Film forum off topic/random chat thread

pixelburp

#girlbossbeheadings ?

I don't think Kylo is an example of this: Kylo Ren was always pitched as someone who was consciously rejecting the Light Side, out of an edge-lord pushback against his parents, Luke Skywalker and all that jazz. Vader slipped to the Dark Side through tragedy and manipulation; Kylo chose it despite always giving the impression he knew it was the wrong, immoral choice.

As Elmo mentioned, Cruella tried to rehabilitate Cruella D'Eville, someone who wanted to skin dogs to wear as a fur coat. It's a bizarre trend that tries to retcon ostensibly evil, malevolent characters. Even Joker kinda did it, despite me literally just saying it didn't lol, Thomas Wayne was written a bit of an ásshole so Joker's accidental starting of the 99% Riot felt justified (cos the one rich person we met was horrible, so it was OK to burn the city down).

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118244534#Comment_118244534

I dont really care what motivated the character, the point was Vader was a proper ruthless feared villain who acted n a logical way, kylo was a man baby that you were expected to laugh at hence dragged the story down

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118244672#Comment_118244672

That's not really what the conversation was about though. We were discussing origin stories for villains that already exist in other films. I haven't seen it but I don't think Kylo Ren existed in other Star Wars before these ones, right? Annakin becoming Darth Vader counts as one.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118244672#Comment_118244672

As Elmo says, that's not what the current segue's focusing on though; Vader & Kylo are entirely separate characters with totally separate approaches; I don't agree with your thinking about Kylo, but that's down to preference; fundamentally Kylo doesn't count as a previously villainous character, recontextualise as misunderstood or tragic for the sake of ... well. Whatever marketing told studios turning Malificent, Cruella (or to take a recent example yet to come out, Black Adam) into flawed anti-heroes was the way to go. It's not about gender, it's about modern pop-culture trends trying to "grey area" villains into easily marketable "heroes".

FunLover18

Joker is a strange one, I personally do feel it was trying to make us sympathise with the character in a way and there is a certain cohort of people who probably does see him as somewhat heroic but as I've said before on another thread I also don't think that character bears any resemblance to the actual Joker. Aside from that I agree with most of what PB and Elmo have said. I haven't seen Cruella and am torn on whether I should or night, I've heard the production design is fantastic and there are people in it I like but the entire premise just doesn't sit right with me.

Neither really does the trend of repurposing villains as allies, a la Deckard Shaw on the Fast franchise.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

@FunLover18 Cruella is a strange one because if you could strip away the 101 Dalmatians stuff it would be a really enjoyable time. It would basically have been 2 eccentric geniuses with criminal tendencies trying to outdo each other in a series of increasingly fabulous outfits. All the things that tie it to the pre-existing story feels very tacked on and you really do feel its long runtime as a result. There's some really great music in it too but there's so much of it that it starts to grate after a while, it killed the pacing at times, which also makes it feel incredibly long. But all in all I'd say there's worse things you could spend 3 hours on.

Weirdly, the end of the film kind of sets up the 90's live action version, but they're apparently doing a Cruella 2, so I have no idea what that's going to be about, unless they're going to tell the original story, but from Cruella's POV?

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118246535#Comment_118246535

Yeah, 'Joker', as a film, stands outside the Batman story. He doesn't really represent the Joker that everyone knows from either the comics or the Batman movies. He's far too old for a start. If the Joker in 'Joker' is the same guy outside of that particular film, it would mean he would be an OAP by the time Bruce Wayne came of age and started wearing a cape.

It only really makes sense if you take the entire story as happening in the Joker's head as a way for him to justify existence. He wants to believe that he was "made" bad by society. Whereas, in reality, he was always just a psychopathic nutcase who belonged in Arkham.

As to humanising villains, I think this can work. But it all hinges on the story being told and not necessarily the character. 'Joker' does works to a degree, because in and of itself, the story is an ok one, even if it's channelling much better movies. But the problem always remains one of just how necessary such moves are? We really don't need to see why Cruella was such an awful bitch. It's fine for her just to be so for the purposes of '101 Dalmatians'. I don't care what made her that way and I probably wouldn't be convinced in anyway. She's panto and not something to be taken remotely seriously. So a backstory for her is a curious move, to say the least. The same went for the witch in 'Snow White'. But Disney seem to be developing a penchant for these types of movie for some reason.

I wonder just who these movies are being developed for though? I'd say that most people who liked '101 Dalmatians' couldn't have cared less about why Cruella DeVille became obsessed with skinning puppies.

Sad Professor

I think films like Cruella, Joker etc are just ways for Hollywood to explore more ambiguous characters within the restrictive confines of current marketable IP. I don't feel like they were mainly sold as the backstories for their respective characters. To me they seemed more like reboots from the perspective of the villain, who of course is no longer a villain but an anti-hero, and they leave the door open for sequels that will overwrite the original story.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247639#Comment_118247639

This last bit is what I'm thinking is happening with Cruella. As I said the end of the film seemed to be setting up the start of the known story, ie. Pongo and Perdita being given to their respective owners, which maybe means Cruella 2 will be a new version of the old story, rather than another random Cruella adventure.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118247251#Comment_118247251

Cruella doesn't even explain why she ends up wanting to skin the dogs. If anything it takes her so far away from being the villain we know that it's nearly impossible to even imagine her doing the things she ends up doing. It's the opposite of a villain origin story. It explains how she ends up with the name, and the henchmen and the car and all of that but you'd be hard pressed to come away from that film thinking of her as a villain at all.

