What films have you been watching? (XII/IB) - CFC's Dirty Dozen

[Sommerswerd]

Have you ever seen The Happening? That's my vote for worst movie ever.

Clearly you haven't seen Showgirls. Easily the worst movie OF ALL TIME, nothing else is even close, and that's saying a lot since there's nudity in it...

Agree that the The Happening and How it All Ends had eye-roll inducing WTH? huh? that's it?endings... I actually thought both movies were OK until the ending, which kinda spoils it.

 

[Takhisis]

Clearly you haven't seen Showgirls. Easily the worst movie OF ALL TIME, nothing else is even close, and that's saying a lot since there's nudity in it...

Seriously? I've watched Ed Wood's filmography.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've "finished" watching (playing) Bandersnatch on NETFLIX... or at least that is to say, I've watch/playthrough'd enough variations of it that although I'm not "done" I'm finished... Rewatching/playing/starting over is actually seamlessly integrated into the movie such that it doesn't make you rewatch all the stuff you've already seen, but instead just kinda quickly skips you ahead to where you screwed up and could/should have made a different choice. The characters even start developing deja-vu, vaguely remembering the prior play-throughs and saying "Hey didn't we just do this?" and similar... its a cool easter egg that keeps the rewatch/replay feeling fresh.

For anyone who hasn't heard of it yet... Bandersnatch is an interactive choose-your-own-adventure book in movie form. NETFLIX is actually currently being sued by Disney because apparently Disney owns the rights to the "Choose-your-own-adventure" series, and the dummies who wrote Bandersnatch actually had the main character say "Oh this is like a choose-your-own-adventure book" in the movie *facepalm*... so you better go watch it before Disney forces them to take it down.
Anyway, I've been hoping for movies to move in this direction for a long time so it was fun Maybe Disney will start doing it since they apparently don't want anyone else doing it.

I thought Bandersnatch was pretty good. I thought some of the choices had brilliant consequences while most of them were meh. It didn't help that I don't like Black Mirror generally and I didn't really have any interest in this story in particular but neither of those things are the movie's fault.

. Second, was New Order all that well known in the mainstream in the 80s outside of the UK? They make a big deal about how the creator was a massive socially awkward nerd, would he really have been jamming to 80s club tracks?

This is the main conceit of the book and the author beats it into the flipping ground. For me personally, it was the single biggest problem I had with the book. Yes, he's a walking pop culture encyclopedia. I like the concept of a uber-nerd protagonist getting through life by being an uber-nerd; I can get behind that. But in the book (and I assume in the movie as well), the protagonist knows everything. It removes all of the tension in the book when you have a character who can more or less instantly solve every problem they face. It drove me up the wall and as I said before, by the end I was hate reading it.

So it makes total sense that you have got some nitpicking over this kind of stuff. I can only hope the movie toned this down a bit as it was a plot mechanic the book used to get through basically the entire plot.

 

[Arakhor]

Clearly you haven't seen Showgirls. Easily the worst movie OF ALL TIME, nothing else is even close, and that's saying a lot since there's nudity in it...

How about Manos: The Hands of Fate or Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever?

 

[rah]

While awful, showgirls is nowhere near the worst movie every made. Only because there are some pretty funny routines in it. I don't know if they were intended but never the less.

 

[Cutlass]

Hell, all the Star Wars prequels were worse than Showgirls.

 

[Arakhor]

That was another Hot Take from the Cutlass Party.

 

[Sommerswerd]

How about Manos: The Hands of Fate or Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever?

I've seen it... Showgirls is worse. One of the key differences in my mind is that when a movie is just ordinarily awful you don't remember the movie, its just generally forgettable. I had to go look up Ecks v. Sever to remind me that "Oh yeah I saw that, it sucked"... But the with the truly epically bad movies, you don't forget them. You remember what they were about and how bad they were and what was so bad about them... I'm talking Batman and Robin bad. There's no way to place Ecks v. Sever on that tier of awful.

Which makes me think of something else... movies that are so bad that they're good. The classic example that springs to mind is Starship Troopers. There is no way to call that movie an unqualified good, but yet... don't you like it? Another for me is Wild Wild West. One more is Low Down Dirty Shame.

