I’ll go first. Mine is that I can’t stand the Deadpool movies. They are self aware and self referential to an obnoxious degree. It’s like being continually reminded that I am in a movie. I swear the success of that movie has directly lead to every blockbuster having to have a joke every 30 seconds
This is one of the things that killed the unpopular opinion subreddit, and made Reddit in general so annoying. The upvote/downvote is not an agree/disagree button, it’s for promoting valuable discussion and hiding the opposite
For these types of threads, I usually upvote things that are actually hot takes with some justification or unique insight. People that post an extremely popular decision or just insult something that a lot of people see value in get downvoted. Mostly it’s moderately common takes or unusual opinions with no elaboration, so I don’t vote on those.
I think the problem with Sucker Punch was no one really knew what it was about before watching it and ended up being like “this is fucking weird”. If you look at everything as though it’s from inside the mind of someone who was just lobotomized then it’s pretty good, imo.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I think it’s one of the greatest films ever made because I watched it, not because someone told me it was.
But seriously, 95% of the “classic” movies deemed so important are just not that good. They might have been remarkable for some reason at the time, but from a contemporary perspective, they’re often boring, long winded, and generally not interesting.
It’s the same with books. Some people decided at some point which books are considered “good” and everyone just has to eat that or be considered stupid. Can’t speak for other languages, but I think it’s extremely suspicious, that in Germany the “canon books” are almost all from a rather short timeframe, which just happens to coincide with 19th century nationalism.
Blade runner 2049 was a boring slideshow of backdrops with the “bwaaa” music overlaying it and occasionally plot happened. What plot is that? I don’t fucking remember.
I could get on board with this. Both were amazing at their best and pretty mediocre at their worst. I’d love to see what Carpenter could have done with some bigger budgets. Although maybe the results wouldn’t have been as good. He seems like the sort of director where necessity breeds invention.
Yeah exactly, it seems like a such a shame that The Thing (1982) didn’t find its audience until years later. Because I feel like that’s as close as we got to seeing a John Carpenter film with a big budget and it was great.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a cyberpunk movie.
Mars is a dystopian, broken society in which cyberware is so ubiquitous that we only ever see one Martian without visible augmentation. Every character in the movie does what they do for purely selfish reasons, with the exception of the idiot Droppo, the old man Chochem who remembers society for what it was before it went to hell, and the mythological embodiment of generosity himself. When Chochem suggests that Mars needs a Santa Claus, the immediate response isn’t to research and emulate St. Nick, nope. Martian society is so degenerate that the first idea is to commit a crime: to kidnap the jolly old elf. And all of Earth’s governments are incapable of stopping them.
Cyberware, broken society, selfish characters, rampant crime, laughably inadequate government? What genre does that sound like?
When I pointed out that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians predates Blade Runner, the film that most people consider to be the first cyberpunk movie, by some 18 years, at a tabletop session of Cyberpunk 2020, I was less than popular with those assembled.
I decided to not press my luck by pointing out that it came out 4 years before the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Horror films are where art flourishes and it has a huge culture of being outside of Hollywood which is just a plus. Also the acting is usually way better
Evil Dead 1&2, Army of Darkness are some of my favorite movies growing up. Just rewatched The Howling and it was good but not as good a American Werewolf in London. Friday the 13th and the Hellrazor series were awesome. Lost boys etc. The Gate. Pet Cemetery, Sometimes They Come Back and Cats Eye I thought were great Stephen King adaptations. I really enjoyed The Cube for its creativity and small set.
Still its the SciFi horrors get me the most. Alien series was awesome and Event Horizon were awesome. Something about having nowhere to escape to I think.
I think you’re right and maybe that’s why I prefer horror movies so much over literally all else. And to your point about being outside of Hollywood, I really appreciate it when I don’t recognize any of the actors. It makes it much more immersive for me. Usually much better camera work and lighting too. And Less CGI - atleast the better ones. I hate it when the whole screen is just really good animation :(
Ouiji was the worst offender of this. The first half of the movie, it’s got some of my favorite subtle directing in it, keeping you on your toes, then BAM. Halfway through they’re showing the creature in full view and it’s some generic black goo. Not scary at all. Would have been way better if the horror never showed its face.
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Hmm, so I like movies that kinda play with your expectations and turn out to go into a completely different direction than you’d expect.
Dragon (2011) with Donnie Yen is a good example. You think you’re getting another Kung Fu flick, but it turns out to be more of a detective story of almost Sherlock Holmes-style complexity.
