Last Good Movie You Saw

[deanb]

There's one he did about Three Flavours Cornetto with Empire too, alongside Simon Pegg.

 

Covers both the inception of the film along with a bit of a look into his kind of mindset on creating a film and directing it and such. Such as creating a film using a flipchart to plan it. Oh also covers a bit of Spaced because it is a bit of a fundamental part of Cornetto Trilogy and Wright n Peggs relationship.

[deanb]

And here is their Baby Driver spoiler special (so don't listen unless you've seen the film or care not one lick for spoilers)

First hour is Edgar Wright, and the rest is the Empire staff chatting about the film. So some insight into what went into the film, what changed, difficulties*, anecdotes etc. And Edgar Wright laughing at his own jokes from the film he wrote, directed and produced  

* e.g directing a car chase in america as a British director and Americans know nothing about the parts of cars and road layouts.

[TheMightyEthan]

Do you mean Americans didn't understand the British car terminology, or were actually less knowledgeable about cars?

[deanb]

They didn't know British car terminology. So if you're saying "now slide over the bonnet" they're going to go "the what now?". "Then Spacey will put the money in the boot" "I don't think the money is going to fit in my shoes...also wardrobe gave me Oxford shoes, should they be boots?"

[Hot Heart]

I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming last night. It was fantastic and I recommend it to everyone.

... serious post.

Did a BD/SM double-bill. That's Baby Driver/Spider-Man, of course.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

As someone who never really loved the Raimi films, you'll get a sense of how to take it when I say that this is the best Spider-Man film. Maybe you don't agree overall, but Holland is definitely the best Parker and Spider-Man. On that I will fight you.

I think my only gripe, which I'll put up front, is that it feels like he's thrilled with the idea of being a superhero more than wanting to do the right thing. I mean, he was brought in to deal with a rebelling superhero with no questions asked and he's obsessed with "more missions" (sidenote: did he sign the Accords?). I guess it makes sense since he's still just a teenager and that's probably more a consequence of not having the Uncle Ben stuff within the film. They have Ned saying, "You could have died" early on but it never really sinks in for Peter about how much it would hurt May if something happened until the end of second act low-point and even then it's immediately switched to "I lost the internship". I guess I shouldn't complain too much, since I wouldn't want things to get too maudlin...

Also, the "8 Years Later" thing has me confused because, while I believe the early MCU films were actually grouped around a few months or a more condensed timeframe, the later ones have all been assumed to have been set when they were released. So, was the first Avengers film actually set in 2009 and not 2012?

Anyway, all that aside, this does a great job of grounding Parker in his domestic setting and establishing those relationships and it's a lot of fun. Lots of great gags and moments throughout (I love the Enhanced Interrogation Mode scene and later callback) with a nice sense of escalation. Vulture's also a refreshing change as a villain, which I'm sure others have already commented on.

There's the usual bunch of easter eggs and things to spot, but one that's maybe not obvious or even intentional is that (potential minor spoiler so tagged just in case)

 

"Suit Lady" or "Karen" is voiced by Jennifer Connelly who is married to none other than Paul Bettany, the original "Suit Man"

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that it has a great post-credits scene. Not that that you weren't going to stick around for it anyway.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

I'll be seeing it on Tuesday (with or without my brother, he's not great on plans).

RE your bit in the spoiler tag, I think it's very intentional.

I guess I'll get back to you on the 8 years thing when I have context, but I know with GotG2 they made a point of it being set in 2014, and not long after the first GotG, so come Infinity War ~4 years will have passed for the Guardians. Iron Man 2, Thor and Incredible Hulk are all around the same time, so I'd guess that if we assume they take place in the earliest point in time Hulk was in '08. Though I wouldn't feel Avengers was in '09 as it would make sense a bit more time than a few months had passed given in Avengers we've got a weapon built on the Destroyer which I assume took more than a couple months to build, and the tesseract "phase 2" powered nuke was (supposedly) built as a response to Asgardians which I also feel wouldn't have taken a few months to throw together (though they did have a bunch of Hydra weapons). Also there's Doctor Strange which throws a bunch of spanners in the works. Also in GotG2 despite being set in 2014 it makes reference to an event from a 2016 film, which I guess would be explained away if you pushed the in-movie universe back in time several years. Otherwise I guess come Ragnarok Odin has been missing for 4 years (which I guess given Asgardian life spans maybe isn't that long a period of time...but still 4 years without a proper leader. Could you imagine! ;P ).

