What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Scratch what I said about Näusicaa. Miyazaki's best film is Castle in the Sky, which I saw today.

Let's go straight to the point, this is an adventure movie. It has a lot of action, even more than Castle of Cagliostro to which it is almost directly superior to. It's over two hours long and, yet, there's not a single bad scene and tons of truly great ones. It's just great all around, with a great cast, a good mystery and, again, fantastic worldbuilding where Miyazaki's love of planes comes across as interesting and honest.

He must have had some amazing animators for this one. Many standout scenes, like the robot rising through molten metal had much more fitting animators than Miyazaki could have ever hoped to be. Much of the mechanical design and special effects are not his, either, he really had a great team. That said, the fight scene is very in his style and I love it. The shirt-bursting and manly punches are hilarious and I kept thinking about how amazing the composition was. You can tell a great artist from a middling one by how they arrange flying dbris.

Some people think the movie is inferior to Nâussica because the villain is downright evil instead of the greyer antagonists of his other films. But being simple is not the same as being bad. The villain in this movie is actually scary and has a threatening aura that only grows stronger as time goes on. When he shoots down a plane and compares the people dying to the flying debris is so awful that it really struck me. He's a great villain and from the start.

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Talking about simplicity, I've been watching some of Tex Avery's shorts. The man was the anti-Disney and hence, the farthest thing away from Miyazaki. It's all about the comedy, the gags, the timing. His shorts have no real plot, no deeper messages or characterization. And yet, they are some of the best animation ever created.

I watched Magical Maestro and there are points in which there are no transitions whatsoever. One moment a dog is singing Largo al Factotum and, literally, the very next frame has him as a square dancer. And then, after a second he turns back into an opera singer. It's such a radical approach, most animators wouldn't even think of the possibility because they don't have such a sharp sense of timing as Tex did.

Also, how the hell did Red Hot Riding Hood get past the censors? Red Riding Hood is in a strip club which proudly announces "no cover". The wolf commits gun suicide on screen and comes back as a ghost because he's too horny to resist. I'm not expert on the Hays Code but this is way out of line. I know the short originally had an ending with a shotgun wedding between Red and the Wolf which never made it to the cinema so I imagine the censors were just unable to contain all the rules-breaking.

Tex's shorts don't have the depth of the other Golden Era animators but they are great. My main issue is that a greater proportion of his good shorts have blackface or Asian stereotypes in them. MGM seemed rather fond of them, sadly.

Still, it's interesting to think about his influence. He's probably the second figure in animation besides Disney yet it's clear to me that Disney won.

Where an we watch these Tex Avery films? Sounds like they date back to when animation was the cutting psychedelic visual spectacle because film effects were so poor.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings on D+. I'm not entirely sure what I just watched, but I liked it. Felt like a very expensive Chinese fantasy film than a marvel flick (to the point where MCU cameos were actually jarring). It shouldn't work, but it does. The fight choreography is so much better than EVERYTHING else in the MCU it isn't funny.

Jungle Cruise also on D+. This was decidedly less good than Shang-Chi, surviving wholly on star charisma from The Rock, Blunt, and Plemmons. There is a plot in there somewhere and some wasted CGI bad guys in an attempt to make "Pirates of the Amazon" crossed with The Mummy (Fraser version) but this film exists mostly moment to moment. It is, I think, ENTIRELLY greenscreen, I'm not sure anyone even gets wet for real. But it is fun, particularly if you enjoy the ride.

jason10mm wrote: Where an we watch these Tex Avery films? Sounds like they date back to when animation was the cutting psychedelic visual spectacle because film effects were so poor.

Sadly, they are not available on any stream service I know of. You can only find them on Blu-ray or online at the internet archive. Chances are you've seen a few of his shorts, they are extremely well-known. They date from the Golden Era of Animation (1930-1950), he's the man who gave the Looney Tunes their characteristic style, though his best shorts were made at MGM. I would be surprised if you haven't seen any, they are extremely well-known.

If you don't mind searching online a bit and have six minutes to spare, here's what I recommend looking for:

Red Hot Riding Hood
Who Killed Who?
Northwest Hounded Police
Bad Luck Blackie
Magical Maestro

The last two have a yellowface gag each, so do be warned. I include them because they are otherwise part of his most well-known shorts.

We watched Red Notice before I had seen reviews appear. The reviews don't lie. It isn't a good movie.

