Showing posts with label Movie Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie Review. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Godzilla Minus One does not deserve their Oscar

Unpopular opinion? The Best Visual Effects Oscar win for Godzilla Minus One (G-1) is undeserved. G-1 was great for a movie for a budget of $15M, but isn't in the same class as The Creator, which was also made on a smaller budget by Hollywood standards. The Creator is far richer and more impressive, with proper depth of field and gorgeous scenes. 

Also, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (GOTG3) has a big  advantage. In GOTG3, a lot of completely CGI characters that are so well done, you forget they are CGI. In my opinion, both The Creator and GOTG3 are far superior films than G-1 in terms of VFX.  In particular, GOTG3 was robbed.  However, that wouldn't be so bad if The Creator won instead.  But to give the award to G-1 instead of either of those two? Yikes.

I have seen all three of these movies in the theater on the biggest screens available for each.

Saturday, January 06, 2024

Movies I watched at the theater in 2023

The year 2023 represents a 365 period of time in which I saw more movies at the theater than any other year in my past.  This was facilitated by my AMC A-List membership.  This was the first year I was really able to use it to see movies at a level that allowed me to really get my money's worth.  That said, perhaps this wasn't the year that made such a membership necessary.  To really use my membership to its fullest, I went to see many movies that I would have typically ignored at the theater.  However, it is always nice being able to see a movie more than once without having to think twice about it (if I really really liked it).

Boy and the Heron Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Godzilla Minus One Dream Scenario Next Goal Wins The Hunger Games BOSS The Holdovers Freelance Killers of the Flower Moon A Haunting in Venice The Creator It Lives Inside Equalizer 3 Blue Beetle Jules Talk To Me Barbie Oppenheimer Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Insidious The Red Door No Hard Feelinggs The Flash Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse Guardians of the Galaxy Renfield Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves John Wick Chapter 4 Shazam Fury of the Gods Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania Megan Avatar The Way of Water

Sunday, January 01, 2023

Movies I watched in 2022

2022 isn't a full return to form for the movie industry, but it's a good few steps forward.  There was still a significant period of time for me where I just wasn't interested to see any movie in the theaters for weeks, if not months.  Overall, though, I saw quite a number of movies.  This won't be a review, per se.  I'm just going to list what I saw with links for streaming if someone else wishes to see them now.
















Wednesday, March 02, 2022

Confusion about why audiences of Star Trek and Star Wars were alienated in recent decades

 

Chris Gore is an America writer and founder of Film Threat magazine.  I remember him when we was on Attack of the Show on the now defunct G4 cable channel.  The video above, titled "How To Alienate The Audience - Chris Gore", is a recent interview where he discusses how modernization of story franchises alienates audiences.  In my opinion, he badly misses the mark.  His argument is that franchises shouldn't be modernized, instead they should be told in the traditions within which the story originated.  His examples (vague references to Star Wars and Star Trek) are based on either his own opinion about style or bad examples of storytelling in general.  But, instead of recognizing bad storytelling as just that, he incorrectly links his examples to a generalization about modernization of franchises. 

Gore first talks about the movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings, in which he admits he's not read the original books, but he is a fan of the Peter Jackson's movie trilogy.  While I agree that great choices were made in the production of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, I disagree where Gore tries to extent his argument to all franchises that are based on older source material.

For example, I don't agree with his reference to Star Trek reboot's use of Beastie Boys music.  His snide comments seem to suggest he is too close to the subject matter.  The Beastie Boys song is an intentional period piece choice that represents what a major character is experiencing.  As such, it's no more out-of-place or dated than any Disney animated movie with a musical number that does EXACTLY the same thing.  Why is 20th Century rock/rap taken so much less seriously than 20th Century faux-classical music?  

Maybe some Sci-Fi fans are turned off by this music choice in Star Trek reboot. However, this rejection may have more to do with established and predictable expectations for Sci-Fi movies more so than what makes a good Sci-Fi movie.  Why are some dismissive of music in a Sci-Fi movie that isn't written by Danny Elfman, Alexander Courage or John Williams?  Even in the original Star Trek series, non-traditional music was used for particular scenes to capture a particular emotion for that scene, so I would challenge Gore's argument on this point as well.  There's nothing inherent to the Star Trek franchise that precludes rock/rap music. 

Gore then states his issues with the quote "It felt only natural to us that an adaption of the author's work would reflect what the world actually looks like."  His issues with this quote reinforce to me that he is confusing bad storytelling with the concept of modernization of franchises.  Well, as I mentioned above, bad storytelling is not the same thing as modernization of a story franchise.  Modernization can include bad storytelling, but you don't necessarily make a story bad because you've modernized it. 

Basically, what works for Lord of the Rings may not work for other story franchises.  Retelling stories in difference periods from the original works often necessitates updation.

Maybe Gore would benefit by exposing/re-exposing himself to Joseph Campbell works about storytelling of myths and how each Age needs to retell stories for that Age.  We don't need to tell stories to preserve them indefinitely for future generations.  We should tell stories so that they make sense for us today.  Future generations will determine if or when a story becomes timeless.

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Here's the actual full tiered list of all MCU movies as of 2021 - Which tiers would you place them?

Beyond The Trailer recently released a video in which all Marvel Cinematic Universe movies (MCU) are ranked from 1 to 27 (there being 27 movies as of the end of 2021).  I didn't agree with her list nor the method used to rank the movies.

I don't think such an ordered ranking is possible for the Marvel Movies.  There's just too many of them now.  Additionally, my favorites are too different from one-another to try to compare them to each other.  So, instead, I created a tier list, from "Favorite" to "Ugh".


The movies are tiered based on how much I enjoy watching them and how often I will rewatch.  I'll rewatch Favorites endlessly.  I regret ever watching Ughs even once.  My tiers may differ significantly from others.  In particular, I prefer Avengers: Infinity War over Avengers: Endgame.  I also list Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp higher than other fans.  However, this is my tier list.  You can make your own!