Yes there’s kung fu but it’s mostly esoteric and there’s only a few fights, but it’s still a fascinating movie.
I think a lot of people sees Heaths performances and go this is awesome that makes this an awesome movie, didn’t help that he died around the same time.
This then lead to it being this best movie ever meme, where anyone that didn’t think so was hevely down voted and sometimes insulted and it managed to remain like that for many many years.
Personally I hold the opinion that while Heath did a incredible performance, had he had a better script and maybe even a none Batman script. It would have been an absolutely marvellous performance. Also that as he did such a good job but the rest of the movie didn’t, he’s work stod out more as being really good.
Can you elaborate on what specifically you didn’t like about LOTR? Peter Jackson has always had a penchant for using cutting-edge CG tech in his films, to the point that some people call them tech demos. I think WETA’s effects stand out as the best parts of the series, but the cinematography, sets, and acting are about as good as it gets in my opinion
For the CG, I was at Paris GDC (game developers conference) where naughy dog(black dog, ??? I don’t remember) explained all the fuckups they did with LOTR, like when Aragorn magic-jumps on to his horse(idea was cool, execution horrible), the dragon flying through everything …
But for me that wasn’t the bad things (I love Star Trek and Dr Who!) but the blandness, “American style”.
What would you have changed from the movies as they were?
I mean, I can’t think of that many deviations from the books off-the-top-of-my-head. Tom Bombadil got cut, but he had a very different flavor from most of the rest of the series. Legolas “shield surfing” was an addition to the movies and was kind of obnoxious, IMHO, but it wasn’t that much of an ongoing thing. There were some changes around Aragorn going through the Paths of the Dead, but nothing there really bugged me.
EDIT: I’m pretty sure that nothing in the books said that the charge of the reinforcements at Helm’s Deep was down that steep of a slope – that’s probably just not practical.
Just the beginning with the party, with dwarves in a sort of dance-cleaning party was absurd IMO.
They’re there to fight or die, only Gandalf (IIRC) managed them to even consider taking a hobbit with them. It should have been grim, but with a take making it possible, not a song and dance performance.
In all it’s too “American” (IMO) ; simplistic plot with easy to understand graphic battles. Then Win!
I also hated the painful play of Frodon and Sam, like some sort of painful master/slave idiocy. Not naming a totally overplayed Gollum.
Well well, I remember the end of the Hobbit was plaisant, and it was a long time ago I saw them so maybe I should rewatch them :-)
You seem to be confusing the two trilogies, I don’t think many LOTR fans will defend The Hobbit movies for anything but the performances. Also with regards to “it’s all too American,” the LOTR films were written and directed by a New Zealander based on a story by a Brit
For American audiences though, that’s where the money is. And who produced it too. Not saying you’re wrong, just to anyone outside the US it has the feel of it.
I didn’t say it was an American movie, just that it is “too American”. Too dumbed down. Too “bad person bad, because ugly”, “good person good looking and will win”, graphic battles etc.
I mean, if there was a single internationally-popular movie or series that you could choose to take issue with as being “too American”, this doesn’t seem like it’d be the one I’d choose.
The Frodo/Sam dynamic comes from Tolkien’s experiences in WW1. A fair example of this dynamic would be the Blackadder/Baldrick dynamic in Blackadder Goes Forth.
Apparently it was a thing where higher class soldiers had a bloke supporting him. Not sure if it was solely based on rank or social status
If you like fantasy movies now is the time. Or anytime really, they are very well done and the vast majority of people who like that kind of thing enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies.
The original Blade Runner movie is not nearly as good as the sequel. The sequel highlights how lesser the original’s plot was. We overly praise the first one because of the Tear in the Rain Speech.
Thanks, to be clear I don’t dislike the original. It does a lot of stuff good, like world building. But 2049 is actually structured with acts and has a main character who develops throughout the film.
It’s definitely a classic, it just seems like the parts with Ford in the middle of the film doesn’t really achieve much to me. I think a version of the film around Deckard chasing just Roy Batty (and not the others) might have been better. Hauer did fantastic work every time he was on screen he should have got more.
But maybe it was an artistic choice to include Deckard hunting the other replicants as a commentary on meaningless violence.
I loved the original, when I had only seen the TV cut which doesn’t include the protagonist committing rape. I’ve seen the full version all of once and that just broke it for me.
I have the sequel on my to-watch list, but will be starting it off in a guarded manner.
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