Last OK Movie You Saw

[deanb]

Secret Life of Pets

 

I didn't actively watch this, but nothing in the first moments really drew me to it beyond the "bits from the trailer with the animals acting out". Anywho the story starts with a toy dog named Woody Max  and his friends while their owners are away. Owner brings in a new toy dog called buzz Douglas (or something). They get in a fight and end up cast out into the wide world, they bond while their friends look for them and they all make it home in time for owners getting back.

 

There's a hawk that should totally have eaten several of them, also for some reason unlike Zootopia this film decided to animate buttholes.

 

It amused the children I guess. (we also rewatched Storks too, which still has me asking loads of questions about how baby making works in that world).

[TCP]

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

It might have been the most forgettable film I've ever seen. Just meh all around. Pratt and Denzel are great as cowboys, but all the characters are under-utilized and despite being an average movie length, the whole thing just feels rushed. 

[deanb]

Memento

 

I know it's a critically acclaimed film n all, it just didn't entirely do it for me. A bit too artsy in its telling, Nolan got better at the nested narrative and unreliable narrator with Prestige. I think the ending doesn't quite pay-off the opening either. Also it's a film where you kind of have to watch it a second time to understand the narrative, compared to say a film where you can watch it again and rewarded with new things.

[deanb]

Passengers

 

I can see the mixed reviews. It sort of has the set up for something a bit more than it goes for, 

 

Pratt wakes up Lawrence, and while there is a bit of "you've fucked me over" it doesn't really go too deep into it. Nor the "alone on a ship for a year", instead focusing mostly on the set up for the last act "ship is fucking up".

 

It's overall kinda solid, and nothing really "wrong" with it, but I guess it's a bit...flat. Maybe some sequences could have been shortened to give other moments a bit more time to expand upon. The ship itself was pretty neat. Even if it is not really suitable for the 5,000+ people on board (there's only one bar, and one waiter at the bar. There's only one auto-doc. etc). Also they didn't seem like a believable couple (one thing being the age difference which I looked it up, and Google automagically suggested Chris Pratts age alongside hers so I guess not only one being "they seem weirdly aged"). I'd have said maybe an older actress, would tie in a bit more with her characters backstory for being on the ship I think too.

[Hot Heart]

Kong: Skull Island

 

Only saw this because my cousin wanted to but I suppose Brie Larson was draw enough also. First thing I will say is that, having not paid much attention to it, I didn't realise it was set just after the end of the Vietnam War. Makes sense though and it certainly fits with the themes going on.

 

Overall, it's alright. Some nice imagery (although, some obviously pilfered from actual Vietnam war films) and bits of Kong action; the effects are pretty good and the emotion you get from Kong in one particular moment is very effective.

 

Most of the human characters are somewhat wafer-thin or stereotypical, however, and there are some really odd moments. Some funny ones too, mostly thanks to John C. Reilly who probably saves this from being in the "Crap" thread. There is one morbidly funny moment not from him though...

 

 

When the slightly nutty soldier decides to sacrifice himself with a couple of grenades to give the others more time. He obviously sets it so he'll go bang when the monster gets near/eats him, but instead it just tail whips him off into a cliff side. 

 

 

There is also a post-credits scene... that is somewhat spoiled, seconds before, by some copyright notice. 

 

 

I suppose if this film doesn't do terrible figures, they'll be expanding the "Kongverse/Kaijuverse". I see there is a listing for a 2020 Kong vs. Godzilla film. Hmm...

 

[deanb]

Oh that second spoiler, apart from the specifics of the post-credits, isn't really a spoiler. The MonsterVerse has been planned out for a while. It's why this incarnation of Kong is phenomenally huge compared to the previous; the old 30ft high Kong wouldn't do much against the 300ft Godzilla.

 

As for this being in the OK Thread, figured as much from it first being shown off. Despite the strong cast it just seemed like it didn't have much heart in it and the "skull crawlers" elements would draw away from a "man vs Kong" type storyline.

