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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Latter Day Sequels can be an uneven bunch.

...

Could we say that the dividing line to be drawn could be "produced as actual films" vs. "produced as streaming service 'content'"?

I honestly don’t know, as I’m not entirely convinced good story telling is tied to budget.

Some rely entirely on ‘Member Berries. Like a cinematic Peter Kay, constantly asking if we ‘member this or ‘member that.

Others play with the tropes of the property, offering a new take or translation, without ignoring or sending up everything that came before.

Another example of a genuinely brilliant Latter Day Sequel? Prey.

That is a stellar film which really delivered, but went straight to streaming. It wasn’t good because of a given budget, but because the writer, directors, producers and actors all seemed to have a strong understanding of what makes a Predator a compelling villain, even though it’s really not in the movie that much. All on a modest $65m budget.

Another one I mentioned is Fury Road, which had at least a $154m budget.

Both are excellent and worth additions to their respective franchises with bold ideas and strong storytelling.

Because I’m a simpleton who’s easy to please I’m currently trying to think of really bad latter day sequels. They are out there like, and I’m not that easily pleased.

I guess maybe Prometheus. $120m or so budget. And it managed to ask a super interesting question “where did the Xenomorph come from”, then present the most boring of all possible answers in a muddled, confusing movie full of unlikable and unsympathetic characters doing increasingly stupid things.

There are far worse examples (Prometheus was at least visually beautiful!) and I’ll come back when I’ve dredged one up.

Star Wars sequel trilogy is pretty stinky. Matrix 4 was a sequel looking really hard for a reason to exist.

I guess maybe Prometheus. $120m or so budget. And it managed to ask a super interesting question “where did the Xenomorph come from”, then present the most boring of all possible answers in a muddled, confusing movie full of unlikable and unsympathetic characters doing increasingly stupid things.

I'd point out this is what Prometheus marketed itself as.

But then that whole question turned out to be a huge footnote in the movie, which was actually asking 'Like, what if God was just a dude, bro? And like, what if we're god, man. Blows your mind man. Don't you see how deep and profound we're being man? Come on man this is so big just think about it bro!'

Covenant interestingly tried to double down on both questions and did both even worse imo, despite having better action bits here and there.

As for crummy sequels, Prey is fantastic, but dear god, can you imagine The Predator had been an actual studio backed project, and not some awful fan film that never ever actually happened? Just how bad would a movie have to be, that fans near universally ignore that it was ever talked about existing. It's pretty freaking bad. Lots of fans gak on the sequel trilogy, but even they weren't so bad that the people who didn't like them are grateful they don't exist.

The Predator is truly dreadful.

I’m the first to admit I like a lot of not very good movies. I’m an optimistic kind of idiot and can usually find something to enjoy to redeem even the ropiest of movies.

That can range from “I see where they were going, and where it didn’t work, but I applaud the effort” to “oh Deity Of Your Prefefence this is so camp and it doesn’t even know it”.

But The Predator just….doesn’t make any sense. At all. Worse than that? It’s boring. An action adventure film following on from some classics, with a super cool villain? And it’s boring. That to me is its worse crime. For all Prometheus and Covenant’s many flaws? They’re not completely boring and do have their moments. Or perhaps a moment.

But The Predator is just boredom committed to celluloid.

Compare to Predators. Now that is a dodgy film I really enjoy. The wheels come off in the last bit, sure. But I love the concept of Predators figuring out “hey, these humans are fun to hunt! Let’s abduct some and give them a sporting chance!”. And it’s got some genuinely cracking scenes.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I honestly don’t know, as I’m not entirely convinced good story telling is tied to budget.

.....

Yeah, I wasn't referring to budget. Netflix pump ungodly amounts into their lame films. I was more referring to actual people being behind a film that's meant to be a film rather than "the algorithm says this is how to tie people to our website for 2 hours" - "couldn't we make it into a tv show instead? That'll tie them down for 8 hours.". Stuff like that.

I very much agree that a good film has little to do with budget. In fact I think that from a certain amount of money there necessarily is a detrimental effect on the quality of the film, simply because it becomes too much of a risk to the producers to have it fail.

