Finished up watching Lucifer.
“Oh my Me!”.
I’m surprised feminists haven’t been whining about this show. Lucifer wants to become God after God decides to retire. He starts talking about ending world hunger, pain, suffering etc. Chloe starts pouting like a schoolgirl again and whines about him not going to be able to spend time with her. Jesus Christ. FFS. Women…
Where’s Jesus btw? Does he even exist in this Universe? Anyone who’s read the comics knows?
i liked the way it ended. wrapped up the season and happenings to date. But also leaves things open for the next direction the story might take.
Oh my… me.
I think it’s going to be about him fucking things up and creating various worldwide domino effects because of his simplistic understanding of human nature. Dude wanted to eradicate emotional pain. I think that’s going to be one of the main themes.
To add, I’m also seriously impressed with the fight choreography. They didn’t NEED to do it so well but they did it anyway. Bravo!
Fucking hilarious right up to the end. And I’ve only seen the kind of effective tonal shifts they manage to easily pull off in old HK movies.
Luficer and gang start dancing and rapping “You Can’t Touch This” to distract Michael and stall for time. I thought were ripping off the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, which was ripped off from some old HK movie I can’t recall.
Then, while they’re still dancing after the end of the first chorus:
Michael: “Wh…what are you doing? Alright… STOP!!!”
Lucifer and gang: “HAMMER TIME!!”
Fucking perfect comic timing.
Give this season a fucking Emmy. It deserves it.
One thing that Hollywood movies in general don’t understand when trying to extract stuff from those old HK movies. You wanna effectively pull off shifting between funny, absurdist shit and serious emotional shit, the ACTORS not only have to be GOOD, they need to take the material SERIOUSLY:
A little subtlety also goes a long way too. See the brief look on the dude’s face when the music starts and then he immediately goes back to being serious.
This is where I get to post my favorite Stephen Chow movie scene of all time again. The context is not the same as the scene above but what makes it funny is that the characters are taking the shit going on seriously without any over-the-top acting to tell the viewer that it’s supposed to be absurd.
This is juxtaposition at it’s highest level lol. It’s fucking reached God mode if you fully understand the language:
This movie was voted No .1 of all the movies within a period of 10 years that made the most audience members CRY during the ending several years ago. I’d only recommend it if you know the Journey to the West folktale and have watched Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express and Ashes of Time, though, or you won’t get most of the jokes.
I think Guardians is one of the only big budget Hollywood movies that fully understood this but they never dared to go all the way with the different tones. Lucifer actually does this.
Did my annual viewing of Brest Fortress. That movie never gets old
I watched this one on the weekend and looooved it. I’d never heard of it but the description as drama, action, comedy paired with the story line overview made me check it out. How does a man’s wife killed in a train crash translate to comedy? The three supporting guys made it for me.
In Rider’s of Justice he gave off a white supremacist vibe. Maybe it’s the beard.
I agree, they were very good and brough in the lulz.
I think it was the buzzcut. He usually has a haircut that would be more appropriate for a teenage boy than a grown man, but not in this one.
wasn’t a massive fan of the ‘musical’ episode. Those songs mainly got skipped at our end.
Onto Ozark now, season 1 - slow start thus far a handful of episodes in.
(I figure series discussions are ok on a movie thread…!)
I started Ozark but dropped out after 2-3 episodes. I’ve been considering getting back into it for a couple years now, haha. Let me know what you think.
You may be right about the buzzcut. He also has a face like an axe blade; you could cut firewood with it.
Watched 2 episodes of Loki.
First one was genuinely intriguing. The second made me not give much of a shit about finding out what happens next. I’m not going to judge the entire series so soon, though. The writing is good. It’s the execution that’s the problem.
Hopefully the next one gets better. I don’t want to end up watching something like that DC Arrowverse stuff. I know it’s popular and lots of people like it so if you dig that shit, all power to you. Just not my cup of tea.
Philosophical question. What makes a movie good?
From that standpoint: what you get out of it.
Two of the greatest movies ever made:
Lmao-ed throughout both movies.
I mean, seriously, I simply can’t get into any of David Lynch’s more surreal stuff. I was woefully underwhelmed by every Christopher Nolan Batman movie other than The Dark Knight. I fucking hate the Ip Man series other than part 2 despite Donnie Yen being the lead. I can’t complete most of Kubrick’s movies without falling asleep.
Take The Shining for example.
Why are people having such a hard on for The Shining nowadays? It was boring as fuck then. It’s still boring as fuck now. And it flopped and half of the critics hated it at the time it was released.
What I think is happening is that the new generation of critics watched it when they were kids and it scared them shitless while I only watched it when I was an adult so it bored the crap about me. I’m assuming it was the same for critics who were adults during that era. The technical profiency and the underlying themes like violence and abusive behavior inherited through suffering the behavior of the previous generation(s) and the colonization of Native Americans and stuff aren’t enough for me to like it if it can’t even sustain my attention.