I'll probably continue this with myself on Tuesday in the MCU thread.

[Hot Heart]

18 minutes ago, deanbmmv said:

RE your bit in the spoiler tag, I think it's very intentional.

I guess I'll get back to you on the 8 years thing when I have context,

The only reason I say that it's maybe not entirely deliberate is that it might've just come about due to Bettany's connection more than the director, producer, etc. going, "You know who would be cool in this role..."

I'll put the timeframe stuff in the MCU thread.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'll second Spiderman being great. It's the best MCU film at least since Winter Soldier.

[Mister Jack]

Yeah, Spiderman was pretty good.  The villain was great, which is funny because I've always hated Vulture in the comics.  Here, however, he's a great character and Michael Keaton brings a ton of charisma to the role.  It's also funny, perhaps too funny for its own good.  It almost felt like I was watching a comedy at some points.  My one major complaint is that the side characters kind of fall flat.  Ned at least has a reason to be there and he does something useful, but Michelle serves no purpose in the movie and I just flat out cannot buy Flash Thompson being a mathlete bully.  I mean come on.  I'm pretty sure I could bully him if I wanted to and I am not a big guy by any stretch.  Aunt May is okay but it kinda feels like she's only there because she has to be. 

Spoiler

I'm ambivalent on the "villain finds out Peter's identity" plot device being used yet again.  On the one hand, it happens in EVERY movie and it's getting old.  On the other hand, if they had to do it again, at least the way they did it here was actually rather realistic.  No stupid bullshit like Peter leaving a name label on his camera, just Toomes using cold, hard logic to deduce the truth as a result of Peter's sloppiness.  I liked that he didn't immediately go after Aunt May when he found out but instead offered Peter a chance to walk away.  That's something you don't see very often from supervillains.

Definitely the best Spiderman movie since Spiderman 2 though, despite my nitpicks.

[deanb]

Spider-Man Homecoming

Vulture/Keaton was pretty great and I think helped really elevate the film. It helped bring in Iron Man antagonism (though being able to operate for 8 years is a bit :/). He was certainly far more menacing and did help show that there's plenty of scope to Spider-man villains than just Goblin and venom. I guess they're hinting at Scorpion for the next one though tbh I'd quite like to see Mysterio (though we've had no overt reference to spidey-sense, in fact Spider-man is nearly ran over as Peter very early on and only responds with human-level response, so Mysterio might not entirely work as his big menance to Spider-man is fucking over his spidey-sense).

Oh as far as Flash goes I thought it was quite good that he's not your usual big dumb bruiser type. Bullies come in all shapes n sizes. I did kinda dislike that "Michelle" is "MJ". Aunt May seems to have been written as a nod n wink to the reception she had in Civil War (even though she's the same age as Tony). She is otherwise a bit useless except for the f-bomb at the end.

 

The reveal of Vulture being her dad was great. Like at first for me part of it was "oh god he's waiting for Spiderman" but at that point he doesn't know, it's not until it's mentioned he left the party early and was at DC that he realises, and it's no "oh shit, fucked the captains daughter" level of "working it out" it was quite good him just kinda putting the events together and realising he's Spider-man. And yeah it was cool he was basically like "drop it and I'll leave you be". At the end of the day he's still a dad and Spider-man did save his daughter and I don't think he'd really want to knowingly kill a 15 year old kid/his daughters date.

I find it a little bit convenient that the plane (which took off from within NYC so why the fuck bother hiding it) was AI operated with no guards on board.

Oh and post-credits? Apart from two others, no one in Darlo has patience

[Mr. GOH!]

Spider-Man: Homecoming.

I did not expect it to be as good as it was in addition to featuring the best on-screen portrayal of Spider-Man. The story was coherent, character-driven, and interesting, the stakes were appropriate for the character, and Spider-Man was seamlessly integrated into the larger MCU without being overshadowed. 

I'm not a huge fan of his new suit's many gadgets and his AI assistant; I hope they're toned down in the sequels. I thought it was pretty interesting that Peter's motivation was not grounded in his uncle's death but in his hero-worship of the Avengers, which is a very big change from the previous Spidey movies. 

