me watching Mank, when Mank appears: That’s Citizen Kane
Mank starring Tany Shalhaub
So, Mank.
Not sure where this’ll land, but it looked wonderful, and the pacing starts growing on me already.
I couldn’t hear any of the dialogue in tenet
.
Nolan constructs films out of “characters” so cliche archetypal you just know who they are and their relationships to one another after 10 seconds of Actor Vibing.
But then he decides to make them say out loud with their words all of the things that he’s already told us via the magic of Context Provided By 120+ Years of Cinema, the Actors Acting.
He’s like Michael Mann’s insecure little brother.
I feel like I’ve posted about this before, but it’s really surreal to watch TDK in retrospect after Nolan has Nolanned himself into ridiculousness, as it’s basically like a semi-comedic old school action movie aiming for something halfway between Michael Mann and Shane Black, and … Doing an OK job with that. It can be blamed for like everything irritating about both superhero movies and Nolan’s career, but the movie itself feels like such a relic now. There’s barely any (obvious) CGI and the action setpiece at the middle of the movie is like, a midspeed car chase. Did it feel like such a throwback when it came out? I can’t even remember
I remember really liking Troy back in the day! I want to watch it again now and figure out why
I’ll watch Alexander for sure
A lot of the reasons i think it is bad (the DC) are personal. Everyone is doing an “English” accent because it is a swords and sandals movie but also everyone is just doing a stupid accent and none of it influences the characters and who they are. The redone soundtrack is just clipped from 3 other movies and wildly inappropriate.
Then like none of the characters being that likable (and wooden acting) is an interesting choice. But the music is trying to do this heavy lifting emotionally to make us feel one way when the story is so amoral that it conflicts and I am trying to figure out what “what is this trying to say?”
Again I got mad how much the opening is stating what is happening but also having no idea like what is “Greece” what is “Sparta” or these other places is “Troy” a city or an area? It looke like it is a small fort surrounded by sandy wasteland.
And I go to films to be around and in the heads of characters and the characters here are mostly so foreign to my morality or likability that I bounce off.
My argument is that no movie with Nathan Jones in it can be that bad.
Nolan spends so much time expositing all his setting lore and character backstories but can’t bother to spend 5 seconds justifying why a fight scene is happening, or why they’re suddenly playing a call of duty level for the entirety of the interminable third act
Even explaining who they’re fighting and why those people decided to get on board with a literal doomsday plot
you literally had “well, as you already know” dialogue to explain this shit, how about helping me out with the basic reasoning behind character actions beyond “well that’s how it works in spy movies”
He loves his Call of Duty third acts. In Inception, however, I like to think of it as the inevitable consequence of falling deeper and deeper into abstract dream spaces as things slide from reasonable to irrational. The last level is Call of Duty because that deep down the subconscious cannot make symbols more complex than SKI DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO C4 THAT VAULT DOOR
There are so many strong performances aimed directly into the camera in Shin Godzilla. That scene where they’re talking around the PM of Japan about course of action and he’s just shittin his britches. Scared of what, huh? This scaley 200’ tall chicken bird? heh…
I’m watching this right now, first time since seeing it on a plane coming back from Japan. Before this I rewatched Ed Wood, which makes me cry.
One of the many tricks Shin pulls is making the stupid goofy costumeness of the monster terrifying.
And that everyone that gets close to it dies. You don’t have that crappy tiny human that survives encounter after encounter.
Yeah the fabric look of a monster as it does something truly devastating and horrific doesn’t actually make it less horrific. That fact just makes it even more scary, like you said.
I am reminded of baby Ridley from Other M for some reason here.
wait he looks like this? how did i miss any clear screens of the monster faces for shin?
i’d have been on this way faster i love this face! he’s so cute!
Godzilla goes through some changes over the course of the movie, eventually turning into his regular self. (Is Godzilla male?) But before that happens you get scenes with THIS



















