One of my favorite movies, revisited: 'Inception'... Spoiler I try to rewatch movies, esp favorite movies, every few years as I change over time, and may pick up things later I wasn't aware of in the past. Verdict: gets better every time I watch it. (9/10) Have been interested in lucid dreaming and the psyche since HS, so this was a long-awaited cinematic interpretation of ideas I'd been wondering about for decades -- esp now that CGI had matured to the point where many concepts involved are possible to effect. The film has its logical lapses and storytelling license as all good movies do... but what I love are 1) the questions are profound, and 2) the film doesn't spoon-feed the viewer what they should be thinking or feeling. Nolan's films have had a cerebral component to them I really like, and while his films after 'Inception' haven't been the mega-profit monsters his Batman franchise was... this flick to me was the peak point of his (and arguably, Hans Zimmer's) careers. I loved that many of my friends, many of whom are also highly-intelligent but neurotypical or nearer to NT than I am... became frustrated with following this movie's plotline -- I know my wife and a few others on the spectrum, became ardent fans of this movie. If you've ever tried the MILD method of lucid dreaming... you'll recognize many of the concepts and techniques and interpretations this movie attempts. Having had some quite unnerving but amazingly vivid sorties in my own dreaming mind (and without the lazy, slacker's crutch of using psychoactives to access your serotonin and dopamine pathways)... watching 'Inception' became almost like listening to another diver's experience -- I think having experienced LD really boosted the enjoyment of the movie's quite obscure but profound ideas about how the mind works. Acting: DiCaprio is DiCaprio... but a verge-of-fame Tom Hardy is iconic as Eames the Forger. In fact -- all of the supporting cast have pretty juicy roles in the story, like an old film noir (a storytelling technique Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and David Lynch made famous in some of my favorite films of theirs). None of them can be cut out of the story without affecting the tides of it in some fatal way. My fave character is Jo-Go-Levitt's Arthur, which may tell you quite a bit about me. But really... all of them, Eames, Ariadne, Arthur, Yusuf, and even Mal... echo distinct aspects of my own personality. Perhaps that's why this film endures as my favorite when asked ad hoc.
I watched 'American Made' at the cinema and 'Indiana Jones and the last crusade' on TV. American made. It's hard to believe it actually happened! The movie is interesting, but in the end I got a bit bored (and a bit angry with all the characters...I didn't like any...traffickers, FBI, guerrillas...). 7/10 Indiana Jones and the last crusade. Still one of the best action adventure films ever. It's a pity the 4th film was so bad... 11/10
Okja Recommended 8.5/10 if the video does not show watch the video here Nice story about a young South Korean girl (Mija) who, with her grandfather(?) raises a "Super Pig" named Okja on a small farm in the mountains. The Super Pig is actually a genetically engineered animal created by a huge American corporation to fight world hunger. When the representatives from the company come and take Okja away, who has become more of a pet and best friend to Mija, she goes on an adventure to Seoul, and eventually New York to save her, with the aid of a oddball animal rights activist group called A.L.F. It is a fun story, with quirky performances, and you will certainly be rooting for Mija to save Okja. However, the performances by Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal are a bit over the top. Gyllenhall ends up being quite comedic, but Swinton's character(s) become a bit cartoonish and annoying. Short of that, I liked the movie very much.
Kingsman: the golden circle. There are people who say James Bond films are exaggerated...they'd better not watch this one. It's like a mixture of James Bond and Jackie Chan films and, to tell the truth, it really surprised me (I haven't watched the first movie of the series). A lot of action, comedy, thrill, unexpected twists... I enjoyed it a lot 10/10
Blade runner 2049. I wan't a big fan of the first movie and, although I agree that the atmosphere, the plot and the characters are really fitting, it was too long and slow-paced for my taste. 6/10
In The Mood For Love - Wong Kar-Wai: 7/10 One word to describe the film: Bittersweet. Did you know Inception was inspired by Satoshi Kon's Paprika (movie)? Might want to check it out. Themes of duality, dreams and reality colliding, devices that allow a person to visit one's dreams.
Oh, I'm quite familiar with it Yes -- Chris Nolan's legacy is impressive as his inspirations are pretty diverse -- including esp, Kon Satoshi's works. Spoiler It's pretty interesting to plot a timeline of Nolan's movies alongside Kon's works -- Nolan's very measured, very composition-driven imagery, was inspired in part IMO by a couple of Kon movies... 1997 - Kon directs 'Perfect Blue', a story of betrayal via flashbacks, the breakdown of borders between reality and fantasy 2000 - Nolan directs 'Memento', his first big hit -- also featuring flashbacks as a gimmick as well as blurring fantasy and reality 2006 - Kon debuts one of his three magnum opera (the others being 'Millenium Actress' & 'Tokyo Godfathers'), 'Paprika' -- dealing with devices allowing at-will inception of lucid dreaming in a plot of intrigue 2010 - Nolan debuts one of his two magnum opera, (the other being the Batman trilogy), 'Inception' -- dealing with devices that allow at-will inception of lucid dreaming in a plot of intrigue Kon died the same year 'Inception' was released... to me, it's one of his most powerful films in a cinematic storytelling context. 2014's 'Interstellar', while I loved its goals and subject matter... wasn't anywhere near as good as a movie. I think Kon's 'Tokyo Godfathers' is seriously underrated as one of his signature works -- others cite 'MA' as his other great movie, which was amazing but not nearly as much a criticism of Japanese society (much like 'PB' and his later anime series 'Paranoia Agent' were). This trait is a thread shared by all my favorite anime directors (Oshii Mamoru, Onno Hideaki, Nihei Tsutomu, Hosoda Mamoru).
