Underrated and overrated films (and other general filmy chat)

Totally not what I was saying. Artists who get paid are a subset of all artists. “People gotta eat” was exactly my point in countering the notion that creating for the market makes you soulless sell out.

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Okay. Thanks for clarifying. I’m probably not in the best position today to talk about the subtleties of what makes an artist.

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That’s a minefield no one should stray into. I learned a long time ago not to argue about what is art or an artist. And as this clearly demonstrated even that isn’t enough to keep you out of trouble.

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It’s sort of a core tension in my dissertation, so there’s that. :slight_smile:

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That’s masochistic of you.

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Why do you think I’m getting a phd in history, studying popular culture? Clearly, I hate myself! :wink:

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I just watched an amusing splatter fest from the Sushi Typhoon studio.
Dead Ball… our hero can pitch a deadly fastball though he has vowed never again after killing his father with it.
So he goes on a rampage of killing yakuza and that sort but get picked up and sent to juvie where the headmistress is a Nazi and makes him play in the Juvie League where points are made for how awesomely you kill the other players. Super crazy and bloody violence ensues.
This is not a good film, however if you like over the top cartoonish blood soaked action you should check it out.

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Ooh.

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I love AKIRA. It was massively influential and a beautiful visual spectacle. It doesn’t need a live-action remake.

Jordan Peele showed what a unique filmmaking voice he has with GET OUT. He needs to be directing his own ideas and his own scripts.

Having him at the helm of an unnecessary AKIRA remake would give me some hope for the project, but I’d much rather see Peele be given a blank check to do his own thing.

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Speaking of…I see Ghost in the Shell is getting some less than glowing reviews. Apparently they wrote the whitewashing into the script, as well.

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Joss Whedon’s a big step-up from Zack Snyder, at any rate, so they might get a watchable DC movie out of this.

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Yeah, same thing at Hollyhock House. One of the docents there told me he called tall people “trees” and absolutely refused to accommodate their dimensions in his work.

And yeah, beautiful and artistically groundbreaking as much of his work is, if the houses were built better they wouldn’t constantly need so much expensive restoration and preservation. They’re not that old.

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On the other hand, I once toured a model of a Usonian House and was delighted that I, at 5’ 4", could reach all the shelves. He did have some good ideas–but catering only to short people is just rude, I agree.

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While watching Big Little Lies with my wife the other night, we were struck by the downright ridiculous height of the kitchen cabinets. I mean, Adam Scott isn’t anyone’s idea of a particularly tall man, but neither is he a total shrimp, and I doubt he could reach the upper two shelves of the cabinet behind his head, to say nothing of the small windowed cabinet above it.

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Hear, hear.

“No” to a live-action Akira. “No” to this insatiable need for the public to see new versions of things they already like, in general.

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We finally got around to watching “Allied”. The story was engaging, but what really stood out for me were the wardrobe choices. Historical clothing is big thing for us, and not only did everyone look fabulous, but the civilian clothing looked good and period correct, instead of being modern interpretations of period styles. The Nazi villains were an exception. But I got the feeling that they were going for how Nazis were portrayed in 40s and 50s cinema, instead of how they actually dressed at the place and time depicted. I guess that is a style choice. I was really disappointed to not see “Rick’s Cafe” or Peter Lorre in the Casablanca background.

ETA: The bbs was inaccessible to me for ages so I’m re-editing this comment to include the other stuff I had to quickly strip out earlier.

I put spoiler tags in here earlier and they didn’t work initially for some reason, probably bad formatting. SORRY IF ANYONE SAW THAT!


Ghost in the Shell deals with the whitewashing as a central theme of the story.

The film suffers from some scale back for your typical, unimaginative westerner for whom the producers obviously decided immersion into the world of the manga or anime would have been so overwhelmingly intimidating as to drive away business.

So, it’s dumbed down a little and the scale of everything is just slightly less impressive. The city is smaller and shallower, the buildings stunted. A lot of the design seems sparse and clashes, like different departments were not communicating effectively, there didn’t seem to be a strong guiding hand knitting the design together.

However.

With the budget they had, and the difficulties of dropping what amounts to hard scifi in the laps of the general western audience, I believe the film makers managed to make a fairly gripping film, even haunting in some places.

Scarjo is great, as ever, she brings an insane physicality to the role. Everything from her stance, her posture, right down through to her micro-expressions screams about this immense, alien power that she possess. Batou is realised effectively as is Aramaki. Almost all the other Section 9 characters are sidelined apart from brief appearances from Togusa. The hacker, that’s all I’ll call him for now, is well done too and is also central to the whitewashing theme.

I’d say its a little better than the recent OVAs (and film), maybe approaches some of the weaker SAC episodes.

I want a directors or extended cut for all the stuff they (sometimes rather obviously) cut out.


We should probably keep the spoilered stuff secret for a wee while but I feel like I also want to talk about it, the theme being so strongly criticised in the media. Who’d have thought consideration of that topic would be a reason to see the film? It’s weird, the writers obviously wanted to address it, but the shit storm in the media makes their having addressed it in the movie just… weird.

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I have been cautiously optimistic. My concern about Johanssen was less that she wasn’t Asian, and more a mismatch of personality. For me Atsuko Tanaka IS Kusanagi, having brought her to life with a quick wit and authoritative no-bullshit attitude which defines the character for me.

A deeper concern has been what sort of plot and worldbuilding they are going for here, as those are really what draws me into GITS.

Also I keep asking people why they assume that this movie is a remake of Oshii’s 1995 animated movie, but nobody ever says. But it gets referred to as “the original version”.

There be spoilers, but I just read a review on ArsTechnica, and its rather harshly critical:

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I’m keeping my criticisms of the problems in the film close to my chest right now because they are all spoilers.

Suffice to say, it’s made for a general audience, the fan service is relegated to secondary consideration over making the film accessible, which compromises both endeavours.

Hardcore GITS peeps will be dissapoint. The product they wanted is impossible to make without a respected visionary and financially successful powerhouse like Cameron or Scott demanding total control.


And I disagree with some of the criticisms in that article. The author complains that the film diverges from the ‘original’ but then totally fails to acknowledge that the material it diverges to is also cannon (in the animated series). Pretty much all of the tropes, stories, characters, events, places and ideas are lifted from the source material, just moved around, dumbed down and knitted back together in a weird context and order.

I predict a lot more precious bitching on the subject from irate fans. And I can’t really blame them.

Also. There is ZERO humour in the film.

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Shame about that but not entirely unexpected once the casting was known and those teaser trailers were released. At that point it seemed like the most pointless remake in the history of remakes. I’d much rather see free fire right now, ben wheatley appears to be on a roll with superb films.

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