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Ipickthiswhiterose

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Posts posted by Ipickthiswhiterose

  1. Gran Turismo marmalised as expected.

     

    No awareness. Barely a scurrock of marketing. No cultural imprint whatsoever. I suspect regular cinemagoers won't even know it's on, never mind the general public.

     

    Very rare to see something like this. But with a lower budget for a blockbuster it may just be that it has a marketing strategy aimed at specific markets, and we're just not one. Would make sense. We have a big motor sports community but they are not exactly on a venn diagram with moviegoers.

  2. My personal bubble is very excited for Haunted Mansion which is, I presume, giving me a false indication of how well it will do.

     

    I presume in the cold light of day, it's expected to disappoint here just as it did in NA.

     

    Experiencing not even the lightest flicker of interest for Gran Turismo, even on movie sites, but maybe it's just the circles in which I move.

  3. 10 hours ago, Cap said:

    You really need to prepare yourself for the dark knight winning by like 300 points 😂😂

     

    Oh absolutely, I've met enough people who sincerely still believe The Dark Knight is The Greatest Movie of All Time to have any doubts on the matter.

     

    Sure, the 'gritty and realistic' movie people pretend to be 'Just like Heat' has a villain that adheres to logic about as much as Bugs Bunny. And is just as capable at magically fooling people with an ill-conceived female disguise and pulling a perfectly-functioning explosive device out of his rectum calibrated to a controlled explosion it would have taken months to plan and prepare as is the beloved animated lagomorph.

     

    But it doesn't matter.

    For it is Çïñæmå

    And the soundtrack tells us it is a gritty, bombastic and very serious drama and therefore it MUST perforce be one of those. 

     

     

    (Yes, I know people are allowed to like things. Yes, I'm being facetious and mean about people liking things and yes, it's a bit passe to make fun of Nolan. I'll get my coat) 

     

    • Like 1
  4. 7 hours ago, Eric the Turtle said:

     

    #150 - Insomnia (306 points, 6 lists)

    INSOMNIA1.gif

     

     

    Wait. So not only is Nolan going to arbitrarily cram the top of this list, but one of his actual best two films is the only one that doesn't get on it?????

     

    Not sure to be pleasantly surprised some of these like Captain Blood made it that high, or disgusted they aren't higher.

     

    Tis what it is I suppose. Got to make way for another Harry Potter movie somehow.

    • Like 1
    • Haha 2
  5. 9 minutes ago, reddevil19 said:

    Sure, mate. Movie was too smart. Thank God you decoded it for us.

     

    My argument was that the movie was clear. Not that it required smarts to understand. It said what it was doing and did it. 

     

    Thanks for being disingenuous again.

  6. 1 hour ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

     

    Total hogwash.

     

    Captain Marvel is a rare example of a blockbuster that looks light on the surface and is enjoyable at a popcorn level but actually serves multiple viewings. It's a rich exploration of character the likes of which we hadn't had in a supe movie.

     

    It's an existential superhero film that we hadn't really got before. The tagline was 'Discover what makes her a hero' - everything played into that notion.

     

    The character is referred to as Carol, Capt. Danvers, Blockbuster Girl, Vers, Captain Marvel, and a number/codename at different points. Nearly every scene is a duologue between the character and one other person, with each of those other people perceiving the protagonist completely different from each other and wanting something something completely different from her. 

     

    What makes her a hero is her ability to manage those expectations, embrace each of those identities and balance them...and to realise that every one of those identities are still her, other than the one that had been imposed based on deception, and prevented her from any other perception of self.

     

    The victory moment was nothing to do with her powers- which she already had from the start of the movie - but eschewing that one personality that had been imposed by deception, and refusing to acknowledge the rules it had imposed on her.

     

    The whole film was built around 'what makes her a hero' and marketed and delivered entirely on that promise.

     

    I'm sick of pretending it isn't one of the best MCU movies. Most takes on it are awful and betray shockingly bad media literacy.

