Which Films have you seen lately? 19 - Get Your Film's Name Outta Your Mouth

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[...]an alien predator being even somewhat challenged by bows and arrows means the predator is rather not very scary :/
It's not. And it is.

 
the Terminator with Loken plays on and preys upon the Bimbo Assassins thing or whatever . They get in everywhere . Will make your jaw drop by mere looks and yet you will not be exactly happy when she gets you down on the floor . Just a few examples that ended the tradition of couch casting to which EVERY director and producer would conform . Hi , do we still like Weinstein ?
 
The shooting of the security guard in the kneecaps was supposed to be a punchline and one of the payoffs for the ongoing gag of John having forced the Terminator to "swear that I won't kill anyone". The first was "I can't believe this, grab this guy" inducing the Terminator to lift the man off the ground by his hair. Followed by "Put the gun down now!", inducing the Terminator to instantly bend down and place the pistol on the pavement like he was playing "simon says", but the real laugh line was when John exclaims in disbelief "You were gonna kill that guy!", to which Arnie replies, deadpan "Of course, I'm a Terminator." :lol:
Yes, I know why it was funny and a gag. But it was another case of the dehumanization of security guards that was part of that era, in the form of a gag.
 
I had a look at the Prey trailer, and I really dislike the idea, since an alien predator being even somewhat challenged by bows and arrows means the predator is rather not very scary :/
Well, in the original Predator, Arnie took him down by rather old-school methods. If I remember correctly it was rope and a log that did him in.
 
You are right with much there @Takhisis , but let's not forget how far standards have dropped.
(not just in movies)

Many prolly feel like they have no choice but to adapt, being grumpy while watching movies isn't fun.
They look for dozens of actors who they like, sometimes i could think everyone is on Christoph Waltz' or Jodie Foster's level now ;)

On imdb there are often 1 and 9-10 star reviews side by side, in some kind of battle.
We have YT review accounts who praise everything, and some who say that same movie was trash.
Ofc those who praise are more since it's popular.
T2 imo was one of the first movies where countless flaws were forgiven, since it was a technically amazing fireworks.

T-1000 always comes late..he arrives after they almost killed (and then talked with) Dyson. After Sarah escaped from her prison cell. After they gathered everything from the lab.
Arnie shoots him into 1000 pieces, just so he can reassemble faster. Sarah almost shoots him down into the steel after she was already defeated..and his reaction? Bad bad girl.
A funny sidekick, only deadly vs. minor characters. Nobody really believes a main char could be killed.
Why does Arnie take countless hits from police guns, walking towards them slowly. If one of them would use something bigger it's over.
Logic and tension were not Cameron's main focus here. And they are not in current movies..usually.
The difference is that T2 had a story to tell about its characters and their development. Even the T-1000's which actually gets more sadistic as its frustration mounts.
The T-1000 getting there just too late is mean to highlight how close to destruction we actually are. A lot of it is John or Sarah Connor just lucking out.
Whereas T3 and later attempted remakes just have a random placement of events.
 
Well, in the original Predator, Arnie took him down by rather old-school methods. If I remember correctly it was rope and a log that did him in.
He also had mud and an awesome primal scream. :thumbsup:
 
Well, in the original Predator, Arnie took him down by rather old-school methods. If I remember correctly it was rope and a log that did him in.
I think that was part of the point the movie was trying to make... that the Predator's advanced weapons and technology were far superior to ours, so you had no chance defeating it using modern weapons. The only way to defeat it was to strip all that away and go low/no tech and outsmart it... which was ironically the implied reason the Predator was on Earth hunting humans in the first place... it was looking for prey that would be intelligent enough to give it a real challenge.
 
I think that was part of the point the movie was trying to make... that the Predator's advanced weapons and technology were far superior to ours, so you had no chance defeating it using modern weapons. The only way to defeat it was to strip all that away and go low/no tech and outsmart it... which was ironically the implied reason the Predator was on Earth hunting humans in the first place... it was looking for prey that would be intelligent enough to give it a real challenge.
Prey spoilers:
Spoiler :
I loved the concept of the kühtaamia - the Comanche warrior's rite of passage, in which they "hunt something that is hunting you." That's the Yautja/Predator ethos, in a nutshell. Naru and the Predator are both on their own kühtaamia. It's never stated in the movie, so this is just my interpretation, but I think the Predator in this film is young, perhaps an adolescent on his first solo hunt, just like Naru. They're both the predator and they're both the prey.

