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 Frazzled wrote:
Plus not all of us are blessed with having access to the movie libraries of Japanese, Chinese, or other international horror or whatever films.

That Guy: Ju-on was better!
Frazzled:What? Where did you see that?
That Guy: I saw it in Japan
Frazzled: Now this is where I punch you in the face really really hard.

I discovered Ring and Ju-On via the wonderful, but now sadly defunct, Tartan Video. They were a niche distributor that opened up the eastern cinema market. Never been further east than Germany!

I think it was more the timing. The originals were effective because they were something new and an antidote to the 'blood everywhaaaaar and then some bewbs' western audiences were most au fait with. They went for creepy and compelling rather than jump scares. So when Hollywood declared 'me tooooo' there was an inevitable backlash.

Now I've not seen The Grudge, so I don't know if it was justified in that instance, just giving context and thoughts

I listen to Kermode & Mayo and the Empire podcasts. A good review, IMO, tells me about the film. Not giving it a rating, or if it's "good" or not - I've got no time for Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic or similar wastes of time - but tells me about what the film does, if it tells its story well or if the themes are explored in any depth. I'm not really bothered about whether a reviewer likes a film; I may well decide that I like the sound of a film that they dislike or vice versa.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Marvel get that superhero stuff is nonsense and call it out

There's an important divide. You think it needs to be silly, others don't.




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 Frazzled wrote:
Plus not all of us are blessed with having access to the movie libraries of Japanese, Chinese, or other international horror or whatever films.

That Guy: Ju-on was better!
Frazzled:What? Where did you see that?
That Guy: I saw it in Japan
Frazzled: Now this is where I punch you in the face really really hard.

Although a remake, I think the Ring (American version) was a clearly superior film to Ringu (Japanese version), and (staying on topic) better than its 57 Metacritic score.

I'll duck now before any J-horror hipsters throw anything at me.

I'll only really pay attention to critics if I'm on the fence about something. Am I unsure if I want to see it now (Avoiding spoilers, bbut paying a lot more money), or do I wait until it "comes out on Netflix"? I'll look at critics. If not, I will judge from the trailers, and will ignore the critics.

 Manchu wrote:
Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Marvel get that superhero stuff is nonsense and call it out

 gorgon wrote:
There's an important divide. You think it needs to be silly, others don't.

Funny how that exchange played out - a microcosm right before our eyes of critical reaction to MoS ...

 Manchu wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Marvel get that superhero stuff is nonsense and call it out

 gorgon wrote:
There's an important divide. You think it needs to be silly, others don't.

Funny how that exchange played out - a microcosm right before our eyes of critical reaction to MoS ...

But people seem to be ignore the bit where I highlighted exactly how really really silly MOS is - every moment that is set on Krypton is on a level with the madness of Flash Gordon (another film I love) - in fact Brian Blessed as Sups dad would have been brilliant - and not far off the protrayal in that film. Sadly there is simply no self awareness of that silliness.

Also that the genius of Marvel films is that they make human characters who happen to do silly things - so again the bit I was talking about where Hawkeye calls out how deeply mad the world is but also is a great bit about herorism with his speech to Wanda. Thats what marvel have been getting right and what Wonder Woman got right.

at least in my view

I just don't agree that "fantastical" is interchangeable with "silly."

 Manchu wrote:
Man of Steel is very, very good. It is also deadly serious. Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film. MoS is only marred by the lack of chemistry between Cavill and Adams. The script got their relationship exactly right (the tone of this film will not brook swept-off-their-feet romance); it's just that the actors don't connect. Moreover: in an era of boring, forgettable villains (even Disney cannot figure out villains), General Zod is convincing, absorbing, and brilliantly portrayed.

At 44% (Metacritic), Batman v Superman got off easy. It is certainly one of the worst films I have ever suffered through. I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of that bloated, absurd, unrelentingly stupid disasterpiece, except that it provided about a month's worth of jokingly screaming MAAARFFAHH at my friends.

BVS gave us Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, as well as the Wonder Woman theme--the most memorable superhero theme in 20 years.

Also, I think you are downplaying the cultural significance of "Save Martha". It has easily surpassed "jump the shark" as the quintessential catchphrase with which to describe the comedotragedy of a multi-layered cinematic catastrofart.