     

     

    The response to this post as well as the response to a 'hilarious' one-line non-refutation that didn't even remotely attempt to point out a single problem with my argument says everything needed about media literacy.

     

    "I wish I watched this movie" - mate, you did. Your inability to see that isn't the film's fault. It couldn't have led viewers more phase by phase through the narrative and the argument.

     

    What it WAS however was a bit visually uninteresting and didn't have the kind of STUFF in that you pre-knew and liked (ie no cameos from the likes of past Spider-Men). Which is almost certainly what your actual collective problems were with it. But that doesn't sound interesting enough to say. 

     

    The post I was responding to claimed that CM was a template for the issues of Phase 4. Given that the main problems with Phase 4 is a lack of focus or purpose, and whether you actually enjoyed it or not CM objectively has one of the cleanest stated-purpose-against-whats-in-the-movie relationships that a blockbuster could have, that claim is complete hogwash.

     

    The legs on CM and the AM&TW box office completely refute the claims regarding its Endgame-conditional popularity. 

     

    Why on earth crap on CM when the billion dollar club is full of ACTUAL bilge like BATB, Pirates 4, Alice, Transformers etc?

    • Like 1
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    • Knock It Off 3
  7. 8 hours ago, eddyxx said:

     

    Captain Marvel is like a pre-cursor to all the bad scripts they would green light in phase 4 and now phase 5. It should've been a warning sign to us that the better days of the MCU were behind us. Now we'll be lucky if they put out one good film every few years instead of the hit after hit they were doing before.

     

    Total hogwash.

     

    Captain Marvel is a rare example of a blockbuster that looks light on the surface and is enjoyable at a popcorn level but actually serves multiple viewings. It's a rich exploration of character the likes of which we hadn't had in a supe movie.

     

    It's an existential superhero film that we hadn't really got before. The tagline was 'Discover what makes her a hero' - everything played into that notion.

     

    The character is referred to as Carol, Capt. Danvers, Blockbuster Girl, Vers, Captain Marvel, and a number/codename at different points. Nearly every scene is a duologue between the character and one other person, with each of those other people perceiving the protagonist completely different from each other and wanting something something completely different from her. 

     

    What makes her a hero is her ability to manage those expectations, embrace each of those identities and balance them...and to realise that every one of those identities are still her, other than the one that had been imposed based on deception, and prevented her from any other perception of self.

     

    The victory moment was nothing to do with her powers- which she already had from the start of the movie - but eschewing that one personality that had been imposed by deception, and refusing to acknowledge the rules it had imposed on her.

     

    The whole film was built around 'what makes her a hero' and marketed and delivered entirely on that promise.

     

    I'm sick of pretending it isn't one of the best MCU movies. Most takes on it are awful and betray shockingly bad media literacy.

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 2
    • Haha 9
    • Astonished 1
  8. 7 minutes ago, mr1006 said:

     They're calling out the "victim mentality," which downplays or even ignores the atrocities committed by the Japanese government against other Asian countries before and during World War II and simultaneously tries to portray the Japanese in a sympathetic light as the victims. Heavily upvoted comments say stuff like:

    • "You would think they're completely innocent victims."
    • "When you criticize the atrocities committed under Imperial Japan and ask for an apology, they coldly say, 'Our generation did not commit the crimes, so why are you asking us to apologize?' Under that logic, they should not be pissed about [Barbenheimer]. You can see their true intentions via their reaction [to Barbenheimer]."

     

    The general near-immediate cultural forgiveness in the Western world for Japan, and the extent to which Japan is nowhere near as associated with a history of evil compared to Germany despite arguably worse sins from the point of view of both sadism, and the mechanics by which an entire population bought in to manifest evil without having had an incident as national-ego-bashing as the end of WW1 was for Germany....is both one of the most fascinating dynamics of the late 20th century, something that would theoretically fascinating to explore on film, and yet so full of eggshells that it would prevent any coherent analysis that was actually agreeable to everyone.

     

    Obviously a lot of it came from the speed of the pivot from fighting fascism to fighting communism but yes, it's a discomforting topic. 

