It's been many years since I first watched this film and I think that back then I really took it for granted.
Comparing it to all that has come since it is a wonder. A beautiful love story with dots of humour and angst... Yet neither of them die and we get a truly happy ending.
It's a shame to say that is a rarity in LGBT media today.
Great film, production, acting and all round message. A true insight into Asian American life and traditions too. Really can't fault it.
The first of half of this movie kinda felt like a live action Studi Ghibli movie and then shit gets real.
This is the worst Game Changer finale. The concept and first part were excellent but once everyone knew who was playing, it became boring. Also, Sam has invited some of the most brilliant and hilarious talents in the history of Game Changer, and he ended up with this Ratfish person. He's the worst part of this show and was a total hack. Katie's deserving but Rekha was robbed because that hack had too much power. Anyway, it was a serviceable season and I'm still looking forward for the next one.
After you have watched the first two episodes stop because nothing happens after that
To the person who said this was Past Lives with robots, that's the most accurate review for this movie. The world had it out for these two.
An art house remake of Big Daddy.
Everything about this movie excelled, from the acting to the cinematography to the directing, but the banality of the story kept me from appreciating any of those things enough.
Having been a die-hard fan of the video games I have high hopes (but low expectations) that this show will be awesome! I felt Silo had a very Fallout feel to them and if this is at least as good as Silo has been then this will be a winner!
They completely nailed the look, feel and vibe of the games and it's fucking amazing.
Dev Patel really said I'm gonna outdo the bathroom fight scene (MI:6) and the kitchen fight scene (Tenet) and the elevator fight scene (Winter Soldier) while also addressing social and political themes and call it "Monkey Man"
This movie is already good on its own, but it becomes 10x better when you know what Patel went through to get it made.
The movie has already cemented itself as a classic of the vengeance subgenre, with echoes of Woo and Park Chan-wook, while bursting with enough originality for it to avoid feeling like a carbon copy.
It's a primal yell of a directorial debut from Dev Patel, already an underrated actor, who uses his unique experiences with religion and his own Indian heritage to bring the story of the film to life.
You can smell the blood and sweat wafting through the screen
A film that just misses greatness can be more disappointing than a film that doesn't come close. Dream Scenario is outstanding until the last 20 minutes. It feels as though Kristoffer Borgli just couldn't figure out how to end it and ran out of time. Too bad. #BestNicolasCagePerformanceEver
What a delight. Flipping genres on a dime and with a cautionary tale of modern virality and the destruction it brings to those hunted by it, Dream Scenario is a fantastic smorgasbord of ideas that really shouldn't come together as well as it does. Not many films can be funny, tragic and scary in equal measure and still come out feeling as complete as this movie does. Excellence, I can't wait to watch it again.
As every good thing has an end, we have come to the end of this beautiful series. The guys did an excellent job. It is one of the rare TV series that I watch without interruption and without getting bored. I haven't seen anything better among science fiction. It was an amazing season and the series has barely started. See you in 2025, thank you for your efforts.:thumbsup:
I don't want this show to be over!
“I must go punch that baby.”
The first film of the Leeds International Film Festival 2023 (LIFF), and what a strong start!
Poor Things is a humorous, sexy, and Gothic tale that can be philosophically but in the most bizarre ways. There is something so wonderful about the weird, especially in art.
Emma Stone's performance as Bella Baxter was just glorious. It’s also a very “risky” performance because when we first meet her, she is a child in an adult body after being reanimated, with her vocabulary being on the same level as a three-year-old, and her uneven body posture/moments, as if she’s still learning how to move. There is A famous movie saying, “Never go full stupid”, but Stone finds the right balance that prevents it from being embarrassing to watch, which other actors failed at. However, that section is only at the beginning, and as the film progresses through her journey of becoming herself, we see her understanding of language and walking improve significantly.
Bella is a fantastic main character, and she’s easy to care about. We want to see her succeed, and Emma Stone was terrific.
This is the best performance I have seen from Mark Ruffalo, as every time he was on screen, the audience and I were laughing. His character is a loudmouth parody of the ladykiller, who takes Bella under his wing and has her for himself. He chewed up the scenery, and it was astounding. There is a scene in this movie where both Bella and he have a chaotic dance, but the little dance he does on his way to the dance floor, I can't stop thinking about it. It was so funny.
William Dafoe, which should come as no surprise, delivers a superb performance as the monster-looking scientist Godwin Baxter. He is often referred to as 'God' at times, with his patchwork flesh of a face having a distant cross on the right side of his face. He very much plays the role of God, as he does the impossible and gives new life to unfortunate lost souls.