I would go out and say that I don't think its wrong to knock on a film for not being what was expected. Especially after my experiences with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, I think its fair to knock a film down for being something other than what was advertised or expected. I'm a bit sour about those films, because they're just going in a direction that is other than what I desired from the franchise. I wouldn't declare them bad films just for that, but if someone were to ask me for a rating it would certainly effect what I'd give (5/10 and 7/10 on the feather caps rating scale )

I also think part of the issue with MoS taking itself seriously is that it took itself too seriously. Super heroes are inherently a silly concept. If you ignore that base reality, you're going to alienate some of the audience and I think that's happened thus far with the DCU. The films take themselves so seriously its hard to believe them at all, and when the silly bits come up they become distractions rather than the endearing "quirkiness" of the Marvel films which I think have done well by recognizing that comic characters are innately silly and just rolling with it.


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Also, I think you are downplaying the cultural significance of "Save Martha". It has easily surpassed "jump the shark" as the quintessential catchphrase with which to describe the comedotragedy of a multi-layered cinematic catastrofart.

Exalt XD

I don't buy the idea that comic book super heroes are inherently silly. I think that's one approach and that Marvel has had great success with it since the 60s - and Disney (and to a lesser extent, Fox) has tapped into that, sure. But DC, for better or worse, has gone in a different direction: namely, mythology. There isn't anything inherently silly about myth.

MoS is a powerful tale. It's about a man deeply committed to morality struggling with knowing and doing what is right - and he is pit against a villain with an unshakable moral conviction. The next step would be to pit him against a villain even more threatening: a man who appeared amoral but ultimately has his own elusive convictions. Unfortunately, that character - Lex Luthor - has already been ruined in BvS, a movie with no story that could have been just as accurately titled "Theoretically This Should Make Money."

As for the WW "theme" ... it is recognizable, unlike anything in Zimmerman's scores for the Nolan Bat films or MoS. But it's not musical. It is a "theme noise." And whereas Williams's Superman theme speaks to soaring wonder and Elfman's Batman theme describes relentless justice, the WW noise from BvS can be summed up as "uh oh the cat is pissed off." Imagine it playing over a vid of a seriously angry cat, go ahead.

I don't follow any critics, I used to listen to what was being said on the forums here but most of you suggested 'firefly' and lost all credibility that show was horrid. If it's a toss up like ghostbusters, then I'll see what the conversation is about here but that just ends up being, wait for it to show up on netflix

I found a much better system for the kids movies, if I'm considering taking the kids then I'll stream it and decide for myself. My plan for star wars movies is brilliant though, call the kids out of school for a religious holiday, and take the kids for the first showing friday morning

 Manchu wrote:
I don't buy the idea that comic book super heroes are inherently silly.

A more accurate word may be juvenile. Not in the prejorative sense that is, but rather as a descriptive of "undeveloped and immature" like was once used to define fiction aimed at adolescents and young adults. Super heroes are about as escapist as escapism gets in fiction. Stories based in the real world tackling in many ways real world problems, but where rather than engage those real problems with real solutions we simply supercharge a symbolic figure to resolve the problem(s) for us. That is inherently silly not so much in the fiction itself but as an aspect of the genre, and even though comics and comic characters have matured over the decades, they can really only band aid over the innate nature of what they are; an unrealistic and ultimately childish solution to injustice in the world.

I personally don't think there's any way to escape that, and while I don't think the DCU has to copy Marvel's formula to succeed, I think ignoring the core reality of the medium they are translating is hindering their efforts.

Movies that didn't get great reviews but were good? Near the top of that list for me would be Battle: Los Angeles.That movie was a great twist on an Alien Invasion Scifi movie. We get to see the action purely from the point of view of the common soldiers, rather than having the big picture like in Independence Day. And that was a refreshing new thing to me.

And no matter how many people like to bash Avatar for being "Dances with Wolves in space" or "Fern Gully in space", I absolutely love that movie and consider it one of my favorites. I'm only hoping they don't ruin it with the supposedly upcoming sequel.

Hell, I actually like the Star Wars prequels in spite of a certain Gungan being in them.

I think we were on the same page already inasmuch as I took "silly" to mean "not seriously engaging with real topics." But you didn't address the point I made about literary mythology. The Iliad certainly grapples with real - albeit fundamental - issues despite being populated with antique super hero equivalents. The more successful DC stories (including MoS) are comparable. Again, your real issue (by your own concession) appears to be what I already described: critics struggling with their personal expectations rather than the works they are ostensibly addressing. It's like saying the Iliad is flawed becausd it wasn't a fun romp just in time for summer.