I liked Red Notice. It's harmless comfort food. Decent action,. Relies entirely on the considerable charm of the leads, as usual these days far too much CGI. Was there a discount on cg Russian winter prisons with helicopters and tropical Grottoes with waterfalls? I feel like I've seen those exact settings in 2-3 films this month alone.

Interesting that we could see all three of these folks in a DC superhero film.

I thought Red Notice was a fun casual film, low stakes. I also thought no one really seemed to be acting. They were just all playing themselves.

Also, whomever wrote the scene in the Nazi bunker should be ashamed of themselves, the suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

The movie was just not engaging. Maybe because the actors seemed like they were only doing the movie out of a contractual necessity. Boring performances, tepid script, dull action sequences even though they ought to have been exciting.

They should have just continued on Ryan's other heist movie arc, 6 Underground.

I finally saw Tropic Thunder, and it was meh. Good cast, great concept, mediocre execution. I don't have a specific problem with Ben Stiller, but it seems like most of his movies have a disappointing ratio of laughs: jokes. Tom Cruise was delightful surprise, though.

My wife had to browbeat me into seeing Dune at the theater. I was dragging my feet because I really wanted to see it with her but we had no one to watch the kids, but I’m glad I went.

I have a lot of thoughts, but it kind of boils down to admiring the film more than enjoying it. Villeneuve’s imagery was constantly beautiful even in exposition scenes. His visual language was strong and clear enough that dialogue was less important. The acting was uniformly strong. The score and mix of languages did a lot of lifting in taking us to this distant future. It was a film that took the greatest possible advantage of the medium’s unique elements.

On the other hand, it felt so physically empty. The indoor sets were cavernous and the outdoor scenes stretched all the way to the horizon and both were never filled with more than a handful of characters. Even when there was a crowd, more than two thirds were masked and covered to the point you couldn’t be sure they were people. Arrakeen looked abandoned.

And everyone looked miserable constantly. The Atreides bedrooms wouldn’t have been out of place in a monastery. The Baron is the mopiest hedonist, preferring his steam and oil baths to slamming more food in his mouth. What’s the point of being among the five most powerful people in the Imperium if those are the lives you choose to lead?

Like I said, I admire Dune Part One more than I enjoy it, which is appropriate because I feel the same way about the novel but for opposite reasons. Where Herbert’s ideas rise above his frequently abysmal prose, Villeneuve’s emotional core is lost amongst his top tier craftsmanship.

It was hard to watch because I couldn’t stop comparing it to the novel and noticing the cuts. Why didn’t Gurney tell us what mood was for? Why didn’t the Reverend Mother tell us what a human in a trap would do? Could they really not cut a few shots of the bull to make time for the dinner scene? Why did they give Kynes an awesome hero death despite her absolutely sucking the rest of the film, a choice a dinner scene would have absolutely helped explain? Did they really not name Piter or say the word “mentat” once? I can understand why they made the decisions they did, but these thoughts were constantly running through my mind the length of it.

jason10mm wrote:
Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings on D+. I'm not entirely sure what I just watched, but I liked it. Felt like a very expensive Chinese fantasy film than a marvel flick (to the point where MCU cameos were actually jarring). It shouldn't work, but it does. The fight choreography is so much better than EVERYTHING else in the MCU it isn't funny.

It's an odd movie, for sure. It starts out as a very cool martial arts film, then makes a sharp turn into a straight-up fantasy movie. But I agree. Somehow it totally worked for me, although I did like the first part more than the second part.

I thought the cast was great (Michelle Yeoh was sadly wasted in a thankless "dump gobs of exposition" role). I really liked that they kept Shang-chi and Katy in a platonic friendship, instead of making them romantic partners.

Overall, I liked it a lot. Marvel has their work cut out for them to replace the OG Avengers with new characters, but I wouldn't bet against them at this point.

I'm curious where Shang-Chi goes from here. My fear is that outside of his own films he will be relegated to "superhero with arm ring blasters" instead of a martial artist, more like the final act of SCatLotTR (hmm, that film name acronym doesn't help . I think he would have worked well with Daredevil, Iron Fist, JJ, and Power Man to relaunch the Defenders but hard to say as I want those characters to stay street level and Shang-Chi is definitely not that now. Maybe the Fist versus the Ten Rings minus SC could work?