Thor: Ragnarok. It's a pity. It's one of the best Marvel movies I've ever watched, but I believe there are two things that are out of place. The first thing is the comical part, as ridiculous as someone telling a joke in a funeral. I guess all the part about Sakaar comes from the comics, but I didn't like most of it. And the second thing I didn't like was the music. That kind of sound was ok in the eighties, but it's embarrassing in 2017. That's why I 'only' give it a 8.5/10. PS: one of the best things of the movie is Hela, one of my favorite villains. I enjoyed her every second... PS2: there are two post-credits scenes, both quite useless. The first one tells little about the next movie...and the second one made people around me say 'what a shit!'
Justice league. Very entertaining. Some parts at the beginning were a bit 'slow' but it was worth the wait. Epic and thrilling until the end. 8.5/10 However... Spoiler: BIG SPOILER I must agree with a review I red in the newspaper. An enemy who was merely driven back by a coalition of Greek Gods, amazons, Atlanteans, Green lanterns...and Superman alone is able to defeat him so easily? Another thing I didn't like was how his own parademons attacked him...had he such a little control over them?
Silence. 5/10 A Scorsese film about earlier attempts to christianize Japan during the edo period. The movie itself is technically well made with good acting and beautiful sceneries, but it is kinda slow (especially if you like other Scorsese masterpieces). I, however, was pretty annoyed by the heroization of the christian missionaries throughout the movie. There is a very important scene, in which one of the japanese convertites stated that her life was so much of a burden that she could not await seeing the "paradiso". The christian priest had nothing to offer other than the hope for a better afterlife, if she would only endure the hardships in life. A problem many religions have, certainly: As they cannot offer a solution to this world's problems, they just shift it to the next. So, while giving hope to poor and abused people is probably a good thing, the christian missionaries - in their self-righteousness and zealotry - endangered - and eventually were responsible for the death of - thousands of people by telling them to stand by their faith, even if they had just to put their feet on a picture of St. Mary. The movie showed a lot of people being killed because of their faith, and i could not think of anything more useless than that. I actually am an atheist, but i can understand spirituality and i understand why religion or other common belief systems are important for the wellbeing of many people. If things are getting really sad or dangerous, i myself do experience inner dialogues with "divinity" from time to time. But in the end, the forceful (or stubborn) spreading of religious views into foreign cultures is just another form of supremacy, and it shouldnt be praised as much as in this movie. The film ends stating it was dedicated to the japanese christians and missionaries. But i could not see anything heroic in what the missionaries had done throughout these years before Japan finally shut all gaikokujin out.
A few recent gazes: Guardians Vol. 2 -- meh. Kinda neat catharsis with Gamora and Nebula, Yondu and Peter, Rocket and Yondu. Those three arcs made the movie. So it was a bit sad that it felt like the entire Ego - Peter storyline (and pretty much everything else) was written to justify and accommodate the existence of those arcs. Even more disappointingly... while I listened to and am familiar with *all* of the songs of the classic rock era in the two movies in my own yutes... Vol. 2's soundtrack sucked moose prong compared to the first movie. 7/10 Rogue One -- bleh. So many plots holes, it was like the screenplay was a volleyball net, upon which the characters and SFX were hung almost randomly, like Xmas decorations (or in this case, Star-Wars-nostalgia decorations). Acting ranged from wooden (Felicity Jones) to silly (Forest Whitaker). K-2SO pretty much redeems the film. 3/10 April and the Extraordinary World -- so close. A French animation about steampunk Paris in a parallel universe where we never left the Industrial Age; steam and coal rule and WWI (at least the version in our timeline) didn't happen. I wanted soooo much to love this animation... it had just enough French quirk to be entertaining, the CGI was well-done, and I loooove steampunk in general... but while its goals were to feel vast and iconic... it missed its mark by just enough to sigh at what could've been -- the plot felt graceless, the love story clumsy, the characters a bit under-developed. 6/10 Spoiler [*]BBC's 'Hiroshima' (2005) and 'Hiroshima: The Real History' (2015) -- nauseated. Overcome with sadness. Horrified. Enraged. And most profoundly... conflicted. I served in the US Army honorably, with merits and a war campaign ribbon. I am also a fifth-gen JA. Those two things juxtaposed against the events leading to, during, and after the only nuclear strikes in history... weighed especially heavy watching these two docs, esp the latter. 