WHAT YOU WATCHED THIS WEEK

[Sheridan Passell]

Wow

...that ...was ...mental.

It looks like a spoof that was made last week. Flip-flops between genuinely creepy and bizarrely amusing.

Parts really remind me of Ringu.

[dalmatianjaws]

The director was a surrealist commercial director and it was written by him via his young daughter (ala Axe Cop). Imagine an 8-year-old's imagination filtered through Van Gogh ... it's mesmerizing, hilarious, scary, and ridiculous all at the same time. Does that make it genius? I think so. Many don't. Either way it's a must-see.

[dalmatianjaws]

Prometheus - long, dull, stupid, bad dialog, non-existent characters, confusing storyverse rules, and worst waste of Michael Fassbender since Eden Lake.

[Sheridan Passell]

Better or worse than Thor?

[dalmatianjaws]

Story-wise, way worse. Visually, a lot bette----

HEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!

[Sheridan Passell]

Just saw it.
HUGE SPOILERS
A mixed bag. First 40 minutes were great. The movie looks amazing. I thought the acting and dialogue generally were fine. Fassbender was great in my opinion. But it made huge mistakes that ruined it - human alien head looked too stupid, don't cast young Guy Pearce as a very old man - cast a very old man, but the single biggest problem was the alien biology and life cycle wasn't thought through AT ALL - WHICH WAS THE SINGLE GREATEST STRENGTH OF ALIEN. That aspect was a total, total mess. The connection to Alien was terribly handled, all 15 seconds of it. Why was there a picture of an alien on the wall? Why was the alien race created by a human getting infected, having sex with another human, that human cutting out the pregnancy, that thing growing into a squid, and that squid impregnating an engineer - absolutely retarded. Suspected the writer of Lost would throw intriguing questions at the screen and then completely fail to tie it all together, just like the series. TV writers don't need to carefully consider big payoffs because they'll be off the series, or the series will be cancelled, or the audience will have switched off or forgotten before they have to deal with it.

[dalmatianjaws]

Spot on about the black goo, it has no rules, they just do whatever they want with it. Agree with all the rest of your critiques.

A lot of people are saying that the first hour or so was good, but I think that's only in comparison to how bad it devolves along the way. The first section isn't atrocious, but even the opening scene is a head-scratcher of sketchy VFX that basically screams at the audience THE ARE GOING TO FIND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR!!!!! 

Then the scene in the cave put is purely for exposition. Such on the nose dialog, and they come to some HUGE assumptions just cause someone drew some circles on the wall.

Then they BLOW past the potentially awesome sequence of David being alone on the ship for three years. It was a great concept, but they just went through it so fast!

Ugh, and that HORRIBLE dream sequence with Patrick Wilson ...

Then when they get to the planet, they manage to find the one building on it within five minutes, land, drive to it (why didn't they fly closer?), find the one door in the entire place, walk right in, fine oxygen, TAKE OFF THEIR FREAKING HELMETS, touch a random hyroglyphic that turns on an exposition hologram that leads them right to what will kill them.

Let's not forget that's all in the first 40 minutes. There's no tension, no hurdles for the characters to overcome. It's all so clean and easy and dull. Good VFX and all, but it all amounts to nothing.

[Sheridan Passell]

SPOILERS

The first 40 minutes can be poked for holes but none of it bothered me, I was having a good time. I thought David watching the dream and it being an invasion of privacy was kind of cool, and very Ridley Scott-esque. Incidentally the concept of the android wondering the ship while everyone is in hypersleep was a dropped one from Aliens. I can pinpoint where it went south for me, the first tremor was when the holograms ran down the corridor - the space jockeys needed a more alien movement to make them not seem like extras in oversized rubber suits. But really I was enjoying it until the two guys were alone in the tomb chamber, having moments earlier been wisely scared of the blip, when the sinister-as-hell snake appeared one was suddenly fascinated and acting like a complete and utter idiot.

(I completely missed that the alien snake was a worm converted by the black goo. Only found out when I read it on an imdb message board, did you catch that? I remember seeing a worm earlier.)

