The General Movie Thread

[tekering]

Haunting imagery, to be sure, but not powerful enough to earn that timeless John Barry score...  

I mean, everyone remembers him best for the 007 theme -- and his early Bond scores are magnificent, no doubt about it -- but The Black Hole was his masterpiece.

[Mazinger]

46 minutes ago, tekering said:

Haunting imagery, to be sure, but not powerful enough to earn that timeless John Barry score...  

I mean, everyone remembers him best for the 007 theme -- and his early Bond scores are magnificent, no doubt about it -- but The Black Hole was his masterpiece.

To be honest, very few movies earn their John Barry scores.  "Raise the Titanic", I'm talking to you.

[505thAirborne]

So according to Kevin Smith it's official, CLERKS 3 is a go!! 

https://nerdist.com/article/kevin-smith-announces-clerks-3/

[Tking22]

17 minutes ago, 505thAirborne said:

So according to Kevin Smith it's official, CLERKS 3 is a go!! 

https://nerdist.com/article/kevin-smith-announces-clerks-3/

I'm on board, I liked both the first films, and most of Kevin Smith's connected universe movies. Confirm Rosario Dawson and my butt's in the theater opening night. 

[TangledThorns]

This looks really good. Big fan of Clint Eastwood directed films.

 

[no3Ljm]

 

[505thAirborne]

We're just running out of ideas for movies anymore. 

[M'Kyuun]

No kidding; from the 70's through the 80's, imagination really held sway and gave us many of the classics that are still being milked ad nauseum. The American film industry seems to have just about run out of ideas, which is why, in my case, anime tends to fill the void, as the Japanese never seem short of ideas, especially in the realm of sci-fi, which is my favorite genre of entertainment, especially visual. Too, the vast majority of anime I've seen generally delves into more profound intellectual and philosophical territory than do even most American films aimed at teens and adults. I just finished the first season of Dr. Stone, which celebrates scientific knowledge in both practical and humorous ways. Food Wars examines the high end of culinary education and the pressures of becoming a professional chef, even in the midst of all its ecchi trappings and humor. Still, both are entertaining in an intellectual way that most American shows, not even the reality shows, are, IMHO. Anyway, I wonder how many new proposals, concepts, and ideas end up getting scrapped by execs who'd rather bet on the umpteenth sequel or remake of something that's already been done. At least in the 80's, Hollywood had the balls to try, otherwise there'd be no Alien, Predator, Terminator, Robocop, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Batman, Superman, Star Wars, etc. These are just some of the films and franchises I can think of off the top of my head, and there are plenty more in sci-fi, horror, and fantasy that continue to this day.  Despite a handful of notable sci-fi films over the last decade or two (Inception, Interstellar, Gravity, The Martian, Ad Astra, Oblivion, Passengers, the MCU and the lesser DCU, as well as YA series like Divergent and the Hunger Games, etc) none of these films seem to spawn the kind of following that'll have sequels still being made of them in thirty years like those of the eighties. I'm sure this is the sort of thing pondered when studying cinema; I haven't, but as an eighties kid, it's poignant that I'm nearing fifty, and I still seem to see rehashes of my childhood  shows and films more than I see new ideas.  With such a library of inspiration to draw on, accompanied by a greater societal acceptance of sci-fi themes, I had high hopes for where sci-fi would or could go in cinema, especially as special effects and CG improved.  My anticipation seems to have over-reached.  It seems to me that more strides are being made on the small screen today than on the large in sci-fi. Then again, there's a good argument to be made for letting a story play out over the length of a series as opposed to the condensation requisite to a film.  I guess it's a tradeoff, both in terms of finances and storytelling.  It's still nice to see some cool sci-fi on the big screen, though---there's an experience there that's simply unequalled by sitting on my futon watching my 55 inch tv sans surround sound.

 

[TangledThorns]

4 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

We're just running out of ideas for movies anymore. 

Agreed. Looks like more Disney fluff. 

[tekering]

23 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

We're just running out of ideas for movies anymore. 

Disney seems to have run out way back in 2007, when this was first slated for release.  It's been in development hell for the last 12 years!  

[505thAirborne]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

Disney seems to have run out way back in 2007, when this was first slated for release.  It's been in development hell for the last 12 years!  

So that means this will be the greatest movie of all time! 

[TangledThorns]

No interest but maybe my kids will like it.

 

[no3Ljm]

 

[electric indigo]

While we're at it

 

[kajnrig]

Saw Midway because my cousin was in the Marine Corps and wanted to see part of that heritage on the big screen.

Pretty terrible movie, unfortunately. Any of the various documentaries (he pointed me toward a YouTube video but I've lost it) are more informative AND engaging than this unfortunate trash fire of a movie. The recent Netflix documentary series is pretty good. Writing was amateur hour. Acting was... well, I've seen all of these actors do better jobs. The filmmaking in general is remarkably poor. I'm not surprised that it was bad, but I AM surprised that it was bad in such basic ways.

