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[McTraveller]

I finally watched Matrix Resurrections.  My big complaint is that I feel like it was too short - it tried to cram way too much into a limited time.  Generally - I think it was an interesting concept but poorly executed.  If that makes sense?

I wouldn't say it was bad, but it wasn't good - like I could see the interesting bits hiding beneath what seemed like a rough draft or something? It felt very rushed, unpolished.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like what was even the point of the Merovingian showing up and just spewing nonsense?

The casting for the Smith character was abysmal.

I wanted to see more exploration of the Analyst's time manipulation powers.  I wanted more about the human-machine alliance.  The Analyst could have used more character development too - not nearly as interesting as Smith's development for example.

I wanted a little more of why Trinity was able to easily change her mind.  The little mention of a dream, and playing the game, and Neo looking familiar... didn't seem like quite enough motivation.

[Starver]

I've not seen beyond Revelations (and Animatrix), and really am content to subscribe to my own headcanon that the 'Zion' world is just "one further Matrix layer outwards" in a stack of 'realities' of undetermined depth/height. Whatever the cumulative authors of the franchise might think.

[Travis Bickle]

Went to go see Jesus Revolution, largely because I was looking for an excuse to leave the house and there wasn't anything better playing. My presence is the sparsely attended theater probably pulled the mean age of the attendees down to a ripe forty-five at the youngest. As one could probably glean from the title of the movie and the trailers, the film is about the so-called Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, with Jesus Freaks and Jesus Music. To me the film seemed like essentially a nostalgia piece; the entire movement and the people involved are dealt with very uncritically, probably due in no small part to the movie being based on a book by the preacher Greg Laurie. Laurie, who was involved in the real movement, knew several of the figures who show up in the movie and himself is one of the main characters. From around the thirty minute mark of the movie, or thereabouts, the stubborn and judgmental pastor Chuck Smith has one conversation with Jesus-loving hippie Lonnie Frisbee and becomes instantly convinced to turn his church into a hippie ministry with very little real resistance. From that point on it's pretty much positive things coming out of the Jesus Movement with only a little bit of drama resulting from tensions between the various people in the movement. Nothing actually bad or disastrous happens, and while I don't think something bad or disastrous needs to have happened in the movie to make it good, it definitely seems like a sanitized account of the time period. The homosexual behavior of Lonnie Frisbee and his eventual death from AIDS, for example, are conspicuously absent from the film.

As I left the theater an old gentleman with a long gray beard, bell bottom jeans, and a tie-dye shirt asked me what I thought of the film. I didn't have the heart to tell the old man that I didn't think particularly high of it, though it truth I didn't hate it. I'm sure in the old man's case watching the movie brought back plenty of fond memories. Maybe you just had to be there to get it.

[Travis Bickle]

Watched Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, or, perhaps, the roughly 120 minutes poorly spent. I think it is fitting that a movie wherein (among other portrayed debaucheries) perverts consume feces and force others to do likewise is presented by self-proclaimed cinephiles as essential viewing. I would recommend that you don't watch this film, but the sort of person who would consider watching it in the first place would probably take that as a more encouragement to watch it. Frankly, I think the film has built up a great deal of infamy even (perhaps especially) amongst people who haven't seen it; whatever you imagine the film is like in your head is probably worse than it actually is. Unless you've somehow managed to maintain a saintly innocence into your adult years, you have probably seen worse just browsing the Internet than you'll see watching Salò.

That the film's shock value may have slightly lessened over the course of almost fifty years does not, however, make it a painless or pleasurable watch. Frankly I found it to be a chore to get through. If I have to say something good about the movie I'd say that the actresses did a convincing job acting as if whatever they were actually eating in place of feces (probably chocolate pudding) was actually quite disgusting.

Maybe I'll watch Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew next to cleanse my palette. I have a copy of the film lying around (albeit dubbed in English) and I think it'll be more up my alley.

[Travis Bickle]

Watched The Blues Brothers for the first time and found it to be a pretty fun experience. Very funny, and talk about an all-star cast with Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Ray Charles.