I’m still working on my media literacy, as in trying to understand why I do or don’t like a thing. And indeed, why I like a thing others don’t, or even I find to be sub-average but still got a kick out of.

It’s paying off, as whilst I don’t pretend I’m convincing others I can at least make an argument as to why I enjoy stuff others don’t. And hopefully without pooping on the opinions of said other folk.

And I guess somethings? Somethings just tickle the pickle in ways we genuinely can’t explain. And there’s nowt wrong with that. If you like a thing, you like a thing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m still working on my media literacy, as in trying to understand why I do or don’t like a thing. And indeed, why I like a thing others don’t, or even I find to be sub-average but still got a kick out of.

It’s paying off, as whilst I don’t pretend I’m convincing others I can at least make an argument as to why I enjoy stuff others don’t. And hopefully without pooping on the opinions of said other folk.

And I guess somethings? Somethings just tickle the pickle in ways we genuinely can’t explain. And there’s nowt wrong with that. If you like a thing, you like a thing.

i have a blog where i write essays about media, and there's definitely a strong difficulty in describing why you like things sometimes. i would consider myself quite literate in this way, and there's still a lot of times where i can only shrug and say, i like it because i like it. to paraphrase an anime i still need to finish, sometimes it's just that good things are good

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

i have a blog where i write essays about media, and there's definitely a strong difficulty in describing why you like things sometimes. i would consider myself quite literate in this way, and there's still a lot of times where i can only shrug and say, i like it because i like it. to paraphrase an anime i still need to finish, sometimes it's just that good things are good

I had a classmate in my career schooling in the army who was an extended relative of a VERY well known hollywood name. This classmate had a double major bachelor's degree, majoring in film making, and political science.

This dude was probably the most technically well versed person I personally know with regard to cinema and film making. Our small cadre of students would gather in the day room and watch whatever movies had a semi-consensus, and invariably, he'd dissect, scene by scene, what the director was trying to do, what they got right, what they got wrong, etc. Some movies, he'd point out were brilliant because they were textbook execution of all the best tricks for camera work/setting up shots. Some movies, he'd pick apart showing how huge a steaming pile the whole film was, but yet it was popular because the story and acting chops carried over top of the shoddy camera work.

And finally, some of his favorite movies had it all: absolute gak camera/cinematography, an absolute hair-brained story, actors phoning in the role, their co-actors absolutely over-acting every little scene. . . In short, this should be among the worst movies of all time, but they were his favorite because: "I dunno, I just like it"

Nice to know it’s not just me being a bit thick 🤣🤣

I do still enjoy trying to understand stuff. For instance, the battle over Endor lands well because of how the shots are composed, not least giving us a solid sense of scale between the various ships. That was lacking in the Prequels, and so I still can quite envisage how much larger a First Order Resurgent Class Star Destroyer is compared to an Imperial Class Star Destroyer.

The same thing happens in TFA, with Han’s new ship. It’s clearly quite large, very comfortably landing the Falcon. But, the interior scenes make it seem….really small.

Now fixing those wouldn’t great films make like. But now I understand how such comparatively trivial things impact engrossment? I can look for other “almost, but not quite” elements which combined detract from the whole.

Compare the excellent Battle of Scarrif. That Hammerhead Cruiser is tiny. Yet, because space physics (and I dare say at least some artistic license), it’s able to push a crippled Star Destroyer into another, taking out all three ships. That’s a cool application of scale and a truly stand out scene in an already terrific battle.

I’ll still entirely unapologetically enjoy the sequels, because I do.

If Disney want to make all of the money, can they not just hire whoever composed the Battle Scariff scene and get them to do a decent Rogue Squadron series? Is it too much to ask?

Just don't let whoever did the Exogal scene know anything about it as they may irretrievably pollute the team.

I've been watching The Critical Drinker's videos recently, and while I don't agree with all of his viewpoints, I get his point about a good film comes from a good story, using characters that get a development arc from a writer that respects established lore in the universe and isn't just using it as a vehicle to ram a political or social agenda down the viewer's throats. He has some interesting points about viewers being able to spot when characters act in ways contrary to expectation, and therefore feeling less satisfied as a result as it just devolves into "well, I guess this happens now" territory, rather than a satisfying story arc.

