I thought this might be a fun discussion to have, where we can throw out our picks for the films which have the staying power and artistic merit to endure past their contemporaries. So, as the title asks, what modern films does Dakka think will go down as classics when people look back decades from now?
My vote has to go to Mad Max: Fury Road. I can't think of a better action film that I've seen in the cinema. The fight choreography was phenomenal, the action never felt like it was repeating itself thanks to the plot serving to separate different elements of the force chasing the war rig, allowing each new sequence to feature different spectacles (first fight is a small number of small, fast cars vs each other and war rig in the open desert and then a sandstorm, second is bikes vs. war rig in a tight, enclosed canyon, next is Immortan's monster truck vs War Rig, then you have the final set piece where you have small cars, large rigs, the polemen and motorbikes all crashing into each other, first in open desert then in the canyon).
And despite all the craziness going on in these action sequences you never feel disoriented thanks to how the framing of the shots are chosen, where the action of the shot is always centre frame so the eye doesn't have to dart around the screen during multiple fast cuts.
All that is wrapped up in a film that knows not to bog you down with unnecessary dialogue, that trusts you to understand what is being shown without having to tell you in dialogue thanks to usage of foreshadowing and set up/payoff which allow for world details to be passed onto the viewer without disrupting the action with expositional dialogue. A perfect example of this is the setting up of the chrome spray paint and calling to be witnessed. We are shown someone doing this before suiciding to kill an enemy and so when Nux opens his fuel tanks, sprays his mouth and calls on Max to witness him we immediately know he is going to try a suicidal attack without any character needing to say that out loud. Everything we know about this world (except for the initial voice over during the opening credits) is told to us through the action and natural dialogue between characters. We never have an instance of a character asking what would be a stupid question in the film universe solely so another character can answer them and tell us about some detail that everybody should already know about in the films world but which the viewers might not know.
These videos explain what I'm trying to put across better than I probably can:
The first thought I had was the Matrix, I really felt it changed how movies were made and is still important today. Of course it's now 19 years old
My next thought, not based on quality but again on significance, was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. This retro sci fi movie used entirely virtual sets and props where only the actors were real. It's become a common technique but I think SCWoT was the first to go all the way with that. Of course that's 13 years old or so...
Avengers comes to mind as well for basically being the biggest cross-over shared universe film (the only rival I can think of is Roger Rabbit). Not really a great moment in cinema but in marketing and world building.
None of this really answers the question though since I'm still stuck in my genre ghetto and looking at technique rather than quality.
So, what modern film do I forsee my future kids seeing and saying, wow...
Frozen. That was legitimately good for a kids film, but I'm in another ghetto aren't I?
Matrix again, strikes me as legitimately good film with a message about reality and humanity.
The Matrix is certainly up there. Unfortunately I was too young to see it in the cinema, but it was still amazing to see it when I eventually got to see it on DVD later.
The techniques it introduced have certainly had their effect on film making.
Frozen is an excellent film. I can see it being regarded in the same light as The Lion King in years to come, as the high point of a particular era of disney film making.
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mrhappyface wrote: How old does a movie have to be before it becomes a classic? A few movies came to mind but their all at least 10 years old.
That could also be something to discuss, when does a film become a "classic"? And what makes some films be called "X classics", where X is the decade it came out (80s classic, for example), rather than "classics" without needing to specify a decade.
I think the MCU in general is going to have books written about it within 2 decades.
Certain movies will be called out as cinematic classics. I think Winter Soldier and Civil war in particular are amazing stand alone films with Infinity War just plain having some massive balls and being an amazing achievement (all Russo Brothers you might note), but the whole undertaking is something nobody has ever attempted let alone succeeded at so regularly.
I think this whole era of film making is going to be defined by the MCU if for no other reason then that. The scale, scope, and success of the undertaking.
The Lord of the Rings - this film created and made popular the idea of films being made in a block not just one by one as is normal. That made it a very new type of film; but it also told a tale that had up till then, defeated cinema. It put Lord of the Rings back on the map and whilst it changed things it captured the visual beauty of Middle Earth
Jurassic Park...... wait is that already a classic? Regradless this should be in the list. It was the first big use of quality CGI and animatronics and was a vast change in how we made monsters and beasties in films. Even Avatar can't touch JP for the way it changed cinema experiences.
Something Marvel/DC - not sure what to be honest but I feel something should be classic. That said there's a lot more redundancy here too. When you've got three or four or more films that retell the same story (eg Spiderman) in such a short span of time they tend to smother each other.
Heath Ledgers portrayal of the Joker will likely make that film a classic though - at least in Batman circles.
Pixar - yeah again I can't actually pick one and honestly I've a feeling that Pixar films will end up like classic Disney animated films - ergo most of the library of films they made will wind up classics of family entertainment. UP, Walle, heck Toy Story is already a classic etc...
Well I think we need 2 definitations here, what is modern, and what is a classic.
The first Jurassic Park film is over 20 years old, and the Matrix is old enough to vote so are they 'modern'?
So I say confine to last 10 years.
What is a classic?
I vote for someone 25 years from now will watch the film and say 'that was good'. 25 years from now 'everyone' will have heard of it and a good portion of folks will have seen it. And agree it was a milestone of some sort.
The Lord of the Rings - this film created and made popular the idea of films being made in a block not just one by one as is normal. That made it a very new type of film; but it also told a tale that had up till then, defeated cinema. It put Lord of the Rings back on the map and whilst it changed things it captured the visual beauty of Middle Earth.
Made popular, but Back to the Future 2 and 3 were filmed together, IIRC.
as far as Super Hero movies go, I’d say Black Panther and Wonder Woman have the best chances, with Avengers Infinity Wars being next in line for its sheer magnitude of fast; I do believe such a powerhouse of characters is unparalleled at any point in history. BP and WW are because of the intensely strong character building and sheer enjoyment of both; they both left you hungry for more.
As some of you already suggested, many of titles listed here are already classics being released two decades ago (when talking about cinema classics during '90 people usually referred to pictures ranging from early '60 to late '70, with earlier great productions being antiquated films (don't know the proper translation from polish, but there was distinction between very old films and those who were simply a "must see" from a decade or two ago). My personal definition of "classic" is a film that is now outdated in terms of film technology/film language, but this outdated property makes it even more interesting to watch again/for the first time.
Nowadays, '90s pictures like "12 monkeys", first "Mission Impossible", "Starship troopers", "Fight Club", first "Matrix" or "Event Horizon" are already classics.
Funnily enough, due to knee surgery, I have been rewatching a lot of such classic movies (I finished rewatching LOTR only yesterday) and many of them aged rather poorly in terms of technology used (said LOTR has very artificially lookink CGI by today standards (except perhaps Gollum) and very off synchronisation of running over matte paintings) but have still fundamental value as "cornerstones" of film industry/film language used/developed or unparalleled individuality.
So limiting only to last decade or so, MCU as a whole will definitely be considered classic (but even now early films in that series are nearly unwatchable, CGI ages very poorly and MCU advances storytelling techniques quite rapidly, so old ones feel somewhat slow and boring). Other than that, Nolan's films: "Prestige", "Inception", "Dunkirk" and "Interstellar" can become classics ("Prestige" is already old enough and don't have any direct competition as to story it tells) and "Memento" and "Dark Knight" already are. "Cornetto trilogy" is already a classic. From newer titles "New arrival" is good candidate to rival deep sci-fi movies of old. "Watchmen" is another one. I don't think that "Children of men" will ever age, it is just so different than anything else. "Dredd" already has cult status as well as "District 9". And all of this is pretty much a single genre. Film industry is a lot bigger than it used to be, so what will be considered "classic" will probably be more diluted than films from '70-'90.
And don't forget about tv series, as more and more weight of entertainment shifts onto them - "Battlestar" is already a classic that changed how tv series are done and some other productions will stay popular and watchable beyond their times.
But which of those (and other) titles will become "popular classics" like "Back to the Future" is a lot harder to predict.
"Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers" will still work perfectly fine in 20 or 30 years. I had a conversation with my father the other day on the subject of "Dunkirk" where we agreed that there aren't that many (good) WW2 movies done any more because you'd inevitably have to compare them to "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers", and the "Letters/Flags" duology, and it's hard to measure up to them. That's the hallmark of a classic to me.
2012's "Dredd" will likely go down as classic in film afficionado and cult classic circles. Well done movie, excellent cast, great writing...awful marketing.
"Ready Player One" is likely to go down similarly. Pretty paint-by-numbers plot, but well executed, family accessible, has some pop culture reference for everyone, but still manages the dark dystopian thing.
"The Dark Knight" obviously is another one, little explanation is needed there.
I'd pretty sure no 'Super' movie will make stand-alone classic status, the MCU as a whole phenomenon might, Black Panther and Wonder Woman might earn kudo's as curio's for featuring non-white / non bloke leads, but hopefully that won't be unusual down the line, maybe Logan but again it relies on a lot of other X-films despite it being a Western in Mutant clothing
Only two recent films that really spring to mind for me are Ex Machina and Arrival (jury still out on BR2049)
Sucker Punch I found a really good and surprisngly dark film, not in a fake - mindless oooh look at the effects Christopher Nolan way but the actual subject matter - often behind the flash on screen.
Get Out - I watched and just didn;t see the reason it was well regarded - adequate urban horror film - nothing special for me, but then I hated every moment I spent watching Scream at the cinema.
Dredd was a great conversion of a comic character onto the screen
Can't argue with Avengers - the writing was top notch and the interpaly of chracters and story a delight to watch.
Malus is spot on that Fury Road will be considered a classic. Vaktathi and nou also nailed it with Dredd. I'll add Blade Runner 2049 to this list.
Cheesecat mentioned The Witch. That movie disappointed me but I think it will be well remembered for it's strict instistance on period dialogue. I haven't seen it but I think the first Conjuring movie will likely be remembered as iconic for this era in horror.
Thanks to its box office woes, Solo may be the first Star Wars movie that could qualify as a cult classic.
Since there's apparently two movies called "Sucker Punch" (one from 2008 and one from 2011), is the one people are referring to the boxing one or the mental institution one?
MCU for the reasons above, but for also being the only Movie Universe to have actually succeeded.
Opinions about which films are a bit rubbish are of course varied - but the brains behind it have stayed the course regardless. I’m sure exactly why Marvel worked and the others didn’t will be discussed endlessly in the coming decades.
Rogue One I think will also be up there. So far as I’m aware, no prequel attempt has ever slotted in quite so seamlessly. It adds to A New Hope, without ever really detracting from it. A New Hope still stands on its own after all, Rogue One isn’t needed to ‘explain’ its predecessor. Compare to say. Alien Covenant and Prometheus.
The MCU in general, Infinity War/Avengers being the main candidates
The Star Wars films will be, but mostly as part of being related to Star Wars
Wonder Woman
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
Dredd
The Dark Knight
Frozen and/or Moana
Get Out
Pacific Rim has a chance of being a classic in time
I thought so too It opens a lot of potential discussion, from what defines classic movies (is it the writing, the techniques, the performances, the themes and stories examined etc.), to whether a true classic needs to excel in all those areas or whether raising the bar in one can cover deficiencies in others (so, just for the sake of an example, does the Matrix's advances in technical film making such as the bullet time sequences make up for individual performances which are less than stellar?), and so forth.
Malus is spot on that Fury Road will be considered a classic. Vaktathi and nou also nailed it with Dredd. I'll add Blade Runner 2049 to this list.
Blade Runner 2049 was very much in a difficult position, since it was trying to follow on from a true classic in its own right. Thankfully it managed to hit the perfect balance of deep characters, glorious visuals and compelling themes which allowed it to stand proud alongside its predecessor.
The other Mad Max films, though definitely enjoyable, wouldn't quite hit classic status for me. George Miller's skills as a filmmaker have improved so much since his first forays into the art form and Fury Road shows off all of that improved skill impeccably. So in that sense Fury Road didn't have quite as high a bar to reach and so it didn't have so much pressure. Only my opinion however.
Dredd of course only had the Stallone film to surpass. And if the actors involved managed to avoid adding 50 extra syllables into the word "law", they'd have done their bit
Cheesecat mentioned The Witch. That movie disappointed me but I think it will be well remembered for it's strict instistance on period dialogue.
That is certainly the kind of thing which can help a film stand out and earn it a place in history. Would A Clockwork Orange have been anywhere near as influential and loved, for example, if it didn't have the linguistic element of Nadsat?
Since people have already mentioned Sucker Punch, I'll have to add Grey, Beowulf (the 2007 movie), Batman versus Superman! [edit]I apparently forgot Blade Runner 2049, which truly belongs to be seen in the company of the other movies of that list, I guess![/edit]
See, I didn’t really enjoy Wonder Woman. Sure, it’s the best of a bad bunch, and Gal Gadot was the least worst thing in BvS. But to me, she’s just utterly wooden and uncompelling in the role.
It’s still a reasonably decent movie, and I certainly don’t regret watching it. But it ultimately left me a bit ‘meh’.
I wonder how Apocalypto will be seen in future. It was a very brave movie, filmed and scripted entirely in what is now an obscure dialect. But the film itself is pretty bloody awesome. Sadly, it’s reputation was inherently tarnished because Mel Gibson flipped a self destruct switch around the same time.
I wonder how Apocalypto will be seen in future. It was a very brave movie, filmed and scripted entirely in what is now an obscure dialect. But the film itself is pretty bloody awesome. Sadly, it’s reputation was inherently tarnished because Mel Gibson flipped a self destruct switch around the same time.
Same with The Passion of the Christ.
Apocalypto is a great film.
It was that weird part of Gibson's career where he decided to make horrifyingly brutal films with dialogue in dead languages
Future classics? The entirety of the MCU. The movies are legitimately good, with something for just about everyone to enjoy. Yes, they tend toward being somewhat formulaic, but that's very much part and parcel with the source material. All of them have something to say about the world we live in, and raise some good questions, as good movies should.
Tropic Thunder should have been the next Blazing Saddles, but it didn't get the love it should have.
Battle Royale should also have been up there, but frickin' Hunger Games stole its thunder.
Otherwise, there really hasn't been a lot that's gotten me to sit up and think "wow, that was good"
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Kid_Kyoto wrote: Frozen. That was legitimately good for a kids film, but I'm in another ghetto aren't I?
If you actually watch the movie, it's pretty fething awful, with stupid characters and stupid decisions, and OMG, those fething trolls. Yes, the soaring "LIG" transformation number is amazing, and post-pubescent Elsa is absolutely gorgeous, but everything else about it is garbage. I've watched Frozen many times, and Aladdin is far superior. Beauty and the Beast (LA) is better, even if they music isn't as good. Frozen is a Hollywood movie that is notable for being exceedingly-well marketed to little girls who had no other role model available. Thank goodness for Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, plus Wasp coming soon. If you don't believe me, go watch Frozen, but skip over the LIG scene. Just replace it in your head with "Elsa embraces her powers" as in an old-timey silent, and then continue. You'll see...
Aside, the English version of LIG is not the best - the German "Ich Las Los" is better, and Lara Loft's "Lass Jetzt Los" is actually best.
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Vaktathi wrote: 2012's "Dredd" will likely go down as classic in film afficionado and cult classic circles. Well done movie, excellent cast, great writing...awful marketing.
Too bad The Raid came first and was better. Dredd's chick was basically useless and redundant.
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Hugely underrated movie, due to Warner neutering the theater version - the Director's Cut is excellent. I love that movie, but I'm not sure it'd be a classic. Cult classic, for sure.
I'll offer Fight Club as a suggestion. That movie blew me away in 1999, and its narrative style is unusual and fun. The characters have become part of pop culture, and it had some larger cultural influence as people took the themes to heart (some even stupidly starting their own fight clubs). It also represents an interesting water mark in our culture. It came out right before the "nerd hero" phenomenon of Judd Apatow which dominated the last decade and argued, perhaps tongue in cheek - perhaps not, for the embrace of masculinity. The central character is a "beta" male who struggles with his identity and latches on to an "alpha" to find himself, with questionable results. Today the topics of masculinity, toxic masculinity, and how to raise boys are high on everyone's mind, but in 1999 that didn't get discussed much in movies.
Plus that twist. On the level of Sixth Sense for OMGWTFBBQ!
PacRim has all of the superficiality of Evangelion, but none of the soul. It's great to see the giant robots battle the monsters, but the battles themselves aren't anything special, and at no point does it try to be anything more than a popcorn movie.
Compare with MCU movies, where they surprise and delight in the battles, and they also try to raise a question, a mini-debate about something. Who thought sustainability would feature as a major theme of a superhero movie?
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Manchu wrote: Like Matrix, Fight Club is already considered a classic movie.
Agreed. Fight Club should actually be remade as a Red Pill counter to the genderflip movies that have been coming out.
Manchu wrote: Battle Royale has already achieved cult classic status in the US.
This. Not just the US.
Too old to be “modern film” too.
JohnHwangDD wrote: and post-pubescent Elsa is absolutely gorgeous,
[…]
Thank goodness for Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, plus Wasp coming soon.
[…]
Dredd's chick was basically useless and redundant.
[…]
[Sucker Punch is a] Hugely underrated movie
Eva brought a novel (although completely appropriate) sense of angst to the bizarre notion of children enlisted by armies to pilot giant robots in combat. PacRim doesn’t add anything to either the kaiju or the mecha genres, nor to the crossover subgenre.
Speaking of the kaiju genre, Kong: Skull Island will likely be very well regarded for it’s naturalistic depiction of Skull Island as a coherent ecosystem. That aspect of the movie is so strong, the throwaway plot and characters barely offend.
JohnHwangDD wrote: and post-pubescent Elsa is absolutely gorgeous,
[…]
Thank goodness for Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, plus Wasp coming soon.
[…]
Dredd's chick was basically useless and redundant.
[…]
[Sucker Punch is a] Hugely underrated movie
I think Pacific Rim has more chance of being more a cult than a classic. It's the same story as you get with say the Riddick films - they are good and as a series form a stronger franchise; but the lack the magic or even just the market appeal/marketing to make them true classics.
Just a reminder that Rule One is Be Polite. Thanks!
Regarding Judge Anderson in Dredd, she crrtainly was not at all redundant. The story thematics of that movie are about idealism and cynicism. Between her naive rookie take about protecting people and the corrupt judges betraying the system for bribes, we have the complex question of Judge Dredd’s own take on justice. She’s absolutely crucial to the movie.
Malus is spot on that Fury Road will be considered a classic. Vaktathi and nou also nailed it with Dredd. I'll add Blade Runner 2049 to this list.
Cheesecat mentioned The Witch. That movie disappointed me but I think it will be well remembered for it's strict instistance on period dialogue. I haven't seen it but I think the first Conjuring movie will likely be remembered as iconic for this era in horror.
Thanks to its box office woes, Solo may be the first Star Wars movie that could qualify as a cult classic.
It’s not a race to the bottom. A movie needs to be good as well as not appreciated in its own time in order to eventually qualify as a cult classic. The Ewok movies are like terrible secrets your brain keeps forgetting as part of its natural defense mechanisms until some joker (ahem!) conjours the horror back from oblivion.
Speaking of good, nay great, and unappreciated in its own time, I would say Blade Runner 2049 is overall a better movie than its cult classic predecessor. The original will always be remembered for its urban dystopia (actually echoed in the opening scenes of Solo) but the sequel has better characters, more beautiful and intriguing imagery, and more fascinating questions.
Agreed. Fight Club should actually be remade as a Red Pill counter to the genderflip movies that have been coming out.
You think the movie about how toxic masculinity will destroy society would serve as some kind of counter to films being remade with women as the leads?
JohnHwangDD wrote: I'm not going to speculate against your passive-aggressive nonsense.
Say what you think, and I'll tell you if you're correct
Well, it's all about female characters. Also seems the more sexy they are the more you like them. [edit]And note that I didn't state anything about this being a good or a bad thing, just an observation, for the record.[/edit]
I think most of Tarantino's films will go down as classics. There's some great visual imagery in his films and he has a very unique way of storytelling both of which have influenced a lot of other filmmakers and writers. I didn't care much for Inglorious Bastards but I've enjoyed almost all of his other films. I also really like stuff from Robert Rodriguez, films like Desperado, Machete and Machete Kills may not go down as traditional classics but he'll have a cult following for years to come.
I think Fury Road and Dark Knight can already be seen as classics as elements of them are already being discussed and incorporated into film and acting schools. It's kind of like how the original SW movies or Avatar really shook up FX and world building for their time, even though the stories weren't that impressive compared to the spectacle.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I'm not going to speculate against your passive-aggressive nonsense.
Say what you think, and I'll tell you if you're correct
Well, it's all about female characters.
Also seems the more sexy they are the more you like them.
[edit]And note that I didn't state anything about this being a good or a bad thing, just an observation, for the record.[/edit]
Nope, that's not it. Not even close.
I appreciate female characters that do things that are not stupid, and dislike characters that are female for the sake of being female.
JohnHwangDD wrote: and dislike characters that are female for the sake of being female.
?
???
?????
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Is Elsa somehow “female for the sake of being female”?
Also the Sucker Punch girls are 100% doing things that are stupid but you don't mind.
I can't help that you don't get it.
The new Oceans and Ghostbusters are female for the sake of being female, and that's stupid. Instead, tell a new story about women that isn't a rehash of a story that starred men.
Elsa undergoes puberty in the space of about 10 seconds, transforming into a hyperfeminine, sexualized ideal with winter superpowers:
Spoiler:
The Sucker Punch girls are the protagonists who drive the story. Sucker Punch actually has a *lot* to say about femininism, the male gaze and women striving in a male world, if you're smart enough to figure out what's actually going on. OTOH, if you got sucked into the superficiality of appearances, well, that's your failure to really watch and understand the film.
I thought so too It opens a lot of potential discussion, from what defines classic movies (is it the writing, the techniques, the performances, the themes and stories examined etc.), to whether a true classic needs to excel in all those areas or whether raising the bar in one can cover deficiencies in others (so, just for the sake of an example, does the Matrix's advances in technical film making such as the bullet time sequences make up for individual performances which are less than stellar?), and so forth.
I love the idea of this thread too. Helps us celebrate some of the more recent films, and recognize that a movie does not have to be old to be good. I’m also kind of glad the Dakkanaughts here aren’t immediately resorting to the whole “it’s new so it’s clearly bad,” schtick (though it’s not my place to tell people what their opinions should be either).
I’m somewhat tempted to mention the MCU as a whole. Perhaps not for the storytelling, but for incorporating such a large shared universe across 20+ films. DC aside, I can’t recall any other franchises that have attemped this sizeable of an endeavor (though I would certainly love to hear them if I’m wrong. ) Like other posters have said, Dark Knight seems like it will be another.
I also wonder if some of the movies that continued off of their much older original movies could be counted. Blade Runner 2049 and Fury Road for instance. From what I can gather, these ones continue off of the originals, retain the themes, and still appeal to the new crowds. All of this, despite the age of their older counterparts.
I can’t say I understand the appeal of Sucker Punch however. Most reviews I have seen bashed the movie mercilessly. What was it that drew peoples’ interest? I don’t intend to bash the interests of other people, I’m just genuinely curious.
Speaking of the kaiju genre, Kong: Skull Island will likely be very well regarded for it’s naturalistic depiction of Skull Island as a coherent ecosystem. That aspect of the movie is so strong, the throwaway plot and characters barely offend.
The best aspect of Kong: Skull Island is that it seems to be very, very conscious about every aspect of the genre it belongs to - like an extract of all previous films put into one movie that kinda breaks the fourth wall using the film language and subtle parody instead of direct dialogues. And Tom Hiddleston's gas mask scene is perfect example of that.
Blade runner 2049 suffers a lot from being direct continuation of a film that is a cult classic which have influenced all aspects of popculture but which is not at all either popular movie or great story. This dependency is a burden mostly because those two films do not share the same film building language, being separated by 30 years of filmmaking evolution...
Two other films I think have their place in this thread are Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" and "Tron: Legacy". Both because they don't really have any direct competition in what they tried to achieve. And while I'm at film&sound editing aspect of cinematography, I completely forgot about Matthew Vaughn in my first post - "Kick Ass", "Kingsman" and "First Class" are all great examples on how editing should be done in action movies.
While this thread is fun and interesting, I've realized, that it has one huge flaw "by design" - we have narrowed down "modern" to about a decade, but films naturally become self-identified classics in about 20+ years, so we are discussing a strange version of history of cinematography leaving out early XXI century and when making comparisons we are jumping between post-Iron Man era of MCU and late '90 closing right after first Matrix. But the thing is - between those two film A LOT have happened - X-Men and X2 jump started the whole superhero movies era, while "I, robot" was the first movie I can remember, where full CGI sci-fi was finally believable enough to not distract but build the atmosphere of the movie. It was also the era of incorporating music videos language into mainstream cinema (few directors made their way directly from music videos production onto big screen) and a late era of original stories in blockbuster cinema, before "universes" and saga adaptations took over.
SkavenLord wrote: I can’t say I understand the appeal of Sucker Punch however. Most reviews I have seen bashed the movie mercilessly.
Most reviews are based on the theatrical Warner Executive cut, which shares the same wrong-headedness behind the theatrical Warner Executive cuts of Batman vs Superman and Justice League and Suicide Squad. They kept the superficial stuff, and cut out the meat. The Director's Cut is quite good, but very few people saw it and reviewed it. If you started with the DC (which restores 17 minutes), you'd draw very different conclusions.
I, for one, look forward to the Directors Cut of Justice League a.k.a. Snyder Cut.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The new Oceans and Ghostbusters are female for the sake of being female, and that's stupid.
Were the first one male for the sake of being male then?
JohnHwangDD wrote: Instead, tell a new story about women that isn't a rehash of a story that starred men.
Where does that stop exactly? Does that include The Heat for rehashing the good old “Buddy cop” movie formula but having women instead? If so, are the other buddy copy movies bad too, those that are male for the sake of being male? Are you similarly antagonistic of Ocean's 12 and Ocean's 13 as you are of Ocean's 8?
