Man I love every time an action movie comes out that reminds us the genre can have depth and themes and true character work. That there can be style and practical effects and grounded action. In the wave of the MCU this is such a breath of fresh air. The action is slick but the drama and characterization work in tandem with it to create something truly special. It's a film that is inspirational not in spite of the history but because it acknowledges the history and transforms it and finds a way to make it resonate today. It shows the strength of these women and the culture while not shying away from its flaws. These black women are put up on a pedestal and asked- if not demanded- to stop feeling, that it is weak, a dereliction of duty, and the film gradually repudiates that while never denying their strength or more importantly their humanity.
And the cast gamely rises up to what they're given. Davis obviously shines as the centerpiece, putting decades of experience into a performance that is stoic, aching, charismatic, and raw in equal measures. Some of her delivery and expressions, from a wry smirk to a fond and exasperated roll of the eyes, are so good at grounding Nanisca and making her really feel like a person, just one from a different time. And while I had mixed feelings about Underground Railroad, Mbedu was never one of them, and she shines here as well. The things she can do with her eyes alone are captivating. And Boyega is charming while being hard and pragmatic enough to still keep you guessing where he'll fall. But in a cast of greats, Lasana Lynch still stands out. The charisma she has on display here makes me baffled she hasn't led a franchise yet, put her in everything.
This film is a celebration of black women while never dehumanizing them. It lets us be strong and vulnerable, stalwart and hurting, devoted and loving, in equal measure. And it's a tight, fun time to boot.
This was definitely more for Godzilla fans than it was for critics. It was way better than the 2014 film that got Certified Fresh. The film is just badass. Not perfect but....bad ass.
They do over-do the family drama again though. Especially when the family drama makes no sense. Mark Russel (Kyle Chandler) blames Godzilla for the death of his son. He wants all monsters dead.
Mark’s wife Emma (Vera Farmiga) says screw mankind. The monsters will cure the planet of Climate Change. So yeah in another words who cares if anyone else loses family members. Due to her plan to unleash all monsters.
Her daughter Madison (Millie Bobbie Brown) sticks with her. Despite her mom teaming with some bad men with guns. Who kill some nice scientists right in front of her. So yeah, Mark is the sanest one in that family.
Even if there’s too much of the humans and a silly plot. This is the best of the Hollywood Godzilla movies. Critics are just wrong. One even said the Roland Emmerich version is better. What drugs is that critic on ?
The battles are some of the best done of any monster vs monster battle. Unlike the first film this one has a ton of Godzilla history to it. It shows him way more and shows the character great respect.
Prometheus: misfire or misunderstood?
Prometheus started life as a prequel to the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, but during years of development grew into something bigger and relegated the xenomorph to an almost incidental. As a fan of the Alien and HR Giger’s Oscar winning effects (pieces adorn my walls, grace my shelves, my desk at work) I thought I would be disappointed with how it would be included; I was very wrong. See my shouts below on what I took away from the Alien aspect of the film.
Prometheus stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Logan Marshall-Green, with Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce. At its heart Prometheus tells the story of our search for answers as to who we are and where we came from, and is a film that the more you dig the more you take away from it.
I’ve been an admirer of Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski from as far back as The Crow and Dark City, however it is his work on Sweeney Todd that was my highlight. I have a new highlight. From the first frame to the last the film is simply gorgeous. He finds the detail in the sets and costumes and casts your eye over them in an unassuming way to let you find them yourself. I don’t think I blinked the entire length of the film.
The visual, practical and makeup effects are remarkable and need to be seen on the big screen at least once. I’ve heard criticism of Guy Pearce’s make up and find them unfounded. Comments that it looked like it belonged in a high school play are ridiculous, it has Oscar nom all over it. I think the issue more lies in the anticipation throughout the film of seeing him without it, forgetting that we already have among the viral material (The TED Talks was truly inspired).
So with all of the shiny out of the way, let’s wind our way through the film as a whole.
The film is dense with ideas but often disjointed and uneven with some pedestrian dialog and some questionable acting. Scott has confirmed that the home release will be 20 minutes longer and have 30 minutes of deleted scenes; that alone speaks volumes. There are scenes and interactions that end abruptly and others that clearly pick up from something we just didn’t see. One character goes from being a bit put out to losing himself at the bottom of a bottle the next time we see him, with nothing between. You can often feel when they occur because they are quite jarring.
Much has been made of the thinly realised and ineffectual crew. My hope is that a solid portion of those 20 minutes gives them a little more flesh, however I feel it is going to be in the deleted scenes. They will still often make the same stupid decisions, but a bit more depth to them might make it a little clearer why.
Michael Fassbender owns this film with his realisation of the nuanced David. Rapace, Theron and Pearce are great in their roles, but I think I would have been fine with any of the others being recast with the exception maybe of Sean Harris’ underdeveloped Fifield.
So how, with all of that, is Prometheus still so damn good? Ridley Scott. The film is bursting at the seams trying to contain itself, you can feel it. I don’t know of another Director that could have achieved the vision Scott has shown us, he just should have shown us over 3 hours.