I quickly Googled "kühtaamia", and the only things that came up were references to Prey, so I don't know if it's a real thing. Still, even if it was invented by the screenwriter or is a perversion of some real Native American ceremony, I thought it was a cool mirroring of the Predator's hunt.

In previous movies, the Predators of course always went after dangerous prey, but to my memory, this was the first one that made the hunt explicitly circular, with each of them hunting the other. Kind of an Ouroboros. Also, Yautja/Predators and Humans aren't that different. The movie sort of hits us over the head with that point later, when Naru finds the skinned but uneaten snake, and then the skinned but uneaten buffalo. I was willing to overlook getting thumped on the head, though, because I thought the scene was done well - at first, Naru didn't know it wasn't the mysterious creature who'd killed the buffalo.
 
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I've started logging movies on Letterboxd. I haven't quite decided what its functionality is or whether it "does" anything for me, but it's kind of fun, anyway. Among other things, I'm surprised to find that I've watched 37 movies this year. I would have guessed that it was a lot fewer than that.
 
I think that was part of the point the movie was trying to make... that the Predator's advanced weapons and technology were far superior to ours, so you had no chance defeating it using modern weapons. The only way to defeat it was to strip all that away and go low/no tech and outsmart it... which was ironically the implied reason the Predator was on Earth hunting humans in the first place... it was looking for prey that would be intelligent enough to give it a real challenge.
Just don't use this to ever justify the Ewoks film.

In other news, The Running Man was on last night.
 
Has Disney bought the rights to Predator yet?
 
Oh.

Hulu doesn't like Latin America so I gave up on them many years ago.
 
2 new Prey director interviews, talk of sequel -

How a Karate Tournament Carpool Inspired the New ‘Predator’ Movie, ‘Prey’​


Director Dan Trachtenberg and producer Jhane Myers discuss a fabled scene from 'Predator,' the end credits and the possibility of more in this series to come.

In 1987, Dan Trachtenburg was too young to see John McTiernan's R-Rated Predator, but the older kids in his karate tournament carpool insisted on telling him the whole movie anyway. And at the time, Trachtenberg distinctly remembers a story involving Sonny Landham’s half-Sioux tracker, Billy Sole, who died in a dramatic fight with the Predator. The only problem is that no such scene exists, something Trachtenberg would later figure out. Billy does decide to face the creature head on, but the scene cuts away, leaving the audience with only his blood-curdling scream to infer death.

Oddly enough, rumors have persisted for years that Billy Sole’s full death scene was included in rare VHS releases or TV edits, but there is no concrete evidence to support that such a scene is anything but a myth. Thankfully, a mere rumor led to something very real 35 years later.


“So the seed was planted, and then I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a movie that focuses on [Billy Sole’s] story?’ And Prey isn’t exactly that, but it is, spiritually,” Trachtenberg tells The Hollywood Reporter.


Prey, which tells the story of a young Comanche warrior’s (Amber Midthunder’s Naru) encounter with a Predator (Dane DiLiegro) in 1719, also features a Comanche-language dub option via Hulu. Authenticity was extremely important to Trachtenberg and his producer Jhane Myers, who is an enrolled member of Comanche Nation.


“Everything is exact, correct and authentic, and sometimes, when films are made, it’s not always done that way. It’s either an afterthought or it’s done on the fly. So it means a lot to have [the Comanche dub] in there and to have it be correct,” Myers says.


In a recent conversation with THR, Trachtenberg and Myers also discuss the artistic closing credits, which allude to the next chapter in the story. Trachtenberg, who directed 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, then explains how Star Wars influenced the Predator-less title.


Dan, I’ve been anxiously awaiting your second feature for what feels like 84 years now.