JohnHwangDD wrote: Elsa undergoes puberty in the space of about 10 seconds, transforming into a hyperfeminine, sexualized ideal with winter superpowers:
Spoiler:
Failing to see your point. Also if that picture is “overfeminine, sexualized”, you have very weird perceptions.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Sucker Punch girls are the protagonists who drive the story.
Well, I'm sure they do, when they are done with fighting mecha with a katana while wearing a sexy schoolgirl uniform, fighting WW1/WW2 zombie amalgam in sexy uniform, fighting dragons and orcs in a sexy outfit, and doing other unrelated to anything fights in sexy outfits. Or, you know, dancing sexily for the camera. With a side order of sexy, and an extra touch of insulting pandering to the most scornful and belittling idea of what geeks like. Because when they do those things I listed, it definitely doesn't drive the largely unexplicit story that we viewer are supposed to guess.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Sucker Punch actually has a *lot* to say about femininism, the male gaze and women striving in a male world, if you're smart enough to figure out what's actually going on.
Guess I'm just stupid then. I sure missed the very deep and powerful symbol that was “kill zombie WW1 trench nazis” and “fight the orcs and the dragon”. Silly me! I just need my movie to be a little more literal when they say stuff about feminism, the male gaze, and women striving in a male world. Stuff like, say, A gun for Jennifer works great. You should try it. Or even, if you want less heavy-handed, movies like Teeth.
Manchu wrote: It’s not a race to the bottom. A movie needs to be good as well as not appreciated in its own time in order to eventually qualify as a cult classic. The Ewok movies are like terrible secrets your brain keeps forgetting as part of its natural defense mechanisms until some joker (ahem!) conjours the horror back from oblivion.
Speaking of good, nay great, and unappreciated in its own time, I would say Blade Runner 2049 is overall a better movie than its cult classic predecessor. The original will always be remembered for its urban dystopia (actually echoed in the opening scenes of Solo) but the sequel has better characters, more beautiful and intriguing imagery, and more fascinating questions.
I don't think your first criteria is accurate. While most cult classics are good films for niche audiences, there are also films that are cult classics because they are weird or remarkably bad, such as The Room. Ewok movies fit in that category. Solo is part of a huge franchise and will end up exposed to millions and millions of people through franchise osmosis. Like an MCU movie, it will be a part of a "classic series", and I don't think it will ever be singled out as its own media experience distinct from the franchise. It will just be one of the good Star Wars films.
I agree with your statements about BR 2049, although I doubt it will ever receive the same adoration as the first.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Sucker Punch actually has a *lot* to say about femininism, the male gaze and women striving in a male world, if you're smart enough to figure out what's actually going on.
Guess I'm just stupid then. I sure missed the very deep and powerful symbol that was “kill zombie WW1 trench nazis” and “fight the orcs and the dragon”. Silly me!
I just need my movie to be a little more literal when they say stuff about feminism, the male gaze, and women striving in a male world. Stuff like, say, A gun for Jennifer works great. You should try it. Or even, if you want less heavy-handed, movies like Teeth.
I haven't seen the director's cut, curious about those extra 17 minutes, but throughout the film the women are repressed and abused by the men (and enabling women) around them, yet still find a way to maintain a part of themselves and resist. The protagonist lands in the situation she is in defending her younger sister from rape, and then proceeds to presumably get raped throughout her tenure at the hospital/brothel she is left in. I could see some feminist message tucked away in there, but you aren't wrong that the film was very over the top and sensational in how it portrayed the women in their fantasy scenes.
Soundtrack was awesome, though. Regardless of feminist credentials.
Thanks to those who already mentioned Blade Runner 2049 . I think in some ways, it was better than the original... which was awesome in some parts but really lacking in a few. The new movie was the complete package for me. Also, nearly impossible to watch on a laptop screen because the blacks don't come out . Seriously, you don't realize how many "layers of black" are in the movie until you can't see them!
I'm not sure about Mad Max: Fury Road. I thought it should have won Best Picture the year it was released, but on a re-watch I thought it was just OK... or maybe I've just seen it too many times
A Town Called Malus wrote: Good call on Tarantino's films. They will all reach cult classic at the very least.
I thought Tarantino was OK previously. I liked Pulp Fiction, I liked Reservoir Dogs, and so on.
But I think his later movies, where most directors start to decline, are actually where he really starts to get cooking. I liked Pulp Fiction but I loved Django Unchained, and that was a very difficult sell because I dislike Jamie Foxx enormously. I bet I've watched Django at least 5 times.
Similarly in terms of infinite watchability is Inglorious Basterds. The only reason I haven't seen Hateful Eight that many times is because it's so recent. I desperately looked for tickets to one of the few 70mm roadshow releases to no avail (but maybe that was OK because I saw Dunkirk in 70mm and it was no great shakes).
My opinions on movies that will live as classics:
The Lord of the Rings: More so than the later Hobbit trilogy, this series actually accomplished the telling of one of fantasy's most enduring stories in film format. Sure, some of the CGI hasn't aged well, but that's true of almost all movies with CGI in them eventually. The reason I exclude The Hobbit is because LOTR stayed more true to the books (although it diverged some), and it maintained the seriousness of the original story, whereas The Hobbit was, at least in some parts, a little too zany (some of the action sequences belonged in Pirates of the Caribbean or something). One thing both sets of movies did well (and why I love them both so much) was set and prop design. The level of detail was absolutely incredible, and really helped bring the stories from the books to life.
The MCU (all of it): In the future, you won't be able to have a discussion about movies in this era without mentioning the MCU a lot. I'm sure it has influenced cinema as a whole on a huge scale. I won't name any particular ones over the others, because I feel like they are a package deal, even though some were better than others.
Interstellar: What really amazes me in this movie is the level of scientific realism. Seriously, there's a book about the science of this movie, and it's really amazing how well the moviemakers did their homework. The visuals were amazing, the story was great, it really was just an all-around good movie. I think this will be one of those thought-provoking movies that people will occasionally be reminded of, kind of like 1972's Silent Running has been for me ever since I saw it.
Dunkirk: A very interesting way to tell a truly great war story will make this one stand out for a long time.
Mad Max Fury Road: See the OP, I agree with that opinion 100%
Interstellar: What really amazes me in this movie is the level of scientific realism. Seriously, there's a book about the science of this movie, and it's really amazing how well the moviemakers did their homework. The visuals were amazing, the story was great, it really was just an all-around good movie.
That is because the original concept of the Interstellar was first conceived by Nobel Prize awarded Kip Thorne and he was one of the main drives behind the whole endeavor. What is worth remembering, Interstellar is the only film which actually contributed to science - the visualization of the black hole is actually 100% accurately simulated, a feat that no one ever attempted before, resulting in two published papers on the behavior of spacetime near the event horizon.
SkavenLord wrote: I can’t say I understand the appeal of Sucker Punch however. Most reviews I have seen bashed the movie mercilessly.
Most reviews are based on the theatrical Warner Executive cut, which shares the same wrong-headedness behind the theatrical Warner Executive cuts of Batman vs Superman and Justice League and Suicide Squad. They kept the superficial stuff, and cut out the meat. The Director's Cut is quite good, but very few people saw it and reviewed it. If you started with the DC (which restores 17 minutes), you'd draw very different conclusions.
I, for one, look forward to the Directors Cut of Justice League a.k.a. Snyder Cut.
Sorry, Snyder?!? As in, Dark Nights Metal and New 52 Batman Snyder? Shucks, I’m with you on that one then. Will give Sucker Punch another go too. If Warner really carved out the meat of that one, it might be pretty good.
Thanks for the answer!
DarkTraveler777 wrote: I haven't seen the director's cut, curious about those extra 17 minutes, but throughout the film the women are repressed and abused by the men (and enabling women) around them, yet still find a way to maintain a part of themselves and resist. The protagonist lands in the situation she is in defending her younger sister from rape, and then proceeds to presumably get raped throughout her tenure at the hospital/brothel she is left in. I could see some feminist message tucked away in there
So the story has plenty of rape in it and that makes it feminist? Does that mean every other WIP film is feminist too?
Even Thriller - A cruel picture feels less exploitative than Sucker Punch, and Thriller (THE MOVIE THAT HAS NO LIMITS OF EVIL) has literal pornographic inserts. But at least when Thriller does fight scene, the heroine doesn't stick to sexy poses in a sexy costume so that we can all enjoy how sexy that rape victim is. Because sexy is somehow how Sucker Punch want to frame rape victims as…
Sucker Punch is basically bringing the worst aspect of exploitative female characters from comics and video games into a live movie.
And the best thing is that even if we completely overlook this, it's still pandering to geeks in a way that's incredibly demeaning imo. “Oh you nerds like dragons I'll put some dragons! You guys like mechas I'll put some mechas! You guys like zombie nazi and can't tell WW1 from WW2 I'll put some in there! You just like all those things for their most superficial aspect so I don't need to do anything deep with it just put them there and it's enough!” Thanks for calling me a shallow idiot Mr director, I guess…
I'll stick to more honest pandering movies like Mayhem that goes to simple, honest to god power fantasy .
The Usual Suspects was my favorite movie for years. I used to try to dress like Keyser Soze, but I just ended up looking like a Chasid. It took an intervention to stop me.
I wonder how it will affect future audiences seeing Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer collaborating on the same film...
Dude, whenever I’m alone in an office, like when I’m waiting for my boss, or in a doctors office, I’ll craft a story in my head from magazine covers and paintings and what not. If I need some gak for small talk that I have no interest in, I spin my tale.
Then limp off into anonymity.(not really, but its a fun mental exercise when you’re bored as feth!)
I also think people will look past Spacey/Singers history.
While 12 years old, "V for Vendetta" is a classic in my mind. Near perfect adaptation of the comic, and Hugo Weaving's acting. You need to consider, you can't see his face. It's all voice inflection and body language. You never see his face.
Skyfall. It may seem odd to choose a Bond film as a classic, out of all of them, but Skyfall is in my not so humble opinion, the best telling of a Bond tale. Somehow making a cliché into something fresh and relevant.
The movie Dogma. Yes, it came out in 99 but the thought and ideas (see what I did there?) are still poignant today. Particularly about beliefs and ideas.
Gran Torino was good. I like redemption stories.
The Hangover. I had such a good time with that movie.
True Grit. I liked the original take, but I very much enjoyed the "closer to the book" take of the 2010 remake.
The Purge. It seems to just kind of pushes things through to an unrestrained conclusion, regarding American society. Or at least, perceived American society.
Pan's Labrynth just about tore my heart out. Beautiful, and sweet, and sad, and scary.
Despicable Me. Seriously. You know what a Minion is for a reason.
Big Fish. I'm a story teller. Part-time exaggerator, and occasional showman. Most people just don't realize how interesting their lives are until they try to tell the story. Most people's lives are incredible. It's just how you tell it.
Interstellar: What really amazes me in this movie is the level of scientific realism. Seriously, there's a book about the science of this movie, and it's really amazing how well the moviemakers did their homework. The visuals were amazing, the story was great, it really was just an all-around good movie.
That is because the original concept of the Interstellar was first conceived by Nobel Prize awarded Kip Thorne and he was one of the main drives behind the whole endeavor. What is worth remembering, Interstellar is the only film which actually contributed to science - the visualization of the black hole is actually 100% accurately simulated, a feat that no one ever attempted before, resulting in two published papers on the behavior of spacetime near the event horizon.
Wait, the film resolved with, basically, "the power of love" has a high level of scientific realism?
Interstellar: What really amazes me in this movie is the level of scientific realism. Seriously, there's a book about the science of this movie, and it's really amazing how well the moviemakers did their homework. The visuals were amazing, the story was great, it really was just an all-around good movie.
That is because the original concept of the Interstellar was first conceived by Nobel Prize awarded Kip Thorne and he was one of the main drives behind the whole endeavor. What is worth remembering, Interstellar is the only film which actually contributed to science - the visualization of the black hole is actually 100% accurately simulated, a feat that no one ever attempted before, resulting in two published papers on the behavior of spacetime near the event horizon.
Wait, the film resolved with, basically, "the power of love" has a high level of scientific realism?
but it was like all 'Jupiter and beyond' and deep and cle, no wait it was so inane it tarnishs an otherwise decent film
Interstellar: What really amazes me in this movie is the level of scientific realism. Seriously, there's a book about the science of this movie, and it's really amazing how well the moviemakers did their homework. The visuals were amazing, the story was great, it really was just an all-around good movie.
That is because the original concept of the Interstellar was first conceived by Nobel Prize awarded Kip Thorne and he was one of the main drives behind the whole endeavor. What is worth remembering, Interstellar is the only film which actually contributed to science - the visualization of the black hole is actually 100% accurately simulated, a feat that no one ever attempted before, resulting in two published papers on the behavior of spacetime near the event horizon.
Is that the film where the planet is brightly lit and there is no sun.............?
I haven't seen the director's cut, curious about those extra 17 minutes, but throughout the film the women are repressed and abused by the men (and enabling women) around them, yet still find a way to maintain a part of themselves and resist. The protagonist lands in the situation she is in defending her younger sister from rape, and then proceeds to presumably get raped throughout her tenure at the hospital/brothel she is left in. I could see some feminist message tucked away in there, but you aren't wrong that the film was very over the top and sensational in how it portrayed the women in their fantasy scenes.
Agreed - I understood the whole point of the fantasy scenes was that it was the protagonist escaping repeatedly into fantasy because her real life was so horrible. Yeah they looked cool - funny how no one is willing to criticise Christopher Nolan with all his effects driven movies.
WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there. MovieBob covers it pretty well, and is a good breakdown between a first and second viewing of the movie.
nels1031 wrote: The Usual Suspects and The Departed are two that spring to mind immediately for me.
Edit: I’d say Passion of the Christ as well.
The Departed, definitely. I would say that The Usual Suspects has already reached classic status and its influence on film is felt whenever a film decides to pull a keyser soze at the last minute.
To continue with the crime and hidden identity theme, what are people's thoughts on A History Of Violence and Eastern Promises?
I don't think Mel Gibson's Jesus movie will be remembered as a classic because it is a very broad, noncontroversial depiction, about as memorable as the stained glass in an average modern church. If it was going to reach classic status, in the mainstream, it probably would have done so by now.
I always thought the Oscars should have a tradition of re-examining best picture 10 years later (or more). I mean look at the list of nominees and winner for the 2010s. Good movies in there but classics? Enduring triumphs of the filmmakers arts? Works that will speak for generations?
2010
* The King's Speech
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
2011
* The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
2012
* Argo
Amour
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
2013
* 12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
2014
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
2015
* Spotlight
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
2016
* Moonlight
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
2017
* The Shape of Water
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
greatbigtree wrote: While 12 years old, "V for Vendetta" is a classic in my mind. Near perfect adaptation of the comic
Well, it was slammed by the comic's author, and consistently defanged the fascist side.
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there.
Will the explainer make ANYTHING about the part where they fight dragons relevant? I mean, sure, there are plenty of movies that use the same trick of having the character have vision, or having us see the made up world the character built for themselves. But in Sucker Punch it's done in all the worst way. It's not "the real world but with something creepy that symbolize the character fears", that can work great, it's not "retreat in a imaginary world WITH INTERESTING THING HAPPENING IN THE IMAGINARY WORLD", Alice in Wonderland style. It's just a bunch of action that is entirely unrelated to... anything! None of the action sequences are thematically or narratively tied to the other action sequences, and neither are they linked thematically or narratively linked to anything happening in the other dream world brothel stuff that is just somewhat related to the real world. You could exchange any of the action sequence with any other and the movie would still work. Actually you could replace all the fighting sequences by the tripping sequence at the end of 2001 and it wouldn't detract from the movie. You could replace all those action sequences with fade out fade in and it would improve the movie.
When a movie is improved by removing the money shot, it's not a great sign.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: I mean look at the list of nominees and winner for the 2010s. Good movies in there but classics?
I wouldn't be able to judge, I've seen precisely ONE of all of those films (Fury Road, which I personally thought was a bit dull).
I have seen the complete Neil Breen oeuvre in that time. Maybe I'm not the best person ton contribute to this topic.
Edit for my own interest... seen just 4 of the entire list of nominees of the 2000s (thanks to the three LotR films), 4 of the 90s, 2 of the 80s (my favourite decade?), 4 from the 70s, 3 from the 60s, and nothing from the 50s. Do people actually watch these 'classics'?
@ Interstellar critique: the whole Gargant system is designed upon cosmological equations, with some edge case assumptions made to support the plot up to tidal waves and time dilatation on water planet and survivability of the final descent into the hole. Gargant is a fast spinning black whole with accretion disk (and that is where those two published scientific papers come from). If you can only imagine black holes as literal light sinks then it's your problem, not film's, as accretion disk provides all the light you need - it is basically a torn star falling into the black hole layer upon layer like in cosmological french puff pastry. Cosmological layer of the film can pretty much rival Hawking's "Brief History of Time" in it's educational value. I spent couple of years dwelling into cosmology and level of scientific accuracy in the film is jaw dropping. But, because of all edge case assumptions that are needed to support the notion of surviving a descent into the black hole, Gargant doesn't meet the popular imagination of black holes, yet it is 100% plausible. The only physics speculation in the film happens after the descent, but that is also "plausible" as we don't have any hard science about the inside (which is also a part of the film's plot) and theories vary wildly from that point. But visualisation of spacetime tesseract is again, as accurate as is possible.
As to "power of love" critique - this is why I did not list "Interstellar" in my previous post on Nolan's works. I'm perfectly aware, that it is the most controversial "love it or hate it" part of the film and I won't discuss this, as it would derail this fun thread completely and turn it into human psychology and Nolan's way of building films thread. Ping-pong about Sucker Punch is clouding this thread enough.
greatbigtree wrote: While 12 years old, "V for Vendetta" is a classic in my mind. Near perfect adaptation of the comic
Well, it was slammed by the comic's author, and consistently defanged the fascist side.
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there.
Will the explainer make ANYTHING about the part where they fight dragons relevant? I mean, sure, there are plenty of movies that use the same trick of having the character have vision, or having us see the made up world the character built for themselves. But in Sucker Punch it's done in all the worst way. It's not "the real world but with something creepy that symbolize the character fears", that can work great, it's not "retreat in a imaginary world WITH INTERESTING THING HAPPENING IN THE IMAGINARY WORLD", Alice in Wonderland style. It's just a bunch of action that is entirely unrelated to... anything! None of the action sequences are thematically or narratively tied to the other action sequences, and neither are they linked thematically or narratively linked to anything happening in the other dream world brothel stuff that is just somewhat related to the real world. You could exchange any of the action sequence with any other and the movie would still work. Actually you could replace all the fighting sequences by the tripping sequence at the end of 2001 and it wouldn't detract from the movie. You could replace all those action sequences with fade out fade in and it would improve the movie.
When a movie is improved by removing the money shot, it's not a great sign.
That is how I felt about this movie too - in the end it leaves a feeling of Snyder not knowing how to manage his own vision (this is Snyder's first original concept film) to an extent of providing an incoherent mess. I get the concept (and "depth") behind the script, but it's delivered terribly.
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Kid_Kyoto wrote: I always thought the Oscars should have a tradition of re-examining best picture 10 years later (or more). I mean look at the list of nominees and winner for the 2010s. Good movies in there but classics? Enduring triumphs of the filmmakers arts? Works that will speak for generations?
Spoiler:
2010
* The King's Speech
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
2011
* The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
2012
* Argo
Amour
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
2013
* 12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
2014
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
2015
* Spotlight
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
2016
* Moonlight
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
2017
* The Shape of Water
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
IMHO there is at most one movie each year on that list that has a chance to become classic. But this is because Oscars are not a great metric of greatness of a movie for quite some years now. And it's getting worse every year - first it was just a somehow snob division of genres "worthy" of main prize, but lately it's becoming a US political mess that has less and less impact on worldwide cinematography and is simply becoming a local film contest. It still holds value for US domestic problems, but from foreigner standpoint it is completely irrelevant now as universal human values and pure cinematography virtues of movies are no longer main criteria of Oscars.
Sucker Punch and Bladerunner 2049 will not be classics. Sucker Punch just is not that good a movie(I get what it was trying for, it didn't do it well) and Bladerunner 2049 needs a significant edit so badly it's almost crying out for it. (Saw it with about a dozen people who were all fans of the original and love scifi, more than half of us joked about almost falling asleep during it)
Classic movies tend to be ones that appeal to a wide audience, so things like the MCU are safe bets. Stuff like Pacific Rim could be cult classics but just were not good enough to be true classics. (I love the hell out of Pacific Rim though) As much as I hate to say it Avatar will likely be a classic, hell Disney has turned over a large portion of Animal Kingdom to it.
Frozen, whether you love it or not is going to go down as a classic, no question there. It's like crack for children.
nels1031 wrote: The Usual Suspects and The Departed are two that spring to mind immediately for me.
The Departed, definitely. I would say that
The Departed would be great, if it weren't a remake of a much better film (Infernal Affairs). Transposing a Hong Kong crime story over to Boston, where native Bostonians don't even speak Bahstin is not an improvement. Especially when it's shot ham-fistedly.
Unless a remake is substantially better (and somehow different) than the original, it can't be a "classic". That's why Ghostbusters, Ocean's 8 and Dredd can't be classics - you'd watch the original, Ocean's 11 (either version), or the Raid instead.
Unless a remake is substantially better (and somehow different) than the original, it can't be a "classic". That's why Ghostbusters, Ocean's 8 and Dredd can't be classics - you'd watch the original, Ocean's 11 (either version), or the Raid instead.
I can most certainly treat both The Raid and Dredd as classics because they are not interchangeable even though they share huge parts of the general plot. I can do that, because filmmaking art is sooo much more than a raw plot idea. Heck, I can even treat all of the following: La Jetée, Brasil and 12 monkeys as classics simultaneously, despite the latter being a mashup of those former two.
I must admit, that throughout the whole thread I find your POV on cinematography rather puzzling (not in any way "wrong" as this is a subjective matter, but really incomprehensible for me personally.) The only thing I agree with is "female characters for the sake of being female" - one of the most annoying instances of that practice lately was genderswap of Hogarth in Jessica Jones, because they only swapped the gender and nothing else which results in completely unbelievable character. I think that genderswap of Starbucks in Battlestar remake is the perfect example of how such things should be done.
@nou - I'm no expert on film, so my definition of "classic" may not align with others, and people may well disagree. In my case, if I want to watch a hard-boiled cop clear a druglord's building, I strongly prefer The Raid over Dredd.
I believe that a lot of what's been posited will not stand the test of time, and I don't much like unoriginal remakes over the original. Movies are about imagination, and should show something new and different, because they can.
Incredibles 2 will wait for the library, because I'm not going to pay money to watch what is reportedly an uninspired genderflip remake of Incredibles 1. That's really disappointing when we consider what TS2 and TS3 had to say vis TS1.
Manchu wrote: John Carpenter's The Thing is definitely more than notable.
So was the prequal - loved how they made sure so much of the little details from the original devestated Norwegian outpost were shown to hpapen in the new film -
Got bored with the Raid and found Dredd far superior - but that might be because I a JD fan and thus that film resonated strongly with me - whereas the Raid was just meh
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there. MovieBob covers it pretty well, and is a good breakdown between a first and second viewing of the movie.
If you have to read a review or watch a video to understand a movie, it is because the movie had bad storytelling. Snyder famously bungled this movie, turning what could have been a dark and thrilling story in to the best feature length music video you have ever seen. He failed to convey any depth to the world because he needed the next song on the soundtrack to start to keep people awake.
Some classics people might have missed.
Kung Pow - Already a classic in its own right.
Kubo and the Two Strings - Fantastic movie. Great visuals and good music.
Walk Hard - I keep suggesting this to people and they keep loving it
The Cornetto Trilogy - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End.
The Prestige - Amazing film. All of the actors go above and beyond
Tucker and Dale vs Evil - If you havent seen this and you like comedy, this is for you
Kubo is an absolutely beautiful film and you appreciate it even more once you watch the "making of" videos and see the rigs they constructed for the large monsters.
And Tucker and Dale is an amazing film which perfectly subverts the slasher-in-the-woods genre.
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there. MovieBob covers it pretty well, and is a good breakdown between a first and second viewing of the movie.
If you have to read a review or watch a video to understand a movie, it is because the movie had bad storytelling. Snyder famously bungled this movie, turning what could have been a dark and thrilling story in to the best feature length music video you have ever seen. He failed to convey any depth to the world because he needed the next song on the soundtrack to start to keep people awake.
Some classics people might have missed.
Kung Pow - Already a classic in its own right.
Kubo and the Two Strings - Fantastic movie. Great visuals and good music.
Walk Hard - I keep suggesting this to people and they keep loving it
The Cornetto Trilogy - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End.
The Prestige - Amazing film. All of the actors go above and beyond
Tucker and Dale vs Evil - If you havent seen this and you like comedy, this is for you
Prestige and Cornetto Trilogy are already listed on the first page, but I'm glad that somebody else recognizes those as classics But sadly Cornetto Trilogy is more of a diptych - The Worlds End just doesn't cut it for me... But Prestige, oh man - this is the best film about bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive personality dissorder I've ever seen (don't confuse it with meme-generating OCD, OCPD is an entirely different beast) and one of a kind masterpiece. It always fascinated me why it wasn't/isn't more popular.
@ JohnHwangDD - your pursuit after originality was quite clear and concise (at first to rather elitist extent), but then you focused on defending Sucker Punch, which is a terrible and not really that original movie by any and all metrics I can apply to it (pretty much any trope in Sucker Punch can be found elsewhere). But please, don't take it as a personal attack - I'm a person that tries to build a mental model of any person I discuss with and you just slip my grasp...
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's pretty sad that your list omits perhaps the only actual classic among those remakes: Star Wars, as a remake of the Hidden Fortress.
Note that SW is a substantial rework at the same time, moving to a galaxy far, far away and showcasing (then) groundbreaking FX
None of the others are particularly notable as far as I can recall.
"___________ in space" is not a remake. Star Wars took inspiration from many sources, too. That's the difference between research and pla--er, remake.