I didn't hate everything after that, and even when the plotting was terrible, scenes were often beautiful in themselves, such as David in the star chamber.

It's also so obvious that it was originally meant to be the same planet they found in Alien but at some point they realised they weren't smart enough to make that work. Has a near identical crashed alien ship, etc etc.

[dalmatianjaws]

I didn't think about the shitty rubber suit syndrome for the holograms, but you're right. I was more bugged by how fucking convenient it was. It's like they didn't want to write any more exposition, so they made a hologram to "say" it instead. So stupid.

I have no issue with the concept of watching the dreams (despite that fact that's WAAAAAAAAAY beyond the technology found in Alien, which took place 30 years later ... a minor, annoying point amidst a lot worse stuff). It was the execution that sucked. Creepy concept, LAME dream.

Also, I didn't catch that it WASN'T the planet from Alien until someone told me after. It looked the same, had the same toxic atmosphere, the ship was identical, and it crashed the same way. Then when the pilot leaves the chair and dies somewhere else I was SO confused.

Also, this:


And this:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=prometheus_nutshell

[Sheridan Passell]

Yeah, I also didn't understand what was happening in the hologram chase (they were running from an infected guy, the one who got his head cut off by the door) until I came back and read about it on the imdb message boards - a lot of the movie was like that, I don't think that's a good thing.

That Red Letter Media video is brilliant. Link is excellent too.

Men In Black III - Er, surprisingly good. I never thought I'd say this a few weeks ago but it's probably a better film overall than Prometheus.

[Sheridan Passell]

.

[dnwilliams]

Prometheus - Well, you guys have this pretty well covered. I was disappointed, it was a serious missed opportunity. I'm not usually one to poke holes in things so long as they entertain me, but yeah, it's impossible to ignore the things that didn't make sense and the things that definitely should have been explained but weren't. There was no tension, no singular threat, a lot of faith-based crap that just DID NOT FIT AT ALL...it's a shame because there was a good movie in there, I'm sure of it. I liked the sequence with David alone on the ship (this is where the movie should have started, we didn't need to see the origin of man or the discovery of the map at all, they weren't impressive sequences and they served no narrative purpose) and I thought the initial encounter with the space-cobra thing, after some seriously plodding storytelling, was where things were going to pick up, because I really enjoyed that sequence, but they just didn't keep the tension going. The pregnancy sequence was good in isolation too, but it was in the midst of...nothing much. Such a shame.

Religulous - Ironic that an agnostic would make a movie preaching to the choir. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I can see why a lot of people wouldn't, and Maher doesn't have the Theroux charm that makes position people to look like fools somehow okay.

The Adjustment Bureau - Like Prometheus, I feel like marketing lied on this one. I expected a chase thriller, and it wasn't that at all, it was more like The Time Traveller's Wife or something. And it was all about angels and pre-destination, which I find hard to believe originated in the original text. If it did, they took liberties with its presentation...

Total Recall - Great stuff. Didn't think it would live up to the hype for some reason, but I really enjoyed it. Vibrant and fun.

Haywire - Solid enough in parts...the fighting parts, mostly. The story was really, really generic, but I liked the overall style. I'll have to rewatch it at some stage to see if it grows on me.

Back to the Future - Perfection itself.

Carnage - Brilliant.

Bullit - Uninteresting. The car chase is what's always hyped, and it's a good car chase, but I fail to see anything remotely special about the movie around it. It was like a slow paced TV procedural. Not a lot to offer other than Jacqueline Bisset. And she can't even act.

Moonrise Kingdom - I liked this a lot. A lot, a lot. Expected to love it and there's a chance I will at some stage, but I liked it. Brilliant performances from all concerned, the kids played a much more prominent role than I anticipated, all the kids, not just the two leads, and Bruce Willis was MADE to be in Wes Anderson movies, who woulda thunk?

Rango - Overrated as hell.

Once Upon a time in the West - One of the greatest movies EVER.