 

[Takhisis]

I've just watched a very interesting film called Transsiberian from about ten years ago. It is a crime/suspense film, starring Emily Mortimer, Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley, and Kate Mara.

And yes, it does happen to take place on the Transsiberian Railway. And yes, there's snow. Which is actually a plot point.

The Takh recommends it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Winter's Bone (2010)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

I went into all 3 of these a little nervously, and was pleasantly satisfied with all of them. Winter's Bone got so much praise I avoided it for years (the Hype Train crushes everything in its path), and Jennifer Lawrence seemed to be moving into less-interesting roles; I didn't want to like her and then get stuck thinking about what might have been (I'm looking at you, Michelle Rodriguez). I'm surprised to find that the director, Debra Granik, doesn't appear to have any connection to rural, poor America. She grew up in Washington DC and went to Brandeis and Tisch, for god's sake. Of course, I have no experience with that part of America, either, so I might not have noticed any inconsistencies or misrepresentations (the musicians at the house party with Sheryl Lee are real, though - Marideth Sisco & Blackberry Winter). And I didn't know that John Hawkes was in it, that was a nice surprise.

Solo is an okay, Western-heist movie with a couple of good action set-pieces. I was actually a little surprised how much I enjoyed it, on that score. It doesn't add anything to the character of Han Solo, though, or to the Star Wars mythology (I was actually sort of glad it doesn't do the latter - a fun, space western, uncoupled from everything else, is what I wanted). Ehrenreich plays him well, but he's kind of doing a bit, like he's doing an impression on one of the late shows, with Jimmy Fallon doing the Chewbacca noises, and you laugh and say "hey, this guy does a good Han Solo." Even Han's character arc in this movie is too much like his arc in the original trilogy. If you're a Star Wars fan looking for the next great Star Wars movie, I'd take a pass, but if you can allow yourself to view Solo as a Star Wars-inspired space western, like Serenity, it's kind of fun. I do wonder what movie Lord & Miller would have made, if they'd been allowed to.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a competent, workaday action-thriller, but without the baggage that Solo carries. If I were to rank Cruise's movies, even just his action movies, this would be in the middle somewhere. It does the job. The cast is solid, nobody fumbles the ball. It's fine.

Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever?

Ugh, I'd forgotten about this one. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Have you ever seen The Happening? That's my vote for worst movie ever.

What a Twist!

 

[civvver]

Solo is an okay, Western-heist movie with a couple of good action set-pieces. I was actually a little surprised how much I enjoyed it, on that score. It doesn't add anything to the character of Han Solo, though, or to the Star Wars mythology (I was actually sort of glad it doesn't do the latter - a fun, space western, uncoupled from everything else, is what I wanted). Ehrenreich plays him well, but he's kind of doing a bit, like he's doing an impression on one of the late shows, with Jimmy Fallon doing the Chewbacca noises, and you laugh and say "hey, this guy does a good Han Solo." Even Han's character arc in this movie is too much like his arc in the original trilogy. If you're a Star Wars fan looking for the next great Star Wars movie, I'd take a pass, but if you can allow yourself to view Solo as a Star Wars-inspired space western, like Serenity, it's kind of fun. I do wonder what movie Lord & Miller would have made, if they'd been allowed to.

I just watched it too, (hey guess what just came out on netflix!) and agree. It doesn't feel star wars at all, there's practically nothing in it to tie you to the universe other than one token star destroyer, a brief skirmish with some tie fighters and some cameos by stormtroopers. I did not feel like I was within the star wars universe. I think probably because the force was absent and it's such a prevalent theme in all the other star wars movies. Rogue one did the same, though vader and the emperor were in it briefly, but the other tie ins were much stronger and more prevalent. Solo feels like such a one off movie it is its own deal. Which is not to say it's bad. I liked it, an above average fantasy sci fi movie, I just don't get any nostalgia watching it or feel like I am watching the real Han and Chewie.

The characters and their motivations also seemed underdeveloped in some sequences, but I guess that's just cus it's a 2 hour movie, not a tv series. But Han's time on corellia was so brief, I never felt like it molded him in any way. And Woody harrelsons character turns on a dime at multiple points in the movie.