Dan Trachtenberg: (Laughs.) Yeah, me too.


While I’m sure there was plenty of frustration along the way, are you ultimately glad that it worked out this way?


Trachtenberg: I am. There were certainly things that I almost made along the way, but now, having made something that is exciting, visceral and thrilling, and hopefully emotional and moving, I know that this would not have been the case had I taken some other jobs. So I’m really glad that I held out and made something that I cared about.






On the set of Prey Courtesy of John P. Johnson/20th Century Studios

Jhane, you’ve been a part of Indigenous stories in the past, but nothing quite like this. How did this come together for you?


Jhane Myers: Well, I was excited to do this, and it came together through Scott Aversano, who is the [executive vice president] of 20th Century. He met me, and then introduced me to Dan and I got to interview for the producer position. Of course, it was during the pandemic, so things shut down and all work stopped. So some things were sidelined, and I had also interviewed for some other jobs. But when I found out about this, I just knew I wanted it because I rarely get to produce something totally in my culture. I’m an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation.


When I first heard about Prey, I immediately wondered if Predator’s Billy Sole (Sonny Landham), who was half-Sioux, led to this idea. He always seemed to have a deeper, more instinctual understanding of the creature than the other characters, and apparently, he did inspire the idea, right?


Trachtenberg: That’s right, yeah. I was in third grade when Predator came out, and I was not allowed to see R-rated movies. So then I found myself in the back of a carpool on the way to a karate tournament with all the sixth graders who had just seen Predator, and they spent the entire ride telling me the entire movie. And I vividly remembered that they said there was a scene where Billy, the Native American tracker, stood on a bridge over a waterfall and fought the Predator. But when I eventually saw the movie, that scene was not in it. (Laughs.) The beginning of it is, but then it cuts away. So the seed was planted, and then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a movie that focuses on that character’s story?” And Prey isn’t exactly that, but it is, spiritually.


Yeah, all we got was Billy’s distant scream, which remains a disappointment. [Writer’s Note: Apparently, rumors of a proper Billy death scene have persisted for years despite no direct evidence.] Anyway, authenticity was clearly a priority to the two of you. Are there any particular details you were especially proud to include?


Myers: Everything. Everything from the score to the people that were in front of the camera, the people behind the camera, the war paint and the face paint that we all developed specifically for these characters, the hairstyles, the costuming. Our costume designer, Stephanie Porter, was like a little sponge. I actually set up a satellite office over there instead of being in the regular production office, so I could be hands-on in their area and just work with everything. So I love everything all the way to the end. Did you see the end credits?


I sure did!


Myers: We know this movie takes place 300 years ago, so it’s not rock art and we didn’t have paper yet to do the ledger art that you see today. So we did hide art. We had top award-winning Native American fine artists that helped create this, and they worked with Filmograph to create that end-credit sequence, which was amazing to work on.






Prey Courtesy of David Bukach/20th Century Studios

Since you brought up the closing credits, I might as well inquire about them now. They suggest that there’s more to this story, so how far ahead are you in terms of figuring out the next chapter?


Trachtenberg: The nerd in me looked that far ahead, as far as he could look, before we started writing this movie, but the adult in me said, “Don’t count your chickens and just be careful. Try and make the best movie possible, straight away.” End-credit sequence aside, there is something refreshing about seeing a movie that is not really intended to be just a part one to something else. There’s something nice about seeing a complete thought. On the complete other hand, I love that what would’ve been a post-credit scene in other movies, is an animated end-title sequence in our movie. Our end titles are still storytelling.


It was definitely a nice touch and very tasteful. So how did you get away with not putting Predator in the title? There must have been some spirited debates about that.


Trachtenberg: (Laughs.) It’s the craziest thing. [Prey] was in my initial pitch for the movie. They were making the Shane Black movie [2018’s The Predator] that I assumed was intended to be a franchise starter, a trilogy perhaps, or what have you. So I knew the only way that they would agree to making this other kind of Predator movie is if I pitched it as what Rogue One or Solo are to the Star Wars franchise. So Prey would also be this other thing, and the title really suggests that it’s sort of a mirror to the main franchise. So that was in the initial pitch, and then I started pitching other titles. But everyone really fell in love with Prey, and I think it works so well because it has the exact same double meaning that Predator has. And there certainly is precedent. Other movies have used different titles that are still inside of another IP, and I think this one proves that you can still have success without calling something Part Two, Begins or what have you.