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there. MovieBob covers it pretty well, and is a good breakdown between a first and second viewing of the movie.
If you have to read a review or watch a video to understand a movie, it is because the movie had bad storytelling. Snyder famously bungled this movie, turning what could have been a dark and thrilling story in to the best feature length music video you have ever seen. He failed to convey any depth to the world because he needed the next song on the soundtrack to start to keep people awake.
Some classics people might have missed.
Kung Pow - Already a classic in its own right.
Kubo and the Two Strings - Fantastic movie. Great visuals and good music.
Walk Hard - I keep suggesting this to people and they keep loving it
The Cornetto Trilogy - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End.
The Prestige - Amazing film. All of the actors go above and beyond
Tucker and Dale vs Evil - If you havent seen this and you like comedy, this is for you
Prestige and Cornetto Trilogy are already listed on the first page, but I'm glad that somebody else recognizes those as classics But sadly Cornetto Trilogy is more of a diptych - The Worlds End just doesn't cut it for me... But Prestige, oh man - this is the best film about bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive personality dissorder I've ever seen (don't confuse it with meme-generating OCD, OCPD is an entirely different beast) and one of a kind masterpiece. It always fascinated me why it wasn't/isn't more popular.
@ JohnHwangDD - your pursuit after originality was quite clear and concise (at first to rather elitist extent), but then you focused on defending Sucker Punch, which is a terrible and not really that original movie by any and all metrics I can apply to it (pretty much any trope in Sucker Punch can be found elsewhere). But please, don't take it as a personal attack - I'm a person that tries to build a mental model of any person I discuss with and you just slip my grasp...
Its all Subjective
re The Prestige and Sucker Punch for instance I found the former dull and mundane with little characterisation (standard for Nolan - especially female ones - in fact he seldom bothers with them at all in his films) and in contrast sucker punch had everything it didn't - deeper meaning, interesting characters, imagery and imagination.
JohnHwangDD wrote: WRT Sucker Punch, there are a number of explainers (spoilers!) out there. MovieBob covers it pretty well, and is a good breakdown between a first and second viewing of the movie.
If you have to read a review or watch a video to understand a movie, it is because the movie had bad storytelling. Snyder famously bungled this movie, turning what could have been a dark and thrilling story in to the best feature length music video you have ever seen. He failed to convey any depth to the world because he needed the next song on the soundtrack to start to keep people awake.
Some classics people might have missed.
Kung Pow - Already a classic in its own right.
Kubo and the Two Strings - Fantastic movie. Great visuals and good music.
Walk Hard - I keep suggesting this to people and they keep loving it
The Cornetto Trilogy - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End.
The Prestige - Amazing film. All of the actors go above and beyond
Tucker and Dale vs Evil - If you havent seen this and you like comedy, this is for you
Prestige and Cornetto Trilogy are already listed on the first page, but I'm glad that somebody else recognizes those as classics But sadly Cornetto Trilogy is more of a diptych - The Worlds End just doesn't cut it for me... But Prestige, oh man - this is the best film about bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive personality dissorder I've ever seen (don't confuse it with meme-generating OCD, OCPD is an entirely different beast) and one of a kind masterpiece. It always fascinated me why it wasn't/isn't more popular.
@ JohnHwangDD - your pursuit after originality was quite clear and concise (at first to rather elitist extent), but then you focused on defending Sucker Punch, which is a terrible and not really that original movie by any and all metrics I can apply to it (pretty much any trope in Sucker Punch can be found elsewhere). But please, don't take it as a personal attack - I'm a person that tries to build a mental model of any person I discuss with and you just slip my grasp...
Its all Subjective
re The Prestige and Sucker Punch for instance I found the former dull and mundane with little characterisation (standard for Nolan - especially female ones - in fact he seldom bothers with them at all in his films) and in contrast sucker punch had everything it didn't - deeper meaning, interesting characters, imagery and imagination.
different strokes and all that
Could you please elaborate on shallow vs deeper meaning of Prestige vs Sucker Punch? I'm genuinely interested on how those two films can have so flipped reception - the question I cannot answer for myself for obvious reasons. And while we are at it, maybe you can also shed some light on why Nolan seems to have so many anti-fans in the West (less so here in Poland)? I'm genuinely wondering, as I find his characters very precisely constructed in almost all instances and whole films tuned like clockwork... And I remember that those anti-fans were present from the very beginning, right after "Memento".
I like to think that when Marvel fever finally dies down the Guardians of the Galaxy movies will be far enough removed from the cape fare that they'll enjoy some lasting appreciation. Hopefully the stick the landing with movie 3 and depart gracefully and Disney doesn't ruin the whole thing with endless sequels.
Speaking of... is it safe to appreciate Pirates of the Caribbean again? I really did like that first one.
I liked the various layers of reality in Sucker Punch, the darker meaning behind the "Adventures" and the twist at the end.
Prestige - I found the characters dull, wooden and without humanity - Something I have found in every one of his films, he doesn't seem to care about anyone in them - so why should I. It makes it very hard for me to take any attempt at a plot seriously.
I have found the opposite - Christopher Nolan fans abound and found in the past that some have the most annoying habit of saying that if you don't like his films you don't understand them, I find many of his film rely on special effects and image to hide the lack of substance - Inception IMO was truely awful for this.
Women are seldom of importance in his films and if they are, they are sketched out even less than the male ones - see especially Inception and Batman
Mr Morden wrote: I liked the various layers of reality in Sucker Punch, the darker meaning behind the "Adventures" and the twist at the end.
Prestige - I found the characters dull, wooden and without humanity - Something I have found in every one of his films, he doesn't seem to care about anyone in them - so why should I. It makes it very hard for me to take any attempt at a plot seriously.
I have found the opposite - Christopher Nolan fans abound and found in the past that some have the most annoying habit of saying that if you don't like his films you don't understand them, I find many of his film rely on special effects and image to hide the lack of substance - Inception IMO was truely awful for this.
Women are seldom of importance in his films and if they are, they are sketched out even less than the male ones - see especially Inception and Batman
Thank you for your answer. That fits nicely with what I roughly predicted I might read in your answer and sorts a few puzzles for me.
nou wrote: @ JohnHwangDD - your pursuit after originality was quite clear and concise (at first to rather elitist extent), but then you focused on defending Sucker Punch, which is a terrible and not really that original movie by any and all metrics I can apply to it (pretty much any trope in Sucker Punch can be found elsewhere). But please, don't take it as a personal attack - I'm a person that tries to build a mental model of any person I discuss with and you just slip my grasp...
Sucker Punch is a story that exists on at least 3 layers of "reality" / "fantasy", and it's deliberately using and deconstructing a number of tropes and pop references - to me, that's very original. It just has an awful lot going on, moves very fast, with little setup - the opposite of what people would want for the sort of popcorn movie that people would have expected. To me, SP is the biggest budget arthouse film ever made, and the movie needed a fair bit of additional exposition and transition to clarify things for the more casual viewer vs the repeat viewer. I get the same sort of joy watching SP as I do watching the Usual Suspects.
Sorry if I'm confusing you. I apologize for that.
____
WRT Nolan, I get what he's doing, but I'm not a huge fan of his work, although I understand why people like his work. Personally, I really disliked his Batman movie, simply because the McGuffin couldn't possibly work the way that it was depicted in the film. That took me completely out of the film. A microwave device that can instantly boil water in underground pipes shielded by dozens of feet of earth, and inches of concrete or steel would have killed everybody within immediate line of sight of the thing. It would have been better if it were clearly a neutron bomb designed to kill the population while leaving most of the buildings standing. Or better, yet again? A bog standard Hydrogen Bomb.
The first Batman movie was a bit more outlandish (or "comicbook-ey") in many respects, more mystical ninja mumbo jumbo and drug altered perception, a different feeling Gotham that had the whole elevated train mass transit thing and the Narrows district and overall much more confined and Blade Runner-ey feel, etc.
Both Bane and the Joker's means were relatively conventional next to those employed by Crow or Ras Al Gul, and Bane basically does just go for the nuke, and the city is very clearly just filmed mostly around Chicago
See, i really dislike the nolan batman movies because christian bale is the worst batman on film.
He is the BIGGEST idiot. Kills people in every movie and has a wavering conviction. Then, while yelling "no guns" shoots guns and rockets all over the place killing more people.
Granted. All the other live action batmen beside west also kill.
But none of the others are massive idiots. I dont think any nolan batman film we be remembered as a classic. I think ledgers performance will be remembered as great. But bale and every other actor will be 10p% forgotten the moment we get a good comic acurate batman movie. Just one. Not even great. Just good.
Lance845 wrote: See, i really dislike the nolan batman movies because christian bale is the worst batman on film.
To be fair however, he's actually a fantastic Bruce Wayne.
Terrible Batman, but I cannot picture a better Bruce...
Great. Christian bale is really good at playing the least interesting moments of batmans life. I always pick up batman stories so i can watch bruce wayne just hanging out with models and pretending to be a rich kid.
We could get an entire batman movie with no bruce wayne act and it would be fine. Most batman comics dont have any wayne in them at all. Just give me a long holloween or a court of owls or some other murder mystery.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Gotham by gaslight is the best batman on film. Hes a good detective. He doesnt drink. He doesnt kill. He doesnt choose to leave people to die. He doesnt talk gak to the criminals or exchange quips. He breaks arms and legs with brutal effecient fighting.
A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Dreadwinter wrote: A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Disagree entirely.
1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.
2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.
3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.
I think a comparison with another movie that recently came out as an adaption from a comic book is the best way to explain what's wrong with Sucker Punch.
Attention (limited) spoilers for that movie, if you haven't read the comic book
Spoiler:
I kill Giant.
In this movie :
Spoiler:
I kill Giant is similar in the fact that the heroine also invents some imaginary enemies to fight in order not to face reality. However, the big difference is that in I kill Giants, the heroine is a geeky girl that found all her ideas in an RPG book. She plays DND, she has models. The whole giant thing is about the character and her own mental state, not about what the audience like. It's about her way to deal with tthe thing that she cannot do anything about and her feeling of powerlessness at it.
In Sucker Punch, though,
Spoiler:
it's quite the opposite. The way it's filmed, even the "reality" layer doesn't look or feel real, but from what we have on it, all the action sequences are definitely entirely anachronistic about what whatever-her-name's reference would be. It makes 0 sense that she would imagine random Japanese mecha before random Japanese mecha were a thing. There isn't a mecha here because it makes sense that there would be a mecha here. There isn't a mecha here because it informs us about the character of whatever-her-name. There isn't a mecha here because it makes a good movie. There is a mecha here because the film is literally whoring itself to people who like Japanese mecha. It didn't work that well because most people that liked Japanese mecha stories enjoyed them for reasons deeper than the extremely superficial appearance of a mecha for a few seconds. But it gained a devoted fanbase because apparently some people do enjoy seeing random mecha for a few second, and would rationalize the movie doing it as "deep", despite it being the most superficial it could be.
tl;dr Sucker Punch doesn't build a story around characters. It has a scenario entirely build around the list of audience pandering that it wanted to indulge in. The other movie is doing what Sucker Punch pretend to be doing, except it has an actual story that is actually about the main character. But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.
Giants in I kill Giants is also about Kolveski. The Giant Killer. A base ball player her mother told her stories about and they shared a passion for. Her hammer has a name for a reason and the things she faces are more or less directly tied to it.
That being said your point stands. The girls in Suckerpunch going from fantasy scenario to fantasy scenario not because we have any reason to believe any of them would escape to these world or these challenges but because we the audience love action beats with robots, mechs, nazis, girls in skimpy clothes etc etc....
It's not building it's imagery and story around anything within the story but instead to pander to as many nerd demographics as possible with the lowest possible common denominators.
Dreadwinter wrote: A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Disagree entirely.
1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.
2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.
3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.
1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.
2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.
3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.
Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.
But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.
Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.
As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?
Those films are too old for this discussion, though. Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Girls' Night might count, but I'm not aware of a whole lot of recent "chick flicks" existing.
But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.
Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.
It's a pretty fitting description for both, to be honest. Until you reach "fanservice", that is. Inception doesn't have anywhere the same amount of fanservice as Sucker Punch has. It's not a defining feature for Inception. Or I missed it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Are the Magic Mike movies any good? Wanted to watch them but still haven't found the right occasion.
But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.
Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.
As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?
I really don't know - when I ask people - they come up with vague assertions that it is "Clever" or "Intelligent" but when I ask how, what aspect or what bit - they never seem to be able to articulate what it that is actually so clever or inteliigent.
I found it fairly empty myself - lots of pretty pictures but thats about it.
In terms of pop culture, the movie does play with the what is reality theme. What you experience vs what is happening in "base" reality.
That you can't directly plant an idea in someone, as they can reject it as an "alien" thought. The conscious mind may reject an idea or concept that their subconscious mind would be receptive to.
How you can screw yourself playing with power you don't fully understand, like Leo's wife needing to get back to "base" reality.
How knowledge of something doesn't mean you can't potentially deceive yourself. Did the top fall over in the end?
If a person is involved with sci if, or fiction, or has a passing interest in philosophy or psychology, they've probably thought about that before. But if they haven't, they probably don't have the words to express the "smartness" of the movie that may have been thought provoking to them. Which sounds condescending, but is what it is.
Dreadwinter wrote: A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Disagree entirely.
1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.
2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.
3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.
1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.
Except again, we have clear examples of Batman being a detective on film. Gotham By Gaslight has no super computer. Animated series used the computer to get a chemical analysis but it didn't put the pieces together or tell him what it means. You can say it doesn't work but we have seen it work. By Bruce Wayne do you mean Batman without the mask on? Let me clarify what I mean. Bruce Wayne is the mask. That persons real personality is Batman. He pretends to be Bruce Wayne to hide the fact that hes Batman. You can have Batman in the cave without the Mask on and it would be fine. Thats not Bruce Wayne stuff. Bruce Wayne stuff he hanging out with ladies and pretending to be on a cruise while talking to the police on the phone or whatever.
2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.
NOW. But not at first. And not all of them. Again, I want to see a long holloween. Long holloween has a a great mystery with murders and detective work and action beats and a criminal that is in no way obsessed with batman.
3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.
Watch ANY movie where people don't die from blows that should have clearly killed them. It's most movies. Thats FINE. I don't need to know how a cloth suits protects batman from point blank gun shots or knifes. I can just accept that the batsuit is bullet proof. Trying to explain why batmans blows would kill is dumb. Whats worse is batman covering his stuff in guns and then actually shooting people. In spiderman 2 Spiderman punches doc oct in the head a LOT. and not soft little punches, he winds up and really nails him. He throws that giant sack of gold coins with a $ on it at him full speed. Doc Oct isn't a enhanced person like green goblin was. He's just a guy with prosthetic stuck to him because of a lab accident. He would be dead a dozen times over in that movie. But everyone lets it slide because it's a comic book and the action doesn't need to represent real world physics. People who die around you because of their actions are not your fault. Gwen got thrown off a bridge. Spiderman didn't throw her. Trying to save people and failing is not the same as you killing them.
Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.
Again, if one criminal shot another criminal, thats not on Batman.
But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.
Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.
As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?
I really don't know - when I ask people - they come up with vague assertions that it is "Clever" or "Intelligent" but when I ask how, what aspect or what bit - they never seem to be able to articulate what it that is actually so clever or inteliigent.
I found it fairly empty myself - lots of pretty pictures but thats about it.
greatbigtree wrote:Re: Inception
In terms of pop culture, the movie does play with the what is reality theme. What you experience vs what is happening in "base" reality.
That you can't directly plant an idea in someone, as they can reject it as an "alien" thought. The conscious mind may reject an idea or concept that their subconscious mind would be receptive to.
How you can screw yourself playing with power you don't fully understand, like Leo's wife needing to get back to "base" reality.
How knowledge of something doesn't mean you can't potentially deceive yourself. Did the top fall over in the end?
If a person is involved with sci if, or fiction, or has a passing interest in philosophy or psychology, they've probably thought about that before. But if they haven't, they probably don't have the words to express the "smartness" of the movie that may have been thought provoking to them. Which sounds condescending, but is what it is.
This condescending part of the post would be proper if everything else was true... but sadly it isn't. And if your passing interest were not into philosophy or psychology but neuroscience and psychiatry, then you would probably know, that Inception is very accurate depiction on how depressed mind dreams during anxiety episodes (including malicious "Mal" characters, chases and high rise kick scene (this was the first part of lucid dreaming I mastered years before Inception made it to theaters and were absolutely stunned that Nolan directed and edited this scene exactly how it worked for me)). Everything below this "fundamental reason" behind making Inception in the first place are tools to achieve the end goal.
And this neuroscience tropes behind Nolan original films is reccuring since Memento (I have already hinted about what Prestige is all about), while affective neuroscience is the part that Christopher added to "commissioned" work of his brother and Kip Thorne (but because this was "commissioned" and highly controlled by Thorne, it has the most questionable value. But whatever Nolan makes based on his inner need (so leaving Batman series out of this) is built like a clockwork around a core subject.
Fight Club
The Big Lebowski
Rogue One
Inception
The Watchmen Extended Version
Man on Fire
Birdman
Bladerunner 2049
Solaris (yes the George Clooney one)
LOTR - The Fellowship of the Ring
Kill Bill 1 and 2
As cheesy as it can be at times, the first Avengers is a solid classic. I am happy to see it every time I see its on TV. Just a straight up fun action film. Prob the best all around superhero movie.
Maybe Interstellar too. I hate the ending, but man... that movie went places many other Sci-fi films haven't. There have been a lot of Sci-fi films that I loved, but I can't think one another where I would put it anywhere near 2001.
I can watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean films a million times. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is amazing just for Davy Jones alone.
There's been a lot of great movies actually. The Big Short, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, Gangs of New York (for the attire and set pieces alone), Superbad, Tropic Thunder, Anchorman, Downfall, lots of good films.
I think Fight Club is already a classic. Everything else on that list is great but what is a classic really?
A classic is IMO is a perfect rendition of it's type that is at least a generation older than the present. So really every movie that is "really good" will eventually be a classic.
I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.
I agree on most of the choices here, and would have put them forward but I thought we were supposed to limit ourselves to the last 10 years?
@ Nou:
It kind of sounds like you're taking what I said as an attack. It wasn't. To be clear, I was trying to propose what "Normies" (non-perjorative, just lack of better term) might think was Smart or Intelligent about a movie that received uncommon financial success for popular entertainment that scratched more than just the surface of "big ideas".
I was concerned that my saying that "Normies" hadn't thought about "big ideas" before may have come across as condescending, by placing myself above them in some kind of intellectual hierarchy.
The philosophy part interested me, and I was using psychology loosely to catch-all for brain-sciences.
When you say, if everything else were true, but it isn't, I'm not sure what you're referring to. It looks like disagreement with the ideas I'd proposed, indicating those things did not exist within the movie, which I don't think was the intention but I'm unclear as to what's going on in that paragraph. Would it be possible to rephrase?
Mr Morden wrote: Keaton is far superior - he has the slightly broken fragile shell down to tee.
Bale is ok at best - same as his Batman, but it lacks the finesse and insight that Keaton brought.
Remember "Batman does not live in Bruce Wayne basement, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's Attic"
This is exactly right. Burton & Keaton *understood* Batman, but Bale *looks* like Batman. Batman actually belongs in Arkham, with the other crazies.
And yeah, "I'm Batman" - that's the core of who he is. Not who he pretends to be when he wants to blow off some steam or get some exercise. Like Superman pretending to be Clark, Batman dresses up as Bruce.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: I haven't seen the director's cut, curious about those extra 17 minutes, but throughout the film the women are repressed and abused by the men (and enabling women) around them, yet still find a way to maintain a part of themselves and resist. The protagonist lands in the situation she is in defending her younger sister from rape, and then proceeds to presumably get raped throughout her tenure at the hospital/brothel she is left in. I could see some feminist message tucked away in there
So the story has plenty of rape in it and that makes it feminist? Does that mean every other WIP film is feminist too?
Even Thriller - A cruel picture feels less exploitative than Sucker Punch, and Thriller (THE MOVIE THAT HAS NO LIMITS OF EVIL) has literal pornographic inserts. But at least when Thriller does fight scene, the heroine doesn't stick to sexy poses in a sexy costume so that we can all enjoy how sexy that rape victim is. Because sexy is somehow how Sucker Punch want to frame rape victims as…
Sucker Punch is basically bringing the worst aspect of exploitative female characters from comics and video games into a live movie.
And the best thing is that even if we completely overlook this, it's still pandering to geeks in a way that's incredibly demeaning imo. “Oh you nerds like dragons I'll put some dragons! You guys like mechas I'll put some mechas! You guys like zombie nazi and can't tell WW1 from WW2 I'll put some in there! You just like all those things for their most superficial aspect so I don't need to do anything deep with it just put them there and it's enough!” Thanks for calling me a shallow idiot Mr director, I guess…
I'll stick to more honest pandering movies like Mayhem that goes to simple, honest to god power fantasy .
Look, I am not arguing the merits of Sucker Punch's feminism. I was just giving you something to work with since you seemed so confused about what sort of feminist message might be present in that movie. Agree with it or not, I don't really care.
You have me curious, though. What is a deeper, non-superficial aspect of Mecha that needs to be examined on screen? Because knee jerk reaction? That line of yours was pretty funny.
I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.
I loved Hot Fuzz (although World's End is by far the best of the three) but it does rely on at least some familiarity with a) stupid 80's US cop based shoot 'em up's b) English murder-mystery detective shows c) the strangeness of rural English life, so its more in the cult niche than classic
Titan AE was passable and without it we may not have got Firefly
also Hot Fuzz having Welsh Bond in reminded me The Rocketeer, an MCU movie that arrived 20 years early
I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.
I loved Hot Fuzz (although World's End is by far the best of the three) but it does rely on at least some familiarity with a) stupid 80's US cop based shoot 'em up's b) English murder-mystery detective shows c) the strangeness of rural English life, so its more in the cult niche than classic
Titan AE was passable and without it we may not have got Firefly
also Hot Fuzz having Welsh Bond in reminded me The Rocketeer, an MCU movie that arrived 20 years early
greatbigtree wrote: I agree on most of the choices here, and would have put them forward but I thought we were supposed to limit ourselves to the last 10 years?
@ Nou:
It kind of sounds like you're taking what I said as an attack. It wasn't. To be clear, I was trying to propose what "Normies" (non-perjorative, just lack of better term) might think was Smart or Intelligent about a movie that received uncommon financial success for popular entertainment that scratched more than just the surface of "big ideas".
I was concerned that my saying that "Normies" hadn't thought about "big ideas" before may have come across as condescending, by placing myself above them in some kind of intellectual hierarchy.
The philosophy part interested me, and I was using psychology loosely to catch-all for brain-sciences.
When you say, if everything else were true, but it isn't, I'm not sure what you're referring to. It looks like disagreement with the ideas I'd proposed, indicating those things did not exist within the movie, which I don't think was the intention but I'm unclear as to what's going on in that paragraph. Would it be possible to rephrase?
I have read your post as "that is all there is in the film which received an undeserved label of 'deep' and there is nothing else to do except being condescending towards it's fans", hence my tone. If I misread and it wasn't your intention then I apologize for throwing this back at you in such form. As to list of points that were in your post - many are in fact a part of the film, but some of them in not exactly the way you listed them in, but again, my reply was based on misreading the tone of your post. I don't want to dwell into analysis of the story arc itself, as it is secondary to what I wrote as fundamental concept behind Inception and the "bottom layer of depth". I really cannot think of any other film that deals with the very ways of how human mind dreams (not to confuse with "dreamy" movies, which there are plenty). And the whole film reads very differently depending on whether you are treating "layer 0" as reality (suposedly Cobb version) or as "layer 1" (Mal version).
As to difference between psychology and neuroscience, this is my personal trigger, because those two fileds are vastly different in their explanatory power, with academic psychology being nowadays seriously outdated and chasing it's own tail... Hope this helps sorting out my outburst.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
One more thing: this difference between psychology and philosphy vs psychiatry and neuroscience is partially the reason why some of Nolan fans may struggle to adequately verbalise what caused their awe. While we all have brains and are at least subconsiously aware of some of mechanism that neurosciences describe, the only language most people know on those subjects is popular psychology, which not only struggles to express neuroscience adequately, but very often confuses and misleads.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
Then we are on the same page now. To my defence, english is not my primary language and while I'm quite fluent at it, the positive/negative tone can sometimes be very difficult to establish for me over text medium such as this forum.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.
Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.
Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.
That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.
So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.
Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.
Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.
That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.
So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.
What you write here is what I expected to read from you if you ever were to elaborate on your previous post. You are correct in feeling that Nolan characters are somewhat hollow and you cannot engage, because they are such by design. Especially in Inception, where by one interpretation everyone except Cobb and Mal are mere projections of Cobb mind's traits (Mal being a flawed model of real Mal). This is another post from you, by which I would describe you not as unable to understand Nolan's works, but simply hardwired in incompatible enough manner to care for them. Would you describe yourself rather as an empatic person than analytic?
@ Nou: I get it. Forums are tough to gauge emotional content. No harm, no foul.
@ Mr Borden: I get that point of view, though I don't share it. I'm only pointing out some of the intellectual aspects that make Inception appealing to some viewers. I can absolutely agree that the characters feel flat in their world. And I will further agree that I was more connected to the characters in Sucker Punch. To me, I think the movie suffers from the presentation, more than the content. By making it about abused the women in "sexy" outfits fighting geeky tropes it became pandering. I think if they had avoided the sexy dames doing their own thing cliche and had made it more ordinary, or kept it stylized in one way, it would have been better. As it is, it felt to me more like trying to present One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest as a Burlesque performance. The seriousness of the subject matter is undermined by the presentation.
Lance845 wrote: 3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
I disagree. Batman does not kill because he's every bit as insane as any member of his rogue's gallery. He was traumatized by his parent's death and cannot bring himself to kill. Not even to save a life.... or hundreds of lives, in the case of the Joker.
greatbigtree wrote: @ Nou: I get it. Forums are tough to gauge emotional content. No harm, no foul.