9/10 I was especially emotional seeing Rev. Tanimoto Kiyoshi, a survivor with his family, on a schlocky '50s US variety show, where they'd arranged for him to confront COL Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay... and Tibbets' conflicted contrition, as he shook Rev. Tanimoto's hand, and Tanimoto's genuine, heartfelt response, just the desire to let the past be the past and bury the hatchet. I would not have been as graceful... but then again, I didn't live through the conditions which make such gratitude for the end of the hell of 'genbaku' warfare, so necessary. Tibbets in the earlier 2005 doc, isn't unremorseful... but convinced his mission saved lives, so was necessary. The 2015 doc shows this is simply not the case... but we'll never know. I love many things about 2017 Hiroshima, and am a fan of a gentle, happy idol from Hiroshima in 48G. But Hiroshima is truly an example of the Buddhist adage, 'a lotus blossoms with its roots in mud'... (paraphrased) 'Around 50000, 60000 people attend the [annual 6 Aug Peace] memorial service... I doubt even one person realizes they're standing on the bodies of those who died.' -- Tanabe Masaaki, Hiroshima native who survived the bombing that killed his family, but lived in its aftermath from 11 yo, interviewed for the 2015 documentary
Ya I didn't really like the plot either meh but the battle scenes were pretty sick and especially the last scene. I remember watching it on the plane to Japan and the girl in front of me was like holding in her scream cuz she was so mindblown XD Spoiler Yeah...I've also revisted these documentaries back in August 6th cuz tweets were popping up in the STU hashtags for the 72nd A-bomb anniversary, it reminded me how cruel war is and appreciate life more. I was disheartened for a few days even though it was during the group's TIF and MUSIC TRIBE performances.
@stormy @marioworldakb the best scene of Rogue One: if the video does not show watch the video here Star Wars: The Last Jedi released tomorrow in my country. Already got my ticket. I'm gonna watch it before you but don't worry I won't spoiler but one obvious thing; the one who is the last Jedi is Luke Skywalker.
^ The Tarkin and Leia CGs were jarringly bad, tho Looked like someone hired a game intro coder from 2009 to Moff him up Grand-ly... waxy and awk, commercials have better CG... and Leia's eyes, as described elsewhere... were 'like she was a Skyrim character and someone messed with the eye height slider' Spoiler That whole end scene with Leia didn't land with me quite the same as that girl on the plane... You and I know, Vader boards the Tantive and confronts Leia in EPIV, saying he's after the DS plans 'beamed to this ship'. Didn't he just force-julienne like, three dozen rebels on the disabled command cruiser, chasing the plans on hard media in R1, just to see it narrowly escape as he watched? Then Leia, in EPIV, tells Vader she's 'on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan' -- zero jive with R1's events Beaming the plans to the Fleet from the planet, after the shield came down -- why would Vader think only one ship received them? There were a few heavy cruisers with Ackbars at the helm... again, does not jive with the intro events in EPIV Yeah... so bleh at best. Even I could've written a more cohesive 'many rebels died to get us this information' R1 screenplay, that better fit EPIV
What king of revisionism is this? Rogue One is amazeballs and you'll all deal. I need tor rewatch it + The Force Awakens tonight ahead of The Last Jedi TOMORROW NIGHT *dies*
^ LOL one from the perspective of a normal moviegoer, and not a Warboi? j/k There was no comparison to Awakens, none at all, zero. And that's still not my favorite in the series. Judgement stands, fine is $100M plus court fees, follow the bailiff out to your right... next
^ Theories? If you mean my issues with the plot, there were quite a few, outlined in an earlier post... but here are more: Spoiler The DS-1 Death Star was under development for almost 20 yrs (they show it skeletonized at the end of ROTS). This thing is the size of a small moon -- how in the hell did they keep it a secret, with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of crew complement, garrison, contractors, suppliers, technicians, and scientists required to both build, operate, and maintain it? It's silly that such a monstrous project could go unnoticed for so long by rebel spies, as easily as information flows in the hives of scum and villainy around the old Republic... The flow of the movies is so different from the canonical 3 films, and watching FA back-to-back with R1, it's even more obvious. I feel the only scenes that felt like classic Star Wars, were the banter with K-2SO, the helm scenes on the star destroyers (ruined with Wax Tarkin), and parts of the rebel Fleet fighting as they come out of hyperspace (which was intentional enough to notice it was intentional -- the A-Wing leader being the same likeness as in EPIV, and the similar space battle sound effects). I did like the siege-and-defense scenes at the tower, as it made the combat feel more-'Band of Brothers'-less-cartoony, which was a good call, but the editing felt rushed and too terse -- you don't get to know anyone well enough by the time they get blown away. And all that pomp and gnashing of teeth with Saw Guerrera, only to see him totally cave and learn to love the blast wave -- huh?