 Sigur wrote:


The Wall (2017)

Other free military streaming films (or at least they were) that are different to the hollywood US fare and are excellent are The Siege of Jadotville (Irish in Congo) and Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (Aussies in Vietnam).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:
If Disney want to make all of the money, can they not just hire whoever composed the Battle Scariff scene and get them to do a decent Rogue Squadron series? Is it too much to ask?

Given all a team has to do is go find a good autobiography, remember most of the pilots will die, and film it with lasers. I suggest Samurai! if they want to do a story using Tie fighters.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m still working on my media literacy, as in trying to understand why I do or don’t like a thing. And indeed, why I like a thing others don’t, or even I find to be sub-average but still got a kick out of.

It’s paying off, as whilst I don’t pretend I’m convincing others I can at least make an argument as to why I enjoy stuff others don’t. And hopefully without pooping on the opinions of said other folk.

And I guess somethings? Somethings just tickle the pickle in ways we genuinely can’t explain. And there’s nowt wrong with that. If you like a thing, you like a thing.

That's a good take. I'm increasinly worried that I only like old stuff because I'm starting to get seriously old. But when I watch old stuff and new stuff... man, the old stuff is so often so much better. Which makes me worry more. But I guess that's just the natural order of things.

@The_Real_Chris: Oh, I meant to watch Danger Close for a while now! Got a bunch of 15mm Vietnam ANZACs and North Vietnamese army a bunch of months ago. I'm especially interested in the New Zealand stuff.



So I'm still on amazon Prime for a few more days. Was very pleased to see that Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man are on there! Been meaning to re-watch that for ages. Great sci-fi (ehem) silly-men-will-be-silly-men films. Somehow this always struck me as a companion piece to Tango&Cash, but with a way better last third. Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man is better than Tango&Cash though.

@StudentOfEtherium: Where can this blog be found?

 Sigur wrote:
@StudentOfEtherium: Where can this blog be found?

https://ostensiblyextant.wordpress.com
i mostly write about anime and related things + some film reviews and other random stuff

Robocop 2

I love this film, almost as much as the mind blowingly brilliant and satirical first.

But the opening scenes bug me.

See, we get some scrotes doing a relative smash and grab on a gun store. When the Police are on strike.

Now this is a gun store with serious firepower in it. The legality of which, given the break down of law and order in Old Detroit is questionable in terms of what it’s satirsing.

And….the owner wasn’t prepared at all?

I mean, surely the robbers should’ve entered scene and obtained an immediate Face Full Of Lead?

Luckily the rest is really good, so I’ll let this slide!

The owner might have been well prepared - but a bomb went off in their face moments before the smash and grab. We see them knocked down, bloody and very clearly half out of it during the raid.

Heck that's likely why they used a bomb in the first place; entirely disabling the owner and any weapons they might have reached for.

But it blew from the inside, man! The inside!

Insurance job gone wrong?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But it blew from the inside, man! The inside!

Insurance job gone wrong?

Naw more likely they visited the store as customers earlier in the day and hid/left a bomb somewhere in the store that didn't get noticed, then just waited out the explosion.

Could even be one was an employee and hid it during worktime then left and waited.

Bullet Train

I can't help but think Pitt, Bullock, and Tatum all filmed this on the side while making The Lost City

This is a goofy action film where some sort of operative gets on a train for a simple job and things get out of control fast, as he is not the only one on this train.

Loads of weirdness, snappy dialogue, bizarre asides, and interesting characters. A fun time, and I noticed Antoine Fuqua was a producer and all the pieces started to fall into place for me. Plus, I am a sucker for Train-base action movies like Gene Hackman's {b]Narrow Margin[/b].

A good time, and much better to watch with like minded audience members.

As chance would have it I had a great time watching Bullet Train last night (again). Such a fun movie, well made and with a great cast.