Even though it has some cool elements in it, it’s safe to say that the 2018 film didn’t connect with audiences. Did the performance of that film make a green light harder to come by in your case?


Trachtenberg: Well, first of all, I agree with you. There was a lot of awesome stuff in that movie. And frankly, that movie came out right around the same time that the Fox-Disney merger happened, so it’s hard to really say what put the brakes on this movie. But I’m just thrilled that the dust has settled and we got picked up again. The production of this movie was far better off than it was going to be in that earlier version, for sure.






On the set of Prey Courtesy of David Bukach/20th Century Studios

Jhane, what can you tell me about the Comanche-language option?


Myers: There is an option for it, and I recommend watching it. This movie is so good that you can watch it [either way]. But it was really rewarding for me to be able to work on something like this, because my language is in an entire movie with the Predator. It’s incredible. Two of our top people in our tribe of language speakers stepped forward to help us on this. We had our number-one conversational speaker, Guy Narcomey, and then we also had Kathryn Briner, who is the director of the Comanche Nation Language Department. So everything is exact, correct and authentic, and sometimes, when films are made, it’s not always done that way. It’s either an afterthought or it’s done on the fly. Sometimes, it’s not even a [real] language; it’s romanticized. So it means a lot to have [the Comanche dub] in there and to have it be correct.


The juxtaposition of past and future weaponry was quite interesting. Did you enjoy that challenge of figuring out ways for the Comanche to truly hold their own?


Trachtenberg: Yeah, one of the reasons why the Comanche are the center of this movie is because they were the most fierce warriors to walk this continent, arguably, and they were incredibly innovative. Part of the idea of Naru [Amber Midthunder] creating the weapon that she creates, comes from trying to represent that spirit, and then having the Predator have an arsenal that is familiar and new at the same time allows for an exciting grudge match that makes it different from any other entries in the franchise.


Did you take artistic license with the orange totsiyaa, or is that a somewhat real healing property?


Myers: The Comanche have healing properties, and we do use medicinal flowers and other things that we can gather. But we just kind of enhanced some things. Totsiyaa really means flower. (Laughs.)


Trachtenberg: The interest there was not wanting to do mud again [like Predator], but still having the same result. It’s also something that Naru rejected at the beginning of the movie. It’s been instilled in her from her mother, but she’s turned away from it because she feels like she wants something else. But then she realizes at the end of the movie, “Oh, that thing that I was saying no to was actually the thing that I need to embrace.” And once again, it embraces the Comanche gift for being adaptable.









Prey Courtesy of David Bukach/20th Century Studios

Amber Midthunder gives a revelatory performance, to say the least. Was there an exhaustive search to find Naru?


Trachtenberg: It certainly was intense. But as soon as I started talking to Amber, I hoped she was Naru because she’s delightful to be around. And when we auditioned her, she did the scene between her and her mother, which was very moving. And then we did a version of that scene, silent. Sometimes, even while making a movie, we’ll do a verbal scene, but performed without the words. And Amber’s take on that scene in that way was very, very powerful. And eventually, both her and Dakota [Beavers] performed a scene in Comanche, and after only one day of studying the language and Jhane helping them, they were already inherently great at it. And then there was a physical test as a little bit of an obstacle course was set up. We had a stunt coordinator there to investigate their physicality because I’m big on swashbuckle. The way a character moves can be as exciting as anything else in the movie, and Amber was just so gifted at not merely crawling, leaping and sliding, but also telling a story within those movements, which is so critical in a movie where story is told largely through action. So she was an incredible find, for sure.