Chronicle - Very enjoyable. Sits beside Unbreakable and The Incredibles in non-comics based superhero greatness for me. The sequel will be weird, though I look forward to it. I really think using the found footage format was a huge mistake...

YiYi - Critically lauded, but I'd need to read up on it to see why. Just a fairly sedate drama, with no real focus and a patience-testing runtime.

The Third Man - Very entertaining. Far more lively that I'd imagined given in perplexing status as a "film noir" classic.

Atonement - I thought this was a tour de force. So much so that 'tour de force' is the first thing that came to mind despite my being quite sure I've never referred to anything as that in my life.

Precious - Uncomfortable, and not necessarily as uplifting as people might have you believe. Effective and well made though. Great performances.

[dnwilliams]

Oh yeah, and again with Prometheus, showing the explosive climax in every piece of promotional material, right down to the posters? Whoever is directly responsible for that should be killed.

[dalmatianjaws]

*sigh*

So jealous of this consumption. I've been so busy it's hard to watch much. Been viewing a lot of television cause it's easier to fit into the schedule in half hour lumps.

Movies:
Sunshine - rewatched this after suffering through Prometheus. Really is an overlooked film. The ending is a GREAT idea but a bit too much "generic slasher" and not enough "metaphysical psycho thriller." Other than that, the movie is pitch perfect, SO well made.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil - my wife and I had a shitty night so I popped this in to cheer us up. Such a fun, strangely uplifting little flick.

Avengers - Just had to see it one more time in theaters. So damn good. 


TV:
Mad Men Season 5: season 5 is perfect. Well, the fat suit was pretty bad. Everything else was perfect. Amazing television.

Mis
Fits
Season 1 - GREAT stuff. A silly, filthy romp with some surprizingly effective dramatic bits. Generic premise, clever execution. The main skinny guy is sort of the British answer to Shia LaBeouf.

Girls - only seen four episodes, but so far it's VERY well made. Great acting and a perfect balance of serious and quirk. The weird backlash against Lena Dunham is a bit distressing. I have a sinking feeling it would be an issue at all if she was beautiful.

Community Season 1: So, so, so, so, so, so, SO good. I can't believe I haven't watched it seriously until now. Almost Arrested Development level, but not quite.

[dalmatianjaws]

Also DN, on all the ones I've seen off that list, I completely agree. WTF?

[dnwilliams]

lol, I left Prometheus thinking, 'Well that was disappointing. Now I just want to re-watch SUNSHINE.' 

I didn't like Girls at all until the fourth episode, the first three felt like Tiny Furniture all over again and I did not care for Tiny Furniture. Mad Men is great as ever, the couple episodes leading up to the finale outdid the finale for me though. I've mostly gone off Community, too hit-and-miss. It'll be interesting to see what it's like now it's lost Dan Harmon.

[Sheridan Passell]

Sunshine is a great movie.

Had you never seen Total Recall? How is that possible?

[Sheridan Passell]

Damon Lindelof has just been hired to 'fix' World War Z, particularly the ending.


Way to screw up my most anticipated movie of next year.

[dnwilliams]

My list of unseen classics would horrify you Sheridan.

[dnwilliams]

What was David's motivation for "infecting" Holloway with black goop?

Damon Lindelof: I'd say that the short answer is: That's his programming. In the scene preceding him doing that, he is talking to Weyland (although we don't know it at the time) and he's telling Weyland that this is a bust. That they haven't found anything on this mission other than the stuff in the vials. And Weyland presumably says to him, "Well, what's in the vials?" And David would say, "I'm not entirely sure, we'll have to run some experiments." And Weyland would say, "What would happen if you put it in inside a person?" And David would say, "I don't know, I'll go find out." He doesn't know that he's poisoning Holloway, he asks Holloway, "What would you be willing to do to get the answers to your questions?" Holloway says, "Anything and everything." And that basically overrides whatever ethical programming David is mandated by, [allowing him] to spike his drink.

This takes extreme liberties with the amount you expect your audience to infer.