Cinema Thread, because movies is a stupid word

[mouse]

I saw Tenet last night (socially distanced of course). Benefits of living in Australia, and the theater chain was showing it a week before the international release date. My head is still spinning from the spectacle. I don't even know how to talk about it without spoiling anything. Let's start a thread once it's released in the US. (Is anyone planning to see it in theaters?)

Hoping they do an on demand thing at the same time or at least soon, maybe the drive in will have it... Cuomo's War on Fun has made sure theaters still aren't operating in NY...

Anybody see the trailer dropped for the new Batman? Damn I want it to be as good as the trailer looks haha...

Teaser for James Gunn's Suicide Squad is out too... mostly behind the scenes stuff... somebody described it as a 70's war movie... but with superheroes (or villains whatever)... excited for that as well...

[TimK]

So I just saw Tenet. 5pm on the Monday before election day... besides me and my gf there were four other people in the theater, all very spaced out, so hopefully we don't get the 'rona... cuz it totally wouldn't be worth it if we did.

I'm a big Christopher Nolan fan but this was kind of a let down.

I'll keep this spoiler free, even though it probably wouldn't make any difference to your viewing experience if I attempted to explain the entire plot to you, because I feel like I understood maybe 20% of it. The movie is filled with 3 minute walk-and-talk exposition dumps that just barely set up the next action scene without giving the viewer any time to digest what's going on or understand the incredibly convoluted and confusing premise/world/story. There are a couple of those action scenes that I felt like I was able to (mostly) follow and that were really cleverly done. The rest of the action scenes were more or less visual gibberish to me and my brain was pretty much unable to make any sense of the physical mechanics of the universe. I was totally lost at the climax of the film as to what precisely was happening and what the stakes were if x happens instead of y.

I remember watching Memento for the first time and having my mind blown and immediately rewinding the VHS (lol) and watching it again to figure out what I had just seen. The Prestige was similar.

With this movie, I'm guessing that if I watched it 8 more times and took careful notes and made charts and venn diagrams I would discover that it all makes perfect sense and fits together like an intricate puzzle. But honestly I very little desire to try to figure it out. It had zero emotional impact for me and most of the spectacle fell flat as well because I didn't even understand what I was looking at.

[mouse]

Well it's official guys...

Wonder Woman 84 is the worst movie ever made.

Holy shit.

[zappey1]

Well it's official guys...

Wonder Woman 84 is the worst movie ever made.

Holy shit.

Worse then Electra? Or Cat Women?

[Inverstone]

No not that bad. Just a ton of pre school level writing, a stupid antagonist, a lot of character "building" over the lst 90 min. that actually would've worked for me if it had been something different, creative, etc.
Incredibly amateurish and clunky plot "devices' stupidly/suddenly inserted without justification or explanation,

A ton of man bashing without mercy and an attempt to recreate the light hearted Wonder Woman t.v. show of the '80s with a campy cartoonish style COMPLETELY and jarringly the polar opposite of the lst WW film (which was pretty awesome) and the Snyder films which have their own faults.

"The critical drinker" you tube channel has a great and sarcastic review if you don't mind a ton of spoilers.
It's ok for a (very) simple popcorn film but very sad P O S in the genre. Patty Jenkins is a good director but she and Jeff Johns (DC) wrote this one and shouldn't have.

Some people have knocked Kristen Wig's performance but actually it was good. They just gave her shit to work with and her costume/look was HORRIBLE and amateurish. The last very short fight scene was so poorly lit that many critics and viewers have complained about it.

Rumors have had it for many months that screening audiences didn't like a lot of it and there may have been some hasty reshoots but you know how rumors are....

Chris Pine was emasculated completely, made a 2nd (3rd?) wheel and oddly wasn't even Chris Pine-sort of... (that WOULD be a spoiler). It's not a movie that NEEDS to be completely ignored but you're also not missing anything.

[aurelius]

Agreed. WW84 is not good. Not the worst popcorn flick though.

Wig and Galdot good. Pines and Pascal bad.

Special effects looked bad. If intentional as mentioned above...why?

Really just a bad script. Story nonsensical, villains would have be bad B movie villains, and the resolution...give me a fucking break.

Not to mention this essentially breaks the whole shared DC world. Does not make any sense how the events happen in this movie and the other movies world make any sense.

Direct release to HBO Max is what this movie deserved.

I think Gal Gadot makes a great Wonder Woman. She probably has one film left. Don’t waste it DC.

[mouse]

Not to mention this essentially breaks the whole shared DC world. Does not make any sense how the events happen in this movie and the other movies world make any sense.

Had to point this out to my wife... member that time that Superman showing up was the world's first exposure to metahumans according to DC? I member.

Why is Bruce Wayne shocked to learn of this when Clark shows up in downtown Metropolis? He was definately alive in 84. Guess he must have been busy when the world was pushed to the brink of a literal nuclear apocalypse because Mandalorian was literally granting magic wishes on his telethon program...

You guys are being too nice and that movie sucked.

You can literally undo all the bad effects by just saying 'Eh I take it back I guess' out loud.

Bullshit.

[Inverstone]

Bad scripts are my #1 peeve. I remember when Star Trek "Enterprise" sorta bombed and the press were going on and on about how the franchise was no longer of interest to the public and had seen it's day, etc. The simple and very obvious fact that the writing on that show was largely terrible, almost every episode consisted of the crew getting tied up and beat up and wasting some good actors never occurred to them.

The same is true of WWII. DC (WB) has recently stated that they wish to make more "stand alone" movies rather than have them tie in to the DC universe and other films, but that's what made Marvel's U. so great.