Prometheus and Covenant have a different problem - it's not just what the audience expects and doesn't get. Rather, it's that the movie itself half-heartedly delivers on the promise of a return to straighforward, story-free (or at least story-light) horror when the production is clearly more interested in something very different (also myth).

 Manchu wrote:
I don't buy the idea that comic book super heroes are inherently silly. I think that's one approach and that Marvel has had great success with it since the 60s - and Disney (and to a lesser extent, Fox) has tapped into that, sure. But DC, for better or worse, has gone in a different direction: namely, mythology. There isn't anything inherently silly about myth.

MoS is a powerful tale. It's about a man deeply committed to morality struggling with knowing and doing what is right - and he is pit against a villain with an unshakable moral conviction. The next step would be to pit him against a villain even more threatening: a man who appeared amoral but ultimately has his own elusive convictions. Unfortunately, that character - Lex Luthor - has already been ruined in BvS, a movie with no story that could have been just as accurately titled "Theoretically This Should Make Money."

As for the WW "theme" ... it is recognizable, unlike anything in Zimmerman's scores for the Nolan Bat films or MoS. But it's not musical. It is a "theme noise." And whereas Williams's Superman theme speaks to soaring wonder and Elfman's Batman theme describes relentless justice, the WW noise from BvS can be summed up as "uh oh the cat is pissed off." Imagine it playing over a vid of a seriously angry cat, go ahead.

I agree that DC's mythology approach should work. Their characters work for that. The problem with mythology is that it needs to be big, archetypical characters in Campbellian narratives. When they try to do more complex, personal plots they seem to lose focus. Batman vs Superman should have resonated like Ahab shaking his fist at God...but instead we got "Save Martha." Wonder Woman loses its focus in the final act as well, and what should be a battle of philosophies becomes a Goku vs Freeza power contest. I'd really like to hear your perspective on Wonder Woman.


What you say about the Wonder Woman theme is not necessarily untrue, but consider this: I can indeed picture an angry cat flailing about to the WW theme (and laugh heartily), but I can't imagine the same cat freaking out to the thematic accompaniment for Iron Man, Thor, Cap A, Snyderverse Batman, Snyderverse Superman, Black Widow, any Spider-Man since 1980, the Hulk, etc.. Memorable noise would be a step up for them.


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Trying to take superheroes completely straight faced, with a focus on the personal instead of the mythological, leads to Watchmenififcation. "This guy's screwed up."

 Manchu wrote:
But you didn't address the point I made about literary mythology. The Iliad certainly grapples with real - albeit fundamental - issues despite being populated with antique super hero equivalents.

I don't consider them equivalent in the way you suggest. While the Iliad certainly has superhuman characters, and gods, and magic, and a whole other seven books lost to the ages the Iliad doesn't take its fundamental issues and resolve them in a childish manner. Rather the story plays its characters and fantastical elements straight. Comic books don't play super heroes straight. In the Iliad, Achilles might be a godly man who can defeat anyone in battle, but all of that ends up being pointless because his skills can't save him from a simple weakness, and his horrible character causes more harm than his fighting skills can cover up. It's not a matter that the super heroes are super, it's a matter of how their actions play out in their stories. The Incredibles played it straight for a second when it admitted the reality that in the real world these super powered vigilantes would have been sued out of existence for all the collateral damage they cause. Kick Ass played it straight when the main character's first attempt at being a hero got his ass profoundly beaten into the pavement, and when it revealed how a child trained to fight and beat criminal into a bloody pulp would be fundamentally incapable of even faking a normal life. Watchmen played it straight when the heroes became more villainous in how they tackled the world's problems (and Watchmen the film I think still suffered from taking itself a bit too seriously when it had a naked blue man floating around).

Again, your real issue (by your own concession) appears to be what I already described: critics struggling with their personal expectations rather than the works they are ostensibly addressing.

That's my issue with Prometheus and Covenant in part, but not with the DCU. The DCU is just bad. MoS was the best of the bunch and I'd considered it to be average to slightly better than average as a film. I was never on the "super man doesn't kill people" whine wagon. I just don't think it was that great and that was mostly because I think the films pacing was very off. Suicide Squad and BvS were just bad (I haven't seen Wonder Woman). Suicide Squad I think is actually the worst of the three, because there's so many terrible flaws in it from start to finish that I don't think it could have ever been good while the Batman v Superman I think could have been a good film, but just wasn't. I'd almost bet that if I went through BvS and fan edited out all of Lex's scenes, all the out of place Apocalypse hints, and that awful Martha scene we'd have a passable short film where Superman and Batman turn on each other over ideological reasons and Batman wins.