I’m just saying this right now, but the Best Supporting Actor race next year might be the best if nothing ruins it. I hope not. Imagine this: Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer, Ryan Gosling for Barbie, Robert De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Ruffalo & Dafoe for Poor Things.
Everything on a technical level, such as cinematography, the score, costumes, and the production design - all extraordinary and benefited in bringing this world alive. The whole movie feels otherworldly and timeless.
What I find compelling about director Yorgos Lanthimos is that if you examine his movies, the stories in his movies are simple. The Lobster is about fulfilling societal norms we feel we need to follow, such as getting a job, applying to a college and university, being with a romantic partner, having kids, having interests, and eventually dying. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a horror revenge tale where a family gets cursed after the fathers' wrongdoings. The Favourite is a period piece drama/comedy about two reveals who try to win the love of a bipolar queen.
Poor Things is a fresh re-imaging of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (also based on a novel by Scottish author Alasdair Gray), remodeled as a coming-of-age story told through a female perspective. The needs, the wants, the issues, and losing our inner child in this demanding world. Unique and isn't afraid to approach sexuality so openly.
At the start, the character of Bella has the mind of a child while having an adult body but is not restricted and not insecure about things. She can be loud, messy, playful, and expressive in emotions. Especially when it comes to sexuality, hence the openness to it. Like, there's nothing wrong with something that everyone does, but we don't talk about it. As we get older and more exposed to the world, we get quieter, speak less, get insecure about things, care too much about what others may say/think, and become closeted. That is one angle of the film that I found incredibly compelling.
But the execution is wild. I do not buy for one second that it’s strange for the sake of it. It leans more into steampunk absurdism. Yorgos Lanthimos presents the events as they are without questioning them, as the surface level normality peeled back, and focuses on the strange happenings in life and people. He's one of the most unique voices in cinema, not only for what he has to say but what he must show and how to show it.
The only issue I had with the film was towards the end when it started to get a bit preachy, going as far as hitting you on the head with it, and I was thinking, "Alright, I get it."
Other than that, the film was excellent and one of the most unique and memorable experiences I had this year. Even if this is Yorgos Lanthimos's most accessible film so far, it may still be too much for some, but even with its peculiar nature, you will find it impossible to take your eyes off the screen.
With 'Poor Things', director Yorgos Lanthimos has created a film that has quite a few similarities with the box office hit 'Barbie'. Both are about women who start out as objects without any self-determination and, in the course of a journey, find themselves and discover their freedom. Both films also impress with fantastic costumes, good performances, and, most importantly, a phenomenal production design.
But, while I enjoyed 'Barbie', this Frankenstein story is in a completely different league. Lead actress Emma Stone delivers perhaps the best performance of her career, and Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe are also great here. The absurd humor worked perfectly for me. I haven't laughed more in a movie all year than I did in this one. And ultimately, the world that Lanthimos creates is one that has never been seen before. It's really difficult to create something "new" in film in the 21st century, but that's definitely the case here.
All in all, I not only give "Poor Things" my highest recommendation, but it is also my favorite film of 2023.
The bomb bay doors opened one last time..but it wasn't for the bombs.
An unexpected happy ending from a show that deals with the great WW2!
This season has gone from unexpectedly good (episode 1) to just damn good!
Not sure why some people are so bitter. If you want it to be exactly like the game, go watch the game.
Great writing. Great Action. You don’t have to have played Halo to understand this show. Even my wife loves it.
As of unanswered questions. It’s called a plot or storyline. Let’s see why cortana looks different perhaps later this season? Nothing wrong with leaving us wanting more.
This will probably become more beloved than Dune for being a bigger, more action driven film. Personally I prefer the first film by a long shot, but there's a lot to like here. I loved Paul's new journey for this installment as it doesn't develop in the way you'd expect based on the ending of the first film. The themes of colonialism, false prophecies and religion reach a level of depth that cannot be found in other sci-fi/fantasy contemporaries like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars; this film certainly made me understand why this story is taken so seriously as a piece of literature. Despite the source material being so old, there's still something new and refreshing about it. You don't often see major Hollywood productions calling out religion as a manipulative force helping the people in power. On top of that this brilliantly subverts the concept of the hero's journey we've become accustomed to by everything that was in one way or another inspired by Dune. The acting is pretty great, Timothée does a great job at playing the transition Paul goes through. Despite his boyish looks I was sold on his performance as the leader of the Fremen. Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem are also scene stealers. The visuals are once again mindblowing, in terms of set/costume design, cinematography and CGI this is as close to perfection as you could get to right now. The vision and scope of this movie are truly unmatched, which leads to some breathtaking sequences that I'll remember for a while (sandworm ride; the black/white arena fight; knife fight during the third act).