Street Fighter

Nowhere near as bad a movie as it's made out to be.
Yes, it is still a bad movie. The plot is flimsy, the acting is ropey and no amount of heavy-handed editing can hide the fact that most of the cast can't actually fight, but between Raul Julia chewing the scenery and Jean Claude Van Damme taking the whole thing far too seriously it's a remarkably entertaining film.

Please Don’t Destroy The Treasure of Foggy Mountain

An utterly charmless, two dimensional, straight-to-streaming “comedy”.

Are our heroes meant to be losers on a mission of redemption? Well. They’re socially awkward - except the one with the loving girlfriend. They’ve got dead end jobs - except they clearly live in a really nice house, that isn’t their parents. Essentially they only seem to be dysfunctional losers when the plot remembers they need to be, just in time for any given joke to land flat.

John Goodman narrates, but doesn’t seem to appear. Presumably he’d lost a hand of poker, but not that badly.

You remember the gross out comedies of the 80’s and 90’s? Where rude words, bodily fluids and gratuitous female nudity were all liberally applied to cover up that it’s not in fact all that funny? Well. This film is what happens when you try to make such a comedy, leaving out the rude words, bodily fluids and gratuitous female nudity, and also forget jokes are meant to be funny, your cast has had a mechanical charisma removal and just nobody gave a flying proverbial.

Oh. Wait. Wikipedia informs “Please Don’t Destroy” are in fact a comedy troupe. Which feels like a misnomer. Three Talentless Charmless Tossers. That’s a better description. Oh and they rose to something approximating fame on Tik Tok.

Yep. That explains an awful, awful lot. Also I think they’ve watched It’s Always Sunny, but understood none of what makes that show work, and just went for the mindless screaming.

Right. That’s enough of this utter pish. I’m off to get a lobotomy instead.

Fast Charlie

Pierce Brosnan is <checks notes> a Mississippi mob enforcer for an aging crew. Impressive casting right there......

Anyway, this is a pretty standard old guy revenge for harms done to him flick. Finds love along the way. Some silliness, but most of the action is of the quick shooting variety.

There is one fun scene where Charlie (Pierce B.) goes to get some guns, money, and false IDs from his stash. He grabs a few pistols, and then picks up and looks at a Walther PPK for a few moment, before setting it aside.

Terminal

Margot Robie is a more restrained Harley Quinn in this modern Film Noir tale.

It also has a great use of Mike Meyers..... yes, THAT Mike Meyers.

The Terminal in the title is a grimy train station.

Highlander

The prequel/sequel to the beloved TV series.

In the end, there can be only fun.


My son was intrigued by the Queen soundtrack. The movie was pretty enjoyable, but didn’t quite live up to the potential of the premise. Clancy Brown really elevated the film, and Connery brought some charisma. Lambert was also there. This is one of the few films that could be improved by a well done remake.

If you haven’t seen it, then I recommend it for its place in pop culture, and for Clancy Brown and the Queen soundtrack.

Now to see if the series is available on Tubi.

And the upcoming remake with Henry Cavill?

 Flinty wrote:
And the upcoming remake with Henry Cavill?

That reminds me of a very entertaining precursor to The Witcher, where Christopher Lambert plays a grizzled, white haired monster hunter. Beowulf (1999). To be fair, that one is set in the post apocalyptic future, rather than the dark and spooky central European countryside.

Once Henry Cavill becomes the Highlander, the circle will be complete.

I think Henry Cavill has more charisma and physical presence than Lambert, but less mystique. If the movie leans into forensics cop obsessed with sword collector, it probably won’t work. If it leans into the romanticism and epicness of the series, it could land. Cavill feels more like big screen Adrian Paul than next gen Lambert.

Paper Towns

So late to party on this one as it's from like 2015. But an oddly excellent coming of age film about 1 girl who runs away, the boy who goes after her, and some friends who go along for the ride. It was fun, cute, not nearly as over the top as most coming of age films, and really stuck the landing. Caught it at a hotel we stayed at this weekend at first just cause it came on after Flash (of which the only redeeming quality is Keaton) and caught me before I turned it off to make the kids go to bed.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Highlander


Now to see if the series is available on Tubi.

It is.... and it is still fun.