Rather, it's that the movie itself half-heartedly delivers on the promise of a return to straighforward, story-free (or at least story-light) horror when the production is clearly more interested in something very different.

I think the bigger issue for me is that the whole spiel Prometheus and Covenant go into about creation and child abandonment is just half-baked. It kind of trips over itself constantly in Prometheus, and while Covenant handled it better I think there too the whole thing just trips over itself. Scott seems too wrapped up in trying to look deep and thoughtful and has failed to actually be deep and thoughtful (if that makes sense), and for me that leaves me walking out the theater thinking "I should just go watch Aliens for the billionth time."

When it comes to super heroes, Alan Moore is a real-life super villain of dog-kicking malevolence (he literally killed of Krypto). Whereas the other father of the Dark Age, Mr. Miller, thought these characters could draw new strength from recasting them as hopeless neurotics, Mr. Moore hoped to pscychologize them into irrelevance. The Watchmen was the master stroke of this project and Mr. Snyder filmed it with great faithfulness, thematically. The effectiveness of that picture should have alerted WB execs that he was the wrong man for the task of tent-poling their cinematic pantheon. But they were drunk on Mr. Nolan's sometimes exclellent, more often mediocre efforts with a Batman drawn from Mr. Miller's vision.

But by Jove Bob I think you hit the nail on the head about WB mistaking the DC gods for Marvel-like characters. The numbers told them that the heavy, near-biblical MoS experiment demanded too much from the audience's minds instead of our wallets. And thus BvS. But if I'm to accept that the real problem with MoS was it's seriousness then I'm also at a loss to explain the lack of any (intentional) humor in the sequel. See agin my suggested title for BvS above.

I don't have an opinion about the WW film as I have not seen it and probably never will. My only interest in WW is as the unflappable Hera to Superman's Judeo-Christianized Zeus (who also, to WW's chagrin, prefers mortal women). I already conceded that her ... ahem, theme noise was at least recognizable. But consider it against what you apparently desire. Vader's theme, for example, can be played with strident bravado or menacingly or searchingly or even, as the father lay dying before his son, with vulnerability bordering on sweetness. The WW theme noise is, like any mere noise, just what it is and nothing more. That's why the idea of playing it over a vid of a freaked out cat is so funny.

 Manchu wrote:
When it comes to super heroes, Alan Moore is a real-life super villain of dog-kicking malevolence (he literally killed of Krypto).

That's cause Alan Moore is perpetually stuffing his head up his own butt, and is so damn dour that even when he makes something good it still manages to be kind of off

But at the end of the day his analysis of Batman and the Joker (just as an example), is correct;

The Killing Joke is a story about Batman and the Joker; it isn't about anything that you're ever going to encounter in real life, because Batman and the Joker are not like any human beings that have ever lived. So there's no important human information being imparted ... Yeah, it was something that I thought was clumsy, misjudged and had no real human importance. It was just about a couple of licensed DC characters that didn't really relate to the real world in any way.

as a factual statement, and is useful to keep in mind on a meta level. But of course no one who loves Batman, Joker, Superman, or Wonder Woman, is necessarily engaging those characters to gain whatever it is Moore considers "real human importance." Rule of Cool is in effect, and that takes a story pretty far, but at the end of the day I don't think you can escape that he is kind of right. Even when tackling real issues like terrorism or pervasive criminality the genre hits a disconnect with reality once the spandex caped guy with his underwear on the outside enters the panel, and then that silliness has to be dealt with or the audience will notice. Marvel has generally diffused that silliness with wise cracks (they were doing it even before they made movies, ala Spider-Man's bantering habit). DC could do that, or it could just not take itself so dang seriously because seriousness is kind of like a rubber band in fiction but especially in fantastic fiction. Stretch it too far and it kind of smacks back into your face.