One part that bugged me was Lando's droid. It's just such a token bit at this point, there was 3po, then the droid from rogue one, and then this one which could easily be interchanged with the droid from rogue one. They're so similar, snarky droids someone refuses to wipe for one reason or another.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I just watched it too, (hey guess what just came out on netflix!) and agree. It doesn't feel star wars at all, there's practically nothing in it to tie you to the universe other than one token star destroyer, a brief skirmish with some tie fighters and some cameos by stormtroopers.

That reminds me:

Spoiler :

When Han was serving in the Imperial infantry, what uniforms was everybody wearing? Why weren't those guys Stormtroopers? Has the Empire had an army of not-Stormtroopers this whole time, that we've never seen before?

Honestly, the movie would've been better if it wasn't a Star Wars movie, but was just a well-executed "space western" starring a charming rogue with a good heart. Heck, you could make the Robin Hood character a woman, just to stir the pot a little - just swap Alden Ehrenreich and Emilia Clarke's roles, change the character names, and Bob's your uncle.

 

[BenitoChavez]

if you can allow yourself to view Solo as a Star Wars-inspired space western, like Serenity

Honestly, the movie would've been better if it wasn't a Star Wars movie, but was just a well-executed "space western" starring a charming rogue with a good heart.

See I always viewed Serenity (the ship) as the Millennium Falcon and Mal as basically Solo (the character), even before Solo (the movie) was a thing. Only I think Serenity (the movie) pulled off the space-western movie so much better (perfectly in my opinion) than Star Wars ever did. So how were they going to improved on perfection? Short answer is they didn't. It's just meh.

 

[EgonSpengler]

See I always viewed Serenity (the ship) as the Millennium Falcon and Mal as basically Solo (the character), even before Solo (the movie) was a thing. Only I think Serenity (the movie) pulled off the space-western movie so much better (perfectly in my opinion) than Star Wars ever did. So how were they going to improved on perfection? Short answer is they didn't. It's just meh.

Yes, I agree. That's what I meant. Firefly/Serenity is like the tabletop RPG campaign of some friends who'd just seen Star Wars and wanted to make their own characters. And, let's face it, Han Solo himself is just a continuation of pulp-and-serial heroes of bygone days. Rhett Butler-meets-Buck Rogers. The original Star Wars is a pulp-hero mashup inspired by its predecessors (Flash Gordon thrown in a blender with Kurosawa's The Hidden Castle) which in turn inspired people like Joss Whedon & Nathan Fillion to make pulp-hero mashups. Farscape is another one that leaps to mind, but I'm sure there are others. Somewhere out there is a film-school grad student who was 8 years old when Firefly blew her mind, the spiritual great-great-granddaughter of H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs whose magnum opus will be a milestone of 21st-Century adventure fiction.

 

[civvver]

That reminds me:

Spoiler :

When Han was serving in the Imperial infantry, what uniforms was everybody wearing? Why weren't those guys Stormtroopers? Has the Empire had an army of not-Stormtroopers this whole time, that we've never seen before?

Honestly, the movie would've been better if it wasn't a Star Wars movie, but was just a well-executed "space western" starring a charming rogue with a good heart. Heck, you could make the Robin Hood character a woman, just to stir the pot a little - just swap Alden Ehrenreich and Emilia Clarke's roles, change the character names, and Bob's your uncle.

Yeah that part was weird, the stormtrooper part. I think it was meant to humanize and denigrate Han like he was a wash out, just cannon fodder, couldn't even make stormtrooper status. It was odd.

 

[Takhisis]

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a competent, workaday action-thriller, but without the baggage that Solo carries. If I were to rank Cruise's movies, even just his action movies, this would be in the middle somewhere. It does the job. The cast is solid, nobody fumbles the ball. It's fine.

I agree with with this diagnosis, Dr. Spengler.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Mars Attacks! is still a lot of fun to watch and it blows my mind how many a-list and up-and-coming stars (back then - they're all a-list now) are in this movie.

 

[Takhisis]

Mars Attacks! is still a lot of fun to watch and it blows my mind how many a-list and up-and-coming stars (back then - they're all a-list now) are in this movie.

Indeed.

I myself have just watched Tango & Cash which was also quite fun.

 

[Takhisis]

Watching some film with Helena Bonham-Carter playing Elizabeth Taylor.

Oh, and claiming this thread for the Geek Orthodox Church upon my return.