Mr Crispy

Speaking of villains....

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/nicolas-cage-dracula-movie-universal-renfield-1235055003/

Madness. Utterly beautiful madness.

The Black Oil

Movies at Swords showing this opera in April. https://moviesatswords.admit-one.eu/?p=details&eventcode=65705

At a whopping 220 minutes.

JP Liz V1

Tom Holland confirms role as Fred Astaire in upcoming Sony biopic

p to the e

Thought this was interesting. Movies in a single exposure. I'm not sure of the entire process but some turn out better than others.

Jason Shulman (jasonshulmanstudio.com)

Below is the exposure for "Alien".

Zulu (my favourite)

CastorTroy

I don't quite get it. But anyone else seeing a skull/face in the Alien one?

Slydice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118300714#Comment_118300714

Yeah but if I look at different shadows in different ways in it, it looks like there's a bunch of skulls/faces

CastorTroy

Yeah there do seem to be multiple but definitely at least one.

Somewhere there's someone analysing why we're seeing skulls.😀

The Black Oil

Saw this on Kermode's feed. Need to start looking up older interviews with Spielberg. How did Norman feel about Jaws in the end, btw?

https://twitter.com/raubrey/status/1470456588473405450

pixelburp

Jaysus. Spielberg has been going so long, it's disarming seeing him as a young, beardless man.

Barry Norman has some glorious 70s hair.

Tony EH

Norman could always be a little stiff in his reviews. He generally appeared very cold and aloof when talking about films and he was quite dismissive of genre movies in general. Not that 'Jaws' was genre movie, of course, but it does contain elements of those types of movies. I seem to recall his opinions of 'Return of the Living Dead' being pretty rough, but the clip Film 85 showed only made kid me want to see it all the more and it was the clips that I always waited for in his programme.

But even for films that he liked, he could often come across as disparaging towards them in a way and he was always going on about violence in the movies if I remember rightly. But his programme was pretty essential during the 80's and 90's if you were deciding on what to see. But, as a kid, I probably had my mind made up before Barry Norman opened his mouth. So I'm not all that sure if he could have had any power to dissuade me in any way.

Other reviewers were often more enthusiastic about films of most types, like Ebert for instance. But the vast majority of people this side of the pond only first heard of him during the internet era, so Norman was the movie reviewer for most people.

I agree with his, somewhat, perplexed attitude to the rating that 'Jaws' received. In Britain (ditto here) and in America 'Jaws' was something that any kid could see, which is remarkable given what was in the film. It'll forever be one of those wonders just how Spielberg and 20th Century Fox managed to get such a mild rating for such a bloody movie.

No doubt it made everyone at Fox happy, cos it meant more bums on seats.

Agent Coulson

Saudi announced it will be opening cinemas for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374697#Comment_118374697

I didn’t know they were shut in the first place.

I must read about this.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374697#Comment_118374697

Answers on a postcard for the best, most inappropriate first showing in Riyadh first day of (re)opening 😁

Need a Username

I was watching Clash of the Titans (1981) earlier on iTunes. Haven’t seen it in along, long time and I don’t remember the VFX being that “bad”.

Were these special effects good at the time? Hard to believe it from the same time as Empire Strikes Back and Blade Runner.

Also, the boobs and bums are another thing I don’t remember. What was there original age rating in Ireland? It is 12 now.

Agent Coulson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375048#Comment_118375048

It's got to be..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEGk77yJrk

CastorTroy

Are the simultaneous online releases likely to continue in the new year or will they just go with shorter windows for now?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375668#Comment_118375668

Warner Bros is ending its HBO Max day-and-date strategy from next year, AFAIK.

But shorter windows definitely here to stay.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375086#Comment_118375086

I don't think that they were considered "good". But they weren't considered "bad" either.

However, 'Clash of the Titans' was kind of the last hurrah for that type of Ray Harryhausen stop motion animation that was very popular in the 60's and 70's. It still has a certain charm to it, even if it looks clunky by today's standards or even the standards of 1981. What was perfectly ok in 'Jason and the Argonauts' looked a bit old hat nearly 20 years later in 'Clash of the Titans'.

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375766#Comment_118375766

When I say “bad” it isn’t in a complaining way - I love the movie but was just surprised that I that I thought the VFX were better. The stop motion aspect of it is as I remember but it is the green screen that is woeful.

Poseidon outside the Krakken’s lair has no legs below the knee and the people are superimposed on the cities. The shots of the fake seagull in the opening and Bo-Bo flying in the distance.

Deregos.

Quick question, I just watched 'Flight' starring Denzel Washington and I'm wondering what actors actually snort in movies when they're depicting taking cocaine?