I found it funny to see prominent Chinese studios credited at the beginning of the movie. I was also amused and thoroughly unsurprised when there was a token "China" scene, as well as a pervasive anti-Japanese attitude throughout the movie (despite the epilogue text crawl insisting otherwise). It's racist propaganda nested inside nationalist propaganda nested inside other nationalist propaganda. All hilarious stuff.

[renegadeleader1]

6 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Saw Midway because my cousin was in the Marine Corps and wanted to see part of that heritage on the big screen.

Pretty terrible movie, unfortunately. Any of the various documentaries (he pointed me toward a YouTube video but I've lost it) are more informative AND engaging than this unfortunate trash fire of a movie. The recent Netflix documentary series is pretty good. Writing was amateur hour. Acting was... well, I've seen all of these actors do better jobs. The filmmaking in general is remarkably poor. I'm not surprised that it was bad, but I AM surprised that it was bad in such basic ways.

I found it funny to see prominent Chinese studios credited at the beginning of the movie. I was also amused and thoroughly unsurprised when there was a token "China" scene, as well as a pervasive anti-Japanese attitude throughout the movie (despite the epilogue text crawl insisting otherwise). It's racist propaganda nested inside nationalist propaganda nested inside other nationalist propaganda. All hilarious stuff.

You know, there's a saying. It's better to let people assume you are fool than to open your mouth and prove them correct. Maybe you should actually pay attention to those documentaries you mentioned and you might learn something, especially in regards to the " racist & nationalist propaganda".

 

I've spent a lot of time and effort researching this subject over the years, and there's no sugarcoating it, the Japanese during WWII were b*****ds especially to the Chinese. That "token China scene" as you put it comes directly from Jimmy Doolittle's memoirs, and the reprisals against the Chinese civilians who aided in the aircrews escape. The Japanese military even summarily executed one of the crews they caught.

 

The later scene where Bruno Gaido and his pilot are executed is also known to be true, as the source for it comes from the Captain of the IJN Makigumo's own log book.

 

Do I even need to bring up Unit 731? The Bataan death march? The order to execute all allied pows in the Philippines during its liberation? The Manila Massacre? The bombing of Shanghai? Nanking? The Japanese news papers running stories of competitions between soldiers to see who can kill the most civilians? The Hellships? Comfort women? Human experimentation? Forced labor and starvation?

[kajnrig]

35 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

stuff

Now now, calm down before you burst an artery there.

Did I say in any of that that I thought those events didn't happen? No. I simply said I found it amusing and unsurprising that, even in 2019, a Chinese-funded American historical war film would play so... openly... to the same jingoistic, racist, xenophobic sentiments that made up propaganda in the past. It's wearing its heart on its sleeve, as it were.

Japan's war atrocities don't offer any thematic or storytelling purpose. The only reason it's there is pro-Chinese propaganda. All the crap Japan pulled during the war, yeah, that's well deserving of a movie on its own, but in this movie, it's a diversion from what is ostensibly the main focus of the film. It's one of the basic ways in which the movie was really poorly made. (Note that they didn't bother mentioning Japan's crimes against Korea or the rest of the Asia theater, only specifically China.)

...but then again, the movie already felt like it was just running through a checklist of events. "30 Hypest Moments Before/During Midway." It wasn't interested at all in amassing it all into a cohesive story. "Okay, today we're filming this moment. Yamamoto, say your line that you didn't actually say but people swear you said because it's a cool line and it makes America look super big dick energy. And... action. Cut. Great take, you guys, onto the next scene."

It felt like watching fanfiction, or again, one of those "Hypest Moments" countdown videos. A far cry from, say, Dunkirk recently or Tolkien after that, where there's an actual story and dramatic through-line that makes the film more engaging than a documentary. (Hell, like I also said above, I'd have preferred watching a documentary over this.)

There are only three scenes involving the Chinese. In the first, roughly halfway into the movie, Chinese villagers rescue Doolittle, who himself has been on screen for maybe 5-8 minutes tops. In the second, they come under fire from nondescript, anonymous Japanese fighters, establishing/further emphasizing that the Japanese are Pure Evil. And in the third, it's really just a bit of text during the epilogue saying that the Japanese killed ~250,000 Chinese during the war. Tell me how that helps anyone understand the battle of Midway any better.

[TangledThorns]

Midway is about a great naval battle between the United States and the Japanese directed by a German. Talk about progress!!

That being said the movie deserved a better director. Roland is good at disaster flicks and should stick with that.

[Focslain]

So I was debating on seeing this in theaters. To be frank I'd really have liked this to just be an effects updated version of the old 1976 Midway.