The Peter-as-a-student stuff was very good and grounded and I am glad we didn't get yet another iteration of Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane Watson. I liked the new characters and the riffs on old ones. Ned was fantastic and a great "chair guy"; I hope he shows up in the sequels. I also like that Flash was a preppy nerd (a nascent techbro, if you will) rather than a jock. I also liked the new "MJ" (not Mary Jane Watson, according to Feige - although she is obviously Peter's long-term love interest) being sort of a chillaxed activist nerd type rather than a popular kid who wants to be an actress.

I saw the twist coming 80 miles away, but the reveal was good and the subsequent scenes were great, although there is a plot hole in the immediate aftermath.

Spoiler

How did the Shocker get there so fast if Toomes only figured out that Peter was Spider-Man on the ride over to Homecoming?

 

The humor was good and every character, even the side characters, felt well-developed, although 

Spoiler

a senior girl like Liz dating a sophomore like Peter would be weird and her crush on him felt forced anyway since she was gung-ho about extracurriculars and he had turned into a flake over the previous six months or so.

This version of the Vulture and the other Spider-Man villains were pretty great. I'd go so far to say that Toomes had the clearest and most logical motivation of any Marvel movie villain to date. He's not as fun as Loki, true, but I hope he's involved in future Spider-Man stories, even just as a side character. I also liked his crew, especially the dumb and ineffectual first Shocker; I think being dumb and ineffectual is sort of a Shocker tradition.

[TheMightyEthan]

Spider-Man pulled off something very difficult: it surprised me with how good it was, even after I went into it having heard how good it was.

[TheMightyEthan]

Wonder Woman.

This one was good, but did not quite manage to exceed my expectations from having heard it was good.  But it was still good!  Somehow I had managed to miss the fact that it's set in WW1, so that was a surprise, and makes it feel like it's copying Captain America: TFA (not that it is, because it's not, but it feels like it is).

I kinda wish I hadn't seen it though, because it's making me want to watch the rest of the DCCU, which I have heard nothing but bad things about...

[Mister Jack]

When the Wind Blows

I basically watched this because someone dared me to.  It's well made but god damn, it's hard to watch.  It's about an elderly British couple named James and Hilda who live in Cold War times and manage to survive a nuclear strike from Russia by using a lean-to shelter James built by following the instructions in a government pamphlet.  However, they are ignorant to the true dangers of radioactive fallout and it comes back to bite them in the ass hard for the entire second half of the film.  Even while they're both deteriorating from the radiation, James insists that the government will be sending rescue any day now and Hilda keeps worrying about trivial things like the errands she needs to run.  

Spoiler

The movie ends with James and Hilda getting into a pair of large paper bags and crawling back under the shelter to wait.  James is still waiting for the government to come and save them, but Hilda is just waiting to die.  The whole point of the movie is clearly that there is no surviving a nuclear missile, despite what government pamphlets at the time tried to claim.

Watching it made me glad that I'm too young to remember the Cold War.  Having to live with the fear of being nuked every day must have been hell.

[Mr. GOH!]

The War for the Planet of the Apes.

It's half Western, half war movie and it's ultimately about the futility of revenge and violence. The apes are great to watch and the actors' performances shine through the CGI ape costumes. It's kinda ridiculous how good the recent Planet of the Apes movies have been. It's not perfect, but it is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy, even if it wallows in sentimentalism at the end. 

[TCP]

Wonder Woman

It was rad. 

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

It was also rad. Maybe not necessary. If this was 1992 and a Twin Peaks movie came out after the season 2 finale, and it was that, I might have been sour. Also I figured there'd be more David Bowie given his importance in season 3. The best part was with Annie though.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Le Poète Vachegarçon

[CorgiShinobi]

Finally saw Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Easily Top 3 Marvel films for me. I'm already a big Spider-Man fan, but this film does a lot different from the prior Spider-Man films. I will side with Holland being the best Peter Parker and this film alone being better than Spider-Man 2 thanks to Toomes/Vulture being a highlight point to this film's excellence. Michael Keaton was just so amazing as the antagonist and it helps that he has a realistic motive. My main gripe though is, though this is a comic book movie, it's hard to believe that a once salvage company is capable of manufacturing alien-hybrid weaponry and operating underground for 8 years.