    • Like 3
  9. 17 minutes ago, abracadabra1998 said:

     

    I respect your opinion of course, not everyone is gonna like the same stuff, but it's interesting that you say you would be more interested in a straight timeline kind of story. I thought the exact opposite, it really worked for me. For me, the movie's constant time switching did:

     

    1. Enabled it to separate itself from other biopics (loser kid --> rise to stardom --> Peak --> Downfall; but this time instead of a band or artist make it a scientist)

     

    2. Connected different scenes/sub-plots across similar themes in a very effective way. For example, Blunt's line about sinning or RDJ's speech about his ego. Those were often juxtaposed with scenes from other timelines that support or challenged those notions. It really worked for me because the movie uses time in a messy analysis of a man simultaneously struggling with his ego, his moral compass, his Jewish identity, and his duty to his country.

     

    But again, to each their own :) 

     

    Thanks for this really even handed response.

     

    Yeah I suppose the other factor is that I'm not a biopics guy either.

     

    I'm not sure I'd be more *interested* in a straight line story so much as don't feel the film justified its own multi-layered structure. I thought the film's strongest sequences were the early University-set scenes and I would rather they had fostered the idea about his moral compass and ego (which I would have liked to have been more prominent as themes, but never really communicated to me) during those sequences. I also maybe was rubbed up the wrong way by the 'conveying genius by showing magical flaming dust' bit which I think is a little played out as a trope at this stage and was used to shorthand the science a little too much for my taste.

    • Like 1
  10. 31 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

    I thought both were fine but didn't love either.

     

    That said, I do love the life they each injected into the box office. I did like that each felt very true to the filmmaker in each case. It happens. I didn't really love Avatar 2 either. And, while I liked Top Gun 2, I much prefer the Mission films 4 through 7 over it. But, I was very happy others loved those as well to make them each box office juggernauts too.

     

    Yes, I hope those thoughts were contained within my inference as well but I think you put them much better than I did.

     

    My personal preferences are secondary in importance to the meaning to the industry, to the people who loved these films (or this film in my case), and the success wheeling back somewhat to the individual director who genuinely made what they wanted. I was just surprised in this case quite JUST how much I disliked and was bored by this film on a personal level. And conversely how much of an achievement it was to have something like this perceived and embraced as a mainstream hit. 

    • Like 1
  11. Wow.

     

    I watched Oppenheimer at last and....I already knew I wasn't a Nolan guy relative to others but I still love Insomnia and The Prestige and enjoy Memento, Inception and BatBegins....but THIS is what all this has been about? 

     

    Yes, acting wheelies were being popped all over the place and lots of the production design and aesthetics were nice but some of the narrative scene selection is simply bizarre, to me the film never earned the justification for any of its wraparound and indeed anything other than a 90 minute straight line story from university to bomb test, and ultimately the movie just wasn't *about* anything other than maybe the inherent tensions that could have been conveyed on the development site. I just personally didn't feel a shred of tension or stakes (beyond those that the historical importance itself evokes) throughout the whole film. I was bored. Bored to the extent I was going to watch Talk to Me after Oppenheimer and instead called it off because I was in such a catatonic state. Sorry.

     

    If anything the man seems less interesting having watched the film than he was before. And why I was ever meant to care about he and his wife riding horses about...beyond me. I sincerely don't quite get what the people who've raved about this movie are seeing.

     

    But all this serves to make it manifest even more strongly as to the name value of Nolan. Nobody else could have achieved this. And while I will never watch this movie again, I don't begrudge its extraordinary success one bit in the wider sense. The movie environment needs Nolans and him not being my jam is far less important than the existence of such figures and need for more of them. 

     

    No doubt plenty of people feel about Barbie - which to me was about 10,000 times superior to Oppenheimer in just about every way - the way I do about Opp. 

     

    I GENUINELY wish that having followed this amazing story that I could have loved both movies in the double bill but it wasn't to be. Nevertheless I've really enjoyed all of this whole story, from a box office perspective and everything else.

