Post by Martin Stett on Jul 3, 2017 16:42:35 GMT
Every-Night Dreams (1933) -- Cheap melodrama at its worst. None of the characters have arcs or development, and the story is just an excuse to wring tears out of terrible things happening to these people for no narrative reason. 3/10
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) -- I actually quite enjoyed Mockingjay 1, but the second half of the book is where it turned to shit, so I didn't know what to expect. Would the filmmakers improve the source material like they did with the last one? This movie... well, it turns to shit. That's too strong of a word. I don't think anyone cared enough to make a movie truly terrible, they just wanted to get their paychecks and get out of this bloated, needlessly action packed mess. Which is the same problem the book had; the action scenes were mind-meltingly stupid, and the movie doesn't try to make them exciting or different or halfway logical. They just fill time. And since the movie is nothing but action scenes and a draaaaaaaaaaaawn out love triangle between Katniss and her two enervating boyfriends, the movie is pretty much nothing but. At least the first 20 minutes or so are really good. 5/10
The Neon Demon (2016) -- Well. That was weird for the sake of being weird. Fanning and Reeves kill it, though. And the movie was never boring, gotta give it that. 6/10
Red Dwarf (Series VIII) -- The final nail in the coffin of Dwarf, in which it turned from intriguing sci-fi comedy to full sitcom. I personally didn't mind the change, although there are some cringe worthy scenes (dancing Cat is the low point of the whole show). On the whole, it's still fresh and funny, although it did lose the sci-fi edge that made it unique in the glory days. 6/10
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) -- As someone who considers the original Harakiri to be as close to flawless as you'll ever find in cinematic format, I had a lot of baggage going in. Credit to Takashi Miike and everyone involved: I was able to let go of my preconceived ideas about the story and let them tell it their own way. The key difference between the two movies is in tone: the original is angry and harsh, an accusation against injustice. This one is just sad. It spends much more time focusing on the family lives of the characters, of trying to make ends meet when they have nothing. As a result, Tsukumo has become a bland character whose actions never feel real, and his decisions in the house of Iyi seem more like a necessity of the plot rather than a logical development of his character arc. But on the flipside, Motome and Miho become larger characters, with several scenes in which Miike takes the time to just watch them going about their days... and trying to live. And I think that is all the he intended; this is a movie about good people trying to live their lives. And he succeeds admirably at that. 7/10
The Salesman (2016) -- This is a very well made movie. I can't find any real fault in it, except this one: I just didn't care. I didn't like these people. I saw little reason to care about them, because they were so transparently ugly and mean. I liked the movie in an intellectual way, but it didn't engage me emotionally. 6/10
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) -- I love a good genre movie, especially in a post-apocalyptic setting. However, despite all of the originality in the settings and ideas here, the movie never really comes alive. The cast is convincing, the world is convincing, the actions of the characters are convincing (save for Kieran's actions in the shopping mart). But a bit like The Salesman, I never really connected with the people I was watching. They were objects, and it was interesting to watch them fulfill their necessary roles in the plot... but that was all. And the ending makes no logical sense, sorry. I wouldn't mind it if I was emotionally invested in the story (thematically, it's a good ending for what the film was trying to accomplish), but I wasn't. Still, it was very well made. And Sennia Nanua needs to skyrocket to the top of every casting agent for leading children's roles, 'cause DAMN, she's good. 6/10
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) -- I actually quite enjoyed Mockingjay 1, but the second half of the book is where it turned to shit, so I didn't know what to expect. Would the filmmakers improve the source material like they did with the last one? This movie... well, it turns to shit. That's too strong of a word. I don't think anyone cared enough to make a movie truly terrible, they just wanted to get their paychecks and get out of this bloated, needlessly action packed mess. Which is the same problem the book had; the action scenes were mind-meltingly stupid, and the movie doesn't try to make them exciting or different or halfway logical. They just fill time. And since the movie is nothing but action scenes and a draaaaaaaaaaaawn out love triangle between Katniss and her two enervating boyfriends, the movie is pretty much nothing but. At least the first 20 minutes or so are really good. 5/10
The Neon Demon (2016) -- Well. That was weird for the sake of being weird. Fanning and Reeves kill it, though. And the movie was never boring, gotta give it that. 6/10
Red Dwarf (Series VIII) -- The final nail in the coffin of Dwarf, in which it turned from intriguing sci-fi comedy to full sitcom. I personally didn't mind the change, although there are some cringe worthy scenes (dancing Cat is the low point of the whole show). On the whole, it's still fresh and funny, although it did lose the sci-fi edge that made it unique in the glory days. 6/10
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) -- As someone who considers the original Harakiri to be as close to flawless as you'll ever find in cinematic format, I had a lot of baggage going in. Credit to Takashi Miike and everyone involved: I was able to let go of my preconceived ideas about the story and let them tell it their own way. The key difference between the two movies is in tone: the original is angry and harsh, an accusation against injustice. This one is just sad. It spends much more time focusing on the family lives of the characters, of trying to make ends meet when they have nothing. As a result, Tsukumo has become a bland character whose actions never feel real, and his decisions in the house of Iyi seem more like a necessity of the plot rather than a logical development of his character arc. But on the flipside, Motome and Miho become larger characters, with several scenes in which Miike takes the time to just watch them going about their days... and trying to live. And I think that is all the he intended; this is a movie about good people trying to live their lives. And he succeeds admirably at that. 7/10
The Salesman (2016) -- This is a very well made movie. I can't find any real fault in it, except this one: I just didn't care. I didn't like these people. I saw little reason to care about them, because they were so transparently ugly and mean. I liked the movie in an intellectual way, but it didn't engage me emotionally. 6/10
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) -- I love a good genre movie, especially in a post-apocalyptic setting. However, despite all of the originality in the settings and ideas here, the movie never really comes alive. The cast is convincing, the world is convincing, the actions of the characters are convincing (save for Kieran's actions in the shopping mart). But a bit like The Salesman, I never really connected with the people I was watching. They were objects, and it was interesting to watch them fulfill their necessary roles in the plot... but that was all. And the ending makes no logical sense, sorry. I wouldn't mind it if I was emotionally invested in the story (thematically, it's a good ending for what the film was trying to accomplish), but I wasn't. Still, it was very well made. And Sennia Nanua needs to skyrocket to the top of every casting agent for leading children's roles, 'cause DAMN, she's good. 6/10