In either Batman V Superman or Justice League Wonder Woman told Bruce Wayne that 100 years ago she walked away from mankind. Well, obviously not in SO many ways (comics and this film).
DC just doesn't seem to have a clue how to make their U. work and now at ATT&T owns DC and is apparently trying to kill of their comics line of 80 years, selling characters over content WWII is what we get.

The social justice cringe messaging was extremely clunky. I'm NOT one of the masses that dislikes social justice messaging IF it's unfolded in a realistic/convincing organic manner as ALL of those issues do need better awareness and evolution in the general populace, but this was just stupid execution and SO far from the lst film's character and feel that it IS truly awful.

Some of the YouTube critics too are WTF. I like "Doomcock" for his reviews and he's amusing BUT he thought WWI took place in World War 2 ! Such ignorance of American/World history is SAD if you're going to be a arbiter of public opinion regarding films.

It's impossible to have any feel of how WW3 would "look like" after this (sort of) disaster.

[hector]

I think DC should treat WW like Highlander. Just pretend the second movie never happened. Never refer to it. Ignore all developments within, and implications of, the second movie.

[tsor]

I actually enjoyed WW84 more than I expected. Granted, I generally get bored by superhero/comicbook movies and don't usually enjoy them very much (I honestly don't remember anything about the first WW movie other than the basic setting). I just found the plot so ridiculous that it became amusing to me, but almost in a so-dumb-it's-good kind of way.

I thought Kristen Wiig did a decent job, but didn't really think Gadot's acting was very good, and Oberyn Martell felt a bit out of place and miscast as well. This may be the fault of the script/direction, though, and not necessarily the actors'.

[aurelius]

Oberyn Martell felt a bit out of place and miscast as well. This may be the fault of the script/direction, though, and not necessarily the actors'.

Maxwell Lord was an analog for Trump. A poorly written one at that. Pedro Pascal did what he could but bad material and probably not a good fit. The guy can act. He emotes with body language and deliberate movement while wearing a tin can in Mandalorian. I mean honestly, if they had gotten Trump to play Maxwell Lord and ad lib, this movie would have been epic.

I CHALLENGE THE INTERWEBS: digitally remove Pedro Pascal and replace him with Trump. Only way I'd watch this move again.

[omaniphil]

Wife and I watched Soul on Disney+ last night. Great movie. Thematically similar to Coco Loco with regards to the afterlife, but I liked this better. The score was apparently composed by Trent Reznor. When I was listening to NiN in the 90s, I don't think I would have pegged Reznor as creating one of the most poignant and moving scores I've ever heard in a movie.

[Inverstone]

His score for "Mank" was good too. Convincingly old fashioned/appropriate for the time period.

[tsor]

Oberyn Martell felt a bit out of place and miscast as well. This may be the fault of the script/direction, though, and not necessarily the actors'.

Maxwell Lord was an analog for Trump. A poorly written one at that. Pedro Pascal did what he could but bad material and probably not a good fit. The guy can act. He emotes with body language and deliberate movement while wearing a tin can in Mandalorian. I mean honestly, if they had gotten Trump to play Maxwell Lord and ad lib, this movie would have been epic.

I CHALLENGE THE INTERWEBS: digitally remove Pedro Pascal and replace him with Trump. Only way I'd watch this move again.

Agreed, though I think Nic Cage would have worked, too. It would have added to the whole absurdity and made it that much more entertaining (for me, at least). I can just see him yelling I RENOUNCE MY WIIISHhhhaaaaarrgh.

[omaniphil]

Went to see F9 last night. It wasn't very good, but the action scene, car chases were enjoyable. Every Fast and the Furious seems to need to top all the previous ones in terms of ridiculousness of the stunts, and this did not fail in that regard.

Rocket Boosters + Ford Fiero = spaceship.

[mouse]

Why would you even use the character if you're going to literally rip away EVERY PART OF THEIR BACK STORY...

I haven't been this annoyed at a character change since Mandarin...

EDIT: this change is worse than Mandarin, but not as bad as X-Men: Origins Deadpool

[mbasic]

Why would you even use the character if you're going to literally rip away EVERY PART OF THEIR BACK STORY...

I haven't been this annoyed at a character change since Mandarin...

EDIT: this change is worse than Mandarin, but not as bad as X-Men: Origins Deadpool

I just can't get into Marvel-anything anymore (or any comic book movies).

They've jumped the shark so to speak with all of the spin-off TV/Cable/Internet/whatever mini-series thingies.
I don't know which way is up anymore. I'm sure I'd have no idea what's "cannon" and what happened to who and when anymore.

So many reboots and shit.

--------------

I really enjoyed The Joker, which can/could stand on its own (I don't need a sequel for that one).
One of the few movies I've watched maybe 3 times (after a year) after seeing it on the big screen.

[mouse]

Spiderman is really, really, really good...

My opinion, but Willem Dafoe has achieved Heath Ledger/Joker status with Green Goblin with this...

[omaniphil]

I'm watching Matrix at home on HBO Max and I'm about 30 minutes into it. I think Lana Wachowski was hitting some of that psilocybin that @Hanley keeps mentioning when she was making this movie.

[JonA]

I'm watching Matrix at home on HBO Max and I'm about 30 minutes into it. I think Lana Wachowski was hitting some of that psilocybin that @Hanley keeps mentioning when she was making this movie.

Haven't decided if I'm going to watch that yet or not. Absolutely loved the first one, but kinda felt the rest were a downward trend. Is it at least entertaining?