@ Mr Borden: I get that point of view, though I don't share it. I'm only pointing out some of the intellectual aspects that make Inception appealing to some viewers. I can absolutely agree that the characters feel flat in their world. And I will further agree that I was more connected to the characters in Sucker Punch. To me, I think the movie suffers from the presentation, more than the content. By making it about abused the women in "sexy" outfits fighting geeky tropes it became pandering. I think if they had avoided the sexy dames doing their own thing cliche and had made it more ordinary, or kept it stylized in one way, it would have been better. As it is, it felt to me more like trying to present One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest as a Burlesque performance. The seriousness of the subject matter is undermined by the presentation.
but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.
Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.
Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.
That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.
So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.
What you write here is what I expected to read from you if you ever were to elaborate on your previous post. You are correct in feeling that Nolan characters are somewhat hollow and you cannot engage, because they are such by design. Especially in Inception, where by one interpretation everyone except Cobb and Mal are mere projections of Cobb mind's traits (Mal being a flawed model of real Mal). This is another post from you, by which I would describe you not as unable to understand Nolan's works, but simply hardwired in incompatible enough manner to care for them. Would you describe yourself rather as an empatic person than analytic?
I don't consider myself especially empathic - in fact friends and colleagues would be likely amused by the idea I was.
I don't just find it in Inception but all Nolan films that I have watched and again I do find it interesting that he seems unable to create female characters. I donot agree that this is by design, I think its a flaw with the Director that he can't create them - I don't know him or his mental state but that may have some bearing on what he can and can't do and create.
I also still say there are huge narrative issues with the film in terms of internal rules. Now this often does not matter in a film, but when people tlak about it being so clever I just see fundemental flaws in its own structure and composition whilst at the same time being cold and unengaging.
.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.
Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.
Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.
That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.
So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.
What you write here is what I expected to read from you if you ever were to elaborate on your previous post. You are correct in feeling that Nolan characters are somewhat hollow and you cannot engage, because they are such by design. Especially in Inception, where by one interpretation everyone except Cobb and Mal are mere projections of Cobb mind's traits (Mal being a flawed model of real Mal). This is another post from you, by which I would describe you not as unable to understand Nolan's works, but simply hardwired in incompatible enough manner to care for them. Would you describe yourself rather as an empatic person than analytic?
I don't consider myself especially empathic - in fact friends and colleagues would be likely amused by the idea I was.
I don't just find it in Inception but all Nolan films that I have watched and again I do find it interesting that he seems unable to create female characters. I donot agree that this is by design, I think its a flaw with the Director that he can't create them - I don't know him or his mental state but that may have some bearing on what he can and can't do and create.
I also still say there are huge narrative issues with the film in terms of internal rules. Now this often does not matter in a film, but when people tlak about it being so clever I just see fundemental flaws in its own structure and composition whilst at the same time being cold and unengaging.
.
I saw that part of your previous post, but i don't really know which character and what ability you are referencing to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also completely don't get this "unable to create female characters" argument, as I know women exactly as those from Prestige. Especially Sarah is an ideal depiction of a type of woman that could fall to bipolar personality and then suffer mental breakdown from living with a bipolar husband. I literally witnessed such marriage, 1:1. Prestige is so psychiatrically accurate, that I know of only one better movie on such subject, and better only because it was made based on actual audiovisual diary - "Ostatnia rodzina" (Last Family) about Zdzisław Beksiński's (the painter) family. It is ailable on HBO GO and has english translation. I strongly recommend it.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Look, I am not arguing the merits of Sucker Punch's feminism. I was just giving you something to work with since you seemed so confused about what sort of feminist message might be present in that movie. Agree with it or not, I don't really care.
Ahah sorry it wasn't meant to be understood as me arguing against you it's just that this movie pushes my button so hard that I can't stop arguing why it's bad .
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty
It doesn't work for me. It doesn't seem like the movie is subverting the trope it's just playing it straight. It's not making you uncomfortable at the idea of you doing this. I felt incredibly uncomfortable on those scene in Thriller - A cruel picture, and apparently it wasn't even made on purpose. But in Sucker Punch, the fact that all the random non-sexual pandering (like all the anime fan bait) is there makes it hard to see it as trying to call us out on being voyeuristic or anything.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: You have me curious, though. What is a deeper, non-superficial aspect of Mecha that needs to be examined on screen? Because knee jerk reaction? That line of yours was pretty funny.
I'm not very knowledgeable about mecha, but I'm sure some anime managed to say interesting stuff about mecha pilots, about how using mecha changes the way battles are done, all that jazz.
Nolan is alright. For me he is very hit or miss. I only saw parts of Inception, but what I did see didnt interest me. I liked Interstellar for a cool sci fi film. Not very scientifically accurate, except for that Black Hole, but still a fun story and pretty good acting. His take on Batman was glorious, however. The only thing I hated about Bale was his Batman voice. But then I heard Batfleck and it was okay again. Keaton was good but I'll be honest, I havent seen him be bad in anything really. Just a solid actor. Every other one besides West and the animated Batman were awful. Burton amd Schumacher should be banned from superhero movies for what they put out.
Dreadwinter wrote: A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Disagree entirely.
1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.
2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.
3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.
1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.
Except again, we have clear examples of Batman being a detective on film. Gotham By Gaslight has no super computer. Animated series used the computer to get a chemical analysis but it didn't put the pieces together or tell him what it means. You can say it doesn't work but we have seen it work. By Bruce Wayne do you mean Batman without the mask on? Let me clarify what I mean. Bruce Wayne is the mask. That persons real personality is Batman. He pretends to be Bruce Wayne to hide the fact that hes Batman. You can have Batman in the cave without the Mask on and it would be fine. Thats not Bruce Wayne stuff. Bruce Wayne stuff he hanging out with ladies and pretending to be on a cruise while talking to the police on the phone or whatever.
2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.
NOW. But not at first. And not all of them. Again, I want to see a long holloween. Long holloween has a a great mystery with murders and detective work and action beats and a criminal that is in no way obsessed with batman.
3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.
Watch ANY movie where people don't die from blows that should have clearly killed them. It's most movies. Thats FINE. I don't need to know how a cloth suits protects batman from point blank gun shots or knifes. I can just accept that the batsuit is bullet proof. Trying to explain why batmans blows would kill is dumb. Whats worse is batman covering his stuff in guns and then actually shooting people. In spiderman 2 Spiderman punches doc oct in the head a LOT. and not soft little punches, he winds up and really nails him. He throws that giant sack of gold coins with a $ on it at him full speed. Doc Oct isn't a enhanced person like green goblin was. He's just a guy with prosthetic stuck to him because of a lab accident. He would be dead a dozen times over in that movie. But everyone lets it slide because it's a comic book and the action doesn't need to represent real world physics. People who die around you because of their actions are not your fault. Gwen got thrown off a bridge. Spiderman didn't throw her. Trying to save people and failing is not the same as you killing them.
Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.
Again, if one criminal shot another criminal, thats not on Batman.
1. Okay, he is a detective, I guess my issue is how they portray his detective skills. He doesnt do a lot of great detective work for the greatest detective to ever live. Gotham by Gaslight may be different but that is a wildly different setting than the modern day. Go to crime scene. Find substance. Batcomputer. Shake down thug rinse and repeat. I would argue his detective skills are put to way better use when he is Bruce Wayne. He may be a playboy, but he is a playboy involved in corporate and political intrigue and he rubs elbows with some of the wealthiest and most influential people in Gotham. Right under their noses he is gathering Intel on them amd their activities.
2. I mean, Batman has almost always been about his rogues gallery. Ask anybody and they can name at least 1. I would say the average person could name at least 3. Those are the popular ones too. He has a ridiculously large rogues gallery. They all have distinct tells and almost all of them are bad at what they do. The sad part is, only a handful have ever come close to beating him.
3. Alright, lets go at this a different way. How often do you see Batman actively saving a goons life from the beating he just gave him? It should happen. A lot. I mean hell, he probably has a full medkit on that belt. Never seen him use it on a baddie. He should be helping even if anither goon causes the injury. Because he doesn't believe in killing and murder is murder. That is why the Joker or Bane or Killer Croc are never executed. Bruce pulls strings to save them.
Lance, I'm gonna put these in spoilers so we dont disrupt the other discussions. Also I'm on my phone so my formatting might be awful.
Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.
I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.
I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.
Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.
Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.
I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.
Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.
Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.
That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.
So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.
What you write here is what I expected to read from you if you ever were to elaborate on your previous post. You are correct in feeling that Nolan characters are somewhat hollow and you cannot engage, because they are such by design. Especially in Inception, where by one interpretation everyone except Cobb and Mal are mere projections of Cobb mind's traits (Mal being a flawed model of real Mal). This is another post from you, by which I would describe you not as unable to understand Nolan's works, but simply hardwired in incompatible enough manner to care for them. Would you describe yourself rather as an empatic person than analytic?
I don't consider myself especially empathic - in fact friends and colleagues would be likely amused by the idea I was.
I don't just find it in Inception but all Nolan films that I have watched and again I do find it interesting that he seems unable to create female characters. I donot agree that this is by design, I think its a flaw with the Director that he can't create them - I don't know him or his mental state but that may have some bearing on what he can and can't do and create.
I also still say there are huge narrative issues with the film in terms of internal rules. Now this often does not matter in a film, but when people tlak about it being so clever I just see fundemental flaws in its own structure and composition whilst at the same time being cold and unengaging.
.
I saw that part of your previous post, but i don't really know which character and what ability you are referencing to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also completely don't get this "unable to create female characters" argument, as I know women exactly as those from Prestige. Especially Sarah is an ideal depiction of a type of woman that could fall to bipolar personality and then suffer mental breakdown from living with a bipolar husband. I literally witnessed such marriage, 1:1. Prestige is so psychiatrically accurate, that I know of only one better movie on such subject, and better only because it was made based on actual audiovisual diary - "Ostatnia rodzina" (Last Family) about Zdzisław Beksiński's (the painter) family. It is ailable on HBO GO and has english translation. I strongly recommend it.
Looking at Wiki for names: Ariadne is the one I am referring to - When the person reacts to the presence of others in a dream she is able to reset the dream - something that she is unable to do later - because, like a number of elements - the "rules have been changed" in a narrative conceit. She is also another shell of a character - which I get that you say is intentional.
I can't recall Prestige that well - I have never felt the need to see one of his films more than once - but I don't recall anyone in them in it making any impact on me.
Dreadwinter wrote: A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.
Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.
The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.
Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.
Disagree entirely.
1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.
2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.
3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.
Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.
1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.
Except again, we have clear examples of Batman being a detective on film. Gotham By Gaslight has no super computer. Animated series used the computer to get a chemical analysis but it didn't put the pieces together or tell him what it means. You can say it doesn't work but we have seen it work. By Bruce Wayne do you mean Batman without the mask on? Let me clarify what I mean. Bruce Wayne is the mask. That persons real personality is Batman. He pretends to be Bruce Wayne to hide the fact that hes Batman. You can have Batman in the cave without the Mask on and it would be fine. Thats not Bruce Wayne stuff. Bruce Wayne stuff he hanging out with ladies and pretending to be on a cruise while talking to the police on the phone or whatever.
2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.
NOW. But not at first. And not all of them. Again, I want to see a long holloween. Long holloween has a a great mystery with murders and detective work and action beats and a criminal that is in no way obsessed with batman.
3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.
Watch ANY movie where people don't die from blows that should have clearly killed them. It's most movies. Thats FINE. I don't need to know how a cloth suits protects batman from point blank gun shots or knifes. I can just accept that the batsuit is bullet proof. Trying to explain why batmans blows would kill is dumb. Whats worse is batman covering his stuff in guns and then actually shooting people. In spiderman 2 Spiderman punches doc oct in the head a LOT. and not soft little punches, he winds up and really nails him. He throws that giant sack of gold coins with a $ on it at him full speed. Doc Oct isn't a enhanced person like green goblin was. He's just a guy with prosthetic stuck to him because of a lab accident. He would be dead a dozen times over in that movie. But everyone lets it slide because it's a comic book and the action doesn't need to represent real world physics. People who die around you because of their actions are not your fault. Gwen got thrown off a bridge. Spiderman didn't throw her. Trying to save people and failing is not the same as you killing them.
Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.
Again, if one criminal shot another criminal, thats not on Batman.
1. Okay, he is a detective, I guess my issue is how they portray his detective skills. He doesnt do a lot of great detective work for the greatest detective to ever live. Gotham by Gaslight may be different but that is a wildly different setting than the modern day. Go to crime scene. Find substance. Batcomputer. Shake down thug rinse and repeat. I would argue his detective skills are put to way better use when he is Bruce Wayne. He may be a playboy, but he is a playboy involved in corporate and political intrigue and he rubs elbows with some of the wealthiest and most influential people in Gotham. Right under their noses he is gathering Intel on them amd their activities.
2. I mean, Batman has almost always been about his rogues gallery. Ask anybody and they can name at least 1. I would say the average person could name at least 3. Those are the popular ones too. He has a ridiculously large rogues gallery. They all have distinct tells and almost all of them are bad at what they do. The sad part is, only a handful have ever come close to beating him.
3. Alright, lets go at this a different way. How often do you see Batman actively saving a goons life from the beating he just gave him? It should happen. A lot. I mean hell, he probably has a full medkit on that belt. Never seen him use it on a baddie. He should be helping even if anither goon causes the injury. Because he doesn't believe in killing and murder is murder. That is why the Joker or Bane or Killer Croc are never executed. Bruce pulls strings to save them.
Lance, I'm gonna put these in spoilers so we dont disrupt the other discussions. Also I'm on my phone so my formatting might be awful.
Whew! Fixed it!
Agreed! I was getting a little worried about disrupting it myself.
1) The BEST Batman stories do a good job with the detective work. A lot of the time hes just used as a guy who beats people up but it's not what it should be. If you haven't read The Long Halloween I highly suggest it. And if you haven't watch Gotham By Gaslight your doing yourself a disservice. Its the best Batman on screen. Bruce can have his place. In a story like Court of Owls it can go a long way. But then there are also good stories like Bruce Wayne Fugitive where Bruce is "convicted of murder" so Batman gives up on the Bruce Wayne persona all together and goes Batman 24/7. If we could get get a couple of good, ACTUALLY GOOD, batman movies I would love to see a Bruce Wayne Fugitive movie.
2) There are only 2 comic book characters with actual good rogues galleries. And thats Batman and Spiderman. Every other hero might have 1 or 2 good villains but for the most part it's REAL bad. That being said beating Batman mostly isn't their goal. Mr Freeze doesn't have any particular interest in Batman. Scarecrow has become obsessed with feeling fear and only Batman scares him. Prof/ Pyg and the Doll Maker would prefer to be left to their own devices. Poison Ivy is an eco terrorist. These are not villians like the Green Goblin who are actually out to get their hero as their primary goal. It's an important distinction and it can make for compelling TV/movies. It's not about the villain trying to get batman and blow up the city. It's about a serial killer who is killing his way through the city not even knowing batman is on his trail.
3) Bruce pulls strings to save is villains because he 100% believes in rehabilitation. He has to. In the killing joke there is a really good scene of Batman in Arkham talking to who he thinks is the joker. saying there has to be a chance for this to end correctly. He needs to know he did everything he could before it comes to a head and one of them ends up killing the other. That being said, I don't need to see batman stitch a cut from a batarang. I can accept that unless Batman is going to crazy extremes hes not killing. Part of his schtik is that hes good enough and disciplined enough that he knows when hes going too far. Again, Spiderman should have murdered doc otc over and over but I can suspend my disbelief and just let it ride. Its when he gets out a gun, or uses a car as a wrecking ball, or locks 2 dudes in a room with a live grenade, or sets a person on fire, or sticks a bundle of dynamite down their pants and then kicks them into a sewer, or blows up the entire building full of ninjas, when I can no longer accept that he's not a killer. What reason does that batman have to not just kill the joker first chance he gets? He's killing regular people. Why are ANY of his enemies alive?
I think Nolan is a better Whedon in that hes over rated. Nolan's movies are generally actually better then Whedon's but they are not the cinematic deep masterpieces people tend to make them out to be. I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
Looking at Wiki for names: Ariadne is the one I am referring to - When the person reacts to the presence of others in a dream she is able to reset the dream - something that she is unable to do later - because, like a number of elements - the "rules have been changed" in a narrative conceit. She is also another shell of a character - which I get that you say is intentional.
I can't recall Prestige that well - I have never felt the need to see one of his films more than once - but I don't recall anyone in them in it making any impact on me.
But how exactly is Ariadne able to reset the dream? It seems like a sloppy watching on your part or I still don't know which scene exactly you are referring to - the first time Ariadne is in a dream she wakes up right after realizing she's in a dream (her dream collapses spontaneously), exactly how untrained human mind reacts to lucid dreaming - it is not an ability, it's inability to dream consciously. Then there is a brief explanatory scene in the training workshop and they go down under again. This time Ariadne is able to stay in the dream consciously, but messes up with realism so Cobb's projections become aware of the dreamer, Mal shows up and stabs her, Ariadne dies, dream ends. The only time the rules change is introducing sedative, which makes waking up without a kick impossible without falling into limbo, but it is nearly the whole rest of the movie. Conscious self-waking without a kick or shared dreaming machine time out is never introduced in the film.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
The two people thing is kind of the whole point behind the bi polar thing. Bales character cannot keep a relationship because he is always swapping. One loves his wife, the other cant even pretend to. It shows what having huge mood swings can do to a relationship in a clever way
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
The two people thing is kind of the whole point behind the bi polar thing. Bales character cannot keep a relationship because he is always swapping. One loves his wife, the other cant even pretend to. It shows what having huge mood swings can do to a relationship in a clever way
But it's just YOU attributing that meaning to it. The character/s are not meant to be an analog to a mental disorder. It's also a complete mischaracterization of bi polar disorder. Bipolars are not 2 people inhabiting a single life. They are 1 person who live with emotional extremes that can be triggered easily and often. The only reason they exist as twins is to do their magic trick and confound Jackman driving him to further extremes until he is killing himself over and over in an attempt to repeat/one up his competition. And again, it's not anything Nolan came up with. The book existed 11 years before Nolan made his film.
Looking at Wiki for names: Ariadne is the one I am referring to - When the person reacts to the presence of others in a dream she is able to reset the dream - something that she is unable to do later - because, like a number of elements - the "rules have been changed" in a narrative conceit. She is also another shell of a character - which I get that you say is intentional.
I can't recall Prestige that well - I have never felt the need to see one of his films more than once - but I don't recall anyone in them in it making any impact on me.
But how exactly is Ariadne able to reset the dream? It seems like a sloppy watching on your part or I still don't know which scene exactly you are referring to - the first time Ariadne is in a dream she wakes up right after realizing she's in a dream (her dream collapses spontaneously), exactly how untrained human mind reacts to lucid dreaming - it is not an ability, it's inability to dream consciously. Then there is a brief explanatory scene in the training workshop and they go down under again. This time Ariadne is able to stay in the dream consciously, but messes up with realism so Cobb's projections become aware of the dreamer, Mal shows up and stabs her, Ariadne dies, dream ends. The only time the rules change is introducing sedative, which makes waking up without a kick impossible without falling into limbo, but it is nearly the whole rest of the movie. Conscious self-waking without a kick or shared dreaming machine time out is never introduced in the film.
Maybe I have the name wrong - she is a dream arcitecht or somenthing similar - they are wondering about and the persosn subconscious notices them and the mobs of people come after them - she lets this happen for a bit and then resets the dream so everyhting is calm again. If she can do this then why not later - except of course there would not be the need for the fanservice matrix style gunplay etc.
They also change that being killed in dream becomes suddenly lethal so all the gun play can be "cooler".
I get that you really like this director but step back a bit - and as others have said re the Prestige, its not all his vision - its like giving the director of Vamilla Sky (which is much better film than Inception for me) the credit and not acknowledging the film from which it is derived.
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Oh, I have missed the book part, thank you. 2006 is way before internet became what it is today and I never looked past this great movie for explanations because it is so self-contained. So it is Priest who caught the nature of bipolarity in such a great way and Nolan "just" translated this into film language perfectly. What Dreadwinter says is very true - to the outside world bipolarity looks exactly like Professor persona and Jackman has the whole package of OCPD. Now you are basicaly arguing that works of art cannot reshape reality into catching stories without losing the true meaning of things...
I get it, that you wish to dismiss anything impressive about Nolan's works, but I don't really know why anymore. Can you please tell me about any other movie about the phenomenon of human dream state?
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
The two people thing is kind of the whole point behind the bi polar thing. Bales character cannot keep a relationship because he is always swapping. One loves his wife, the other cant even pretend to. It shows what having huge mood swings can do to a relationship in a clever way
But it's just YOU attributing that meaning to it. The character/s are not meant to be an analog to a mental disorder. It's also a complete mischaracterization of bi polar disorder. Bipolars are not 2 people inhabiting a single life. They are 1 person who live with emotional extremes that can be triggered easily and often. The only reason they exist as twins is to do their magic trick and confound Jackman driving him to further extremes until he is killing himself over and over in an attempt to repeat/one up his competition. And again, it's not anything Nolan came up with. The book existed 11 years before Nolan made his film.
Symbolism is a lost art. Your argument falls short when its not just Jackman they are hiding the secret from. They also hide it from the people they are in relationships with. The people in the relationship changing from day to day, hour to hour depending on who is in charge. From the wifes view, it is one person with wild mood swings. That is not me projecting things on the character, it is a staple to the story as you can see his relationships deteriorating over time. As far as it being a book first, kind of irrelevant. Directors are able to add new things to the source material they are adapting.
Looking at Wiki for names: Ariadne is the one I am referring to - When the person reacts to the presence of others in a dream she is able to reset the dream - something that she is unable to do later - because, like a number of elements - the "rules have been changed" in a narrative conceit. She is also another shell of a character - which I get that you say is intentional.
I can't recall Prestige that well - I have never felt the need to see one of his films more than once - but I don't recall anyone in them in it making any impact on me.
But how exactly is Ariadne able to reset the dream? It seems like a sloppy watching on your part or I still don't know which scene exactly you are referring to - the first time Ariadne is in a dream she wakes up right after realizing she's in a dream (her dream collapses spontaneously), exactly how untrained human mind reacts to lucid dreaming - it is not an ability, it's inability to dream consciously. Then there is a brief explanatory scene in the training workshop and they go down under again. This time Ariadne is able to stay in the dream consciously, but messes up with realism so Cobb's projections become aware of the dreamer, Mal shows up and stabs her, Ariadne dies, dream ends. The only time the rules change is introducing sedative, which makes waking up without a kick impossible without falling into limbo, but it is nearly the whole rest of the movie. Conscious self-waking without a kick or shared dreaming machine time out is never introduced in the film.
Maybe I have the name wrong - she is a dream arcitecht or somenthing similar - they are wondering about and the persosn subconscious notices them and the mobs of people come after them - she lets this happen for a bit and then resets the dream so everyhting is calm again. If she can do this then why not later - except of course there would not be the need for the fanservice matrix style gunplay etc.
They also change that being killed in dream becomes suddenly lethal so all the gun play can be "cooler".
I get that you really like this director but step back a bit - and as others have said re the Prestige, its not all his vision - its like giving the director of Vamilla Sky (which is much better film than Inception for me) the credit and not acknowledging the film from which it is derived.
[/quote
She is not cooling down those reactions by herself - those are Cobb's reactions and his mind is very well trained and not directly hostile, while in the main part of the movie those are reactions of a mind trained in self defence. This is all explained in the movie, but as I repeatedly stated already, the greatness of this movie lies not in the story but in catching the nature of human dream state.
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Oh, I have missed the book part, thank you. 2006 is way before internet became what it is today and I never looked past this great movie for explanations because it is so self-contained. So it is Priest who caught the nature of bipolarity in such a great way and Nolan "just" translated this into film language perfectly. What Dreadwinter says is very true - to the outside world bipolarity looks exactly like Professor persona and Jackman has the whole package of OCPD. Now you are basicaly arguing that works of art cannot reshape reality into catching stories without losing the true meaning of things...
I get it, that you wish to dismiss anything impressive about Nolan's works, but I don't really know why anymore. Can you please tell me about any other movie about the phenomenon of human dream state?
I think you said that English is not your fuirst lanaguage but your defence of Nolan is vering towards passive agressive - especially with that last line. Any of this stuff is highly subjective - we are all different and like different stuff
I assume you have seen Vanilla Sky and Open your Eyes?
Some more dream exploration films / altered mind state here:
She is not cooling down those reactions by herself - those are Cobb's reactions and his mind is very well trained and not directly hostile, while in the main part of the movie those are reactions of a mind trained in self defence.
Sorry thats not at all what I got from it - she reset it.
This is all explained in the movie, but as I repeatedly stated already, the greatness of this movie lies not in the story but in catching the nature of human dream state.
Ah I see - that works for you which is cool and important , the inconsistant plot, story and non existant characters kill it for me
I have read plenty of books and watched plenty of films about altered mind state and I still find this one is much more about flashy imagery and Matrix style gun play/action than anything else.
Hell watch Westworld, Altered Carbon and other mainstream shows about the nature of reality and preception of the same.
Lance845 wrote: I really enjoy the prestige but it's JUST a movie about magicians with a cloning machine in it. And inception is fun but it;s not deep and the ending isn't some super introspective nonsense.
It's a movie about how bipolar disorder (Bale) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (Jackman) destroy the lives of people suffering from those and people around them, told via the story of rivaling magicians with a cloning machine in it. But of course you can miss the whole perfect depiction of psychiatric disorders if you don't know anything about those... And I can very much imagine, that the original script started with Nolan's idea on how to show bipolar disorder on the big screen via the Professor persona and the rest of the story was built around that core.
While characters in Nolan's original films may be one dimensional and built only for single purpose, entire films never are.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Oh, I have missed the book part, thank you. 2006 is way before internet became what it is today and I never looked past this great movie for explanations because it is so self-contained. So it is Priest who caught the nature of bipolarity in such a great way and Nolan "just" translated this into film language perfectly. What Dreadwinter says is very true - to the outside world bipolarity looks exactly like Professor persona and Jackman has the whole package of OCPD. Now you are basicaly arguing that works of art cannot reshape reality into catching stories without losing the true meaning of things...