Prey director talks designing his Predator, Mad Max influence, and J.J. Abrams' essential advice​


published 2 days ago
Exclusive: Dan Trachtenberg discusses invisible antagonists and the challenges of working with animals ahead of the prequel's release

Making Prey, the latest installment in the ever-expanding Predator series, was not without its challenges. And yet, differentiating the movie from its predecessors was not the insurmountable obstacle director Dan Tractenberg was expecting. Inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic Park, and Jaws, the filmmaker takes things back to basics with the new action flick, setting it 270 years before the events of the 1987 original – and it’s all the more refreshing for it. Prey centers on Naru, a young Comanche warrior who is determined to prove herself as good a hunter as her brother and his friends. Having grown tired of her supposedly hindering efforts, the men dismiss Naru when she insists she’s noticed something strange killing off animals near their camp, which sets her off on a lone mission to protect her tribe from the formidable new threat. Ahead of the movie’s premiere on Disney Plus (UK) and Hulu (US), Total Film sat down with Trachtenberg to talk about the more difficult aspects of making the film – working with real animals on set and the movie's lack of dialogue – to casting Amber Midthunder in the lead role, freaking out about designing his own Predator, and remembering the advice J.J. Abrams gave him while making 10 Cloverfield Lane. He also touches on the importance of Prey being released on the streaming platforms with a Comanche dub, and why his creature is "more ferocious" than those that came before... This interview has been edited for clarity and length

Total Film: I wanted to ask about the design of the Predator, and what the process of finding its latest look – the skull mask – was like. Did you ever have a moment where you were like, "Oh my God, I'm designing my own Predator?!"
Dan Trachtenberg:
1000%. I've worked on other movies with creatures in them, and you often reference other famous movie creatures, but with this, it was like, "Oh, I'm not referencing Predator, I'm not just designing an alien creature, we're making the Predator. It's happening." It was terrifying and flippin' amazing at the same time. You mentioned the skull mask... That was one of the earliest ideas. We wanted to suggest that our creature was much more ferocious. It's a little bit stripped down, but still embraces the code that we know a Predator to hunt by – it's a trophy hunter. We just thought, "Wouldn't be cool if it wears its trophy on its face rather than just on its hip?" I think we happened upon something very exciting, though, and that's that we kept the mandibles exposed, which are so iconically Predator, and it allowed us to still be engaged with the emotionality of the Predator even while it was masked, which is something that the other films never got a chance to do. So, yeah, I loved designing this creature.
Prey has been in the making for a while. I read that you first pitched it just before they started making The Predator (2018)? Can you talk a little about its journey to screen, and why you wanted to make a Predator movie?
Several things were driving me towards making this. I was very inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road for finally throwing the gauntlet down and saying, "You can make a movie that is all action and it still be a great film." I was also drawn to that challenge. Could I make a movie that is primarily told through action, but also have some emotionality to it? So I thought, "Well, maybe if I could take the engine of a sports film and inject it into this movie, it could really have heart." And rather than see another story about someone surviving against the elements, what if they're up against one of the most formidable opponents? So all of that kind of fused together into the core of this film.
And not only does Naru, the protagonist, come up against the Predator, she faces obstacles from within her tribe, too, because they pretty much doubt her until it's too late.
Absolutely. We were really clear that we wanted the movie to already feel dramatic and compelling before the Predator even gets involved in the story. Then when the Predator does show up, it doesn't switch gears, it only enhances because the way that the Predator hunts really connects to the theme of this movie – it's a creature that's looking for the Alpha, looking for who's on top, and her not really being counted among them is a huge part of it.