Prometheus works on a number of levels depending on how much of the surface you care to scratch away. If you just want a Sci-Fi action film with aliens. Tick. If you are looking for more, it’s there; it doesn’t spoon feed you and you will need to pay close attention, read between the lines and deduce. It’s a movie that I’ve been thinking about for a week after seeing it only once and can’t wait to don my 3D glasses and take the ride again.
So, Prometheus: misfire or misunderstood? I think a little from column A and a lot from column B
Totally facehugged
One of my all-time fav shows, I'm finally rewatching (I believe a decade on from finishing the series - crazy), in conjunction with the new Podcast, Talk Ville - hosted by the Lex and Clark of this show, Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling. That means potentially 4-5 years of weekly re-watching Smallville.
I'm now getting to the see show with their knowledge and nearly with new eyes - as it's been so long since I've watched this. Obviously the special effects and just the visual quality of the recording are dated, but that's 20 years ago (I know... I keep saying it).
The first half of this episode really hinders Tom as he has to play this timid dweeb but in the 2nd half, he gets to open up and be more natural. Michael Rosenbaum is an excellent Lex and he just gets better and better as the show goes over. Its interesting watching Allison Mack on TV again, after all that's come out since. John Glover and Annette O'Toole are fantastic as the older stars, while John Schneider always looks like he's smiling and it's bugging me.
Some of the dialogue is hokey as it desperately tries fit in the ties to a larger Superman story. Some lines like "nothing will stand in the way of our friendship" (after knowing the guy for a few days) are bad, but made tolerable by Rosenbaum's acting. The way Ross and Sullivan come to suspect the "freak of the week" is extremely forced and rushed, this is a Clark centric pilot that in hindsight probably should have been 1 hour (or at least 5 more minutes). Even the tension between Whitney and Clark feels rushed .
Overall, this is a god pilot from a show that would only get better and better. After the end of the first episode - I wanted to pick up immediately with Episode 2, but that's for another week.
What a great Christmas present for 2021. I watched the first episode today after getting to know this show has started.
I'm huge fan of Yellowstone and Beth Dutton in particular. I immediately liked Elisa Dutton (played by Isabel May from Run Hide Fight). We can see from whom Beth inherited her unconquerable soul from. Like Beth, Elisa too has a special bond with her father.
Tim McGraw playing James Dutton didn't come as a surprise since Yellowstone's season 4 flashbacks had him playing the role. I'm really excited to see how this story unfolds and what Sam Elliott's, LaMonica Garrett's and Faith Hill's characters bring in to the story. There's some serious star power there. Having said that, since this story is being told from great ancestor Dutton's (Elisa Dutton's) point of view, this will be a big role for Isabel May. No pressure, but I'm sure Isabel will make us all proud.
Another notable thing is how the writers have given different accents to other supporting characters, and in certain cases they can't speak English at all (the German immigrants). This is very rare in previous historical stories about pioneers. I think this type of authentic portrayal of American pioneers is a need of our time, and I'll leave it at that.
In a way, the documentary in itself, portrays the perfect picture of how fast-paced and erratic the world may seem at times. Its full of colours and clips, and seems to be a little bit all over the place. I found this documentrary to be lacking a certain focus and depth. Maybe the documentary needed some Adderall itself.
When introducing ADHD meds, and people who have "ADHD" or ADHD, without ever giving any proper introduction as to how these medications can be tremendously helpful to those who truly needs them, is one of the greatest flaws of this documentary. I think the storyline would have benefitted from a clearer focus, on wheather they wanted to follow personal stories or the social issues leading to the abuse of perscription drugs in the US. Issues regarding the diagnose critera and the competetiveness of today is raised, but not really delwed into.
Rather than watching a 1,5 hour documentary, I'd read a short summary of its contents to save time.
"The US have a massive problem when it comes to perscription drugs. The diagnose criteriea for ADHD are unclear, and needs to be further developed, in order to avoid people being medicated without needing medications. (The documentary doesn't mention the financial situation, and how perscription drugs and drug companies sponsoring doctors might be one of the reasons as to why they would want to give medications rather than non-medicated rehabilitation options).. A lot of people in the documentary talk of how they are happy to not be needing Adderall when their life-situation changed (eg. finishing university), and said that the drug felt amazing when they took it. Some people didn't like the effects."
Over 30 years since its release, this is still the high watermark of the series and, indeed pretty much any adventure film. Ford is the lynchpin of the series, and unlike James Bond, it is difficult to imagine anyone else taking on this role in the future. What makes Indiana Jones works so well as a character and instantly connect with an audience (apart from being Han Solo in disguise) is his world-weariness and that he does indeed seem to be "making it up as he goes along." He makes mistakes and gets himself into trouble more often than not. The sheer pace, the reliance on practical stunts and Ford's performance here sets this film apart from some of the more ridiculous elements that mar the sequels and Karen Allen is a great foil. Every film of course has a great score from Williams, but the theme created for the Ark of the Covenant elevates the music to another level. But it is Ford that embodies Indiana Jones - the looks of relief, panic and determination that cross his face, sometimes all in one shot, is often priceless and he is the key to making this character work so well.
Heads up: I know that there are a lot of folks going into this expecting it to scratch the same itch as Game of Thrones or Vikings.
