Movies Rate and Discuss the Last Movie You Saw v.16

[GearSolidMetal]

Thought this would be the right thread to discuss this because making my own thread doesn't feel right -

Think the vast majority of us would agree that Disney has completely dropped the ball with their ownership of Star Wars... with the live-action projects. The only exceptions to this have been the first two seasons of The Mandolorian, but of course they fucked up the third.

But... and I struggle to actually give them credit on anything, but this worth giving a compliment...

They've progressively improved their animation to be very cinematic, and quite real... very worthy to be released in theaters at this point.

If you're watching this on your phone, it doesn't do it justice.



I remember the 'Clone Wars' movie from 2008 and it basically was the first planned episodes of the Cartoon Network series edited together as an arc, and it was LucasFilm's first attempt at animation. It was flawed, but over the last 16 years its been progressively improved to be as good as I've of any 3D animation within the theaters.

So, my point being... if you haven't seen the last 4 episodes of Clone Wars Season 7, watch them.

If you haven't seen Tales of the Jedi, watch it.

If you haven't seen Tales of the Empire, watch it.

Because as far as animation goes, especially with Dave Filoni now in a position of power within LucasFilm and it seems Kathleen Kennedy has a hand-off approach with animated projects, the future of Star Wars is within its animated projects.

 

[HenryFlower]

Thought this would be the right thread to discuss this because making my own thread doesn't feel right -

you thought wrong.

 

[eddymotto]

Wolfs (USAm 2024)

American buddy action comedy written and directed by Jon Watts, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Clooney and Pitt are secretive fixers who always work alone. They both end up on the same job having been independently contracted to clean up a dead male prostitute, who is inconveniently located in the luxury hotel room of a prominent female politician. The underlying joke is that Clooney and Pitt are essentially the same person right down to their leather jackets and this irritates both of them to no end. It is like if Jules and Vincent called in two Mr. Wolf types to take care of the Marvin situation in Pulp Fiction.

The film does the bare minimum with the simple but interesting premise. Instead, it relies on the chemistry between Clooney and Pitt to carry the entire film. To the credit of the actors, they are their usual charismatic selves and they drag the uninspiring script along with them. It all ends up at being a reasonably enjoyable and entirely forgettable streaming movie.

Rating: 5.5/10

 

[eddymotto]

Junk Head (Japan, 2021)

Stop-motion animated cyberpunk science fiction film created almost entirely by Takehide Hori.

Set in the far future, humans live on the surface of the earth and have become immortal, but at the cost of not being able to reproduce (the humans seem to be disembodied heads inside of cyborg bodies). A plague is threatening the world. A couple of thousand years earlier, humans had sent genetically modified humanoids to work underground. A rebellion 1600 years ago severed contact between the underworld and the humans living on the surface. Scientists decide to send explorers to the industrial underworld in the hopes to re-discovering the secrets of reproduction.

The protagonist is an explorer sent underground to learn more about the place. The mission goes awry almost immediately and the explorer must deal with dangerous mutants as he seeks to survive life under the surface of the earth.

The film has an uncanny resemblance to Mad God, albeit with less horror. I was not always sure what was going on and the ending still feels abrupt (Hori apparently plans a trilogy), but Hori creates this incredible weird world that is impossible to look away from. The film in an example of stunning creativity, made all the more impressive that Hori is both self taught and produced the movie almost entirely on his own.

The film is sometimes quite funny and the humour shifts easily between farce and darker comedy. There are also strong science fiction and action elements to the film. The shifting tones between scenes can be jarring at times. The plot is murky. Some sub-plots and characters are never resolved. None of that really matters. Hori has created amazing world filled with all sorts of weird and grotesques creations. It is beautiful. As importantly, by the end I felt a real emotional connection to the characters.

This is a film that deserves to be watched. It is original and a bit mad.

Rating: 8/10

 

[Chet Ubetcha]

Dragonlord’s Review of JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (No Spoilers)

Bottom Line: Despite another stellar performance by Joaquin Phoenix, some beautiful cinematography and imagery, Joker: Folie a Deux bombs due to the thin plot with little to no payoff and a quasi-musical experiment that felt flat and intrusive.

Joker (2019) was originally planned as a standalone movie with no sequels. After the film became a smash hit, reaching $1 billion worldwide, Warner Bros. offered a ton of money to writer-director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix to come back. Unfortunately, Phillips didn’t really have a good vision for the sequel. He only had concepts of a plan.