Personally I'm a fan of how DC likes lampooning some of its own long standing cliches

LoH, I suspect you have not read the better DC stories - that doesn't reflect poorly on you; Lord knows the good ones are rare enough! Just like Achilles, Superman has one vulnerability - and it's not kryptonite, either. Nor does Superman's godlike power truly derive from the beams of a yellow star. Now these things are literally true within the conceit of the story, just as Achilles' heel is literally his weak spot in the respective narrative. But as you yourself suggest, this is merely symbolic. The most soaringly admirable and noble thing Achilles ever did was not on the battlefield but rather when he handed over Hector's body to grieving Priam - and not just by our standards, either. It has moved us for thousands of years. Similarly, Superman's power is his moral rectitude and his weakness is when his values are called into question. This is why his nemesis is a mere mortal as opposed to a Zod or a Doomsday.

RE: Prometheus and Covenant - Sir Ridley is taking big risks to tackle big issues. He's aiming so high, within the confines of getting the money to do so because the studio is anchoring him to a well-established and instantly recognizable IP, that he has to chance coming across as a bit pretentious. And sometimes it is rather pretentious, no denying it. But I think the man is a genuine artist. I like that he's crafted these movies to transport us within them, rather than being pedantic (like, for example, Contact). He's not answering the questions, just reminding us to wonder at them in an era of privileging political sentimentality over intellectual and spiritual sincerity. It's a pity that he can only make these movies boxed up as Alien prequels, but it's hard to imagine jsutifying the budgets otherwise.

Mr. Moore has a consistent way of throwing others under the bus when he wants to appear to candidly criticize his own work. In the case you cited, he takes it out on fictional characters, which I suppose is better (if all the more petty) than taking it out on real people. But please don't cite Mr. Moore pointing out his own failings as telling us anything about superheroes.

I'm definitely more of a Marvel man

The most soaringly admirable and noble thing Achilles ever did was not on the battlefield but rather when he handed over Hector's body to grieving Priam - and not just by our standards, either. It has moved us for thousands of years.

Well it moves us now because culture has shifted (in the actual story giving Hector's body back to Priam is little more than a footnote). More lines are spent describing Achilles' new set of armor than are spent on giving Hector's body back to Priam. To the Homeric Greeks the story was about how a complete ahole nearly cost Greece the great war and set the other great heroes against one another. The point of the story was the old aesop "pride cometh before the fall" as nearly every character in the Homeric cycle (even the gods) is ultimately undone by their own arrogance with only a few exceptions. Of course by the time we get to Alexander the Great's era, the culture had already shifted and the original moral of the story completely forgotten. On the bright side, Homer fared better than Cameron. Everyone thought the Colonial Marines were as badass as Hudson bragged about instead of poor sods sent to die for nebulous reasons in a conflict they could never hope to win

And I get what you're saying about the Symbolism but I'm not just talking about the Symbolism. I'm talking about what's underneath, and while super heroes sometimes do have to the hard stuff in great ways (Superman vs the Elite I think did this fairly well), they're still trapped in the reality that any solution to a problem derived from one the end of a punch that can shatter the moon is ultimately going to be kind of silly. This is one reason why One Punch Man is so awesome. It takes that overriding absurdity of that and just lets it play out (though Saitama is more of a deconstruction of Goku than Superman but I think there's still some parallels there).

RE: Prometheus and Covenant - Sir Ridley is taking big risks to tackle big issues. He's aiming so high, within the confines of getting the money to do so because the studio is anchoring him to a well-established and instantly recognizable IP, that he has to chance coming across as a bit pretentious.

I definitely felt the studio interference in the last act of Convenant, but then I also thought that was a much better bit than the forty minutes of "I was making a Prometheus sequel but everyone with money realized not enough people wanted one." I mean sure Contact was pedantic, but it wasn't shallow and it managed to impart its message concisely even if it spent way too much time insultingly talking down to a good chunk of the audience. Telling me I should "wonder at a question" begs that he actually have a question worth wondering about, but he engages the question with such a lack of intellectual rigor that I don't really care that he's asking it. A five year old can ask "how did I get here." I expect a bit more from someone wanting me to pay them to see a film based on the question, and retelling Paradise Lost in space badly isn't cutting it.

It's a pity that he can only make these movies boxed up as Alien prequels, but it's hard to imagine jsutifying the budgets otherwise.

I think he could have done it. Gotten the money that is. I still probably wouldn't like it because I think the whole thing is too shallow on an intellectual level, but it would probably have made for much better films to have never gotten tied up with the Alien franchise to begin with. Scott is just obsessed with ending awful Alien sequels apparently and has decided to end the plague by making mediocre not-quite Alien prequels

I don't think you state it quite correctly, regarding the Iliad, but let it pass til another time.