Can those that seen it at least confirm/deny if the inter-racial romance subplot from the '76 version was in this or did they puss out on it.

[kajnrig]

8 minutes ago, Focslain said:

So I was debating on seeing this in theaters. To be frank I'd really have liked this to just be an effects updated version of the old 1976 Midway.

Can those that seen it at least confirm/deny if the inter-racial romance subplot from the '76 version was in this or did they puss out on it.

There was no interracial romance subplot at all. Who were the characters in the '76 movie in that relationship? One or both characters might have showed up, but yeah, there was no interracial romance subplot. There was a black sailor given a medal at one point, I think, unnamed but probably alluding to some IRL person or another.

[Focslain]

28 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

There was no interracial romance subplot at all. Who were the characters in the '76 movie in that relationship? One or both characters might have showed up, but yeah, there was no interracial romance subplot. There was a black sailor given a medal at one point, I think, unnamed but probably alluding to some IRL person or another.

There was a romantic sub-plot between one of the american pilots, Tom Garth (Charlton Heston's son, in the movie) and a Japanese girl. 

First half of the movie gave a good amount of scenes about the Japanese treatment, including Heston visiting the girl and her family in the interment camp and later him going to the head MP to get her and her family released before they all ship out for the battle.

It seems they got out cause she was waiting for Tom when the carriers returned to Pearl.

I'm guessing there was little about how the Japanese-Americans were treated after the attack was in this version.

[kajnrig]

7 hours ago, Focslain said:

There was a romantic sub-plot between one of the american pilots, Tom Garth (Charlton Heston's son, in the movie) and a Japanese girl. 

 

....

I'm guessing there was little about how the Japanese-Americans were treated after the attack was in this version.

Yeah, Tom Garth didn't feature in the film, or if he did, it was in such a minor/tertiary role that I don't recall him. (A lot of the pilots looked and sounded alike...)

The movie didn't touch on the US internment camps. I don't know that it necessarily needed to, though I did notice how... homogenously pigmented the Americans were.

[renegadeleader1]

13 hours ago, kajnrig said:

but then again, the movie already felt like it was just running through a checklist of events. "30 Hypest Moments Before/During Midway." It wasn't interested at all in amassing it all into a cohesive story. "Okay, today we're filming this moment. Yamamoto, say your line that you didn't actually say but people swear you said because it's a cool line and it makes America look super big dick energy. And... action. Cut. Great take, you guys, onto the next scene."

I'll admit this is the films biggest problem, the pacing is breakneck. Two hours and ten minutes was not enough time to tell the events of Pearl Harbor to Midway in a truly coherent way. It really should have gotten the three plus hours that that abomination Pearl Harbor got. As for Yammato's sleeping giant speech there is debate even among Japanese historians as to wether he said something to it's sentiment or not. The problem is he never wrote it down and the people he could confide in to tell likely like him died in the war.

13 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Japan's war atrocities don't offer any thematic or storytelling purpose. The only reason it's there is pro-Chinese propaganda. All the crap Japan pulled during the war, yeah, that's well deserving of a movie on its own, but in this movie, it's a diversion from what is ostensibly the main focus of the film. It's one of the basic ways in which the movie was really poorly made. (Note that they didn't bother mentioning Japan's crimes against Korea or the rest of the Asia theater, only specifically China.)

The main plot of the movie is split between the intelligence officers of Station Hypo in Hawaii, the carrier air group of Enterprise, and the Japanese high command planning the war. Showing the outcome of the first major strike back against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor that the Enterprise escorted and it's repercussions is very much in line with the theme of the film especially since the Doolittle raid was what prompted the Japanese to target Midway. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if those Chinese film credits weren't in the opening.

 

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Yeah, Tom Garth didn't feature in the film, or if he did, it was in such a minor/tertiary role that I don't recall him. (A lot of the pilots looked and sounded alike...)

The movie didn't touch on the US internment camps. I don't know that it necessarily needed to, though I did notice how... homogenously pigmented the Americans were.

Tom Garth and father Matt Garth didn't appear in the 2019 because they didn't exist. They were made up hollywood inserts to give Charlton Heston a bigger lead role and tack on a pointless love story/address Japanese-American internment reparations which was a hot button political topic in the mid 70s. The Matt Garth character in the 1976 film actually replaced real life people Edwin Layton and Dick Best who are the main focus of this 2019 film.

As for the US Navy being "homogenously pigmented"... yes this was a time when the military was segregated. African Americans weren't allowed to be pilots, and asian americans weren't allowed to serve in the Pacific theater.

[kajnrig]

11 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

As for Yammato's sleeping giant speech there is debate even among Japanese historians as to wether he said something to it's sentiment or not.

