 

Im sure there are a bunch of directors we tend to automatically assume are great, but don’t add up when you actually look at their body of work.

I think for me part of the “oh he’s a great director” came from the films of his that I really like all being sort of close together chronologically. I don’t know. Still though, Blade Runner and Alien are definitely n my all time faves list, and at the very top of it. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by kissdbyfire
Missing word

[kissdbyfire]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Glad to see us all come to the collective realisation that Tony > Ridley.

This!

[Corvinus85]

59 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's those two things that cause most people Imo to not like it. It's not an Alien film. It's a movie about faith that also explains the origins of the xenomorphs and engineers. That's not what fans of the franchise really wanted, but if you can set that aside it's an interesting film that doesn't deserve the hate it gets. There's no argument on the second bolded part though, the characters do some incredibly dumb shit and that's used to move the plot multiple times. 

It also has editing issues which makes the story feel disjointed. I wonder how much Scott left on the cutting room floor. Like with Kingdom of Heaven, he may have deleted some scenes he shouldn't have.

 

[Ran]

34 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

This!

You guys are joking, right? Put together the top 10 of both brothers and there's really no contest between them.

 

 

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

You guys are joking, right? Put together the top 10 of both brothers and there's really no contest between them.

 

 

I’m not sure I can list 10 Ridley Scott films that I really like? 
The Duelists, Blade Runner, Alien, Thelma & Louise, Matchstick Men, The Martian. If I really try hard I can add Black Hawk Down and Black Rain. So, 8. 

Off the top of my head there’s probably around the same number of Tony’s films I like.
 

I understand what you’re saying though and I agree to an extent. For instance, I don’t think any of Tony’s films are anywhere near as good as the brilliance of Blade Runner or Alien. On the other hand, there are far fewer of his films that I dislike as much as I dislike many of Ridley’s, regardless of how much love and praise they get, like Gladiator. I’m no film critic, I just like some stuff and don’t like some other stuff.

I’d sum it up like this, I find Tony’s films more consistently entertaining even if they never reach the heights that a few of Ridley’s do at times.  

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's those two things that cause most people Imo to not like it. It's not an Alien film. It's a movie about faith that also explains the origins of the xenomorphs and engineers. That's not what fans of the franchise really wanted, but if you can set that aside it's an interesting film that doesn't deserve the hate it gets. There's no argument on the second bolded part though, the characters do some incredibly dumb shit and that's used to move the plot multiple times. 

And again, I really don't agree. There's very little interesting about it. The characters never act particularly reasonably. The enemies are fairly stupid and ill-explained. None of the reasoning on why anyone is doing anything make sense. There's some huge groans about women not being able to give birth, there's some very dumb allegories to Christmas.

That it is ALSO a bad origin story for the xenomorphs is not great either! That makes it go down deep into the depths of suckage. But it's bad on its own rights.

But it is really pretty. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Honestly I don’t think that’s true, it certainly isn’t true for me. I really wanted a really powerful sci fi movie that asks questions about the universe, creation and faith. I don’t think Prometheus really achieves any of that outside of the first 5 minutes. 
 

The problem isn’t that it isn’t enough of an Aliens movie, it’s that it’s too much of an Aliens movie. And it’s a bad one. 

Lol, heads you win, tails I lose. That's the main problem Imo for audiences. It didn't really satisfy what most people wanted it to be. But if you just let it be its own thing it stands up a lot better.

36 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

It also has editing issues which makes the story feel disjointed. I wonder how much Scott left on the cutting room floor. Like with Kingdom of Heaven, he may have deleted some scenes he shouldn't have.

Agreed. It does feel like they cut a few scenes that would have made the story better while keeping a few they didn't need. 

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That it is ALSO a bad origin story for the xenomorphs is not great either! That makes it go down deep into the depths of suckage. But it's bad on its own rights.

We just disagree about the things I snipped, but you didn't like finding out about how the xenomorphs came to be? That was the one thing I really wanted to know more about and I thought the film did a good job there.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

We just disagree about the things I snipped, but you didn't like finding out about how the xenomorphs came to be? That was the one thing I really wanted to know more about and I thought the film did a good job there.

I don't think Prometheus did a good job of that at all. I think Covenant did a better job of that, but prometheus on its own had a whole lot of really randomly nasty things that were apparently because of the black goo, maybe, with no idea of what the actual reason for that goo being in huge amounts was or why they worshipped something like it or why having sex caused a tentacle demon to come to play. There was no real answers, just a lot of implied depth with the best 'answer' being 'some kind of bioweapon, maybe'. 

Compared to some of the other stories behind them in the comics and books this origin was really, really dumb. It was just some random accident, never meant to be special or interesting, certainly not designed.