    • Like 3
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    • Disbelief 4
  12. 11 hours ago, ZattMurdock said:

    Ant-Man and the Wasp was released between Infinity War and Endgame. It made $622m WW, including China and Russia, with only $216m of that coming from Domestic. For all the people that keep saying that Captain Marvel and Black Panther were only popular thanks to Infinity War and Endgame, it seems like it didn’t help that film that much. 
     

    Wasn’t Ant-Man and the Wasp released when they were riding much more momentum than now? So why this one didn’t make anywhere close to $1B WW too? Maybe because Ant-Man was always the smaller of the MCU franchises, perhaps?

     

     

     

    Not sure if anyone else has already pointed this out, and I agree broadly with most of your points....

     

    But the overlooked factor in most North American discussion of Ant-Man and the Wasp box office is the extent to which the worldwide released dates were affected by the World Cup. 

     

    It was released in fits and starts everywhere, with no ongoing momentum, and in some markets well after a month post-USA which is unheard of otherwise from the MCU in places like Europe.

     

    Basically they rightly identified attention on the film would be hit by the world cup but then massively overthought it.

     

    It's 100% arguable that it wouldn't have done much more anyway but in terms of why AM&TW didn't have the momentum of every other film in the MCU in that 3 year corridor that would be it.

    • Like 2
  13. Without questioning Coogler's abilities as a filmmaker, which are very considerable, I would say that it's a very strong argument that staying with Marvel beyond the one Black Panther movie was a major mistake IF he had aspirations to become a Spielberg-like, Nolan-like, Cameron-like or indeed now early-career Peele or Gerwig-like figure who as a director had the potential to sell movies to audiences on name along. 

     

    His value for such a thing was at its highest in the public consciousness after the double-whammy of Creed-Black Panther and IF he wanted such a career the next movie *should probably* have been his big launch personal vision original movie.

     

    But that core IF is a massive IF. Maybe he wanted to spread his visions more as a producer. Maybe he loved working for Marvel. Maybe he had a personal deep connection to the BP world etc. In which case it's his career, his choice.

     

    (and by the way yes Nolan did 3 Batman movies but the zeitgeist movie was the 2nd, not the 1st as was the case with Coogler, and being able to produce your own vision of DC independently for WB is very different from operating in the massive mesh of the MCU machine.)

  14. I think the Gerwig comparisons to Jordan Peele are fair. If anything Gerwig has the advantage.

     

    Also, am I the only one that thinks Tarantino isn't a particularly reasonable comparison to Nolan or Cameron.

     

    The longevity and appreciation is there, maybe even the name itself. But his supposed magnum opus of Kill Bill only did x3 budget (both) and under 200m WW, he has an outright flop on his resume post-breakout in Grindhouse/Deathproof and another pretty-poor in Hateful Eight. His big hitters are x4 to x4.5 budget and only one movie over $380m.

     

    Don't get me wrong, It's a very,very good record. But is he a box office juggernaut in the way that Nolan, Cameron and peak Spielberg are? 

     

    Maybe this conversation doesn't matter. Yes, that's probably the case.

  15. 12 minutes ago, grim22 said:

    Cult classic? A Billion dollar grosser will be a cult classic?

     

     

     

     

    I know a few people have taken this up already, but just to put a concrete example out there: Doctor Who.

     

    Doctor Who (at least in the UK) is both primetime Saturday evening mass appeal entertainment AND an undisputed cult show. And always has been and has sustained that dichotomy for 60 years now.

     

    I suspect (I'm not in the fandom) Next Generation is pretty similar. 

     

    Could even put in the argument for The Matrix.

    • Like 1
  16. 31 minutes ago, ChipDerby said:

     

    Do you know what woke means

     

    Lots of these folks don't even know what feminism means.

     

    The number of takes I've seen that assumes, at face value, Barbieland as presented at the beginning as essentially 'the perfect feminist world and what feminists want' and use that as their starting point for discussing the movie is pretty insane.