It certainly is a concise summation of his feelings about going to war with the US, if nothing else. I don't think it's at all based in any actual statement he gave, but it's an example of the good writing that this movie sorely needed.

Quote

Showing the outcome of the first major strike back against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor that the Enterprise escorted and it's repercussions is very much in line with the theme of the film especially since the Doolittle raid was what prompted the Japanese to target Midway.

I get why it's significant, you don't need to convince me. The film, though, does, and it failed at that.

Quote

We wouldn't even be having this conversation if those Chinese film credits weren't in the opening.

Yes.

Quote

Tom Garth and father Matt Garth didn't appear in the 2019 because they didn't exist. They were made up hollywood inserts to give Charlton Heston a bigger lead role and tack on a pointless love story/address Japanese-American internment reparations which was a hot button political topic in the mid 70s. The Matt Garth character in the 1976 film actually replaced real life people Edwin Layton and Dick Best who are the main focus of this 2019 film.

Ah I see, I suspected as much...

Quote

As for the US Navy being "homogenously pigmented"... yes this was a time when the military was segregated. African Americans weren't allowed to be pilots, and asian americans weren't allowed to serve in the Pacific theater.

Oh, that's not necessarily a ding against the movie, I didn't mean it like that. I was just taken off guard is all even though I rightly had no reason to be so. I sat down and an hour in the stray thought popped into my head: "Wow. These people are REALLY white."

Which is weird, I didn't have the same reaction to other modern historical war films. But ah well, it is what it is.

[Focslain]

11 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

om Garth and father Matt Garth didn't appear in the 2019 because they didn't exist. They were made up hollywood inserts to give Charlton Heston a bigger lead role and tack on a pointless love story/address Japanese-American internment reparations which was a hot button political topic in the mid 70s. The Matt Garth character in the 1976 film actually replaced real life people Edwin Layton and Dick Best who are the main focus of this 2019 film.

Oh I knew that, heck Tom's entire squad was created for the movie. Just sad that the current version didn't touch on the interment issue. 

I'll still watch this once it hits streaming and add it to my collection once after the blu-ray drops.

[Thom]

Saw it and liked it, though they could have done better. I'm glad they stayed away from the sappy crap that infested Bay's Pearl Harbor and certainly had better effects. No angled deck flattops showed up in this one!

I do wish that they had focused more on the give and take between the US and IJN forces. I would have watched half hour more of seeing the US fleet coming under attack and showing those losses more in depth. They had one shot of a carrier going down but no ID as to which it was. Also, to look at the flight deck in the movie, the only planes carried by Enterprise through the whole thing were dive bombers and torpedo planes, so no CAP aircraft like Wildcats showed up. And the battle certainly didn't end as soon as Akagi went down...

There were any number of small ways it could have been better than it was, but I still liked it. I'll get it when it comes out.

 

[TangledThorns]

Going through the Disney classics on Disney+. Started with THE BLACK HOLE. Probably the most bizarre and darkest film in their library. Especially Anthony Perkins's character's violent death scene. DEATH BY ROBOT BLENDER! YIKES! The film is like a pro-Event Horizon.

Next up is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Edited November 28, 2019 by TangledThorns

[Mazinger]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Going through the Disney classics on Disney+. Started with THE BLACK HOLE. Probably the most bizarre and darkest film in their library. Especially Anthony Perkins's character's violent death scene. DEATH BY ROBOT BLENDER! YIKES! The film is like a pro-Event Horizon.

Next up is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Something Wicked This Way Comes would like a word.

[TangledThorns]

7 hours ago, Mazinger said:

Something Wicked This Way Comes would like a word.

Yeah, but it's not On Disney+. 

[tekering]

11 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Going through the Disney classics on Disney+. Started with THE BLACK HOLE.

Oh, you mean 20,000 Leagues Out in Space.    It's a classic we've recently discussed in this very thread.

Guys, does Disney+ happen to have the Herbie, The Love Bug TV series with Dean Jones?  It's never been released on home video.

[derex3592]

I can check for you later today @tekeringafter all company has departed. I haven't seen it just looking around, I saw one Herbie movie, but that doesn't mean it's not there, had to actually do a proper search to find all the good Winnie The Pooh cartoons that crack me up.

[TangledThorns]

I see 5 different Herbie movies in Disney+ but no TV series. Didn't know there was one till now. 

[Dynaman]

I had to look it up on google.  At 5 episodes it is barely more then a movie itself.  I do remember hearing about it but not caring - it was still all Star Wars (or SciFi with spaceships) at that point for me still.

[sh9000]

 

[TangledThorns]

Finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on Disney+, first time I've watched it since I was very little decades ago. Great movie and pretty advanced for 1954. Makes me wonder who Disney will cast as Captain Nemo in their eventual remake?