But I guess that's a testament once again to how great Toomes was; that I could overlook that gripe for the rest of the film.

It wasn't until the end of the film that I realized how much Homecoming has deviated from some foundations of Spider-Man's origin. It's for the better after this being the second reboot and Spider-Man being introduced in Civil War. I remember reading up on the absence of spider-sense, so with that in mind I interpreted the suit AI being the film's replacement for spider-sense. It told Peter how many bad guys were in the van, where to go, and even said it was the right time to confess to Liz. It wasn't perfect though and it didn't stay around the entire film. Also, like Hot Heart said, there isn't quite an Uncle Ben moment and instead the film relies on Tony Stark to ground Peter more from being a reckless hero. He's like Peter's cool uncle that has the best toys.

Speaking of relatives, new Aunt May is still hot. The film makes it a point to show you that's the consensus with those around Peter. Not from a sexual perspective, but I'm glad Aunt May is this young because my personal gripe with Spider-Man narratives is that Aunt May might as well be Peter's grandmother who would probably forget Peter is Spider-Man one afternoon. Liz was a serviceable love interest, but I suspected she was not the MJ of this new Spider-Man. I didn't actually see the twist and loved it.

As for

actual MJ, she is such a tsundere. "What are you doing, but not like I care, baka!" I ended up being okay with her, but she has such edge she better be careful not to cut herself.

[deanb]

War for the Planet of the Apes

Or I guess 

War for the Planet of the Apes

as it's stylised for the opening (which was a nice Star Wars style refresher and acknowledges the confusing titling of prior films as "Dawn" and "Rise" which are essentially the same thing.

Very good film, and I'm with Goh in being how surprised how solid these films have been. An enjoyable trilogy I'll happily be pulling out to watch for years to come. And yeah I quite liked the sort of mash up of genres in it. And technologically yeah it's pretty dang amazing, here's looking forward to how rubbish it'll look in 10 years time but I feel that might not end up being the case (I'd say only quirks were a few wide shots on the horseback that looked a bit oddly animated; I'd guess not mocapped).

Interview with Serkis a few weeks back he spoke of how much he n Harrelson got on and already planning a future project together which is always cool to see. 

 

[Mr. GOH!]

Dunkirk. 

Best war movie since Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now. Beautifully constructed and shot. Tense as hell.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

How is Harry Styles in it?

[Mr. GOH!]

He's a jerk in it. But he's not a main character and he's fine.

[Hot Heart]

Ex Machina

Decent thriller with some strong performances from all involved and interesting subject matter. I think there's some fun discussion to be had around one element... but it probably doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

[deanb]

Is that one element Oscaar Isaacs dancing that he didn't reprise in Star Wars?

 

[Zeo-Gold92]

I'll throw Spiderman Homecoming into the ring as well but I don't need to add to the praise that has already been shelled out on it. It's the truth, it was great I had very few problems with it. 

I'll also mention Get Out, I watched it a couple weeks ago now. I went into it not expecting too much regardless of the praise I had heard. Holy hell though, it was twisted and great, quite an interesting film. 

[deanb]

Atomic Blonde

 

Watched this with my mum and her partner (which if you've seen the film you'll know is not a great idea). It wears its graphic novel roots proudly, and is a very slick and stylish film(opening with spray painted credits and a neon title should clue you in quite early on). Great soundtrack too.

I'd say that "female John Wick" is a simple comparison though hugely lacking. The fighting I guess is somewhat realistic in that people get winded, they're wrecked and knackered after long fights rather than the Bourne equivalent of getting up n then doing a cross country run right after fighting off some thugs. The core part of the story is that of a cold war thriller, framed by the interrogation/debriefing of Charlize Therons character. It's pretty solid film of deception, deceit and mistrust of the late cold-war 80s around the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

Of note for my screening:

There is a bit where she wields some keys in her hand as a weapon and jams it in a guys cheek which was not appreciated by my mums partner but I thought was quite funny as he's going through the rest of the fight with a set of keys hanging off his face. Oh and kinda cool gamer related note: this fight is in an east Berlin cinema while Stalker is playing in the background. 

There's also a lesbian sex scene with "that girl from the mummy film".