I get it, that you wish to dismiss anything impressive about Nolan's works, but I don't really know why anymore. Can you please tell me about any other movie about the phenomenon of human dream state?
I think you said that English is not your fuirst lanaguage but your defence of Nolan is vering towards passive agressive - especially with that last line. Any of this stuff is highly subjective - we are all different and like different stuff
I assume you have seen Vanilla Sky and Open your Eyes?
Some more dream exploration films / altered mind state here:
She is not cooling down those reactions by herself - those are Cobb's reactions and his mind is very well trained and not directly hostile, while in the main part of the movie those are reactions of a mind trained in self defence.
Sorry thats not at all what I got from it - she reset it.
This is all explained in the movie, but as I repeatedly stated already, the greatness of this movie lies not in the story but in catching the nature of human dream state.
Ah I see - that works for you which is cool and important , the inconsistant plot, story and non existant characters kill it for me
I have read plenty of books and watched plenty of films about altered mind state and I still find this one is much more about flashy imagery and Matrix style gun play/action than anything else.
I saw at least half of the movies on both lists and most of them are not about the nature of the human dream state, but are either about illusions of reality or show dreams, this is different than trying to incorporate mechanisms of lucid dreaming into the story itself. It is no accident, that the top place on both lists goes to Inception.
But you are right, that I'm becoming passive agressive in reaction to straight up hostility. So I should indeed back up from this thread.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Oh, I have missed the book part, thank you. 2006 is way before internet became what it is today and I never looked past this great movie for explanations because it is so self-contained. So it is Priest who caught the nature of bipolarity in such a great way and Nolan "just" translated this into film language perfectly. What Dreadwinter says is very true - to the outside world bipolarity looks exactly like Professor persona and Jackman has the whole package of OCPD. Now you are basicaly arguing that works of art cannot reshape reality into catching stories without losing the true meaning of things...
I get it, that you wish to dismiss anything impressive about Nolan's works, but I don't really know why anymore. Can you please tell me about any other movie about the phenomenon of human dream state?
Showing how the outside world wrongly views the disorder is not a praise worthy representation of the disorder on film. Which is why it is not a representation of that disorder. It's just a facet of those characters. They are 100% dedicated to the magic trick that is the fake person they collectively play. They stick to it no matter how badly it hurts the people around them. They have dedicated their lives to the lie. Jackman has NONE of the package of OCPD. OCPD people are compelled to do mundane actions because their minds attribute meaning to them and the repetition creates a sense of control and comfort. Did you EVER get the impression that Jackman felt like he had control or comfort in that film? Did you see him dodging cracks in the sidewalk or taking a specific number of steps in ritual fashion?
Nolans work is making some good movies and some ok movies and 3 bad batman movies that have 1 really great actor in one of them doing a great portrayal of an iconic character. I don't see why this elevates him above so many other great directors out there who have better track records or have made better movies. I think the recent Upgrade is a much more impressive movie with some really interesting twists in the plot and neat things to say on a much smaller budget (3-5 mil) then Inception (160 mil). When you place the 2 movies side by side I just don't see any reason to stroke Nolan's.... ego.
Dreadwinter wrote:
Lance845 wrote: But it's just YOU attributing that meaning to it. The character/s are not meant to be an analog to a mental disorder. It's also a complete mischaracterization of bi polar disorder. Bipolars are not 2 people inhabiting a single life. They are 1 person who live with emotional extremes that can be triggered easily and often. The only reason they exist as twins is to do their magic trick and confound Jackman driving him to further extremes until he is killing himself over and over in an attempt to repeat/one up his competition. And again, it's not anything Nolan came up with. The book existed 11 years before Nolan made his film.
Symbolism is a lost art. Your argument falls short when its not just Jackman they are hiding the secret from. They also hide it from the people they are in relationships with. The people in the relationship changing from day to day, hour to hour depending on who is in charge. From the wifes view, it is one person with wild mood swings. That is not me projecting things on the character, it is a staple to the story as you can see his relationships deteriorating over time. As far as it being a book first, kind of irrelevant. Directors are able to add new things to the source material they are adapting.
Symbolism is fine when it's actually there. But if the "symbols" are complete mischaractarizations of the things they are trying to represent then it's 1) bad all together 2) crappy symbolism 3) Not praise worthy.
If anything the movie is about how singular drives and a laser focus ruins lives by not allowing you to actually live them. The Bales collectively admit to only having half a life each. And for them... it's enough. But it also kills one of their wives and puts one in jail and killed. And Jackman is so narrowly focused on his rivalry that his life becomes an empty shell. His eventual victory hollow. There is depth there. But it's not the oceans depth you guys are making it out to be. Nolans a good director. He's not THAT good of a director.
Except Bale isn't bi polar, hes 2 people. They are twins. And Jackman isn't obsessive compulsive. He's angry, vindictive, and vengeful against the man he thinks killed his wife. Also, the prestige was a book before Nolan made the movie. It's an adaptation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige
Don't attribute anything to Nolan about those characters or that plot. He just directed a movie (well). He didn't write it.
Oh, I have missed the book part, thank you. 2006 is way before internet became what it is today and I never looked past this great movie for explanations because it is so self-contained. So it is Priest who caught the nature of bipolarity in such a great way and Nolan "just" translated this into film language perfectly. What Dreadwinter says is very true - to the outside world bipolarity looks exactly like Professor persona and Jackman has the whole package of OCPD. Now you are basicaly arguing that works of art cannot reshape reality into catching stories without losing the true meaning of things...
I get it, that you wish to dismiss anything impressive about Nolan's works, but I don't really know why anymore. Can you please tell me about any other movie about the phenomenon of human dream state?
Showing how the outside world wrongly views the disorder is not a praise worthy representation of the disorder on film. Which is why it is not a representation of that disorder. It's just a facet of those characters. They are 100% dedicated to the magic trick that is the fake person they collectively play. They stick to it no matter how badly it hurts the people around them. They have dedicated their lives to the lie. Jackman has NONE of the package of OCPD. OCPD people are compelled to do mundane actions because their minds attribute meaning to them and the repetition creates a sense of control and comfort. Did you EVER get the impression that Jackman felt like he had control or comfort in that film? Did you see him dodging cracks in the sidewalk or taking a specific number of steps in ritual fashion?
Nolans work is making some good movies and some ok movies and 3 bad batman movies that have 1 really great actor in one of them doing a great portrayal of an iconic character. I don't see why this elevates him above so many other great directors out there who have better track records or have made better movies. I think the recent Upgrade is a much more impressive movie with some really interesting twists in the plot and neat things to say on a much smaller budget (3-5 mil) then Inception (160 mil). When you place the 2 movies side by side I just don't see any reason to stroke Nolan's.... ego.
Dreadwinter wrote:
Lance845 wrote: But it's just YOU attributing that meaning to it. The character/s are not meant to be an analog to a mental disorder. It's also a complete mischaracterization of bi polar disorder. Bipolars are not 2 people inhabiting a single life. They are 1 person who live with emotional extremes that can be triggered easily and often. The only reason they exist as twins is to do their magic trick and confound Jackman driving him to further extremes until he is killing himself over and over in an attempt to repeat/one up his competition. And again, it's not anything Nolan came up with. The book existed 11 years before Nolan made his film.
Symbolism is a lost art. Your argument falls short when its not just Jackman they are hiding the secret from. They also hide it from the people they are in relationships with. The people in the relationship changing from day to day, hour to hour depending on who is in charge. From the wifes view, it is one person with wild mood swings. That is not me projecting things on the character, it is a staple to the story as you can see his relationships deteriorating over time. As far as it being a book first, kind of irrelevant. Directors are able to add new things to the source material they are adapting.
Symbolism is fine when it's actually there. But if the "symbols" are complete mischaractarizations of the things they are trying to represent then it's 1) bad all together 2) crappy symbolism 3) Not praise worthy.
If anything the movie is about how singular drives and a laser focus ruins lives by not allowing you to actually live them. The Bales collectively admit to only having half a life each. And for them... it's enough. But it also kills one of their wives and puts one in jail and killed. And Jackman is so narrowly focused on his rivalry that his life becomes an empty shell. His eventual victory hollow. There is depth there. But it's not the oceans depth you guys are making it out to be. Nolans a good director. He's not THAT good of a director.
You are mistaking OPCD with OCD and that is sufficient enough comment on your ability to read psychiatric disorders.
Thank you all for (at least partially) educative discussion, I won't be posting here anymore. Cheers!
Eh, it's kind of on topic. If Nolan's library of work is to be considered classics it would need to be worthy of it. Discussing the merits of his work is on topic in that sense.
Xenomancers wrote: I think Fight Club is already a classic. Everything else on that list is great but what is a classic really?
A classic is IMO is a perfect rendition of it's type that is at least a generation older than the present. So really every movie that is "really good" will eventually be a classic.
I am going to go with, if I am excited seeing it for the 100th time, its a classic to me. If I get everything I need out of it watching it once or twice, it isn't.
Remember Blair Witch Project? I saw that while in college in a packed theater and we were all on our edge. The ending freaked everyone out and I am not even bothered with horror movies. But that same movie is terrible on a TV. The movie experience was one I will never forget, but I wouldn't consider it a classic.
Amazingly enough, Planet Terror is one of my favorite movies. Its a classic to me as I can watch that a hundred times, but I know most wouldn't consider it one.
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Dreadwinter wrote: Nolan is alright. For me he is very hit or miss. I only saw parts of Inception, but what I did see didnt interest me. I liked Interstellar for a cool sci fi film. Not very scientifically accurate, except for that Black Hole, but still a fun story and pretty good acting. His take on Batman was glorious, however.
Wow we couldn't be more opposite. Inception is amazingly layered and just about every line in the movie has a detail that is important to the story. Every time I watch it I find something new, and I've seen it some 50 times now. Nevermind that it is visually stunning. Its a near perfect movie.
Interstellar is probably the most scientifically accurate sci-fi film to date. Sure it takes some liberties with technology, but for a movie in space... its unparalleled. The ending though, communicating with his daughter after being sucked into the black hole is terrible though. That's the only point of the movie that loses me. I would have preferred we follow him down into the Black Hole as he dreams of his daughter before his death, and Dr Brand finds a way to save the day.
As far as the Nolan's Batman Trilogy, you take out Ledger's Joker, and what do you have? I loved Bane, but even he isn't enough. And to be honest, while Ledger's Joker was a legendary performance, I think Leto's is far more accurate of what the Joker should be. What is worse is that Nolan's Batman movies should really be called Bruce Wayne, because Batman is barely in it. And I agree Batman should be in Arkham with the others too, and looks ridiculous hanging out on top of buildings or flying around the city. To me he belongs in the alleys and sewers. Places the cops and FBI aren't crazy about going to.
As far as him not killing people... I am ok with it. Affleck played a perfect mature Batman to me, and if he wants to kill some people here and there, go for it. Part of the problem is that Batman has moved from fighting simple criminals with revolvers to terrorists with assault weapons. Is he really not going to be lethal with guys like that? Its one thing to track down a serial killer and take him in, but a dozen guys with assault rifles? That's where I think it goes a little too far.
I will give props to The Dark Knight. Not crazy about Two Face, nor the ending, but the first half of Ledger is worth watching every time its on TV.
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
Third Nolan-Batman was okay, the first two were great. First really focused on Bruce becoming Batman; it was an origins story (which hadn’t happened on the big screen). The second was where he met his polar opposite, and didn’t know how to handle someone like that. Third tested his ability to trust and taught him his limitations physically. I did find it a weak end, but the first two were great.
Inception was interesting, and maybe I’ll go back and rewatch (seems a movie best watched every few years so you forget 99% of it). From what was described, I’m interested in the Prestige. I’ll be ignoring Lance’s input, as I’ve found I don’t agree with his taste in movies, and given the depths of mental illness (especially including bi polar disorder) I can solidly say his description is severely lacking.
Eh, it's kind of on topic. If Nolan's library of work is to be considered classics it would need to be worthy of it. Discussing the merits of his work is on topic in that sense.
Half the thread seems like two people arguing if Inception is a good film.
It should be taken to a separate thread or even to PM.
Eh, it's kind of on topic. If Nolan's library of work is to be considered classics it would need to be worthy of it. Discussing the merits of his work is on topic in that sense.
Half the thread seems like two people arguing if Inception is a good film.
It should be taken to a separate thread or even to PM.
So are we making this thread a place to come in and dump a list? No giving opinions on the lists or lively discussions about why they think that movie should be considered a classic?
timetowaste85 wrote: Third Nolan-Batman was okay, the first two were great. First really focused on Bruce becoming Batman; it was an origins story (which hadn’t happened on the big screen). The second was where he met his polar opposite, and didn’t know how to handle someone like that. Third tested his ability to trust and taught him his limitations physically. I did find it a weak end, but the first two were great.
Inception was interesting, and maybe I’ll go back and rewatch (seems a movie best watched every few years so you forget 99% of it). From what was described, I’m interested in the Prestige. I’ll be ignoring Lance’s input, as I’ve found I don’t agree with his taste in movies, and given the depths of mental illness (especially including bi polar disorder) I can solidly say his description is severely lacking.
Batman origin is always on the bog screen!
Now granted they don't usually show much of his training but having a hackneyed "Western guy goes to Asia and in a montage becomes the bestest Super Ninja that ever was - hey bet them Asian dudes are jealous" story was not a good thing.
I thought the best thing in that first film was the Scarecrow - he was good,
Ledger was Ok as a bad guy with super precog abilities but IMO both Nicoolson and more recently Leto were much more dangerous, unpredictable and insane.
Il take ANY Joker over Leto any day. Joker has a purpose. Leto just growls at people and drives shiny cars. Granted we haven't seen him really get a chance to do anything yet. But what we have seen is nothing to be excited for.
I thought the best thing in that first film was the Scarecrow - he was good,
Ledger was Ok as a bad guy with super precog abilities but IMO both Nicoolson and more recently Leto were much more dangerous, unpredictable and insane.
Yes to Scarecrow, have always been a fan of that guy. But didn't spend enough time in custom for me either.
Also agree on Leto. It's not Ledger's fault, he had to play him how he was written, but Nolan just didn't make him crazy enough. Psycho yes, but Joker is insane. He def had purpose in Suicide Squad, and I also do love Harley Quinn in any form. The pair are perfect together.
I would say that the scene where Joker comes into the club is one of my favorite Joker scenes. Everyone looks like a rational badass, but then he walks in and everyone gives him his space. His attire, crew, etc, was how I see Joker. Leto's Joker is capable of moving on to bigger and more insane things while I feel Ledger's is kind of limited. May be more realistic but thats not what I really want from that character. He should be over the top.
For the record, I really like Suicide Squad even tho I hate Will Smith as Deadshot. Everything else was fine. Tom Hardy as Flagg would have put it over the top tho.
I thought the best thing in that first film was the Scarecrow - he was good,
Ledger was Ok as a bad guy with super precog abilities but IMO both Nicoolson and more recently Leto were much more dangerous, unpredictable and insane.
Yes to Scarecrow, have always been a fan of that guy. But didn't spend enough time in custom for me either.
Also agree on Leto. It's not Ledger's fault, he had to play him how he was written, but Nolan just didn't make him crazy enough. Psycho yes, but Joker is insane. He def had purpose in Suicide Squad, and I also do love Harley Quinn in any form. The pair are perfect together.
I would say that the scene where Joker comes into the club is one of my favorite Joker scenes. Everyone looks like a rational badass, but then he walks in and everyone gives him his space. His attire, crew, etc, was how I see Joker. Leto's Joker is capable of moving on to bigger and more insane things while I feel Ledger's is kind of limited. May be more realistic but thats not what I really want from that character. He should be over the top.
For the record, I really like Suicide Squad even tho I hate Will Smith as Deadshot. Everything else was fine. Tom Hardy as Flagg would have put it over the top tho.
I think Harley was good. Enchantress was good. El Diablo was good. Croc was a lot of nothing. Katana never stole a soul with her soul stealing sword. Captain Boomerang threw like... 3 boomerangs. Will Smith just Will Smithed his way through the film. Who else was even in it? I honestly can't remember.
I think Harley was good. Enchantress was good. El Diablo was good. Croc was a lot of nothing. Katana never stole a soul with her soul stealing sword. Captain Boomerang threw like... 3 boomerangs. Will Smith just Will Smithed his way through the film. Who else was even in it? I honestly can't remember.
Well, there certainly were a lot of characters and its hard to give everyone their time. How many boomerangs did Captain Boomerang have to throw? Katana was useless but I thought she was the worst character anyway. Croc could have been better. But for all its faults its still by far one of the top 3 modern DC movies. Some of the visuals were just awesome.
Honestly - another factor I feel is necessary to be considered a classic is a unique idea or historical reenactment. Comic book movies by definition aren't unique or historic- they are rewrites of characters from comic books. Ergo - they aren't classics and can't be classics. Not saying they can't be good films and this is my own personal definition of "classics" but I really doubt TCM is going to be playing Batman Begins in 30 years.
On the subject of Nolan - he is very overrated.
Dunkirk - which is a movie you can't hate because it is a story about a great historical event and the good guys win. FFS it has Spitfires in it...how can you hate it?
Too bad Nolan missed the mark big IMO - It is visually stunning. It has incredible music and sound effects. It is also historically inaccurate BIG TIME. This is a crucial flaw in a movie about a historical event.
You've got fighters flying at sea level ready to get rekt by any high altitude fighter to "conserve fuel" on their 50ish mile trip to Dunkirk from England. Absolutely appalling. Fighters never would have done that - it is a death sentence. ESP in an area you expect to have German fighters.
The movie makes it seems like the British don't have a Navy. The French general is like "Where are the destroyers? We need destroyers?" Uhh...They had nearly 60 destroyers and hundreds ofl other Navy vessels from both England and France assisting in the evacuation. I get Nolan is trying to up the desperation factor and really pump up the scene where the small ships come into "save the day" but this is a hugely inaccurate representation of what happened there.
I think more time should have been spent showing the French defend the town. Plus the scene where Hardy (Ferrier) decides to become a POW instead of ditching in the water to get picked up by his comrades is just stupid. This makes Nolan stupid.
Dunkirk - not a classic.
Saving Private Ryan...Now that is a classic.
Xenomancers wrote: Honestly - another factor I feel is necessary to be considered a classic is a unique idea or historical reenactment. Comic book movies by definition aren't unique or historic- they are rewrites of characters from comic books. Ergo - they aren't classics and can't be classics. Not saying they can't be good films and this is my own personal definition of "classics" but I really doubt TCM is going to be playing Batman Begins in 30 years.
On the subject of Nolan - he is very overrated.
Dunkirk - which is a movie you can't hate because it is a story about a great historical event and the good guys win. FFS it has Spitfires in it...how can you hate it?
Too bad Nolan missed the mark big IMO - It is visually stunning. It has incredible music and sound effects. It is also historically inaccurate BIG TIME. This is a crucial flaw in a movie about a historical event.
You've got fighters flying at sea level ready to get rekt by any high altitude fighter to "conserve fuel" on their 50ish mile trip to Dunkirk from England. Absolutely appalling. Fighters never would have done that - it is a death sentence. ESP in an area you expect to have German fighters.
The movie makes it seems like the British don't have a Navy. The French general is like "Where are the destroyers? We need destroyers?" Uhh...They had nearly 60 destroyers and hundreds ofl other Navy vessels from both England and France assisting in the evacuation. I get Nolan is trying to up the desperation factor and really pump up the scene where the small ships come into "save the day" but this is a hugely inaccurate representation of what happened there.
I think more time should have been spent showing the French defend the town. Plus the scene where Hardy (Ferrier) decides to become a POW instead of ditching in the water to get picked up by his comrades is just stupid. This makes Nolan stupid.
Dunkirk - not a classic.
Saving Private Ryan...Now that is a classic.
Sounds like I was right in picking up a DVD of the excellent 1958 film rather than seeing another showy Nolan film
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
The Joker is a Nihilist (Dark). In The Joker's view, nothing matters. Because nothing matters, he can do anything he wants. Something he enjoys is holding a mirror up to the world to show it the errors of following law and order. Because it's meaningless. It's all a big joke!
He's got other issues, but that's his core LACK of purpose. The killing joke is all about his attempt to break Gordon, whom he sees as a champion of order. If he can crack Gordon, he can show Gotham that he's right, and all it takes is one bad day to strip a person of their rational humanity.
So to me, when Ledger burns the money, and screws the mob, he's doing that to completely destabilize the power structure, so that he can get the "Normies" to act as he wants. Ignoring the law and without organized crime, he can get the citizens to realize there's no order anywhere, it's just an illusion.
That's how I see The Joker from a Nihilist (light) perspective. For me, The Joker is a dark mirror of what I see in myself, and I feel Ledger's Joker did a better job of that. The inconsistent story of the scars. Holding the gun to his head while Harvey flips the coin (holding the hammer, if you look closely), taking a pretend swig of champagne at the party before tossing the glass. In these cases, he's displaying his disregard for expectations, and changing his "beliefs" to suit the needs of the moment. He doesn't need money. Gas and dynamite and knives are cheap. He doesn't really need much else, like fancy cars or his own helicopter.
I relate more to those aspects of The Joker's personality, so I enjoyed that portrayal more.
I think Harley was good. Enchantress was good. El Diablo was good. Croc was a lot of nothing. Katana never stole a soul with her soul stealing sword. Captain Boomerang threw like... 3 boomerangs. Will Smith just Will Smithed his way through the film. Who else was even in it? I honestly can't remember.
Well, there certainly were a lot of characters and its hard to give everyone their time. How many boomerangs did Captain Boomerang have to throw? Katana was useless but I thought she was the worst character anyway. Croc could have been better. But for all its faults its still by far one of the top 3 modern DC movies. Some of the visuals were just awesome.
Thats not saying much. There is only one good modern DC (DCEU) film (Wonder Woman) and they have only made 4 so far IF you include Man of Steel. Asking how many Boomerangs CaptB has is like asking how many arrows Hawkeye has to shoot. He should have had All the boomerangs. We should have been spoiled for choice in trick boomerangs. Some exploding ones. Some that do odd stuff. We got 1 camera one that culminated in a scene of the entire team huddled around an Ipad and 2 regular bladed ones. He threw more boomerangs in his little into with the flash then he did fighting hordes of CGI mud men. People who went to watch that movie without any knowledge of those characters thought he was the guy with knives.
As for number of characters and time. Civil War, Infinity War, Avengers 1 and 2. The Mystery Men. The X men Movies. Having a lot of characters isn't a good reason to write them poorly or give most of them nothing to do for most of the film. It was just a poorly written film with good visuals and a couple fun action beats and a couple stand out moments/characters most of which we will never see again on film probably.
Sorry, but when She. Lincoln Osiris is a better Aussie than the movie's stereotypical Boomerang Guy, it's not a good sign
____
Rather than try to explain Sucker Punch in too much detail, I will instead link to this article, which should be read *after* watching the Director's Cut:
Xenomancers wrote: Dunkirk - not a classic.
Saving Private Ryan...Now that is a classic.
Best war movie is Yesterday's enemy. Fite me!
you spelled tora tora tora incorrectly
the more I think about movies over the last 10 years none of them really seem like a classic and timeless piece unless it already has a major brand name and following attached to it.
Sox I'm just going to go with pixels. because it amuses me everytime I watch it.
Whilst I didn't rate Suicide Squad I think DC/WB trying to push it as a 'big' movie didn't help, if it was left as a mid-budget quirky 2nd tier effort I suspect it would have got off far lighter
Turnip Jedi wrote: Whilst I didn't rate Suicide Squad I think DC/WB trying to push it as a 'big' movie didn't help, if it was left as a mid-budget quirky 2nd tier effort I suspect it would have got off far lighter
Agreed. I think there is a good movie in there somewhere. But it got lost in inflated budgets and studio interference pushing certain characters (Harley and Will Smith) to the front at the expense of every other character. It's amazing that El Diablo came out as good as he did despite that.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Rather than try to explain Sucker Punch in too much detail, I will instead link to this article, which should be read *after* watching the Director's Cut:
“If you think feminists are a bunch of angry women who whine for no reason, or bra-burning dykes seeking revenge against males, go see Sucker Punch, and then come back and read my analysis.” Or watch Jailhouse 41 and you don't even need to come back it's already there in the movie .
I am entirely unconvinced by the review. If that movie was dark, then I've watched some Duncan Hill Coffee movies! I've watched actual feminist revenge fantasy and like watching those much more than movies that just mimic the stuff it is supposed to denounce. If the action sequences are meant to represent disassociation, they are really bad at it. Worst thing: it then makes disassociation looks cool! It makes them look like something we'd all love to have. But it's not and it's not supposed to be cool. Who things “Hey, a good way to illustrate the disassociation that happens when someone is sexually abused is to show them having a talk with their (Caucasian) mentor in a clearly Japanese inspired building, then have them fight with a katana against a random mecha”, especially when none of this has any specific symbolism for the victim.
Definitely not! On the contrary, it's pretty cool that you can still discover it. Congrats, you are part of the lucky 10 000 . https://www.xkcd.com/1053/
So...I read that review without having seen Suckerpunch yet. Holy gak, I want to see that movie! It sounds INCREDIBLY and emotionally powerful from that perspective. Hard to watch, and might even require a “timeout” during it, like I needed with Saving Private Ryan. But wow; that sounds like a tragic tale of just pure holy crap. Actually, the review was pretty awesome; it painted an incredible picture, and I could feel the raw emotion and pain of the film within the review. I’m willing to give it a shot, even if it’s a Zak Snyder movie.
timetowaste85 wrote: So...I read that review without having seen Suckerpunch yet. Holy gak, I want to see that movie! It sounds INCREDIBLY and emotionally powerful from that perspective. Hard to watch, and might even require a “timeout” during it, like I needed with Saving Private Ryan. But wow; that sounds like a tragic tale of just pure holy crap. Actually, the review was pretty awesome; it painted an incredible picture, and I could feel the raw emotion and pain of the film within the review. I’m willing to give it a shot, even if it’s a Zak Snyder movie.