However, for all the praise I have for Dune: Part 2, I think Denis is being uncharacteristically sloppy with this film. First of all, Bautista and Butler feel like they're ripped from a different franchise altogether. Their over the top, cartoonish performances are more suited for something like Mad Max than the nuanced world of Dune. The bigger cracks start to appear when you look at the writing. The brief moments where the movie pokes fun at religious zealots through Javier Bardem's character, while funny, probably won't age very well. Like the first movie, it has a tendency to rely too much on exposition and handholding, a problem which might be worse here. I feel like a lot of the subtlety is lost in order to make the movie more normie proof, and that's quite annoying for a movie with artistic ambitions like this one. For example, there's this scene where Léa Seydoux seduces Austin Butler's character, and everything you need to know as a viewer is communicated through Butler's performance. Cut to the next scene, where Seydoux is all but looking at the camera saying "he's a psychopath, he's violent, he wants power, etc.". I just feel like compared to Villeneuve's precise work on Blade Runner 2049, he's consciously dumbing it down here. It's understandable and somewhat excusable for a complex story like Dune, but he occasionally takes it too far for my liking. Then there's the love story subplot between Chani and Paul, which almost entirely misses the mark for me. It feels rushed, there's no chemistry between the actors and some of the lines are painfully cheesy. Because of that, the emotional gutpunch their story eventually reaches during the third act did little for me. Finally, I'm a little dissatisfied with the use of sound. I loved the otherworldly score Zimmer came up with for the first Dune, however this film is so ridiculously bombastic and low-end heavy that it starts to feel like a parody of his work with Christopher Nolan. For the final action beat of the film Villeneuve cuts out the film's score, and it becomes all the more satisfying for it.
Overall, I recommend this film, however maybe temper those expectations if you're expecting a masterpiece. There's a lot to admire, but it's flawed.
6.5/10
Back in 2002 I watched it "by accident" on some random german artsy TV channel. I wasn't into foreign cinema or even profound cinema of any kind at that time. I was only 18 years old. But this movie changed my way of looking at movies. My taste completely changed from that moment on. Everything about this story is so sad, so special. I was obsessed with Maggie after it. I watched all the movies of the director I could find. It literally changed my view of movies, and if you will, my view of love. This kind of romance, you don't find in many movies. It is just so special. It touches me every time I watch it. The music, the colours, the acting. It's just perfect. The best movie about love you'll ever witness. I'm 37 years old now and I still think that's true.
Well that was a fun season finale. D'Arcy has the most standout moment in my opinion. When she finds out Harry is an Alien and this is the big lie that Asta has been keeping from her. She actually acknowledges that this is a big lie and it's very realistic for Asta to lie to her about it. It was extremely satisfying to see this for once even if her completely ignoring the "dinosaur", to assure her friend she gets it is hilariously unrealistic and I mean hilariously as a matter of literal not scale. It got a solid chuckle from me out loud.
There was a lot of revelations for this season finale. Which started from a pretty noteworthy premise of The Greys giving Harry a way off planet leading to Harry needing to decide what to do. The episode is arc'd perfectly ending in a lot of things that we've been hinting at coming to a head and a few things we weren't thinking about to surprise you. The only part of the episode I didn't like was the "Documentary" within the show. A bunch of people talking about being taken or seeing Aliens that connected by to Patience in the end but as a whole I don't think was worth the time.
Can't wait till next season.
Are lighting guys in short supply or something? I can't see shit this episode. :person_shrugging:
Once more the Conners excels at showing aging, grief, and loneliness, and is still funny.
I have watched him for 20years. He has become insufferable. Now just a fake liberal chasing the dollar. I'm out.
Brilliant. Easily one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
It's Community without the charm or talent.
The mood switch song is really the worst i have ever seen on a series
If you are a German, you have watched it a thousand times. Classic every New Year's Eve. It runs on German TV on every channel.
It was a fun movie. Let's combine Home Alone, Die Hard and some random feel good Christmas movie. It just works.
Is this going to win a bunch of rewards? No. Will it be watched around Christmas by action movie watchers for years to come? Most definitely
If you like crazy action, death and Christmas? Just watch it.
I'd watch it again just for the Home Alone scene. You'll know when you see it
