It continues to amuse me, though, that these idiots think that there's always a better cut inked away in some vault somewhere, held hostage by malicious ~stuuuudiooo exeeeecutiiiives~ because… reasons? Like there's a cabal of movie producers who are going around deliberately producing bad films to annoy True Fans. As if it's not possible that JJ's just a shit storyteller, or that Justice League wasn't just an unnecessary, horrendously-rushed cash grab as Warner attempt to catch up to Marvel without doing any of the groundwork.
Very late to the party, but we watched Knives Out tonight, now that it's appeared on Amazon. It's so good it's almost unfair. The twists it makes to the genre are fantastic, and while I saw some bits coming, the gleeful panache with which it carries itself is a thing to behold.
I just wish they'd gone ahead with their plan for the sequels, getting Daniel Craig to speak in a completely different accent for every film, without mentioning or acknowledging it in any way.
I only watched Knives Out this weekend actually.
At first, I thought it suffered from the "famous underused guy" problem with some who dunnits. But was that maybe the point?
While I'd agree that there's not a single character in Knives Out that I wouldn't happily watch more of, I don't feel like the film suffered for a lack of focusing on any of them.
New Bond trailer looks like a borderline-incomprehensible mess, but I'm assuming (hoping?) it's been deliberately edited to obscure any plot developments.
I could definitely do without the expanded universe bullshit that Craig's movies have been saddled with. Who honestly wanted continuity in this franchise?
I've given up on Bond at this point. I don't like Daniel Craig's thuggish Bond at all, he's never felt right for the role, and he looks like he hates the part. I've only seen Casino Royale and Skyfall (which I think are widely regarded as his best two?) and didn't enjoy either of them.
Not exactly a big problem, I guess, given that there's forty years' worth of other Bond movies which are still perfectly entertaining.
Speaking of 40 57 years' worth of Bond, I'd been listening to a podcast recently by the name of From Rewatch with Love whee a couple of the guys from LoadingReadyRun are going through the movies one a week up to the release of No Time to Die with the objective (ish) of ranking them, but mainly going through the films and discussing plot points, production trivia, and other silly stuff.
They've just done The Man with the Golden Gun, and I'm really enjoying it (even if they were entirely too kind to OHMSS).
Okay, watched the trailer. Lots of very obvious CGI, and it seems to have lifted from the recent Missions Impossible in much the same way Casino Royale was "inspired" by Bourne (with the obvious difference that Cruise would actually do 90% of that stuff) - though there is a dirtbike jump in the NTTD trailer that is literally just a bigger, more computer-y version of a Bourne Ultimatum stunt.
Very much agree that they need to ditch the continuity. Bond movies should be like Mad Max - an anthology of untrusted stories about the ultimate spy's spy, the sort of apocryphal, legendary bullshit that secret agents tell each other.
I have minor issues with the Halo-cosplay Atreides armor design, but the rest of it is perfect. I'm almost as astonished that they went with the ornothopters as described as the fact that they look great.
Even though Zack Snyder‘s cut of Justice League wasn’t supposed to undergo any reshoots with the film’s primary superhero cast, yesterday brought news that the director was going to round up some of the stars to shoot new footage after all. Though originally the director’s cut of the DC Comics superhero ensemble was reported to only cost around $20-30 million, with a majority of that involving new visual effects, a new report indicates that the reshoots have raised the budget to around $70 million. Yikes.
It's kinda wild that, as it turns out, the thing never f–king existed to be released at all, but I'm also wondering if WB/DC/HBO are at all expecting to make their money back on this. I cannot imagine that anything like a sizeable percentage of the people who saw the original theatrical release give even a fraction of a shit about this fanboy-tantrum horseshit.
I forgot to talk about it here, but we actually watched Justice League the other night. It's… a film that exists. It was never going to be amazing - DC/Warner hadn't put the legwork in leading up to it, and having to introduce half your main cast to the audience as well as each other is inevitably going to bog things down. But I was astonished by how nondescript it is.
It doesn't even have a story, it just has a sequence of plot points. It's like a paint-by-numbers painting, where the bits are all kind of in the right place, so it sort of looks right, but there's precisely zero creative spark to any of it.
I'm not going to bother recounting any of the stuff that happens; that's well-trodden ground. There are a couple of good bits, though, mainly reevolving around Affleck's too-old-for-this-shit Batman - the "just save one person" exchange with Flash, in particular, is really nice. And I liked that everyone kind of had something to do in the last battle, other than wait around for Superman to fix it.
I am not optimistic that the Snyder Cut will be any better, but it will certainly be MORE.
The video for the new Bond song is out. I hadn't heard it before; it's fine, I guess, but joins the increasing list of Bond songs that sound like they'd be an absolute belter if only someone else sang them.