10 Cloverfield Lane is technically a sequel to an existing monster movie, while this is a prequel. Was there anything that you learned on that film that directly influenced something on this? I mean, there's probably more things than you can count but is there anything specific that comes to mind?
One of the biggest takeaways from that experience was... well, we had to reshoot some things for that and most of what we wanted to get were reaction shots. And J.J. [Abrams] was like, "I always forget to get reaction shots. You're so consumed with getting all the elements to a set piece, sometimes you lose the most important thing." So I was obsessed this time around about getting everything we need. It's so essential to really make an action scene not just feel exciting but frivolous, you've got to really make it feel rooted in the characters' experience. You need to get those reaction shots. It's such a simple notion and sometimes the most obvious thing can escape you, and so I was comforted that I'd made the same mistake that J.J. sometimes makes, or perhaps had made early on in his career and that he'd learned from. That lesson really propelled me to take this movie a little more seriously.
It's interesting that you say that, because you're working with an antagonist here who is invisible most of the time. So you sort of have to focus on the reaction. What were the biggest challenges of having an enemy that you can't really see?
There's this funny thing in that, a lot of people argue that what makes Jaws such a great horror film is that you don't see the shark. Everyone making a thriller or a horror film always says, "It's all about what you don't see." I really see it as the opposite. I think it's about what you do see. The thing I always thought was remarkable about Jaws was that we get that point of view shot, that we see the buoy moving and being pulled. In Jurassic Park, it's not that we don't see the T-Rex for so long, it's that we do see the cup vibrating. It's about finding those moments of things that we do see. So that idea really fuelled stuff like our tallgrass sequence, where the grass is moving and you know what that implies; you see the trail of blood coming towards them, and you know what that implies. So, I really enjoyed really honing in on how even the Predator in cloaked mode can be a lot of fun and intense for the audience.
Can you talk a little bit about working with Amber, and how she came to be cast in the film?
Man, so much of this movie is nonverbal and expressed through action, and when she auditioned, we did a version of the scene between her and her mother without any words. She could only communicate through her eyes and her behaviors, and it was such a moving experience watching that performance. There was sort of a physical component to her audition, too, and she just never stopped digging into the emotional beats, even when she was just like crawling and running and jumping over some mats stacked up. She was really an obvious choice.
Working with her was a lot of fun, too. She's a good hang, and it's so essential to moviemaking, to have a great experience. Not only is it just a good thing to be in a positive work environment, but it just breeds creativity when people feel comfortable and are excited about having ideas and making things better. Amber was constantly finding ways to make the movie better, and I think she delivers a really incredible emotional and physical performance.

Can you talk a little bit about working with the animals? You have the dog in there, and you've got some rabbits and a wolf, right? What was that like?
The wolf was like a hybrid-wolf dog and yeah, we did have a rabbit and we did have that dog (laughs). The writer Patrick Aison and I were very inspired by Fury Road, and Road Warrior is one of my favorite movies as well, and I love the image of Mad Max and Dog and love the dog in that film and love that idea. We knew that so much of the movie was just going to be Amber out there on her own, we wanted to give her a little buddy but we did not realize that it would be so challenging to work with such a joyful and spirited little animal on set. But I think that's the other part of the movie; that bond, that kinship between them. As we went on, as much as we were trying to find a way to get the dog out of the scene because he was so hard to work with, we actually ended up giving him more to do because it just started to become so clear that scenes were getting better with him. Even in some action scenes, the dog gets to participate in fun ways. It ultimately was a good time, though quite challenging, for sure.
This is being released with a Comanche dub, which seems like a benefit of it going straight to streaming. What does that mean to the movie, and what does that mean for you as well?
The initial intention was to have the film done in Comanche. So in some regard, it's like, "Okay, cool. there's a version of this movie that is without any artifice". It's like, "This is how it would sound and how it would be." Not a lot of people speak Comanche and this could almost be like a teaching tool, to encourage people to continue to learn that language and that it's captured. So much Native American history, so much Comanche history is oral. So, to have a tool now, that solidifies something and makes it permanent is so cool. Movies are forever – for as long as we have technology, anyway. So, I think it's wonderful to have it, and to fully represent the culture and the peoples that we're portraying.
 
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Blow Out (1981) - It was okay. This is one of those 'classics' that I don't get what the hubbub is about. Travolta was good. Allen was... a little annoying? Was she trying to be? I honestly couldn't tell. Good cinematography. The score made me laugh. I hated the ending. I'm not really a de Palma guy, but according to Metacritic, it's de Palma's highest-rated movie. Rotten Tomatoes puts it among his best, too. Go figure. (Mission: Impossible was de Palma? Huh.)

Palm Springs
(2020) - 4th rewatch? 5th? One of my favorites. Never fails to cheer me up. Hasn't so far, anyway.
 
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