You really should not have read that review. You are going to be really disappointed when you realize it is just a very long music video.
timetowaste85 wrote: So...I read that review without having seen Suckerpunch yet. Holy gak, I want to see that movie! It sounds INCREDIBLY and emotionally powerful from that perspective. Hard to watch, and might even require a “timeout” during it, like I needed with Saving Private Ryan. But wow; that sounds like a tragic tale of just pure holy crap. Actually, the review was pretty awesome; it painted an incredible picture, and I could feel the raw emotion and pain of the film within the review. I’m willing to give it a shot, even if it’s a Zak Snyder movie.
You really should not have read that review. You are going to be really disappointed when you realize it is just a very long music video.
Or really love it - or maybe not. Some of us see more it in and less in other more "critically aclaimed" films, but then why anyone needs critics to tell them what to watch and how to enjoy it is beyond me - same with food or books...
timetowaste85 wrote: So...I read that review without having seen Suckerpunch yet. Holy gak, I want to see that movie! It sounds INCREDIBLY and emotionally powerful from that perspective. Hard to watch, and might even require a “timeout” during it, like I needed with Saving Private Ryan. But wow; that sounds like a tragic tale of just pure holy crap. Actually, the review was pretty awesome; it painted an incredible picture, and I could feel the raw emotion and pain of the film within the review. I’m willing to give it a shot, even if it’s a Zak Snyder movie.
You really should not have read that review. You are going to be really disappointed when you realize it is just a very long music video.
Or really love it - or maybe not. Some of us see more it in and less in other more "critically aclaimed" films, but then why anyone needs critics to tell them what to watch and how to enjoy it is beyond me - same with food or books...
What's fascinating to me is the visceral reaction that SP provokes, mirrored by the impassioned defenses. The disconnects with expectations, preconceptions, and assumptions are HUGE. Mark my words, SP will be regarded as a future classic, but not for the superficial reasons that people are picking at. It's exceedingly powerful art with some hard criticism for many of its viewers, that's for sure. That's why I categorize SP as the biggest budget art film, ever.
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's exceedingly powerful art with some hard criticism for many of its viewers, that's for sure.
This interestingly mirror my own claim that I found the movie demeaning and insulting to it's audience. Well I guess we at least agree on something about that film!
Makes me remember too, do you think The Room will become a classic?
Timetowaste85, try Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, Thriller - A cruel picture and Ms. 45.
greatbigtree wrote: Enemy at the Gates (2001) is a classic... if you enjoy seeing the rather clear inspiration for the Imperial Guard.
That has Ed Harris's second-best performance as a nazi, after The Truman Show.
I disagree. I don't think it brings enough to an overdone genre that separates it from the pack. It's comparable with We Were Soldiers in that it is good, but not classic.
Only "classic" modern war films would be Saving Private Ryan and Blackhawk Down. Hurt Locker might end up being one, but it really shouldn't.
In defence, it isn't a movie yelling "Murica, feth yeah!". It's a war film starring the Russians.
And the whole You get a rifle, you get ammo, you get a rifle, you get ammo.
Gunning down the retreating soldiers? There are some seriously unforgettable scenes from that movie.
And... Guardsmen. Seriously. It may not be a classic to the rest of the universe, but if you've ever sympathised with a Guardsman's fate, this movie is for you.
KTG17 wrote: Part of the problem is that Batman has moved from fighting simple criminals with revolvers to terrorists with assault weapons. Is he really not going to be lethal with guys like that? Its one thing to track down a serial killer and take him in, but a dozen guys with assault rifles? That's where I think it goes a little too far.
Except the Arkham games are a thing, where a solid 80% of the gameplay is Batman gadgeting and punching and kicking his way through crowds of mooks armed with assault weapons, and the supervillains are full-on comic book-evil. Yet I don't recall killing anybody in those.
Batman resolving not to kill to differentiate himself from those he fights and using a combination of intellect, martial arts skills, and gadgetry to keep to that resolution(even if "I only cripple the low-income mooks who's only option for work in this garbage city is low level criminal stuff, condemning them to a medical system that will either bankrupt them, let them die for want of money to pay for treatment, or drive them to commit even more serious crimes to pay for it - I'm the good guy here!" is, as usual with Bats, a bit hilarious) is the least implausible thing about most Batman stories, and pales in comparison to some of the leaps of logic and suspensions of disbelief required to even accept that many superheroes could even exist with the powers they have.
I don't think the Nolan Batmans will be considered a classic by comic book movie fans, but they probably will be by the broader moviegoing action-blockbuster crowd and the critics because they're the poster-child for that whole "you can't translate comic books to the screen with any depth or maturity unless they're, like, super-dark and, like, super-deep brah" school of thought that prevailed until the MCU really took hold.
Yodhrin wrote: I don't think the Nolan Batmans will be considered a classic by comic book movie fans, but they probably will be by the broader moviegoing action-blockbuster crowd and the critics because they're the poster-child for that whole "you can't translate comic books to the screen with any depth or maturity unless they're, like, super-dark and, like, super-deep brah" school of thought that prevailed until the MCU really took hold.
Uhhh.... that's what Burton's Batman was, following the TV show. super dark and super deep. By comparision
Yodhrin wrote: I don't think the Nolan Batmans will be considered a classic by comic book movie fans, but they probably will be by the broader moviegoing action-blockbuster crowd and the critics because they're the poster-child for that whole "you can't translate comic books to the screen with any depth or maturity unless they're, like, super-dark and, like, super-deep brah" school of thought that prevailed until the MCU really took hold.
Uhhh.... that's what Burton's Batman was, following the TV show. super dark and super deep. By comparision
Some peopel do ignore that most of the groundwork was done way before Nolans films by Burtons excellent Batman film - the sequal was a bit of a mess sadly and degenrated as the series went on.
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
No amount of Orkmoticons are going to change the fact that you responded to a question about whether we as an audience are complicit with a post about the in-universe audience, which wasn't what the question was about. It's right there, in writing. You do actually read the arguments you respond to, right?
I think doubleD's answer was “Yes, Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, we can see it was Snyder's intention because the audience is in dream layer, WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A STAND-IN FOR THE VIEWERS OF THE MOVIE, are depicted as ugly horrible men”.
Not saying I necessarily agree with it, but he was making a point about the intentions of the movie wrt its opinion of its viewer.
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
No amount of Orkmoticons are going to change the fact that you responded to a question about whether we as an audience are complicit with a post about the in-universe audience, which wasn't what the question was about. It's right there, in writing. You do actually read the arguments you respond to, right?
If you don't understand why you were facepalmed, you need to re-read the initial comment and my response to understand why your follow-up question is so dumb it didn't warrant a text reply. Seriously, go read it again. I highlighted the quick answer if the other words were too much for you.
Well thats just it. Its only a classic in that it was the last big set of movies right before the MCU proved you can do comic book adaptations acurately and well and just make a good movie. That doesnt make it much of anything.
What i have taken away from this thread is that many individuals consider something a classic when it speaks directly to them. War movies that match their military experience. A depiction of lucid dreaming that matches their own experience.
But what actually cements a movie into a culture as a classic is when it manages to bring that experience to a wider audience and resonate with people who dont have those connections. EVERYONE can appreciate the horrors of war with saving private ryan. But black hawk down is just an action drama to most. Forgettable amongst the many military action dramas that exist. Not bad at all mimd you. Just not resonating with the masses the way spr does.
The mcu resonates as this big cultural experience. This ride we have all riden for over 10 years and close to 50 hours of story.
When a new comic accurate batman eventually shows up nolans trillogy will sit with the others as the movies who got batman wrong. And why did they think it would be impossible to do it right?
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
No amount of Orkmoticons are going to change the fact that you responded to a question about whether we as an audience are complicit with a post about the in-universe audience, which wasn't what the question was about. It's right there, in writing. You do actually read the arguments you respond to, right?
If you don't understand why you were facepalmed, you need to re-read the initial comment and my response to understand why your follow-up question is so dumb it didn't warrant a text reply. Seriously, go read it again. I highlighted the quick answer if the other words were too much for you.
Starting a sentence with "correct" and then expanding on why the statement you're replying to is correct in a manner that doesn't have anything to do with the statement is completely pointless. It's like me agreeing with your statement and then going on about how I liked the lighting in the movie; I'm sure it's really interesting, but it's not what you responded to.
You don't have to go full-on arrogant just because you can.
Considering only the last 10 years I'd say those films will be remembered for decades as masterpieces or cult movies:
La La Land
Mad Max Fury Road
Ex Machina
Snowpiercer
Her
Pitch Perfect 1 & 2
50/50
Silver Linings Playbook
Warrior
Gone Girl
Easy A
Frozen
Kingsman the Secret Service
Up in the Air
Inglorious Basterds
Inception
Up
Avatar
Many of them are already "classics"
Maybe also Arrival, Sherlock Holmes 1 & 2, Kingsman the Golden Circle and Blade Runner 2049.
I don't think MCU movies will be remembered for years, the first movies, even those that had huge success are already fading away. The point about MCU movies is that they are like episodes of a tv series. Who's going to watch an older episode of a tv series? Everyone just watches the new episode, not the older ones. Movies like The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Iron Man don't have the same appeal they had some years ago, simply because they got 10+ sequels. I bet this new Avengers Infinity War (which I also liked a lot) will be almost forgotten once 4-5 new MCU movies will be released.
I don't think MCU movies will be remembered for years, the first movies, even those that had huge success are already fading away. The point about MCU movies is that they are like episodes of a tv series. Who's going to watch an older episode of a tv series? Everyone just watches the new episode, not the older ones. Movies like The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Iron Man don't have the same appeal they had some years ago, simply because they got 10+ sequels. I bet this new Avengers Infinity War (which I also liked a lot) will be almost forgotten once 4-5 new MCU movies will be released.
Quantum Leap, Twilight Zone, and other series are classics that are watched over and over.
Individual episodes stand out as truey great but it's the series as a whole that is remembered as this great thing that had a lot to say. Even though there are some dud episodes in the mix.
The MCU is the first time this was done in movie form.
I don't think MCU movies will be remembered for years, the first movies, even those that had huge success are already fading away. The point about MCU movies is that they are like episodes of a tv series. Who's going to watch an older episode of a tv series? Everyone just watches the new episode, not the older ones. Movies like The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Iron Man don't have the same appeal they had some years ago, simply because they got 10+ sequels. I bet this new Avengers Infinity War (which I also liked a lot) will be almost forgotten once 4-5 new MCU movies will be released.
Quantum Leap, Twilight Zone, and other series are classics that are watched over and over.
These tv series don't have the same notoriety of The Good The Bad The Ugly, Gone with the Wind, Rear Window, Back to Future, Matrix, etc. Not even remotely.
Individual episodes stand out as truey great but it's the series as a whole that is remembered as this great thing that had a lot to say. Even though there are some dud episodes in the mix.
The MCU is the first time this was done in movie form.
Being the first doesn't mean being great and unforgettable. You think there are some dud episodes, I think there are just a couple of good episodes (sligthly above average but nothing special) in the entire lot. I also think that despite 10000 different characters MCU episodes are all very similar while movies that are remembered for decades are quite unique. No one remembers Star Wars episodes I, II, III, VII and Rogue One. In a couple of years also Solo and episode VIII will fade away. Star wars will always be remembered for luke, leia, darth vader, han solo, "I'm your father" and yoda's training.
Maybe in Italy they are not remembered like the movies you list, but over here in the states I think Quantum Leap and Twilight zone have more general fond memories than the Matrix or Rear Window.
Disney World has a ride dedicated to Twilight zone and has since 1994. I don't think the Matrix has.... anything.
Turnip Jedi wrote: but isn't part of Sucker Punch's schtick that we the audience are complicit in watching the girls exactly because they are hella purty, and their oddball fantasy escapism sequences are essentially teenage / dirty old pervs sticky fetish fever dreams that 'we' think they should have further demeaning them for 'fun'
Correct - it's no accident that the audience of men in the dream layer are sleazy and slimy AF. Snyder could have cast guys that looked like John Hamm, a father that looked like George Clooney, etc. but he chose not to. The casting choices and how they present in the various layers are very deliberate. One should assume implicit intent.
The question wasn't about the casting. It was about us, the audience, not the sleazeballs in the movie.
No amount of Orkmoticons are going to change the fact that you responded to a question about whether we as an audience are complicit with a post about the in-universe audience, which wasn't what the question was about. It's right there, in writing. You do actually read the arguments you respond to, right?
If you don't understand why you were facepalmed, you need to re-read the initial comment and my response to understand why your follow-up question is so dumb it didn't warrant a text reply. Seriously, go read it again. I highlighted the quick answer if the other words were too much for you.
Starting a sentence with "correct" and then expanding on why the statement you're replying to is correct in a manner that doesn't have anything to do with the statement is completely pointless. It's like me agreeing with your statement and then going on about how I liked the lighting in the movie; I'm sure it's really interesting, but it's not what you responded to.
You don't have to go full-on arrogant just because you can.
Aside from the fact that it was related. I shouldn't need to spoon feed you as a follow-up, as it should have been obvious. Hence facepalm
I don't think MCU movies will be remembered for years, the first movies, even those that had huge success are already fading away. The point about MCU movies is that they are like episodes of a tv series. Who's going to watch an older episode of a tv series? Everyone just watches the new episode, not the older ones. Movies like The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Iron Man don't have the same appeal they had some years ago, simply because they got 10+ sequels. I bet this new Avengers Infinity War (which I also liked a lot) will be almost forgotten once 4-5 new MCU movies will be released.
Quantum Leap, Twilight Zone, and other series are classics that are watched over and over.
These tv series don't have the same notoriety of The Good The Bad The Ugly, Gone with the Wind, Rear Window, Back to Future, Matrix, etc. Not even remotely.
Individual episodes stand out as truey great but it's the series as a whole that is remembered as this great thing that had a lot to say. Even though there are some dud episodes in the mix.
The MCU is the first time this was done in movie form.
Being the first doesn't mean being great and unforgettable. You think there are some dud episodes, I think there are just a couple of good episodes (sligthly above average but nothing special) in the entire lot. I also think that despite 10000 different characters MCU episodes are all very similar while movies that are remembered for decades are quite unique. No one remembers Star Wars episodes I, II, III, VII and Rogue One. In a couple of years also Solo and episode VIII will fade away. Star wars will always be remembered for luke, leia, darth vader, han solo, "I'm your father" and yoda's training.
Err, I hear people talk about Twilight Zone weekly. Not internet talk, but real life humans. Less with Quantum Leap, but if anybody asks for suggestions it is never far away.
Rear Window is the one with evil Perry Mason, right? It's been homaged and reinterpreted and referenced so many times it will feel like you've already seen it.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Rear Window is the one with evil Perry Mason, right? It's been homaged and reinterpreted and referenced so many times it will feel like you've already seen it.
Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly and James Stewart are the stars related to that movie. The villain was Perry Mason, right, but who knows him?
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Lance845 wrote: Maybe in Italy they are not remembered like the movies you list, but over here in the states I think Quantum Leap and Twilight zone have more general fond memories than the Matrix or Rear Window.
Aren't black & white american classics still very popular in the USA? Don't they get a ride as well in some dedicated channel?
In Italy young people usually don't know about them since here anything (not only about cinema) that is 10-15 years old is considered "dated" by the new generations but people that have a real interest in cinema know those old masterpieces wery well. I'm a huge fan of american films of the 40-50s and my favorite movies are mostly among those ones.
I agree about the fact that different cultures and countries may have a different perspective about what a classic is. Maybe Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap are still extremely popular in your country, but I'm sure that Matrix and Hitchcock are widely celebrated in the entire world, including the USA
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Rear Window is the one with evil Perry Mason, right? It's been homaged and reinterpreted and referenced so many times it will feel like you've already seen it.
Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly and James Stewart are the stars related to that movie. The villain was Perry Mason, right, but who knows him?
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Lance845 wrote: Maybe in Italy they are not remembered like the movies you list, but over here in the states I think Quantum Leap and Twilight zone have more general fond memories than the Matrix or Rear Window.
Aren't black & white american classics still very popular in the USA? Don't they get a ride as well in some dedicated channel?
In Italy young people usually don't know about them since here anything (not only about cinema) that is 10-15 years old is considered "dated" by the new generations but people that have a real interest in cinema know those old masterpieces wery well. I'm a huge fan of american films of the 40-50s and my favorite movies are mostly among those ones.
I agree about the fact that different cultures and countries may have a different perspective about what a classic is. Maybe Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap are still extremely popular in your country, but I'm sure that Matrix and Hitchcock are widely celebrated in the entire world, including the USA
Twilight Zone IS black and white. Some Black and Whites are good, but it's very few. Hitchcock is remembered in general for what he did for cinema more than any of his movies specifically. Though The Birds, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, and Psycho are going to be the ones people remember the most. There are zero Hitchcock films on Netflix at the moment, but Twilight zone has been on there for a couple years (and I have watched through it all a couple times).
Over here, among my circle, the Matrix is remembered as a movie that was good at the time and had 2 bad sequels that kind of made the first worse by association. The first Matrix is still a decent enough movie. It set a tone in action for the next few years with it's kung fu and such. But the movie itself? No. It doesn't hold up at all with the really great movies whos messages are timeless. Twilight zone episodes at their best full on amazing. Watch "The Lonely", "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street", "Time Enough At Last", "Walking Distance", and "I am the Night - Color Me Black". I would argue these episodes are far more iconic and lasting then anything the Wachowski Brothers or Nolan has ever done.
Whilst I like The Matrix I prefer Dark City which plays with similar idea's, its not perfect but I suspect influenced both Sucker Punch and Inception (also Jennifer Connelly is far lovelier than either Kanoe or Carrie)
Turnip Jedi wrote: Whilst I like The Matrix I prefer Dark City which plays with similar idea's, its not perfect but I suspect influenced both Sucker Punch and Inception (also Jennifer Connelly is far lovelier than either Kanoe or Carrie)
Dark City is a very good film IMO - I was flicking channels when I found it half way through and watched the cityscape shift and change and went - ok Wow what the hell is this.
With a cinematic film world full of beautiful actresses never got the appeal of Carrie-Ann Moss.
Some Black and Whites are good, but it's very few.
There are countless black and white movies that are still amazing and sometimes get a new ride not only in television but also in festivals or even standard theatres.
Some Black and Whites are good, but it's very few.
There are countless black and white movies that are still amazing and sometimes get a new ride not only in television but also in festivals or even standard theatres.
Problem with old(er) B/W films is lack of accessible viewing choices, the majority of streaming services don't tend to go back past 50/60's so other than chance finds on telly or rare screenings / festivals its kind of limited exposure
Turnip Jedi wrote: Problem with old(er) B/W films is lack of accessible viewing choices, the majority of streaming services don't tend to go back past 50/60's so other than chance finds on telly or rare screenings / festivals its kind of limited exposure
It's the same matter about foreign movies that are not in english. Some of them will be remembered as classics even without grossing a billion or being famous in the USA.
But I think it's nonsense. In an era in which you can illegally download anything without ripercussions this is not a real issue. Maybe a moral issue, but tons of people gain access to movies and tv series illegally, even the most recens ones so the lack of accessible viewing choices is mostly irrelevant.
The real problem is the current movies are mostly trash. Copy paste of previous works and usually with mediocre or average actors and actresses. There are a lot of gems even in this decade but mainstream high grossing movies are usually not the work of some artists like Hitchcock, Wilder, Hawks, Minnelli, Kubrick, Leone or even Tarantino, Ritchie and Cameron just to quote some active directors that are above average. They're written and directed only to make huge profits. Not a single MCU episode was and will ever be directed by a great director and this is applied to basically every current franchise. Sometimes real stars get involved in those projects but usually only for the huge salary, no one would consider those performances as their best ones. Just think about Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch or Christian Bale. Are they celebrated and will they be remembered for X Men, MCU movies or Batman? Definitely not. However if you think about movies that were produced with more freedom of choices like Mad Max Fury Road you can easily associate them with the protagonists that starred in those works: Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron for example did a lot of notable movies but they surely can be remembered for Mad Max Fury Road because it's a solid movie and will be solid even when its special effects become dated. The same can't be said about MCU episodes, the recent Star Wars, Transformers or Jurassic World.
The new generations get used to this way of produce movies and stay away from more serious ones. This is the real problem and the reason why many real artists in the films industry migrated to the tv series world which grants them more freedom of choice and the possibility to pursue their personal views and ideas about cinema.
Xenomancers wrote: What are you people on about with Mad Max Fury Road? It was terrible. Original was much better.
The original Mad Max? It's an interesting world, but it's really not a very good flick by comparison. Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe is an entirely different level of character than Keays-Byrne as Toecutter. The filming locations and physical settings are...incomparable, especially as the original isn't totally post apocalyptic yet (decaying, but there are still businesses, Max has a nice home, the roads are functional, the threats are a half dozen hobos lead by Toecutter, not an army of fanatics, etc). The dialogue, pacing, etc of the original really doesn't match Fury Road, and is certainly a dramatically smaller in scale.
Xenomancers wrote:What are you people on about with Mad Max Fury Road? It was terrible. Original was much better.
The original? The one that was mostly about Goose and took place in a little town that had a lawyer and laws and did't feel post apocalyptic at all? Seriously?
Blackie wrote:
Turnip Jedi wrote: Problem with old(er) B/W films is lack of accessible viewing choices, the majority of streaming services don't tend to go back past 50/60's so other than chance finds on telly or rare screenings / festivals its kind of limited exposure
It's the same matter about foreign movies that are not in english. Some of them will be remembered as classics even without grossing a billion or being famous in the USA.
But I think it's nonsense. In an era in which you can illegally download anything without ripercussions this is not a real issue. Maybe a moral issue, but tons of people gain access to movies and tv series illegally, even the most recens ones so the lack of accessible viewing choices is mostly irrelevant.
The real problem is the current movies are mostly trash. Copy paste of previous works and usually with mediocre or average actors and actresses. There are a lot of gems even in this decade but mainstream high grossing movies are usually not the work of some artists like Hitchcock, Wilder, Hawks, Minnelli, Kubrick, Leone or even Tarantino, Ritchie and Cameron just to quote some active directors that are above average. They're written and directed only to make huge profits. Not a single MCU episode was and will ever be directed by a great director and this is applied to basically every current franchise. Sometimes real stars get involved in those projects but usually only for the huge salary, no one would consider those performances as their best ones. Just think about Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch or Christian Bale. Are they celebrated and will they be remembered for X Men, MCU movies or Batman? Definitely not. However if you think about movies that were produced with more freedom of choices like Mad Max Fury Road you can easily associate them with the protagonists that starred in those works: Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron for example did a lot of notable movies but they surely can be remembered for Mad Max Fury Road because it's a solid movie and will be solid even when its special effects become dated. The same can't be said about MCU episodes, the recent Star Wars, Transformers or Jurassic World.
The new generations get used to this way of produce movies and stay away from more serious ones. This is the real problem and the reason why many real artists in the films industry migrated to the tv series world which grants them more freedom of choice and the possibility to pursue their personal views and ideas about cinema.
First, being able to illegally download things doesn't mean any decent % of people actually do. I am fully capable but I am also just full on not willing to put in the effort anymore. Secondly, everything in every media has always been mostly trash. You ever see the original Oceans 11? It's total garbage. And thats a famous one. Modern film making technique has come a LONG way from the crap in the past. Nosferatu is held up as a classic because it invented all the tropes modern horror takes for granted. But if you go back and watch it it's also INCREDIBLY slow with a lot of unnecessary scenes and shots that just drag it all out. They didn't really understand show don't tell. And they didn't really understand that you didn't have to show a lot of things either. If a character in an old BW gets a phone call while at a restaurant you would have the waiter inform them, watch them put down their fork and knife, take off or put down their napkin, get up, the camera will follow them walk across the room, and then have them pick up the phone. You could just cut to them being on the phone. Thats all fat that could be trimmed. Some of them are good for their time. A select few are still good now. A couple are even GREAT even now and stand the test of time. But make no mistake, it's always been mostly trash.
I would argue that the Russo Brothers ARE really great directors. Chris Evans and Robert Downy Jr are great actors who are going to be remembered for their MCU roles. Chris Hemsworth is also really good. Chris Pratt. Boseman. Dave Batista is surprisingly a great actor (see his small role in Blade Runner 2049). Marvel movies are full of great talent.
I always wonder; when folks slip into "kids today no taste or sophistication fnar fnar" mode, do they realise people of a certain age were saying literally the exact same things about their generation when watching loads of the things they now consider "classics"? Do they know literally every generation in history has considered subsequent generations to be weaker/less intelligent/less moral/lazier/lacking in taste etc etc by comparison?
And if they do, why do they think their griping is any more based in reality than that of their parents and grandparents etc all the way back to sodding Aristotle(that we know of)?
There's a question that someone should make a pretentious "arthouse" movie about eh
Turnip Jedi wrote: Whilst I like The Matrix I prefer Dark City which plays with similar idea's, its not perfect but I suspect influenced both Sucker Punch and Inception (also Jennifer Connelly is far lovelier than either Kanoe or Carrie)
I was also going to mention Dark City, which has held up so much better than The Matrix. There's also the Thirteenth Floor, but it's not as dramatic or visceral as the other two.
In the US, Twilight Zone is required reading in schools, in that some of the episodes are based on short stories that are required reading. The show was so influential that you can't avoid references, homages and callbacks. I would say it's one of the most important foundational series for American pop culture of all time, beyond even Star Trek. If you haven't seen Twilight Zone, you really need to, even if only the most famous dozen episodes.
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Xenomancers wrote: What are you people on about with Mad Max Fury Road? It was terrible. Original was much better.
I went in to Fury Road expecting action schlock, and it blew me away. The sheer amount of effective visual storytelling awed me. Anyone who wants to learn how to show and not tell needs to watch it. The film also trusted the audience in a way few movies ever do. It was a masterpiece.