One of the major problems with Joker: Folie a Deux was that it felt like Phillips didn’t really have a good story to tell for the sequel. The first Joker movie was modeled for the most part after Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, which meant the story had a template to fall back on. It had a beginning, middle and a clear ending. This Joker sequel had no template to follow. It’s similar to how the first Wonder Woman movie (2017) adapted George Perez’s 1987 seminal comic book run on the character as well as taking inspirations from the 2009 animated movie and Captain America: The First Avenger. But when the filmmakers were given free rein for Wonder Woman 1984 with no established story to copy, the result was a disaster.

Set two years after the first film, Joker: Folie a Deux starts off with Arthur Fleck wallowing in Arkham State Hospital. He gets a spark in his life when he meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga), an obsessed fan of the Joker, and the two form a romantic relationship. Arthur finds a new way to express himself through singing and fantasizing musical scenarios to convey his emotions. But his newfound happiness might be short-lived as Arthur goes to trial facing the death penalty.

Phoenix once again gives a magnificent performance. His physical and emotional transformation of the character is just astounding. The film is a character study of Arthur Fleck and dives further into his psyche, which at times felt derivative especially at the trial scenes since a lot of the aspects were already tackled in the first film.

Lady Gaga’s acting was good and her singing was even better but she was not properly utilized as her version of Harley Quinn lacked a little depth and a few scenes to flesh out the character. There are a few set photos and footage of Harley that were in promotions that didn’t make the final cut of the film, suggesting Harley had a lot more scenes.

The rest of the supporting cast was solid which included Brendan Gleeson as an abusive guard at Arkham, Catherine Keener as Arthur’s lawyer, Steve Coogan as a TV journalist and Leigh Gill as Arthur’s former co-worker. The one cast that really didn’t work was Harry Lawtey as Harvey Dent. They chose an actor that looked very young to play Dent in an attempt to align his age with the young Bruce Wayne in case there’s more sequels to this Elseworld universe.

I have a suspicion that Todd Phillips didn’t like that Arthur Fleck was inadvertently glamorized and idolized in real life. It feels like Phillips made the sequel to tear down the character, to humanize him further without sensationalizing it, to show the harsh consequences of his actions. I’ll post more in the spoiler box below on why it felt like Arthur Fleck was intentionally knocked down several pegs. I didn’t like the ending which I will also address in the spoiler box.

Another problem with the film is the musical aspect. I understand it’s a way for Arthur to express himself and to show his fantasies in a musical format but it just didn’t work in so many ways. At first, the singing was tolerable but it just would incessantly pop up all throughout the film that it became annoying. I don’t mind musicals but Folie a Deux’s musical are not original songs and just covers that aren't even well done despite Gaga’s fantastic vocals. These musical moments also disrupt the flow of the film and the film would have been better if they took them out.

Lee tells Arthur at one point in the film, “Let’s give the people what they want.” If only Todd Phillips applied this to his script as well instead of doing the exact opposite of what the fans wanted.

PRELIMINARY RATING: 5.5/10

Spoiler: SPOILER THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS INSIDE

Expounding on my opinion that writer-director Todd Phillips intentionally dismantled Arthur Fleck. He is rejected by Lee at the end, mirroring real life situations where sometimes spurned people grow to hate the opposite sex or society in general. Arthur goes back to Arkham and unceremoniously shivved to death. He doesn’t even get to exact retribution on his Arkham tormenters, which I didn’t mind though as it avoided the standard revenge trope.

As for the ending where Arthur’s killer uses a blade to carve his own mouth, similar to Heath Ledger’s Joker, I don’t like it because it devalues Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker as some sort Joker beta version. I’m fine with Phoenix’s Joker not being the notorious clown prince of crime since this is a different universe. But the filmmakers (and studio?) are trying so hard to force the stereotypical Joker into this Elseworld universe and thereby potentially setting up a Batman-Joker thing in the far future. This reminds me of the Gotham TV series where they introduce their version of Joker, only to be revealed later on that this is not THE Joker and is just a precursor to the real Joker in the future. It feels cheap.

This is my first post outside of P&M, but I came here because I knew there would be something on this film. I just returned from seeing it, and it's been a long, long time since I wanted to walk out of a theater. It almost happened tonight. You hit the nail on the head with pretty much all of it. I'll say 10/10 on the acting, but they dropped the ball on GaGa's usage, and the musical numbers were just too, too much. It really took the viewer out of the movie, rather than add anything to the psychology of it. My daughter and I rewatched the first one last night, and I developed a great appreciation for it upon a second viewing. I'm supremely disappointed in this sequel.