To the subject at hand, let me put it to you like this - if WB wants to chase the Disney money then they ought to do a Teen Titans cinematic universe because Olympus is beyond the reach of their target demo.

Covenant and Prometheus, too, are bit beyond the scope of the present topic. Their current metacritic scores are about right in my book (albeit mine is a harsh book). But I don't think Sir Ridley is being shallow. The questions posed are about as fundamental as they come and Sir Ridley's insight is very keen: we start by looking beyond ourselves but gradually the eye turns inward. These movies are not (so far) lectures or sermons (again, see Contact) or even parables and I think that deserves praise considering the subject.

I'm not sure why there's any if involved. Of course they want big block buster returns on there multi-hundred million dollar film project. You don't spend that kind of money and not want the same success the other guy got.

That doesn't mean they have to do it in the same way, but their course up until now clearly hasn't been working. By now I mean Wonder Woman. Haven't seen it but it's completely avoided the blasting BvS got, so how bad can it be XD

The issue is that the films have blatantly not reflected expectations, and while there's leeway I think to say that people need to temper their expectations with reality, you also can't throw shoddy curve balls from left field and then blame the catcher when it lands ten feet away from where anyone wanted it to be. if you're going to miss expectations, at least make something good. BvS wasn't good. Neither was Suicide Squad. I think people can overlook something other than what they expected when it works but if it comes out a sloppy mess you can't really fall back on blaming the audience for not getting it.

Well, good news about the music: Danny Elfman is taking over for Justice League's score.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/batman-and-spider-man-composer-danny-elfman-will-now-sc-1796113424

The "if" is not "if WB wants money" - it's "if WB can't find another way to make money."

Anyways, shifting back to the topic

Last night's entertainment was the supreme silly Drive Angry with Nic Cage (also known as Hell Driver). Paper thin plot, ridiculous action....but lots of fun.

Perhaps not one I'd buy to keep, but quite possibly the epitome of an 'oooh, it's on Netflix' movie. It's weird. I watch any awful lot of crap on Netflix, but feel no guilt in doing so. It's as if Netflix is the calorie free option of movie watching? Because we're paying for the service and not the individual product I for one have no qualms watching bloody awful films on there, and critics be damned.

Well like I said earlier. There are lots of reasons to watch bad films XD

Any movie with blatant over the top soldierly heroism kind of cracks me up. If I suspect a movie will be simultaneously bad and filled with rampantly stroking the military's ego, I usually skip the theater because I will laugh and it'll be awkward. I love Battle: LA, but unlike a previous poster I think it's a rotten film. But it's filled with so many alien invasion and war movie cliche's watching it is a sort of guilty pleasure. Same reason I kind of enjoy Battleship. It's not Trolls 2 levels of so bad its good, but still.

I also like watching found footage horror films. It's amazing how uninspired and bad they can be, with some becoming comedic in how bad. Netflex has a nice collection itself if you're willing to brave some foreign language pictures.

 LordofHats wrote:
Well like I said earlier. There are lots of reasons to watch bad films XD

Any movie with blatant over the top soldierly heroism kind of cracks me up. If I suspect a movie will be simultaneously bad and filled with rampantly stroking the military's ego, I usually skip the theater because I will laugh and it'll be awkward. I love Battle: LA, but unlike a previous poster I think it's a rotten film. But it's filled with so many alien invasion and war movie cliche's watching it is a sort of guilty pleasure. Same reason I kind of enjoy Battleship. It's not Trolls 2 levels of so bad its good, but still.

I also like watching found footage horror films. It's amazing how uninspired and bad they can be, with some becoming comedic in how bad. Netflex has a nice collection itself if you're willing to brave some foreign language pictures.

Battleship is a great film - its fun throughout, had lots of laughs and interestingly has Alien invaders that are actually concerned about "collateral damage" - far more so than the human military ever are in films

guilty pleasures - I either enjoy a movie or a I don't and I certainly don't need film critics to tell me how or why I should or should not enjoy a film - its the same with food - I have my food how I like it not how others think it should be prepared.

re the DC films - Silly vs Fantastical - I found the Kryptonian bits of MOS the former because they made so little sense and fought against their own internal narrative. There was absolutely no reason for Supermans dad to have a flying Dragon but someone thought it would be cool - so they did. Silly.
The planet dying theme was fine - its part of the whole Superman stic - but then they show vast super power star ships that they have and don't use. Silly.