Yodhrin wrote: I always wonder; when folks slip into "kids today no taste or sophistication fnar fnar" mode, do they realise people of a certain age were saying literally the exact same things about their generation when watching loads of the things they now consider "classics"? Do they know literally every generation in history has considered subsequent generations to be weaker/less intelligent/less moral/lazier/lacking in taste etc etc by comparison?
And if they do, why do they think their griping is any more based in reality than that of their parents and grandparents etc all the way back to sodding Aristotle(that we know of)?
There's a question that someone should make a pretentious "arthouse" movie about eh
Fair point, I think the Internet has however massively accelerated that process
I went in to Fury Road expecting action schlock, and it blew me away. The sheer amount of effective visual storytelling awed me. Anyone who wants to learn how to show and not tell needs to watch it. The film also trusted the audience in a way few movies ever do. It was a masterpiece.
This.
In other films there would have needed to be some "tension" filled discussion where Max and Furiosa told each other they didn't trust each other and then later another one where they say how they have to put aside their differences and work together, capped off by another one where they tell each other that they earned their trust..
In Fury Road, those conversations didn't happen because they are entirely unnecessary. We see that Max doesn't trust Furiosa when he collects all the guns in the cab of the rig and takes them with him when he goes to fix the issue at the rear of the rig. We see that that Furiosa doesn't trust Max when she reveals the knife hidden in the gear stick when he is gone, which he doesn't know about (this also serves to set up the gear stick knife for later in the film when Furiosa is stabbed herself). Then we see them working together to fight off the bikers and Furiosa telling Max the sequence to start the rig. The final part is when Max tells Furiosa his name and saves her life with his own blood and letting the air out of her chest (which is also set up earlier with Max being a universal donor and after Max is thrown from Nux's car and has an air bubble in his transfusion tube).
Then there is the visual cues of Max coming to trust Nux. At first Max takes back his jacket, knocks Nux out and steals one of his boots to replace the one Max lost. Later, after Nux has made himself useful in getting the Rig out of the bog, Max gives him a boot which he steals from one of the people on the Bullet Farmers vehicle, which signifies Max accepting him as part of their group. He never needs to tell Nux that he trusts him, the giving of the boot shows it.
Fury Road tells its story exceptionally well and nothing in the film is there for no reason. The attention to detail that went into making it is phenomenal.
The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
I mean, its not like the other Mad Max films have been about terribly sophisticated things.
Mad Max - cop in a decaying society fights a roaming gang, loses his wife and kid and kills the gang members.
The Road Warrior - cop who lost everything and has turned into a cynical and bitter survivalist in the now post apocalyptic wasteland fights a bigger gang over resources.
Beyond Thunderdome - cynical and bitter survivalist gets robbee, then hired to do a dirty deed, fails to do dirty deed, ends up going back and helping kids he found, all with a heavier dose of camp.
Not sure in what way the other Mad Max films were better, Fury Road pretty clearly blasts them all away in every conceivable manner.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I thought this might be a fun discussion to have, where we can throw out our picks for the films which have the staying power and artistic merit to endure past their contemporaries. So, as the title asks, what modern films does Dakka think will go down as classics when people look back decades from now?
My vote has to go to Mad Max: Fury Road. I can't think of a better action film that I've seen in the cinema. The fight choreography was phenomenal, the action never felt like it was repeating itself thanks to the plot serving to separate different elements of the force chasing the war rig, allowing each new sequence to feature different spectacles (first fight is a small number of small, fast cars vs each other and war rig in the open desert and then a sandstorm, second is bikes vs. war rig in a tight, enclosed canyon, next is Immortan's monster truck vs War Rig, then you have the final set piece where you have small cars, large rigs, the polemen and motorbikes all crashing into each other, first in open desert then in the canyon).
And despite all the craziness going on in these action sequences you never feel disoriented thanks to how the framing of the shots are chosen, where the action of the shot is always centre frame so the eye doesn't have to dart around the screen during multiple fast cuts.
All that is wrapped up in a film that knows not to bog you down with unnecessary dialogue, that trusts you to understand what is being shown without having to tell you in dialogue thanks to usage of foreshadowing and set up/payoff which allow for world details to be passed onto the viewer without disrupting the action with expositional dialogue. A perfect example of this is the setting up of the chrome spray paint and calling to be witnessed. We are shown someone doing this before suiciding to kill an enemy and so when Nux opens his fuel tanks, sprays his mouth and calls on Max to witness him we immediately know he is going to try a suicidal attack without any character needing to say that out loud. Everything we know about this world (except for the initial voice over during the opening credits) is told to us through the action and natural dialogue between characters. We never have an instance of a character asking what would be a stupid question in the film universe solely so another character can answer them and tell us about some detail that everybody should already know about in the films world but which the viewers might not know.
These videos explain what I'm trying to put across better than I probably can:
Spoiler:
So, what other nominations does Dakka have?
Truthfully? Very few to none.
There is a wide gulf between films that meet the criteria to become timeless classics, and films that are just more pop culture, mass consumption schlock. The last decade that produced anything even coming close to meeting the requirements was the early 90's. And that is being generous.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
I mean, its not like the other Mad Max films have been about terribly sophisticated things.
Mad Max - cop in a decaying society fights a roaming gang, loses his wife and kid and kills the gang members.
The Road Warrior - cop who lost everything and has turned into a cynical and bitter survivalist in the now post apocalyptic wasteland fights a bigger gang over resources.
Beyond Thunderdome - cynical and bitter survivalist gets robbee, then hired to do a dirty deed, fails to do dirty deed, ends up going back and helping kids he found, all with a heavier dose of camp.
Not sure in what way the other Mad Max films were better, Fury Road pretty clearly blasts them all away in every conceivable manner.
They other mad max films I wouldn't consider very good ether. I would rate all of these films in the same category of Water World.
For the Post Apoc Genre - the best 2 I've seen in the past 10 years are "Oblivion" and "The Book of Eli" both worthy of Classic status IMO.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
Sure, if we ignore the reason they go back to where they started. And they do not go back to where they started as at the beginning the Citadel had Immortan Joe. His removal changes the Citadel.
They were running away to get to a place, they find out said place does not exist, they then realise that a place with what they need is the place they were running from and since it is now undefended, they can take it.
They didn't arbitrarily decide to just turn round. There was a logical reason for doing so.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
Sure, if we ignore the reason they go back to where they started. And they do not go back to where they started as at the beginning the Citadel had Immortan Joe. His removal changes the Citadel.
They were running away to get to a place, they find out said place does not exist, they then realise that a place with what they need is the place they were running from and since it is now undefended, they can take it.
They didn't arbitrarily decide to just turn round. There was a logical reason for doing so.
The logical thing to do would be to keep running. So what if happy land or whatever they were looking for doesn't exist. Anyways - we can just disagree on the movie - that is fine with me. I just think there are much better candidates for classical elevation than this - which is essentially just a high budget action flick and wasn't even trying to be anything more.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
Mad Max Fury Road is entirely about the emancipation of women, a strong matter that is basically never portrayed in cinema with the exception of some boring biopics, and I never understood while americans love biopics so much that every year tons of them are released in theatres.
Those women returned to the same oasis that they escaped from but not as slaves; they also realized that there were no other places to live since the prosimed land they seek dried years before. Also the hobbits come back to their land at the end, and they continue to live there exaclty as they did before their adventure. Does it mean that The Lord of the Rings has no point?
IMHO The Book of Eli and Oblivion were both at Waterworld's level, lol.
Xenomancers wrote: For the Post Apoc Genre - the best 2 I've seen in the past 10 years are "Oblivion" and "The Book of Eli" both worthy of Classic status IMO.
You must be Christian then .
The whole bible plot was stupid beyond belief.
There is a reason why The Book of Eli only worked in the land of the Christian Crazies while Fury Road worked abroad too.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_d%27Eli#Box-office https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max%3A_Fury_Road#Box-office The difference is manifest. Fury Road box office in the US is 1,5 Book of Eli box office. Fury Road box office in France (a secular country with way fewer Christian Crazies) is almost 5 times the Book of Eli box office.
The Book of Eli will be forgotten, except from time to time as laughter fodder by B-movies/Z-movies fans from time to time. Mark my words.
Xenomancers wrote: For the Post Apoc Genre - the best 2 I've seen in the past 10 years are "Oblivion" and "The Book of Eli" both worthy of Classic status IMO.
You must be Christian then .
The whole bible plot was stupid beyond belief.
There is a reason why The Book of Eli only worked in the land of the Christian Crazies while Fury Road worked abroad too.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_d%27Eli#Box-office https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max%3A_Fury_Road#Box-office The difference is manifest. Fury Road box office in the US is 1,5 Book of Eli box office. Fury Road box office in France (a secular country with way fewer Christian Crazies) is almost 5 times the Book of Eli box office.
The Book of Eli will be forgotten, except from time to time as laughter fodder by B-movies/Z-movies fans from time to time. Mark my words.
Atheist here. Loved Book of Eli. The bible plot was fine in my opinion.
I wonder, if Fury Road being part of a long standing franchise had anything to do with its box office take?
In case anyone accuses me of politicizing things, here a the first two user reviews when I look on imdb:
Spoiler:
Upon first viewing the trailer I was immediately giddy to see a new post-apocalyptic film in the vein of The Road Warrior. Being a fan of the genre, one must get used to the repetitive "lone wanderer" theme so prominently used. I figured this film would go through the same formula, but prepared to enjoy myself.
Yes it did use the lone wanderer as a driving plot device, and yes it did bring the arbitrary twist. Yes all the survivors are short on t-shirts, but live in a wealth of leather and goggles. Yes everything in this film looks like and feels like a typical post-apocalyptia. But the substance of the story is far more powerful then I could ever have expected.
Without giving away too much, yes the film is essentially a Christian metaphor. Eli seems to be protected by some mysterious force, guided by "God" to head west. But it's what the meaning behind this admittedly bizarre plot that makes this film so great. It truly is a film about faith and believing in one's self. Using the dreary post-apocalyptic backdrop, the film is able to contrast this powerful message with the harsh landscape. Even amidst such despair, one can rise and accomplish anything. In a world slowly becoming apocalyptic itself, this message is much welcomed.
The other aspects lending to the power of The Book of Eli are its technical aspects. The cinematography is simply beautiful. Moody slo-mo shots abound with wonderfully toned colors. Everything looks dark and dead, the sun beating down endlessly on the dusty dunes. The soundtrack adds immensely to this feeling, using soft ambient chords and blasting action-scene drums when necessary. Overall The Book of Eli is an excellent film itself and an excellent spin on the post-apocalyptic genre.
Oh yeah, and Denzel Washington actually manages to pull off the part of a wizened, old bad ass.
“The movie is good because it's a Christian metaphor”
and
Spoiler:
The first thing that strikes you about this film is how horrid and beautiful it looks all at the same time. We are in a post-apocalyptic world of washed out colours, destroyed structures and dying people scrabbling to make sure they are not the next to die; and it is a world that is really well designed and really well filmed by Don Burgess. Everything looks convincing and it doesn't feel like they just shot it out in a desert location, it genuinely feels like a scorched earth. The only slight irritant about the look of the film is that it does feel very much like a great copy of the world of Fallout 3 as created by Bethseda – right down to the design of the "bandits" with their goggles and ragged clothing; this bugged me and those very familiar with this world via gaming may also feel the film is "borrowing" rather than creating.
I talk about the look and style of the film first because to me it is really one of the main reasons to watch this film and indeed for the first 20 minutes or so, it is all we are drifting on – this sense of the cool and the barren without much in the way of who's or why's. Unfortunately when the plot does start to come in, it does so with a terribly corny story and message that wouldn't be out of place in one of those overly-earnest low-budget films made by Christian companies. Indeed this is what this film is – an overly earnest religious film, it just happens to have cost millions and have massive Hollywood stars involved in it. Now, this is the point where you assume that I dislike the film because it is to do with God and the bible, but this wasn't it all at – it didn't help for sure, but this isn't the reason.
The main problem I have is that the film doesn't actually seem interested in making this message work and the plot just seems like a necessary evil to get the character walking in slow-mo around this cool landscape. There isn't much development beyond the basic dialogue about the power of this book and it is nothing but endless corn in the main; I may have respected it more if it had done something with the content, but it doesn't, indeed it seems almost embarrassed by it. The Hughes Brothers for sure aren't particularly interested in that and thus the performances and shots are all about the style, the atmosphere and the look of the film. Accordingly the cast do the same – which is fine because I wonder why they were all queuing up to be in this story. Washington is a great lead because he is all style and presence and he fits the landscape well. Kunis' character makes less sense as she goes on but she is stunning to look at and again fits the style aspect of the film. Oldman's villain is poor and as a result he is only OK.
What all this leaves then is a film that should be watched by fans of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, simply because it is a great film recreation of those worlds, from the colour of the sky down to the costumes it feels and looks like the games. Outside of this though, the casual viewer is left with very little of interest going on behind the style; the story is cloyingly religious and lacking any insight or intelligence – in terms of writing it feels like having two guys at your door trying to sell Jesus to you with platitudes and clichés. It all looks fantastic but unfortunately the script simply doesn't deserve the visuals.
The story sucks because it's corny, bad Christian propaganda.
The thing is so freaking in-your-face that it's just impossible to go past it.
Sure, that book is SOOOO special that holding it gives you manipulation super powers and everyone believes it .
Your hate boner is showing.
But, if you actually would like to discuss the use of the bible in that movie I'd be happy to. The book was just a book, it was the message behind it and how the person used that message which made the book potent. That message could be used as weapon, like Carnegie (Gary Oldman) intended, or it could be used to bring about hope and renewal, as Eli and the residents of Alcatraz intended it. The book itself was useless, and held no real power as an artifact, further reinforced by the book being a braille copy that was unreadable by anyone other than Eli and Claudia (Jennifer Beals).
The book didn't give Eli any powers, and it likely wouldn't have given Carnegie the power of control he was looking for because he didn't understand the book's real value. Hope.
You could argue the movie is as much an argument against religion as it is in support of religion. The bible destroyed Carnegie and his town. The bible destroyed Eli as he carried it across the continent, and after all that death and destruction, after copies are made, the bible is simply put on the shelf of a library next to other religious texts seemingly showing how the texts themselves are beyond the squabbles of mankind. Nothing really changed after all the effort expended by Carnegie, Eli or Solana, except that a copy of the King James bible was added to the Alcatraz library.
I found the movie to be fantastic because god didn't save the day. Solara heads back out into the wastes, Carnegie's town self destructs, and the world keeps on turning without anyone giving a damn either way.
While I did think it was a little... off... that the Bible was so prominent in the film, there is something to be said about it, even from a non-religious standpoint.
In post-apocolyptia, these people have fallen back on superstition. They don't KNOW the contents of the book. They know it was important in the "before time" and that many copies were apparently destroyed. So that finding a living copy is like finding a "Magic Talisman" that could give power to the one that holds it. To me, it was a subtle irony. The book doesn't give the power, the faith it described that no longer exists (presumably) had the power. The power was in the way it was presented by (for example) Televangelists.
There is no power in the book, except for the belief in the power. It's the same as Kung Fu Panda. There's nothing on the scroll. There's nothing (understandable) in the Bible that is "won".
Maybe it's my own lack of belief that gave me this view, but I thought it was a marvelous twist. Again, there's a depth to the story beyond simple "Christianity is awesome!" It's part of the cultural heritage being recovered.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: But, if you actually would like to discuss the use of the bible in that movie I'd be happy to. The book was just a book, it was the message behind it and how the person used that message which made the book potent.
The stupid villain who is already in charge of everything and is perfectly in control risks and lose all for a book he has no need of, because it's so special .
He could literally write anything in any piece of paper and it would work just as well.
But we, the audience, are supposed to believe that the book is special.
The book of Eli was a fun watch, but not anything that stuck with me.
Oblivion I couldnt take seriously because the rationale given for the alien invasion was beyond stupid. "We need hydrogen, so lets bypass the largest, easiest to collect, and uncontested sources of it to squeeze an comparably irrelevant amount of it from liquid water on the one place that will fight back". It's like the US spending a trillion dollars to recover a tiny amount of petroleum used in making a plastic widget and placed in the middle of a Taliban camp in Afghanistan.
I think your prejudice is on display, rather than having a valid criticism of the movie.
The point wasn't that the book was special. Like I said earlier, it was viewed (falsely) as a magic talisman in-universe that could increase the power of the megalomaniacal Oldman.
We as the audience become aware that the book isn't special in our world, and is misunderstood in post-apocalyptia. I think you're projecting yourself onto the plot. The audience isn't supposed to believe in the magic of the book. Quite the contrary, we're expected to understand the pointlessness of fighting over religion.
In the end, all points of view are considered equal. given the same "value" on the same shelf.
greatbigtree wrote: We as the audience become aware that the book isn't special in our world, and is misunderstood in post-apocalyptia.
There is no hint of that. There is nothing in the presentation of the movie that makes us see the book as “not actually a big deal”.
The whole thing is supposed to be a mere 30 years after the apocalypse, why would Carnegie, who can read, already knows the bible, and is old enough to have known the Bible as an adult before the cataclysm, think of it as this incredible think that will allow him to control people? Certainly not because that's how someone intelligent enough to control the town would behave. More like because the author consider it the most important book ever…
DarkTraveler777 wrote: But, if you actually would like to discuss the use of the bible in that movie I'd be happy to. The book was just a book, it was the message behind it and how the person used that message which made the book potent.
The stupid villain who is already in charge of everything and is perfectly in control risks and lose all for a book he has no need of, because it's so special .
He could literally write anything in any piece of paper and it would work just as well.
But we, the audience, are supposed to believe that the book is special.
You aren't getting it, clearly.
The book isn't special on its own. The book represents control to Carnegie (your "stupid villain") because he is old enough to remember the power religion had before society collapsed, but he obviously wasn't a believer and doesn't know exactly *how* belief motivates people. He thinks he needs the bible because it will give him access to that power of control, forgetting that part of faith's power isn't just subservience to a book, or a series of laws, but also belief in something better, something bigger--namely hope. Hope for the future. Hope for salvation. Whatever it is for the individual, it isn't just about using the book as a weapon to keep people in line. You have to also give people something to cling to, to put their faith in, and build hope around.
Carnegie couldn't "write anything" and achieve the same outcome because he didn't have the words. I think that is an actual line in the movie, even, but its been a while since I watched it. Still, the character lacked the capacity to project the influential power of religion that he wanted, so he fetishisized a book thinking that the book was enough to grant him the power he wanted. It wasn't. The book wasn't special. That was the twist! The whole time the characters and audience are led to believe that the book is the answer, the macguffin that will change things, and it isn't! What is lost on most of the characters (and apparently you) is not that the book is special, but rather it was the message inside the book that was significant. Or it wasn't. Because, again, the world ultimately didn't care about Eli, Carnegie or the bible.
Not actually a big deal, other than the whole put on a shelf with the other religious texts in a completely mundane way with no fanfare or special circumstance?
I'm going to rewatch it tonight. I thought it occurred further into the post-apocalypse, maybe I remember incorrectly. That said, I do distinctly recall NOT feeling it was a propaganda film. Another viewing is in order!
greatbigtree wrote: We as the audience become aware that the book isn't special in our world, and is misunderstood in post-apocalyptia.
There is no hint of that. There is nothing in the presentation of the movie that makes us see the book as “not actually a big deal”.
Yes, there is. That the book is in braille and functionally useless is indication 1.
That Eli gives the book to Carnegie is indication 2. If it was really a holy artifact would the hero hand it over? The physical book didn't matter because Eli had the text memorized and he knew that. The book was just a vessel and not an actual artifact.
That the bible is shelved next to the torah and quran and other texts indicates that it isn't special. That others have carried the same burden as Eli, with the same goals, only to have their efforts end up on a dusty shelf is kinda depressing.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: The whole thing is supposed to be a mere 30 years after the apocalypse, why would Carnegie, who can read, already knows the bible, and is old enough to have known the Bible as an adult before the cataclysm, think of it as this incredible think that will allow him to control people? Certainly not because that's how someone intelligent enough to control the town would behave. More like because the author consider it the most important book ever…
A couple of problems with your assertion:
1) Carnegie doesn't know the bible. That is the problem. He knows of it. He knew it motivated people, and cowed people, but he doesn't know it's verses intimately enough to make any use of them, and it is probably safe that he didn't know them to begin with. Carnegie was probably a "dirty atheist" like you and me, knowing that religion could be a useful tool but not knowing enough of the metaphysical aspects to make a production. Otherwise, Carnegie would be rattling off verses in the film, which he doesn't. That alone is a strong indicator that he is unaware of the bible's contents.
Imagine if a dialogue scene occurred between Carnegie and Eli with Carnegie misquoting scripture and Eli correcting him. Then your argument might hold some water, since it would be clear that Carnegie knew the rough details of the bible, or at least knew enough to trick people, but he doesn't even have that minimal understanding of the text.
2) I don't agree with your assessment that the movie fawns over the bible, so claiming the author considers it the most important book ever is just grasping at straws. Do you actually know anything about the screen writer(s)? I don't so this isn't a gotcha moment, but I agree with greatbigtree, I think your prejudice is showing. Along with your hate boner.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: The book isn't special on its own. The book represents control to Carnegie (your "stupid villain") because he is old enough to remember the power religion had before society collapsed, but he obviously wasn't a believer and doesn't know exactly *how* belief motivates people.
Yeah, Atheists are bad and stupidly misunderstand religion, yawn. I guess at 20, he had no idea how cults work, never heard of scientology or anything, had never read the bible…
There is NO non-believer right now that believes having a bible will help you control people and who are good enough manipulators to control people. It's pretty easy to see that many of the best manipulators don't use the bible. Cult leaders just write their own books, possibly pretending it's the latest version/addition of previous holy books…
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Carnegie couldn't "write anything" and achieve the same outcome because he didn't have the words.
He already has the words. HE ALREADY MANIPULATES EVERYONE IN TOWN! He can simply take a sheet of paper with random symbols on it and make it up on the fly as he needs.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Still, the character lacked the capacity to project the influential power of religion that he wanted
He does just fine. He does better than he would if he was bound by an actual book. He isn't even devout himself ffs, he has no reason to want the book.
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DarkTraveler777 wrote: That Eli gives the book to Carnegie is indication 2. If it was really a holy artifact would the hero hand it over? The physical book didn't matter because Eli had the text memorized and he knew that. The book was just a vessel and not an actual artifact.
“It's not total bible fanboyism because look it says that the text is the important part not the book”. Yeah, sure, but it's the text that makes it a bible, not the physical book…
DarkTraveler777 wrote: That the bible is shelved next to the torah and quran and other texts indicates that it isn't special.
Like many Americans, Carnegie has no idea what is in the bible .
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Carnegie was probably a "dirty atheist" like you and me, knowing that religion could be a useful tool but not knowing enough of the metaphysical aspects to make a production.
But the people that make the best cult leaders aren't the one that knows the religious text best. Charles Manson got a pretty dedicated cult going, he use the freaking Beatles lyrics as his holy scripture. When I said Carnegie could use anything written on paper that was literal. And yeah, someone good enough to control a whole town would know it.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: I don't so this isn't a gotcha moment, but I agree with greatbigtree, I think your prejudice is showing. Along with your hate boner.
So, what exactly is my prejudice? And why did I get this “hate boner”, exactly?
DarkTraveler777 wrote: The book isn't special on its own. The book represents control to Carnegie (your "stupid villain") because he is old enough to remember the power religion had before society collapsed, but he obviously wasn't a believer and doesn't know exactly *how* belief motivates people.
Yeah, Atheists are bad and stupidly misunderstand religion, yawn.
I guess at 20, he had no idea how cults work, never heard of scientology or anything, had never read the bible…
I dunno, I haven't seen the "Young Carnegie" movie. Was it good?
Book of Eli doesn't indicate that Carnegie knows anything more about the bible than it was a useful tool for controlling people. If he had a religious background, yes, he probably could have written his own bible and conned people into following him, but he doesn't have the ability to galvanize people with religion because he wasn't religious. He is able to pretend, but he doesn't know where to start which is why he wants a bible.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: There is NO non-believer right now that believes having a bible will help you control people and who are good enough manipulators to control people. It's pretty easy to see that many of the best manipulators don't use the bible. Cult leaders just write their own books, possibly pretending it's the latest version/addition of previous holy books…
Oh, cool. I didn't realize we were living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. We aren't posting on the internet right now? With the lights on and access to all of humanity's combined knowledge? I am just checking because I am at work, and sometimes this place feels like a hellscape.
So, to address your point. Cult leaders have access to knowledge. Scientology was created by an author who was most certainly a reader of other texts. Other cults are formed by charlatans who take religion and twist it to suit their needs. In Book of Eli Carnegie was trying to do that, but 30+ years of scavenging and societal collapse took away the foundations of knowledge necessary to craft a cult. That. Is. Why. Carnegie. Wanted. The. Fething. Bible. He didn't have religious texts to taint and turn into his own religion. They were all burned, or whatever the line is from the movie. That is why Eli's book is special to Carnegie. Read that correctly. It is special to Carnegie because he thinks it will unlock insights into controlling people. The book is not special on its own. Much like you, Carnegie projected all over that book.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Carnegie couldn't "write anything" and achieve the same outcome because he didn't have the words.
He already has the words. HE ALREADY MANIPULATES EVERYONE IN TOWN! He can simply take a sheet of paper with random symbols on it and make it up on the fly as he needs.
The movie addresses that. He wants to expand his control, increase his territories, and knows he can do that with religion.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Still, the character lacked the capacity to project the influential power of religion that he wanted
He does just fine. He does better than he would if he was bound by an actual book. He isn't even devout himself ffs, he has no reason to want the book.
He does fine? Carnegie barely controls the town. In fact, when he loses a few guys to Eli, his position is extremely jeopardized by lack of manpower/muscle. I think you are overstating Carnegie's position in order to further your argument.
Your prejudice is shown by derogatorily supposing the only reason to like the film was that "you must be Christian".
