The Movie Thread

[YellowStreak]

Downloaded Dr Strange through iTunes Australia as it was cheaper than the missus and I going to the cinema (and it's cold out there!). Similar view to the above, pretty good Marvel film, I liked the way it was resolved - very 'in character' - but not as good as Captain America, Ant Man or Guardians IMO.
MiJ you may be right about the 3D - I did have the same thought while watching it...

[Konrad]

To chime in on Dr. Strange too. Standard Marvel story and characters, but they get top-notch actors, so you hardly care. I think we know the formula and accept it. I saw it full-blast IMAX 3D and at times it was a bit overwhelming. But some of the bits with the flipping, bending, twisting floor tiles and archways and alleyways was just beautiful. Like an animated MC Escher drawing.
I actually enjoyed the big face off with Dormammu scene as much as anything in it. That psychedelic, cancerous rainbow that was the "Dark Dimension" really felt true to the original comics somehow. I bet Jack Kirby is looking down from Asgard saying, "Yes! That's what I was trying to draw!"

[The Other Dave]

Saw Ghost in the Shell on Sunday - good stuff, in my opinion, and I say that as a fan of the franchise. ScarJo* does a good job stalking about the screen, staring intently at things, and kicking ass, as she is wont to do in her action flicks, but for my money Pilou Asbaek as Batou (no, I never heard of him either) is the performance to watch. I'd totally watch a cyberpunk police procedural with his Batou and Chin Han's Togusa answering to Beat Takeshi's Aramaki (weird wig and all) all the live long day. The plot is thinnish but more or less coherent, and it maybe tries a little too hard to hit all the GitS setpieces, and I'm definitely in the camp that it's... an issue that could easily have been avoided that ScarJo is SPOILER, but! I'd recommend it, definitely. 3D IMAX is totally worth it.

*I can never reliably spell her last name, so I use the abbreviation just 'cause I'm that lazy. On the other hand, I checked how to spell Asbaek and looked up Togusa's actor, so I don't know?

Edited in a SPOILER 'cause this version of the software doesn't have the [spoiler] tag, heh.

[me_in_japan]

Last night I watched BLAME! (Caps and bikkuri mark needed, apparently*). It's a sci fi anime movie currently on Netflix, which seems to be fairly heavily advertised just now so I figured what the heck.

It's pretty good, actually. The story is unremarkable, the characters are fairly standard, but neither of those matter very much because the reason for this movie's existence is the setting. The basic premise is: a self-replicating automated city has been lost-control-of, and has spent an unspecified length of time self-expanding and incidentally exterminating all the vermin (ie humans) that its security systems encounter. As a result, over many generations humanity has been reduced to pockets of survivors eking out an existence by scraping nutritious sump out of pipes.

The visuals are very effective,with the environments almost 40k hiveworldy in their cyclopean height and incomprehensibility, and the design of the combat armour and robots is also very slick. What I liked most about te movie was that it actually felt like part of a larger story. You'd see glimpses of things and think "that looks interesting, I'd like to see more of that" but the action would then move on somewhere else. Likewise there's a pleasing lack of explanation as to how the current situation came to be.

Overall, I'd recommend this for those that fancy a bit of post apocalyptic cyber sci fi with nice visuals. Worth the 2 hours or so of your life

Ps - I also did some further reading after the movie. Apparently it feels like a slice of a bigger story because it is. There's a ten issue manga, which follows the mysterious stranger as he treks about the City on his quest, and the content of this movie is an adaptation of just one of his encounters. It works especially well as the film makers decided to change the story perspective from that of the mysterious stranger (who is decidedly uncommunicative) to one of the locals he encounters. This works well, as the local's understanding of the City pretty much matches with that of the viewer.

* it's got nothing to do with finding fault - it's a mis-translation of the Japanese (ブラム) or BLAM!, which is a far more appropriate name.

[Primarch]

@M_i_J - Sounds good, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Last night I went to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2. It's good, but the first movie was better I think. Unlike other Marvel movies, this one seems to have very little to do with the ongoing build-up to Infinity Wars. It's big, it's flashy and it's full of jokes. At times it seems not to take itself seriously at all, which is a shame as it makes the tense, dramatic parts of the story have a little less impact. Watch it if you are a completionist, or if you don't have anything else on.

[me_in_japan]

Saw Logan this evening. Kerrrrrrist but that was an unrelentingly grim film if ever I saw one. Makes The Dark Knight look like the Minions movie. Not that it was a bad film - good acting, directing and suchlike, just really, really grim. Worth seeing, I think, just dont expect Deadpool.

[Primarch]

Just watched Logan and I have to agree with M_i_J's review. That was the most depressing Hugh Jackman movie I've ever seen, and yes, I have seen Les Miserables.

In my wife's words the movie was:

Sad! Miserable! Finish!

Great movie though.

[me_in_japan]

does your missus write Trump's tweets for him, by any chance

Also, since folks seem to be steadfastly ignoring my other post about it, and since it's a movie, I'll just mention again that Neill Blomkamp's latest endeavour is well worth 20mins of your time. Very nice post-apoc sci fi short, available to you for the princely sum of nowt at all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs

It's call Rakka, and it should be a TV show, in my humble opinion. Apparently, if people shout that loudly enough, it may actually happen...*crosses fingers and toes and hopes*

[Primarch]

does your missus write Trump's tweets for him, by any chance

Nope, but it is a fairly accurate summation of the plot for Logan.

[Primarch]

I'll just mention again that Neill Blomkamp's latest endeavour is well worth 20mins of your time. Very nice post-apoc sci fi short, available to you for the princely sum of nowt at all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs

It's call Rakka, and it should be a TV show, in my humble opinion. Apparently, if people shout that loudly enough, it may actually happen...*crosses fingers and toes and hopes*

Not bad, but it's been done before. At least it didn't have John Travolta in it. For a short movie, it was definitely worth a watch, but I don't know if I would watch a TV series of it.