I do find it sad (and mildly insulting) whenever a poor executed and badly written film like BvS or MOS are then excused by the whole "oh you didn't understand it" or "its beyond you" when actually no people understood it fine, what it was trying to do and failing at - same as Prometheus. They are just happy to call it out.

IMO That film was not a grand vision it was just silly - nothing made any sense if you looked at with any degree of intelligence and whilst everything does not need to make sense - you need to be true to your internal narrative or at else have decent and coherent characters - Prometheus had neither. It was a horrible mess of visual effects and lurched from scene to scene.

@ Manchu - if you are looking for something a bit deeper from a superhero film - then IMO you are missing out in several ways by not watching Wonder Woman. Yes there is a good plot, characters etc etc but also it does take time to do more - its way more thoughtful than say MOS or BVS and I have said it many times - it works better to have humour in a film as that then makes the darker elements more so. DC have not got that since Burtons initial Batman but they got it here.

I think people often confuse the fact that they personally don't care about film's flaws with a critic being wrong for pointing out those flaws. As an example, I don't much care that Batman vs Superman had a long, boring plot that made little sense and a really dull final villain. Because the depiction of a weary Batman reaching despair and turning to more extreme violence satisfied my inner 12 year old so much. But just because I don't care about those faults it doesn't mean they're not there.

The critics weren't wrong. I'm not wrong. And on an objective level, they're a lot more right than I am.

 Paradigm wrote:
One recent review I did rather enjoy was the BBC's Mark Kermode's review of Logan, you could pretty much see him squirming in his seat admitting that a comic book movie genuinely had some artistic merit to it!

I follow the Kermode reviews, he's liked a few comic book movies. He is certainly particular in his tastes (his politics influence his critiques more than they should), but he doesn't have it out for comic book movies or blockbusters.


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 Manchu wrote:
Man of Steel is very, very good. It is also deadly serious. Critics who didn't like it had trouble squaring their genre expectations with the actual film. MoS is only marred by the lack of chemistry between Cavill and Adams. The script got their relationship exactly right (the tone of this film will not brook swept-off-their-feet romance); it's just that the actors don't connect. Moreover: in an era of boring, forgettable villains (even Disney cannot figure out villains), General Zod is convincing, absorbing, and brilliantly portrayed.

Man of Steel is deadly serious, which is fine, but then in the middle of that deadly seriousness it gave us space dragons, and Amy Adams slaughtering hordes of Kryptonians because she's helped by space ghost Russell Crowe. And it gave us a film where Superman spent the whole film getting lectured with deadly seriousness about not helping other people. And Kryptonians who wanted to terraform Earth so they wouldn't have to deal with all those horrible powers like invulnerability and flight.

It was serious, somber film premised on some very odd concepts.

I agree that Zod was excellent, and I found myself wishing his character, his dilemma, and the performance was in a much more refined, coherent movie.

Battleship is another wonderfully ropey film.

It's silly, very silly indeed, but man. That Broadside. A chance to see (who I presume were genuinely) original crew members give a good kicking to the aliens. Just glorious. As someone who grew up on WW2 (Grandparents, general media) I love to see that now antiquated mode of warfare.

Now I'm not one to glorify war*, but it seems some how more honest than modern missiles and drones.

And I think such fun films are absolutely necessary in the industry. I mean, I got a total nerd-on about that broadside. And I want to see more. Which of course leads to archive raiding, and even series like the incomparable World At War. So they have their place. They pique an interest, and encourage the viewer to seek out more of the same, being lead into ever better fare, either in terms of better made films about Battleships to straight up historical documentaries.


*Dislike the military and need for it in general, but utmost respect for those who choose to serve

As for Man of Steel?

I get why other people enjoy it. I just found it too dour. I'll leave it at that for this thread.

Everyone got a nerd on with that broadside

Same thing happened for me in Fury, when that Sherman gun line was advancing on the forested position. Rolling thunder made glorious, again during the battle with the Tiger tank, and a third time with the final battle scene. I kind of wish the film had been set during the Battle of the Bulge simply for accuracy, as a similar event did occur just outside St. Vith when a Sherman tank was cut off in the early stages of the battle.

And to clarify, its not that I find soldiers dying funny. I don't laugh during Saving Private Ryan. I find it funny (cosmic tragedy funny) when Hollywood turns soldiers into card board cut outs expected to die in banal and stupid ways because its "awesome."