"...movie was only successful in the land of the Christian crazies"
The book is sooooo (sarcastically) special.
Your tone is quite blatantly disrespectful of a belief you don't share. You seem unwilling to accept any praise of this movie on the basis that it's just "bad Christian propaganda" because a central prop happened to be a bible.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: That Eli gives the book to Carnegie is indication 2. If it was really a holy artifact would the hero hand it over? The physical book didn't matter because Eli had the text memorized and he knew that. The book was just a vessel and not an actual artifact.
“It's not total bible fanboyism because look it says that the text is the important part not the book”.
Yeah, sure, but it's the text that makes it a bible, not the physical book…
God you are all over the place. The bible isn't important in the movie. Some characters think it is, but ultimately the physical bible isn't important because Eli memorized it, and the memorized bible isn't important because it doesn't do anything meaningful at the end of the movie besides sit on a shelf.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Carnegie was probably a "dirty atheist" like you and me, knowing that religion could be a useful tool but not knowing enough of the metaphysical aspects to make a production.
But the people that make the best cult leaders aren't the one that knows the religious text best. Charles Manson got a pretty dedicated cult going, he use the freaking Beatles lyrics as his holy scripture. When I said Carnegie could use anything written on paper that was literal.
And yeah, someone good enough to control a whole town would know it.
Cool. You'd make a better Carnegie. Doesn't change the fact that based on the story as presented there is no indication Carnegie knew enough of the bible to work up his own religion.
I just said I didn't. I also don't go around making claims about them either, or their motivations for writing. So knock it off unless you have something relevant to add to the discussion.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: I don't so this isn't a gotcha moment, but I agree with greatbigtree, I think your prejudice is showing. Along with your hate boner.
So, what exactly is my prejudice? And why did I get this “hate boner”, exactly?
That you can't see anything with the bible in as something more than religious propaganda. That you can sit through a movie with, at best, a conflicted view of religion and declare it a bible thumping indoctrination piece is pretty fething telling.
To the acting in the movie, I think all characters were realistic in their place. Washington as the lonely knight, Kunis as the squire with a troubled past, Oldman as the callous tyrant seeking to grow his power.
The magical talisman, the power wasn't in the talisman, it was in you all along. The torch is passed. Lots of classic story elements in a post apocalyptic world. I enjoyed it.
I like anything post apocalyptic, to be fair. I liked Mad Max as a kid, L.O.V.E.D. Fallout when I was a teen, and have always been attracted to stories set in any kind of post apocalypse setting.
That said, there is nuance to be found in TBOE. You could replace the book with any piece of "history". Just like how in 40k, people put significance in something they don't understand. For myself, that was key to my enjoyment of the film.
greatbigtree wrote: I like anything post apocalyptic, to be fair. I liked Mad Max as a kid, L.O.V.E.D. Fallout when I was a teen, and have always been attracted to stories set in any kind of post apocalypse setting.
That said, there is nuance to be found in TBOE. You could replace the book with any piece of "history". Just like how in 40k, people put significance in something they don't understand. For myself, that was key to my enjoyment of the film.
Have you seen a lot of the classic post-apoc films of the 80's, like Death Race 2000 and Cherry 2000 and A Boy And His Dog and the like?
Edit: Mega Force was not the movie I thought it was.
greatbigtree wrote: I like anything post apocalyptic, to be fair. I liked Mad Max as a kid, L.O.V.E.D. Fallout when I was a teen, and have always been attracted to stories set in any kind of post apocalypse setting.
That said, there is nuance to be found in TBOE. You could replace the book with any piece of "history". Just like how in 40k, people put significance in something they don't understand. For myself, that was key to my enjoyment of the film.
Have you seen a lot of the classic post-apoc films of the 80's, like Death Race 2000 and Cherry 2000 and Mega Force and A Boy And His Dog and the like?
A Boy and His Dog still messes with my head. Love that ending!
I have not, but it sounds like something to check for!
I rewatched Book of Eli, just finished. I really can't comprehend a "pro Christian" vibe from the movie.
The movie makes a point of suggesting the "Big Flash" was caused by religious tensions. Hence the reason all the bibles were burned following the big flash, and why Eli's bible is so significant.
The main protagonist, Eli, is not actually "old". Nor is Carnegie. The DVD has a bonus feature of a snippet of Carnegie's childhood, during the war but before the Nukes. He's an early teen, at the oldest. I'd guess 12, but it's hard to guess with "animation". I'd ballpark Eli and Carnegie to be roughly 45 to 50, tops. So they would have been early teens-ish when the bombs dropped, and it's been 30 years since. 30 years of living in squalor. No "society" just memories of the time before. I think that may be why I thought it was so much later. They were children, and the way Eli talks of the nukes as being, "The sky opening, and the Sun shone down and burned everything" evokes a kind of mythology about the war that I thought was passed down, but is apparently first hand.
I also noticed a little egg this time around, with the backpack he carries with him having a "My name is ELI" inside. Presumably from his young childhood. So Eli might be 40ish, instead. Hard to tell. In reality, I know the actors are older, or appear older, than that, but in P-A world, people would appear to age faster.
Thanks to the bonus footage, I can assert that Carnegie's fascination with Christianity is due to televangelism. His mother (?) was sending cheques to the ministry, despite their poor living conditions.
Carnegie specifically wishes to use the Bible, and the "Words" within as, "Weapons! Weapons aimed right at the hearts and minds of the weak and desperate!" (Close-to-quote). He's not in it for the holy rolling. He very clearly wishes to use the bible maliciously to increase his power. He doesn't know why the words had such impact on his mother, but he knows that they did. He knows that the words would be even more powerful now, as his own family was better off than the crap-fest that is the post-apoc.
Remember, Carnegie was a child when he saw this. He may not realize the words had power because of the presentation. Maybe he thinks he could do the showman thing and rake it in. The point is, Carnegie is a petty tyrant with aspirations to build more towns and increase his power (Carnegie knows where the old water springs are and water is life in the wastes) and if he could talk people into sending him money / resources because they WANTED to, rather than strong-arming them, he knows that it would make him exponentially more powerful.
Most of the adults, born after the nukes, are illiterate. 30 years is an entire generation that was born and raised without society.
Anyhow, I'm on the fence about it being a "Classic", but I do remember seeing it shortly after being released to DVD, and I have actually thought about the movie between now and then, more than once, so it has stuck with me. I think amongst other things, it presents a fairly even handed view of the power of religion. The good, the bad, the ugly, so to speak. There's a good nod to classic westerns in this movie, as well. The shootouts in the streets, for example.
Anyhow, really enjoyed it, again.
EDIT: Damnit. I'm coming down on the side of it being a classic. Or deserving to be, anyhow. Oldman plays such an excellent badguy. I mean, top notch. And the even-handedness of the power of religion deserves a note just for that. Neither for, nor against, just presenting. The more I think of it, it really is a modern western movie, set in the PA future. Carnegie's last scene in the movie is a tremendous payoff. Like I said, I've thought about the movie, between now and 8 ish years ago, more than once. I guess that speaks to it having moved me and made a notch in my brain where it hangs out.
Ive only seen the movie once. Correct me if im wrong, but isnt it very heavily implied that Eli was on a divine quest from god to get the book to the place that was preserving all the books and after getting it all transcribed from memory he dies a matyr?
The christianity there is pretty heavy <removed> handed if thats the case.
Please do not circumvent the swear filter - BrookM
I was really impressed with BR2049, but of course you can expect that from me. Surprised to see any discussion at all of Sucker Punch in here. I mean I kind of liked it, in the same way I liked the heavy metal cartoon from way back in the day. But i'm not sure it was a good movie, much less a classic. Drive though...for me is a modern classic, I have little doubts about that one.
Mad Max FR was good, I mean its about as good a reimagining as any considering the source material it's derived from. I didn't like it as much as a lot of other people though. It didn't really scratch that certain itch that I need. I generally don't like action movies though, that might be the problem.
The LOTR trilogy for me rivals the original Star Wars trilogy. And as time passes I think I might start liking it more. There are a lot of little things Lucas did to the current versions of the OT that irk the hell out of me, Vader screaming nooo! is high on the list. Talk about screwing up a scene that needed no improvement whatsoever.
But back to modern, anything NWR has done is in my eyes cult level...he just has a way of creating an atmosphere and has an eye for visuals. His movies also aren't too wordy or babble on and on with exposition or dialogue.
greatbigtree wrote: That said, there is nuance to be found in TBOE. You could replace the book with any piece of "history".
Except for stuff like Eli saying grace and generally being understood as a holy man through the movie. Would be weird to have the one good guy being the only using Christian prayers if he was carrying a Quran, or the Necronomicon, or a DVD copy of Grey. Somehow feels less of a coincidence when he is carrying a bible.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: If he had a religious background, yes, he probably could have written his own bible and conned people into following him, but he doesn't have the ability to galvanize people with religion because he wasn't religious.
Yeah, but Charles Manson didn't have a particularly religious background either, neither did Ron Hubbard. I'm telling it again: having the bible wouldn't have helped Carnegie, and he should have known it.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: So, to address your point. Cult leaders have access to knowledge. Scientology was created by an author who was most certainly a reader of other texts. Other cults are formed by charlatans who take religion and twist it to suit their needs.
Charlatans don't take pre-existing religion because it is well written or particularly powerful. They do because it's what people already believe in, so it's easier. When other people don't know said religion, it doesn't help.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: In Book of Eli Carnegie was trying to do that, but 30+ years of scavenging and societal collapse took away the foundations of knowledge necessary to craft a cult. That. Is. Why. Carnegie. Wanted. The. Fething. Bible.
You. don't. need. a. bible. for. that. actually. it. will. just. make. things. more. complicated.
Cults don't take a lot of civilization to appear. Cult leader is likely the old profession known to mankind.
Lance845 wrote: Correct me if im wrong, but isnt it very heavily implied that Eli was on a divine quest from god to get the book to the place that was preserving all the books and after getting it all transcribed from memory he dies a matyr?
That's exactly how I remember it, yes. Plenty of camera shot framing him in a messianic way, him regularly being shown not just as "some hardass who happens to carry a bible" but a devout holy warrior.
greatbigtree wrote: You seem unwilling to accept any praise of this movie on the basis that it's just "bad Christian propaganda" because a central prop happened to be a bible.
It's more than a prop. See just above. If I felt like it was a prop, if I had the impression, like you, that the bible in there was just some interchangeable prop that could be replaced by any piece of history and that the significance that people put into it was framed as unreasonable, then I wouldn't have a problem with the movie. But it wasn't the case. And honestly, it's pretty much never the case, because the bible holds way too much symbolism for people.
Yeah, I am fairly certain that with the implication that Eli, who is blind, was being guided on a divine quest to ensure the bible was transcribed and survived, says that within the movies universe not only is there a God but it is specifically the christian god who has a vested interest in the continued existence of the bible.
That is not bad on it's own. But you cannot talk about the bible in the movie as being interchangeable with any other book or simply a prop when the whole point of the movie is that you are actually watching a pilgrimage by a man who is literally guided by God to do Gods work.
And taking that as fact within the universe, the villain wanting the bible to use as a weapon of control takes on a very specific meaning. He couldn't just make up any other thing or use any other book. When your God is real and has real effects on the world it's not some interchangeable thing.
Consider the Transformers. (It's relevant trust me). They are all super religious. They have a divine book (the Covenant of Primus). A Real God (Primus, who is Cybertron). A real devil (Unicron) and real saints (The first 13, created by Primus to defeat Unicron and end their endless stalemate). When their god really exists their religious texts and divine figures cannot just be swapped for any other thing. Megatron takes his name from Megatronus, one of the first 13, known also as the Fallen. You coudln't just name him anything and have it carry the same meaning. Because Megatronus is real, and Primus is real, and the Covenant is real.
The bible isn't just a book in the universe of TBOE. It's an actual divine text with the messages of a real God. And Eli is more or less his latest prophet. Thats not something you can just swap out.
I'll concede that upon rewatching, the bible can not be swapped without changing Carnegie's fascination with that particular "power."
Eli is not completely blind. He has cataracts (cloudy eyes, as seen at the end) but not completely blind. He wears dark sunglasses in the light to make it easier for him to see.
Eli believes he's on a divine quest, yes. He believes he heard a voice when he was young, suffering from PTSD from surviving the bombs and the destruction of the world. He is a religious man, which is more characterization than anything.
The movie does NOT give any overt sign of Eli being protected by divine intervention.
Carnegie's desire for the book is not religious. He does not have faith, as shown in his and Eli's final confrontation. He asks Eli to pray for him. "No, really, please. Pray for me." He wants to become a demagogue. He cares nothing for the reality of a God that exists or doesn't.
The movie does not give the viewer the impression that a God exists in this world. Not this viewer, anyhow. Only that there are people that believe in that God. And people that don't. And people that are unaware of that God because reference to that God has been scrubbed from the Earth.
This is what I mean by even handed. The movie lets the viewer see all sides of the faith spectrum. Yes, the hero succeeds on his quest. That's how fiction works.
I disagree that the Bible is an "actual divine text" with a real God. I did not get that impression, from rewatching it last night. Truly, more is said about the dangers of blind faith than anything. Eli's personal faith stengthens him, but the "Faith of the Masses" is pretty clearly blamed as the source of bigotry and hatred that lead to the end of the world. There is no shortage of blame laid at the feat of the Christian faith, for the fate of the world.
Wow. I haven’t even seen Book or Eli, but just from the discussion, it’s easy to see Hybrid’s view on it is just because he hates anything Christian. “The bad guy doesn’t need the book, he can write anything he wants...blah, blah, blah”; in ANY film, bad people want things they think can enhance their hold and power. That’s such a common trope that if you MISSED it, you’re intentionally being ignorant just to flame it for being a Christian themed movie. Your attitude speaks loudly, and is disgusting.
greatbigtree wrote: I'll concede that upon rewatching, the bible can not be swapped without changing Carnegie's fascination with that particular "power."
AND Eli. I cannot be changed to a Quran because then Eli being the only one who says grace and stuff wouldn't make any sense.
greatbigtree wrote: Eli believes he's on a divine quest, yes. He believes he heard a voice when he was young, suffering from PTSD from surviving the bombs and the destruction of the world. He is a religious man, which is more characterization than anything.
A religious christian man. Not some weird post-apocalyptic religion he made up himself that has all kind of weird ideas, worshiping things that seemed mundane in the pre-apocalypse world. If he WAS into this kind of post-apocalyptic religion, then sure, you maintain the rational that "the book isn't special in our world, and is misunderstood in post-apocalyptia". But no. It's special to Eli not as an artifact from before the nukes, it's special just in the same way as it is "special" for billions of people today.
greatbigtree wrote: The movie does NOT give any overt sign of Eli being protected by divine intervention.
No overt sign, yes. There is no Deus Ex Machina where Jesus walk on the land to bring the blessed to even. But there is plenty of symbolism though.
greatbigtree wrote: The movie does not give the viewer the impression that a God exists in this world. Not this viewer, anyhow.
It did that viewer.
greatbigtree wrote: The movie lets the viewer see all sides of the faith spectrum.
If "evil atheist want to use it to manipulate other people but is in no way encouraged by the actual religious dogma to do those bad things" and "good christian is a good person who is cool and wins at the end" are the only two side, then yeah, sure, all sides!
Certainly missing the whole "good and well-meaning person being pushed to do bad things in the name of religious dogma" angle but hey I guess it doesn't exist or something?
Well - I hope this discussion encouraged some people to see TBOE and see for themselves that it is not a propaganda piece. It's just a neatly written post apoc genre film - with some BA Denzel Washington scenes...and ofc Mila Kunis.
If you are a religious person - you might see it as a "God works in mysterious ways to create miracles"
If you aren't you will probably just see a mystic BA on a quest to save his message in a Post Apoc world destroyed by religion and bigotry.
Book of Eli I found interesting, as mentioned by others the Bible itself isn't important it's the knowledge, wisdom and hope inside Eli that's precious and what gets passed to next generation. The post apoc setting has lost the laws and wisdom of civilization and is ruled by cruelty and barbarism, they have knowledge but they don't have wisdom which is a very different thing. The people of the post apoc are simply living as animals but they crave to be brought back into the enlightenment of what was before the fall and so they clutch at whatever remains they can find and even if it's just scraps that gives them the ability to rise up over other men. Carnegie rules over the wasteland but it's not an empire, he wants more and the only way to have that is to piece together the things from before the fall and he feels that if he can find that bible and use it to further his ambitions then it grounds it in providence or greatness which he cannot capture just scratching his way through the rubble. He isn't seeking it for a spiritual or religious reason but because it serves as a tool that he can't simply make for himself.
Like it or hate it the Bible is the cornerstone foundation of western civilization and shaped laws and society for thousands of years so it can't simply be replaced with made up mumble jumble. Because of tradition people often venerate it even if they don't know it well or even understand the messages, which gives it a unique power since It can be twisted and used as weapon but you still have to fall back on it for the original words, those words are what are believed to be it's power. Cults might spring up over a leader creating something but the truly powerful ones that gain the largest followings are ones that springboard off the older big religions. Sure Manson might have had a few dozen people in his Beatles drug cult but they can't hold a candle to some of the truly massive cult sects that have spun off from the big three religions which have created followers in thousands or even millions. Heck, even Hitler tried to give strength to his movement by tying it to old traditions and twisting ancient religious symbols and beliefs. There's something with creating connections to past tradition and history that grants sway over people as it gives an air of legitimacy and legacy even if none properly exists.
The library at the end of the movie symbolizes the hope that the world can be reborn through mankind rediscovering wisdom and order. It's not a Christian message being rammed down your throat, because if that were the case the Bible would not be placed alongside the others but would have been placed on it's own as the only truth. Instead it is placed alongside the others which like the Bible each form the cornerstones of civilization in other areas of the world. The library is the seeds for the future generation and while the light of civilization has been darkened there's still hope that it'll one day be returned by those serving as the caretakers. HSO I think you are so caught up in you anti-Christian boner you're not looking at the larger picture. Yes it plays a large part with Eli's character but it's only one portion of the collective whole that makes up humanity's wisdom that's symbolized by the library.
Yodhrin wrote: I don't think the Nolan Batmans will be considered a classic by comic book movie fans, but they probably will be by the broader moviegoing action-blockbuster crowd and the critics because they're the poster-child for that whole "you can't translate comic books to the screen with any depth or maturity unless they're, like, super-dark and, like, super-deep brah" school of thought that prevailed until the MCU really took hold.
Uhhh.... that's what Burton's Batman was, following the TV show. super dark and super deep. By comparision
Some peopel do ignore that most of the groundwork was done way before Nolans films by Burtons excellent Batman film - the sequal was a bit of a mess sadly and degenrated as the series went on.
But IMO Tim Burtons Batman is a true classic
It's interesting that even Nolan aped the Burton batsuit. It wasn't until BvS that Batman wore something more comics-accurate instead of the black rubber/armored suit. My preference would be that they stick with a grey suit with armor underneath going forward, mind you.
It's also interesting that Burton's Batman plays pretty campy now. It was a much darker take at the time, given that general audiences were more familiar with the ultra-camp TV show than the comics. But when I watch it now...my tastes have evolved. Marvel movies tend to be quip-fests -- and some are almost straight-up comedies -- but I don't know that I'd categorize most of them as campy.
Xenomancers wrote: The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?
The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.
Mad Max Fury Road is entirely about the emancipation of women, a strong matter that is basically never portrayed in cinema with the exception of some boring biopics, and I never understood while americans love biopics so much that every year tons of them are released in theatres.
Those women returned to the same oasis that they escaped from but not as slaves; they also realized that there were no other places to live since the prosimed land they seek dried years before. Also the hobbits come back to their land at the end, and they continue to live there exaclty as they did before their adventure. Does it mean that The Lord of the Rings has no point?
IMHO The Book of Eli and Oblivion were both at Waterworld's level, lol.
The hobbits come back to the Shire after saving Middle Earth from it's greatest evil. They actually accomplished something where they went giving the journey meaning. Just saying the story is lame - could have done anything and their best Idea is to run away from first first half of the movie and run back. I guess it's actually really smart - this has 95% of the film being on a road with semis and flame throwers (this is what the movie is about) that is great if you want action. I'd like a little more progression? Not starting all over mid film to do the exact same thing over again. That is boring.
stanman wrote: Book of Eli I found interesting, as mentioned by others the Bible itself isn't important it's the knowledge, wisdom and hope inside Eli that's precious and what gets passed to next generation.
Given that the only thing about Eli that we know will be passed to next generation is the book he memorized, and got transcripted again, you mean that it's not the Bible itself that is important, it's the Bible.
stanman wrote: Like it or hate it the Bible is the cornerstone foundation of western civilization and shaped laws and society for thousands of years so it can't simply be replaced with made up mumble jumble.
Oh, it can easily. It's not a great text.
stanman wrote: Sure Manson might have had a few dozen people in his Beatles drug cult but they can't hold a candle to some of the truly massive cult sects that have spun off from the big three religions which have created followers in thousands or even millions.
Which three religions are you talking about exactly? Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism?
If you look at how those religions developed, they didn't exactly reached that size instantly, and while Manson was too self-destructive, Scientology survived the death of Hubbard and could totally end up as big as any other religion.
stanman wrote: There's something with creating connections to past tradition and history that grants sway over people as it gives an air of legitimacy and legacy even if none properly exists.
Hence why christianity reference judaism, why islam references christianity and judaism, why jainism references all three, and so on and so forth. Totally agree on this. But the cool part is: you don't need to be faithful in those connections! You can just make them up! Which is why Carnegie would have done if he wasn't a simple tool in a christian metaphor.
stanman wrote: Instead it is placed alongside the others which like the Bible each form the cornerstones of civilization in other areas of the world.
Woah I guess religions are the only way to reach civilization, and that doesn't include vast swathes of Asia that are neither christian nor muslim .
stanman wrote: Yes it plays a large part with Eli's character but it's only one portion of the collective whole that makes up humanity's wisdom that's symbolized by the library.
Human wisdom is apparently 100% religious. Science? Nope. Philosophy? Nada. Old books used to justify atrocities? Sure!
timetowaste85 wrote: Can’t sue, and wouldn’t. But I can block you and report your toxic posts. Which I’ve now done both.
stanman wrote: There's something with creating connections to past tradition and history that grants sway over people as it gives an air of legitimacy and legacy even if none properly exists.
Hence why christianity reference judaism, why islam references christianity and judaism, why jainism references all three, and so on and so forth. Totally agree on this. But the cool part is: you don't need to be faithful in those connections! You can just make them up! Which is why Carnegie would have done if he wasn't a simple tool in a christian metaphor.
stanman wrote: Instead it is placed alongside the others which like the Bible each form the cornerstones of civilization in other areas of the world.
Woah I guess religions are the only way to reach civilization, and that doesn't include vast swathes of Asia that are neither christian nor muslim .
Given the context of that scene I would expect to see Buddhist text placed there as well, the foundational laws for civilizations all tend to have roots in religion so there is value in preserving religious text if for nothing else other than for providing a historical context. It helps to understand western law if you understand Judeo/Christian history just as it would help understand various Asian or Arabic laws if you know the religious history behind it. You don't have to practice a religion but understanding the text provides a lot of insight into the cultural history of groups of people and it provides a backdrop to their values and traditions.
Wisdom is how we reach civilization, compassion, morality and law are what set us apart from savagery, for most people that stems from some form of religion. As much as you may mock religion I don't recall seeing any great atheist societies that have stood the test of time, there's a few countries and empires that have tried to crush religion and most have collapsed as a result, pretty much every civilization on earth has been tied to one form of religion or another.
stanman wrote: Yes it plays a large part with Eli's character but it's only one portion of the collective whole that makes up humanity's wisdom that's symbolized by the library.
Human wisdom is apparently 100% religious. Science? Nope. Philosophy? Nada. Old books used to justify atrocities? Sure!
Knowledge is not the same as wisdom, science doesn't teach us morality, or answer the question of who we are. Wisdom comes from understanding of the past and exploration of the soul which religion has traditionally filled that role, philosophy would also be a part of wisdom. People will use any excuse for atrocities not just old books. Some people have done bad things in the name of religion but most just try to find comfort, peace, and compassion in religion.
I put Equilibrium with films like Priest and The One in a specific subset of cult classic status. For people who like low budget, high concept movies, these are classics worth seeking out. For everyone else, they're just head scratchers.
Stanman, I completely agree about keeping the Bible in a vault of knowledge to provide some historical context for future generation, but that's definitely not how the mission of Eli in the movie. He isn't doing it for historical context, he is doing it because it's his freaking holy book!
This is getting very off-topic, but
Spoiler:
And I very strongly disagree with your notion that morality is dependent on religion. Aren't the Greek philosophers considered the forefathers of western thoughts? Clearly we got the idea of democracy from them, among many other things, and it wasn't from religion. Let's be honest, the Code of Hammurabi has likely been more of an inspiration for the concept of human rights than the bible. How many people have you seen use philosophy to justify atrocities? Atrocities are usually justified either by religion or by politics, and it's pretty impossible to get rid of the second. A famous quote is that "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."
Kung Fury was funny but I don't know about Space Cops. Anyone else enjoyed The FP?
Xenomancers wrote: I'll see your space cop and raise you - "Equilibrium".
FFS, no. You could see the twist a mile away, and the gun kata was just ridiculous. No.
I thought gun kata was pretty cool.
V for Vendetta.
Gun Kata depends on the other guy standing still like a statue, being choreographed. It's completely unnatural and ridiculous when you start thinking about what's happening.
V for Vendetta is actually good, because it's about something and was well-written in its original form. That's why it resonated, and Anon adopted the masks.
Also how could I forget - I love this movie so much.
V for Vendetta.
Didn't like the comic or the movie.
Really irritates me that apparently the writer of both / either don't understand anything about who Guy Fawkes and co were or why they did what they did - sad really.
For a start he was just a hired thug and not a ringleader - the majority of the actual plotters being what we would now consider to be far right conservatives.
Confused why its an issue to have a Christian theme to a movie?