You’re going to come out extremely disappointed if you expect that.
This is way slower and artsier than your average 'manly' action movie, the tone and feel are more akin to something like The Revenant
Alright, so I did not give this its due the first time around, here are my updated thoughts.
The first thing that stood out to me during the rewatch is how much of the imagery had already burned itself into my brain, there are so many fantastic long takes that I still easily remembered months after seeing it the first time.
I love the brutal and raw feel, which combined with the score creates a very good sense of atmosphere.
The characters clicked for me this time around, a lot of their development is done in subtle and visual ways (pay attention to how cold Skardsgard’s character claims he is versus how he acts). As a result, I wasn’t bored and the pacing fell into place for me.
While the story is still a little by the numbers and predictable, I picked up on this theme of the toxicity and pointlessness of revenge, which sets it apart from similar stories like The Lion King or Hamlet.
The action slaps, but I’m still not a fan of some of the arthouse touches. For example I don’t get what that hallucination fight during the sword retrieval scene wants to convey.
But yeah, it’s much better than I initially gave it credit for, even if it’s nowhere near peak Eggers.
7.5/10
I find it absolutely hilarious that the big complaint about this episode is that a computer is experiencing emotions or thinks it is experiencing emotions and that's just too far for some people lol.
We live in a world where advanced AI is not outside of our reach. We have the beginnings of humanoid robots expressing emotion and AI programs trained to express themselves using human emotions. The idea that 1,000 years from now computers wouldn't be far better at this is absolutely absurd. It's no more 'impossible' than invisible shields or the magical walls in the brig that somehow maintain atmosphere and are near indestructible (or warp speed or a mycelium network lol this is all fiction.)
I think all in all this was decent for a filler episode. We checked in with how Book is doing after, well, the anomaly destroyed everything a few episodes ago. We touched bases with Gray (who, after not having a physical body for a long time) is now making friends with the computer. Those interactions seemed a little odd/forced to me.
The interactions between Stammets and Book were wholesome. After Stammets has been struggling with Tarka the past few episodes (and also with working well in a team) it seems he's trying to make extra efforts. Seeing some of this between Stammets and Book added another layer to the show and even though Book gave some skeptical expressions in response, this seems like the set up to what could potentially be a great friendship (collaboratively for Stammets and socially/emotionally for Book.) Especially after everything that he's lost, finding a home and a family on Discovery seems possible and I hope the show goes that way.
I was more than a little surprised that the other members of the crew didn't fight to stay with Michael when they were all facing imminent doom as the ship dissolved. This felt very out of character for some of the major supporting characters of the show (like Saru, Rhys, Owo, and Keyla.) AND ESPECIALLY BOOK?!?! What? They all refused to allow her to fly the Discovery into the future because they didn't want her to be alone so they went with her, knowing it could mean death, but a dissolving ship going through a plasma barrier (generating massive heat and basically turning the ship into an Easy Bake) is too much?
My only complaint is that it seems that whoever wrote this episode didn't know the characters they were writing about. It's very unlikely there was only one EVA suit but if that were the case then it should have been mentioned in the show at least.
Overall, funny but offensive in some ways that are important, in others just mean. I also find it frustrating certain things seem to get more public attention than others. But the comments in general about trans people come off as the "crazy racist uncle" trope of yesteryear who Chappelle himself would mock when they'd excuse themselves by parading their one black friend as if it was an excuse.
I won't even attempt to excuse his mean spirited jokes about the trans community. Whilst his friend may have loved them it's still the sort of thing that wounds people enough to drive them to what I hope he doesn't wish on anybody else.
Some jokes didn't land at all for me, the "antisemetic" joke for instance. I don't get what was funny or offensive about it, probably because I just simply don't get what he's referencing, neither did my Jewish husband. Either way it seemed odd and out of place among everything else. It just made no sense to me at all.
All in all, my viewing experience is probably very different to that of someone who is trans. So I can't and don't think anybody other than trans people should be saying whether it's transphobic/offensive or not.
I'm very conflicted about this as I love Chappelle and feel awful about what happened to his friend. But I know that if he were a white man making the same kinds of jokes about a black person I would be upset, too.
I, too, am among those who thinks this film is rather below average. And I say this as a decade-long Eastwood fan. I will not enter into the discussion about the politics and morality of war and if the movie answers those questions. Only this, I don´t think this is an anti-war movie.
The problem I had after watching this was that I wasn´t sure what Eastwoods intensions were regarding Kyle. I didn´t know the first thing about him (I´m not American) but I feel I could have gotten the same picture about him reading on wikipedia. Although his fate in the end is tragic I don´t feel sorry for him. He choose his profession, he could have gotten out, he knew the risks. I feel sorry for his family - his wife and kids.
So what was the intension ? Did Eastwood wanted to show a movie about a great soldier ? About a man who sacrifices everything for the so-called greater good. Or should this be about the effects of PTSD ? Whatever it was the movie touches all of these points without really exploring anything in detail. In the end this movie did not touch me, it doesn´t made me want to know more about the man, it could have just as easily been a fictional character. That´s the imperssion it left on me.
