TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

[garbon]

So, I havent seen any of the movies in the series so here's the question - should I watch the Hunger Games? I understand this is pop culture so I am not expecting high brow philosophy, just solid entertainment - so is this closer to Harry Potter (good) or Twilight (bad)?

People certainly seem to enjoy the Hunger Games series, so go nuts.  I think they're worse than Twilight overall.  Jennifer Lawrence is terrible in them, the stories of at least the first two are very bad (but particularly the first), and the filmmaking of the first one is rankly amateurish and ugly, whereas the filmmaking of the second is merely mediocre and basically watchable.

Ignore Ide. I've seen the first two Twilight movies and those were not even remotely fun (maybe the one moment when you find out what happens to vampires in the sun). First two Hunger Games movies were good, stupid fun.

[11B4V]

By default I have watched most of the shows being talked about,

Twilight: F
Hunger Games: As stated good stupid fun.
Maze Runner: about the same IMO
Divergent: could have been better
Harry Potter: best of the lot

[garbon]

Divergent spent way too much time trying to explain the world. Insurgent was somewhat better but then virtual reality plot...

[Admiral Yi]

Camp X-Ray.  Kristen Stewart is a grunt assigned to Gitmo.  She befriends a detainee who throws shit on her and wants to read the last Harry Potter book.  It's OK.

[Eddie Teach]

Narcos. Good stuff.

[Ideologue]

So, I havent seen any of the movies in the series so here's the question - should I watch the Hunger Games? I understand this is pop culture so I am not expecting high brow philosophy, just solid entertainment - so is this closer to Harry Potter (good) or Twilight (bad)?

People certainly seem to enjoy the Hunger Games series, so go nuts.  I think they're worse than Twilight overall.  Jennifer Lawrence is terrible in them, the stories of at least the first two are very bad (but particularly the first), and the filmmaking of the first one is rankly amateurish and ugly, whereas the filmmaking of the second is merely mediocre and basically watchable.

Ignore Ide. I've seen the first two Twilight movies and those were not even remotely fun (maybe the one moment when you find out what happens to vampires in the sun). First two Hunger Games movies were good, stupid fun.

I was comparing the whole Twilight series to the first two HG films.  The last three Twilights aren't... well, they're bad.  But they're operating at a different level of basic quality than the first two, which I'll happily concede are at least worse than HG: Catching Fire.

[katmai]

We all know Ide has shit taste, no need to remind him about it.

[Ideologue]

Things I've learned about katmai lately:

1)He doesn't understand or like ambitious formalistic exercises, probably because all he knows is it would make his job harder.

2)He really enjoys terribly edited shakycam action movies where the director doesn't care about the performances so limits the takes, probably because that kind of anti-technique would make his job easier.

[jimmy olsen]

It's a fun movie, but it's nowhere near as seminal as Alien/Blade Runner were.

The Academy disagrees.

Best Picture
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Russell Crowe)
Best Visual Effects
Best Costume Design
Best Sound Mixing

[Ideologue]

The Academy has never been a great barometer for that stuff, especially when it involves genres like science fiction and horror.

Anyway, the main point is that Blade Runner's way better than anything else Ridley Scott ever did, but Blade Runner's one of the best movies made in the past 40 years.

Alien and Gladiator are about on the same level of quality, I guess, although Alien is a lot more imaginative.

The real question is this, though: Ridley or Tony?  It's not as open and shut as it first appears.

[11B4V]

It's a fun movie, but it's nowhere near as seminal as Alien/Blade Runner were.

The Academy disagrees.

Best Picture
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Russell Crowe)
Best Visual Effects
Best Costume Design
Best Sound Mixing

That don't matter on languish. Come on Tim.

[katmai]

Things I've learned about katmai lately:

1)He doesn't understand or like ambitious formalistic exercises, probably because all he knows is it would make his job harder.

2)He really enjoys terribly edited shakycam action movies where the director doesn't care about the performances so limits the takes, probably because that kind of anti-technique would make his job easier.

Which shows you know as little about me as you know about films.

[Ideologue]

You're so emotionally closed off.

[Berkut]

OK, for cel--because JR has no ears to hear--this is why Snake Eyes is great:

1)That 12-minute trick shot that opens the movie--actually several steadicam shots stitched together, but pretty close to flawlessly, particularly given the limitations of 1996 cinematography and editing--is somewhere in the upper echelons of the most complex visuals ever staged in a movie.  That BDP pulled it off at all is wonderful.  What makes it brilliant, though, is that it does so much work.  All at once, it establishes the character of Rick Santoro (our good friend Nic Cage) as an affable scumbag, along with nearly all of the other characters that populate the film; it creates a clear sense of geography (and claustrophobia!); and it sets up the flashback structure that will fill in the blanks that are purposely left in, due to the camera's replication of Santoro's subjectivity.
2)It is the most untroubled depiction of BDP's great obsession, the technology of surveillance.  It's surely less twisted than Body Double in this regard; and yet it's no less interesting for it.
3)It's a pretty swell story about redemption, and Nic Cage is great as Santoro (even if his Cagisms are easy to mock, they fit the character and he's tremendously entertaining to watch).  What makes him even more interesting is how clear Cage makes it that he just fucking hates discovering that he has a moral code after all.  He despises having to do the right thing, if it means betraying his friend.  That he pays dearly for his reluctant heroism fits right in with BDP's bleak worldview--the film essentially argues that no good deed goes unpunished.  It's not as good as Blow Out in this regard, but, hell, not many things are.
4)The formal elements throughout are all pretty inspired: frequent BDP collaborator Stephen Burum is one of our great cinematographers, and he knows how to light the hell out of things; I always appreciate some well-deployed splitscreen; the thriller editing is top-notch; I love the crane shot of the hotel rooms.  Meanwhile, the production design of the whole arena and casino is amazing, both gorgeous and very dense with detail.
5)I like the villain.  Gary Sinise is superb at creating his conflicted antagonist.  He maintains an aura of decency, despite his willingness to murder; and he actually has a noble, if oddly-specific, motivation to assassinate the Secretary of Defense (ensuring that a missile defense system is funded).  However, I suppose this inner conflict might have made him seem like a less-effective villain than he actually is.  (Likewise, I'll be the first to admit he says the word "AirGuard" way too much.)  I used to think the rationale beneath the assassination was the weakest part of the movie, but I've really grown to appreciate it.
6)The original ending probably would've been rad, and the one that was forced on De Palma and David Koepp is a little abrupt, but it's still perfectly fine, and staged with De Palma's usual thrillmaking hypercompetence.

But agree or disagree with that, I just don't get why Snake Eyes gets shit on so hard.  Femme Fatale, Raising Cain, Mission to Mars?  Man, I understand why people don't like those.  They're totally fucking weird, and their plots take some outrageously stupid turns.  Snake Eyes, on the other hand, is a glossy little thriller with a big budget, some very engaging themes, and a lot of theoretical populist appeal.  Yet everybody hates it like it carries cholera.

I get where you are coming from. Except not.

That is the only movie I ever walked out on, as it was pretty clear that I had already wasted an hour of my life, and the rest would be a net negative to my overall enjoyment of life.

It is a fucking terrible movie.