I wouldn't give a tenth of a shit about this movie with literally anybody else in the lead role, and it could still be an atrocious, trite snorefest, but Ryan Reynolds seems to have just the right amount of self-deprecation and self-awareness to make this at least fun.
I watched Knives Out today - thanks for the recommendations, everyone, I don't think I'd even have heard of this otherwise.
It's just such a satisfying genre, isn't it? 90 minutes of tangled mystery followed by a man with a ludicrous accent laying it all on the table. Really enjoyed it.
If I had one criticism it was that the first 15 minutes made me think that understanding all the family relationships was going to be critical, and I spent fully the first half of the movie a bit distracted trying to get whose kids belonged to whom straight in my mind. Then I realised it didn't matter a bit and enjoyed the second half much more.
Spider-Man 3: Tobey Maguire & Andrew Garfield Signed On (EXCLUSIVE)
FandomWire previously reported that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were in talks for Spider-Man 3, starring Tom Holland. Now, a Sony source closely involved with Spider-Man 3 has confirmed that both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield have signed on to reprise their respective Spider-Man roles next to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker.
EDIT: There have been MCU movies where I've wondered how the hell they're going to make it work (GotG), but this is the first one that seems like a terrible idea.
The Monsters seem….really fucking good???? Except for them looking pretty sadistic/aggressive for no reason idk I could be wrong on that (Except for Rathalos who is just a fucking dickhead regardless). Why didn't they just try and put them in a movie that was more accurate to the games when they seemingly went to all that effort to make the monsters look good which I would have assumed would be the hardest part?
That said, they clearly have them switching from military weapons to the ones from the game, Milla Jokovich seemingly even activates demon mode on Dual Blades…yet again an attention to detail that seems at odds with the whole army thing being so blatantly nothing to do with the games.
Diablos' roar was fucking spot on. "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" >_<
Why didn't they just try and put them in a movie that was more accurate to the games when they seemingly went to all that effort to make the monsters look good which I would have assumed would be the hardest part?
No, the hardest part is getting people to go see the thing. The number of people who'd turn up for a 100% game-accurate Monster Hunter movie is very, very small as a percentage of the cinemagoing population, and they want to make money. CGI is expensive, so they have to broaden the appeal, and the "normal person stranded in strange world" trope is an easy buy-in for normals.
There's a middling isekai anime show called GATE, wherein a magical gateway to a fantasy world opens in the middle of Tokyo, leading to a battalion of JSDF troops heading through to explore. I've always thought it would make an interesting live-action show in a Game of Thrones-meets-Generation Kill kind of way (assuming you toned down the harem nonsense).
That Monster Hunter trailer suggests I may have been mistaken.
I dunno. It looks very stupid, but no more so than Rampage, and Rampage was plenty of fun. My guess is it's going to be fine, but it's definitely aiming for the broadest possible appeal - which I think is eminently sensible, if unadventurous.
This specific trailer also clearly designed to sell it to action movie people, too; I mean, the flirty palico isn't even in there.
I watched Mad Max: Fury Road. I have literally no frame of reference for what I just watched. I don't know if it was good or not. It was loud, and stupid, and brilliant, but mostly loud, and I think I want to watch it again.
It's startlingly brilliant as a film. There's no reason for it to be as good as it is, and the more you see about how it was made, and the more of it you see as practical effects and just incredible craft.
Loud, sure. Brilliant, absolutely. Stupid? Nah. It's not a complicated story by any means, but I completely disagree that that automatically means it's not smart. It's a stunning exercise in efficient storytelling. Every element is simultaneously stripped down and multi-layered, telling you something about the characters, the world, or frequently both.
Is this the first confirmation of the Fantastic 4 entering the MCU?
Also of note, Marvel have said that they'll not be recasting T'Challa for Black Panther 2 following the death of Chadwick Boseman, which has led to speculation that either Michael B. Jordan will be returning or that Letitia Wright's Shuri will take up the mantle (as happened in the comics, I'm told).
Watched Pixar’s “Soul” tonight. I’m generally a bit lukewarm on their stuff but that was a good one. Maybe less keen on all the cutesy ghost stuff but all the bits set in the real world were excellent, and the animation on the fat cat was incredibly well observed. Funny but with a good message, very much recommended for those of us with kids.
Are any of the other recent Pixar movies particularly worth checking out? I think I watched most of their stuff up to Wall-E/Up (as well as all the Toy Stories) but kind of fell away from them a bit when they just spent a few years churning out sequels. I've heard Inside Out is quite good?
~stuuuudiooo exeeeecutiiiives~ 