It’s why I mostly talk about STORY, then the technical and the thematic aspects of good to “could have been good” movies when I write about them unless they’re really so fucking dumb they only deserve being lampooned to shreds lol.
For example, I can talk about Dario Argento’s earlier movies all day from a technical, thematic and artistic POV and lots of, if not most people today are still probably going to dislike them because he had an almost complete disregard for plots that made any sense.
Also, IMO the Suspiria remake was a technical masterpiece. It’s just that the plot really went full retard at the end even for some of us more “tolerant” viewers so I could never recommend it lol.
Bingo.
Movies are, first and foremost, entertainment. If a movie entertains you in any capacity, it’s done its job.
In the Name of the King is an absolutely atrociously made movie, but holy shit did it ever make me laugh my ass off because of how bad it was.
DUDE, I fucking watched it only because I read that Tony Ching Siu Tong(A Chinese Ghost Story, Swordsman 2) did the martial arts choreography and I loved it lmao!
I barely remember the fight choreography because I was laughing myself to tears.
Normally I just turn off movies I find poorly done, but that movie is just so bad I had to finish it.
You gotta catch Seagal’s Belly of the Beast. Tony Ching had him doing Crane Kungfu. Or was it Bagua Fist? Can’t remember but it was hilarious.
Fucking laughed so hard just seeing him posing before fighting. And then the fight scenes with all the jumping and twirling wushu shit were even more fucking hilarious because Seagal’s stunt double weighed at least 100lbs less than him so they were constantly alternating between fat Seagal and thin Seagal in between shots.
Re: Argento:
Look at this magnificent tracking shot from Tenebrae which was made in the early 80s. While it’s fantastic stylistic choice, it also gives the audience a sense of geography while implying that the killer is familiar with every single part of the premise he’s about to invade, which shows how much danger the potential victims are in and later enhances our fear for the 2nd girl after the first kill because we already have a rough idea of where she can potentially be ambushed and taken out. Then it’s followed by an undisruptive change in pace when the killing begins with creative shots and fast edits.
But what does this mean to the average viewer? Do most people really give a fuck about this shit lol? Do they NEED to? Of course not. While I think that people are smart enough to subconsciously know they’re watching quality work because good filmmakers are able to add in subtle details like these and provide an appropriate payoff seamlessly, they don’t consciously look out for them. And that’s perfectly fine. Everyone just wants to have a good time. But the silly plot in this particular movie would probably outweigh all of it when it comes to their enjoyment of the movie.
The reason why I notice this shit is because the seemingly impossible POV shots from The Evil Dead boggled my mind when I watched it as a kid. Then I was wrecking my head trying to figure out why Wong Kar Wai decided to dedicate so much time to showing the fucking moving scenery in Days of Being Wild. The video rental shop owner said I was too young to understand it. He was right lol. Later, when I did figure out the technical shit and understood shit on a thematic level, I was picking up (really ripping off) some of this stuff for use in my own work projects although they have nothing to do with movies so I noticed them even more and have accumulated quite bit of experience in the filming and post production process.
It’s why I don’t have any delusions that I’m above anyone in any way when it comes to talking about movies. All I think is I can provide some additional information that the average person isn’t privy to because of the aforementioned reasons or even some trivia because I’ve watched LOTS of movies that may serve to enhance the enjoyment of any movie for anyone who wants to discusses this shit with me. Real, professional critics these days, on the hand, have their heads stuck way too far up their asses and I despise lots of them. Their pretentiousness have finally been displayed for everyone to see, both for laymen and people who have actually made shit, with all the self-contradictory virtue signalling over the past few years.
It’s also why I really think this shit is all subjective. Kinda like when I had to sit through entire lessons on Cezanne’s paintings when I was taking art history as an elective in secondary school. I understood the rationales, but I simply couldn’t fully appreciate them visually although I could appreciate some concepts and customize and apply them to my own stuff. Then it came to Warhol and I decided to drop out and take A math lol.
To add, I spent 2 days in Shenzhen waiting for a flight to be allowed to take off due to bad weather and I read a book about Robert De Niro to pass the time. Allegedly, a critic was talking loudly about “critics being just as important as filmmakers” when it came to shaping the landscape of cinema over the past decades and De Niro went over and told him to go fuck himself IIRC.
It may be something worth thinking about, actually, although the modern day critics are a little more than worthless when it comes to actual artistry in film.
Watching Rick and Morty S5e1 as I type.
I swear to GOD if Morty doesn’t get a break I’ll scream. He has Jessica in his house on a date night and things keep going wrong.
Edit: fuck that was depressing… fantastic show though!