Also found out that Mosfilm has many of their classics on Youtube for free in good quality here. Watch some Tarkovsky films if you have the chance.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, wow. Soviet-era films. Gonna watch me some of those.
I see they have Ivan the Terrible - I recommend that one. Some crazy-ass expressionist cinematography there. Think Nosferatu, but as a stuffy historical drama.

[Travis Bickle]

I see they have Ivan the Terrible - I recommend that one. Some crazy-ass expressionist cinematography there. Think Nosferatu, but as a stuffy historical drama.

I haven't seen that one, but I'll have to check it out since that sounds right up my alley.

[Il Palazzo]

That War and Peace miniseries they have there is, I think, the one where they hired(?) something like 10k soviet army troops to dress up in Napoleonic-era uniforms and reenact the battles. Impressive aerial footage as those masses of people form squares or advance. I don't think it was ever matched in scale until the advent of CGI.

[Travis Bickle]

That War and Peace miniseries they have there is, I think, the one where they hired(?) something like 10k soviet army troops to dress up in Napoleonic-era uniforms and reenact the battles. Impressive aerial footage as those masses of people form squares or advance. I don't think it was ever matched in scale until the advent of CGI.

Nice to see that it's a widescreen cut of the film since it seems like a few decades back they were saying all they had was a 1.33:1 crop in good condition. You may be thinking of Waterloo from the same director as far as dressing up the Soviet Army in Napoleonic uniforms and training them to load and fire muskets. A very satisfying watch if you're willing to sit through a good chunk of the film being a build-up to one big battle. I imagine War and Peace has a slightly more balanced story across four films.

[Il Palazzo]

It might have been Waterloo. I remember the shots, but not the film. I guess I'll have to watch them both now
BTW, if we're talking War and Peace, the recent-ish BBC-made miniseries with Paul Dano and Lily James was excellent.

[NRDL]

Saw Creed 3. As a drama, I really enjoyed the movie. Michael B Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, all of their performances were quality.

As a boxing movie, it was a bit more muddled.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The final fight, as action packed and choreographically impressive as it was, wasn't able to provide a clear enough story compared to the previous Creed films, or the Rocky movies. There was less control of the flow of the fight, which made the inevitable hero's victory a bit less triumphant.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The movie does try to push Jonathan Majors as a proper character in his own right, rather than just an obstacle like previous opponents. So Michael B.'s character feeling sad about the victory for a moment, and the audience by extension, actually works a bit. But I believe that they didn't go far enough with it.

It was like the movie was caught between being another Rocky/Creed movie of "triumph against the self, via overcoming this opponent/obstacle" and the movie "Warrior" which was a phenomenal movie about two brothers using fighting to overcome their numerous problems and finally reconnect with each other.

In my opinion, the final fight should have gone more this final route, considering how much they tried to play up the connection between B. Jordan and Majors. A lot of the first 2/3ds of the movie was good set up for this, with some minor tweaking.

Overall, I think I like it more than Creed 2, but I wish it would have leaned fully away from the victorious catharsis of previous movies into a more melancholy, "all the bad blood's been let out" kind of peaceful ending. No triumph, but no more resentment either. As it stands, it's a too bit too much in the in between, wanting to have both.

[delphonso]

Hajime no Ippo, for all its goofiness, really builds up the opponent boxers as sympathetic characters (a few excluded), which shows the bittersweetness of victory better than the Rocky franchise managed. I've felt that too, because you often end up fighting people you train with, if you're in a small boxing circle.

[Lord Shonus]

Watched Cocaine Bear last night.


Half of it was exactly what you expect from a movie called Cocaine Bear. The other half was deeply stupid in the wrong ways. Hard to describe what I mean, but it was like they took a bunch of other Standard Movie Plots, cut them to the bare minimum, and threw them in. Also got a lot more meta than I would have liked.

[hector13]

I watched the original Disney Pinnochio yesterday and it is quite on the nose regarding keeping boys in line.

Go to school or you’ll be sold into slavery/kidnapped by a crazy Italian side-show owner.

Don’t misbehave or you’ll turn into a donkey and be sold into slavery. As an aside, the scene in which Lampwick turns into a donkey is quite terrifying for a kids movie.

Your behaviour caused your dad to get eaten by a whale. Rescue him and become a real boy.

[scriver]

fairytales tend to be that way