    • Like 1
    • Heart 1
  17. 43 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

    Incredibles 2 have an A+ on CinemaScore and absolutely stellar grades everywhere that matters 

     

    Finding 3948484 reasons of why it was so big instead of just see it was greatly received is funny. You can dislike it, but there’s pretty much no evidence this is a collective feeling.

     

    Someone asked why Incredibles 2 did so well and I gave several answers.

     

    And one of them was literally "Because it was well received".

     

    And most of the others was indicating WHY it was well received.

     

    Disliking it is not the same as acknowledging that it doesn't really hold up to *most* objective measures of quality from a narrative perspective. Which from even a cursory view of the film it doesn't - the villain's motivation makes quite literally no sense. But audiences - as is their prerogative - didn't care. Because that wasn't what they wanted from the film and the film provided what they did want. Nor did I even dislike it, and certainly didn't indicate it was universally disliked.

     

    I don't see how I could have been any more even handed. Yet your post here is quite clearly a pop at mine.

    • Like 1
  18. 10 minutes ago, WorkingonaName said:

    Why did Incredibles 2 make so much money, movies mid as hell.

     

    - Caught some absolutely perfect placement with very few highly anticipated family movies that Summer.

    - Got early positive reception despite being mediocre since it kept everyone happy (ie Did it shut the kids up for 2 hours and do what it was meant to? Did it use those characters that I liked again? Yes? Then it was great).

    - The first has outrageous positive perception (personally I find it overrated, but I'm in the minority) that has only grown as a babysitter movie for 15 years leading to many with massive nostalgia for it and thus it being acceptable for groups of teens and twentysomethings to watch unlike some films that are positioned like it.

    - Mrs Incredible. 

    - Edna Mode was nearly as consciously-made-shamelessly-for-memes as Olaf from Frozen and, just as with Olaf, it worked.

    - It's a harlequinade/episodic type film, and those are fun and don't suffer from weak plots too much in the way more narrative driven films do.

    - Superhero movie with a point of difference in the superhero zeitgeist. 

    • Like 5
  19. The problem with next non-park Phases of the Jurassic films is surely obvious and was the reasons why they wimped out of their promises in Fallen Kingdom and Dominion.

     

    For all it may sound like a cool idea to do "What if dinos in real world"...you can't linger on it too long becuase ultimately military weaponry and modern technology means that it simply isn't actually all that interesting. Any commitment to something resembling credibility just has dinosaurs being successfully managed and controlled.

     

    So you can't do that outside of glimpses - hence why it had to be a 'black market' in a built up area and settings needed to be in the outlands. As any future movie has to be - it would have to be in isolation and in a base-style environment that limits the humans' resources. Which is probably what will happen.

  20. I've simply never seen the cinema like it was this Saturday.

     

    I use the quieter one in my city. I've only ever been to one sell out show there which was Endgame midnight showing.

     

    It took 20 minutes to park because the cinema car park - which I've never known be more than half full - was full with cars milling about waiting. 

     

    Every person (all women bar one) I went with said they planned to see Barbie again (I won't because I'm not really a repeat viewer-type) and that includes plenty of non regular cinemagoers. 

     

    I think in the UK the Mamma Mia comparison is definitely right, or even The Full Monty if we go way back: female audiences here can get hyper loyal very quickly

     

    Not sure what the comparison for Oppenheimer is really. It's its own beast. I'm looking forward to seeing it tonight and I suspect it, too, has a strong future for the next few weeks here.

    • Like 3
  21. 24 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

    From what I’ve seen, the excuse the anti-woke grifters are giving for the massive box office numbers is that people were supposedly fooled into thinking this would be a “fun and lighthearted” and perfectly non-political family film from the trailers. Whatever helps them cope. 

     

    I'm sure they got that from that first 2001: A Space Odyssey trailer.

     

    Nothing says 'pure fun and lighthearted family entertaining that is nothing but fluff and has nothing to say' like a first trailer that acts as a direct beat-by-beat riff on the first scene on a Stanley Kubrick film from 1968.

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