I'm also curious if they can keep that fight choreography team and cinematographer with Blade. Snipes was an accomplished martial artist and so Blade wasn't just a swordsman, not sure what Ali brings and if he could keep up (I've already forgotten what he did in Luke Cage season 1) given his age.

hotseatgames wrote: I thought Red Notice was a fun casual film, low stakes. I also thought no one really seemed to be acting. They were just all playing themselves.

Also, whomever wrote the scene in the Nazi bunker should be ashamed of themselves, the suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

Come on, German engineering is JUST THAT GOOD. Fuel and engine oil lasts for decades

I'm actually kinda surprised just how restrained they were in that bunker. The temptation to toss in all sorts of easter eggs must have been tremendous given the musical nod to Indy.

I also lost count how many times an entire SWAT team was waiting just out of sight in the film. 3, 4 times? You'd think they would learn look around before going into rooms at some point.

Erik Twice wrote: Talking about simplicity, I've been watching some of Tex Avery's shorts. The man was the anti-Disney and hence, the farthest thing away from Miyazaki. It's all about the comedy, the gags, the timing. His shorts have no real plot, no deeper messages or characterization. And yet, they are some of the best animation ever created.

I watched Magical Maestro and there are points in which there are no transitions whatsoever. One moment a dog is singing Largo al Factotum and, literally, the very next frame has him as a square dancer. And then, after a second he turns back into an opera singer. It's such a radical approach, most animators wouldn't even think of the possibility because they don't have such a sharp sense of timing as Tex did.

Also, how the hell did Red Hot Riding Hood get past the censors? Red Riding Hood is in a strip club which proudly announces "no cover". The wolf commits gun suicide on screen and comes back as a ghost because he's too horny to resist. I'm not expert on the Hays Code but this is way out of line. I know the short originally had an ending with a shotgun wedding between Red and the Wolf which never made it to the cinema so I imagine the censors were just unable to contain all the rules-breaking.

Tex's shorts don't have the depth of the other Golden Era animators but they are great. My main issue is that a greater proportion of his good shorts have blackface or Asian stereotypes in them. MGM seemed rather fond of them, sadly.

Still, it's interesting to think about his influence. He's probably the second figure in animation besides Disney yet it's clear to me that Disney won.

Forgive me if you know this already - the 'No Cover' is a double-entendre. No cover charge to get in.

Old farts like me (turned the big 6-0 this year) got to see the unexpurgated WB/MGM cartoon library on our daily cartoon shows. Disney might have won, but IMO Warner has them beat in the short features department.

jason10mm wrote: I'm curious where Shang-Chi goes from here. My fear is that outside of his own films he will be relegated to "superhero with arm ring blasters" instead of a martial artist, more like the final act of SCatLotTR (hmm, that film name acronym doesn't help . I think he would have worked well with Daredevil, Iron Fist, JJ, and Power Man to relaunch the Defenders but hard to say as I want those characters to stay street level and Shang-Chi is definitely not that now. Maybe the Fist versus the Ten Rings minus SC could work?

I'm also curious if they can keep that fight choreography team and cinematographer with Blade. Snipes was an accomplished martial artist and so Blade wasn't just a swordsman, not sure what Ali brings and if he could keep up (I've already forgotten what he did in Luke Cage season 1) given his age.

Have you ever watched the Jackie Chan cartoon of the late '90s? Yeah, I know, the whole idea of a Jackie Chan cartoon flies in the face of why Jackie Chan is great. And yet, the cartoon was actually great. Decent writing, lots of action, and a surprising amount of humor. Much of the show revolved around a set of 12 mystical artifacts that corresponded to the 12 signs of the Chinese Zodiac, but most of the action still featured martial arts instead of just mystical artifact powers. In the comics, Shang-Chi was always reluctant to become reliant on weapons, preferring to stick to his mastery of the martial arts.

RobertB wrote: Forgive me if you know this already - the 'No Cover' is a double-entendre. No cover charge to get in.

I didn't know it was a double-entendre, it seemed too unsubtle to be!

Old farts like me (turned the big 6-0 this year) got to see the unexpurgated WB/MGM cartoon library on our daily cartoon shows. Disney might have won, but IMO Warner has them beat in the short features department.

Oh, no question! With a few exceptions Disney shorts are just dull. They had huge budgets, lovely animation but they do nothing interesting with them. Their characters have, at most, one personality trait and it's true that they were obsessed with "pain in the butt" kind of gags.