[CorgiShinobi]

Passengers

 

I agree with Dean's take on the film. The twist that's actually in the film versus the previews:

 

 

It was a powerful moment in the film and I see it as one of those movie moments where you're suppose to be upset with Jim, but also empathize. Basically condemn the act, not the person. He was alone with an android, Arthur, for 1 year and 3 weeks (and a day) when Aurora was woken up. We're suppose to be unsettled at how Jim is living a lie so that he can have some happiness. It wasn't like the idea popped in his head and he rushed off to get the tools to pry her out. It's not quite like Cast Away as Jim doesn't get preoccupied with survival. He's got the luxuries of first class passengers all to himself, but it's piss all when he's isolated with only a mechanical bartender who's programmed to be agreeable.

 

What's more is that you have 5,000 people in the ship with you, but waking up any of them is essentially ruining their life. Your solution to loneliness is staring you in the face, and as Gus said, Jim was the drowning man who could drag others down with him. Of course, Jim actually turns out to be the savior of those 5,000+ people because if he hadn't woken up, then the ship would have eventually exploded only a quarter of the way.

 

 

What degrades the film is all the unrealistic characteristics of the ship. Not it's physical nature, but like Dean mentioned. So there's only one bar? Only one Auto-Doc capsule? What kind of transportation business would be so damn full of itself to say anything during a 120 year space trip can never fail. In that way this film's ship is like the Titanic, and especially within the first five minutes of the film. In some ways it's a bit funny how Jim basically gives a paradoxical statement to the A.I.s around the ship. Even Arthur just kinda hiccups but then brushes it off.

 

I do like how the film ended as 

 

Jim and Aurora took Arthur's stock optimistic advice and applied it to the ship. My only other gripe is that you would think more people would have woken up besides Gus. The ship was going through a lot of malfunctions for a long time. Also, you think Jim would have took the malfunctions more seriously than just repairing vacuum bots. Though, as Arthur said, why worry about the things you can't control.

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by Atomsk88

[danielpholt]

Arrival

 

I didn't love it as much as the directors previous works (mainly Enemy and Sicario), but it's still a fantastic entry into the science fiction genre. Hopefully it's successes allow studios to take less...cartoonish looks at what science fiction can do as a genre. 

[deanb]

Okay?!? The Oscar nominated Arrival is "OK Movie"?

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I agree with Dan on that one.  It was cool to see a different kind of scifi film, but I didn't think the movie itself was anything amazing.

 

Though I had already read the short story it's based on, and I didn't like some of the ways they changed it, so I might have liked it more if I hadn't read it first.

[Mister Jack]

Ghost in the Shell

I wasn't planning to see this one but my friend had an extra ticket so I figured why not.  I don't have any strong attachment to this franchise so the changes didn't bother me as much as they probably bother the hardcore fans.  As a standalone film, it's a decent enough popcorn movie, meaning that it's not too dumb but it's not that smart either. It's well made, and the visual style is quite appealing, but the story is pretty predictable. The action scenes are alright. Not spectacular, but alright. I don't think most people would regret going to see it, but at the same time I wouldn't really urge anybody to go check it out.  It's a decent way to spend an afternoon if you're bored just for the cool effects and atmosphere.  As far as I can tell, this is currently the best western film based on a manga, but I know that isn't saying much when the alternative options are films like Dragonball Evolution and Astro Boy.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Mister Jack

[danielpholt]

On 3/28/2017 at 1:36 PM, deanbmmv said:

Okay?!? The Oscar nominated Arrival is "OK Movie"?

 

 

--

Totally put the film in the wrong thread. I should stop doing that. I like Arrival, I thought it was 'Good' rather than 'Okay'. 

Edited April 1, 2017 by danielpholt
Dan Holting

[deanb]

Assassins Creed

So being a fan of the series I understand a lot of the nuance that was going on, but I can understand that people wouldn't be totally into it if this film is their only exposure to it. It's otherwise quite okay, held up by the actors rather than any script they have to work with.

My biggest beef with the film is:
They are in a facility they are populating with minimally guarded Assassins that through the animus they're essentially training them, and make a note of this in case to Fassbender. However they also leave lying around (and in Fassbenders case actively give him) Assassin weapons including grenades and bows and shit (incidentally the guards also have crossbows for some reason, I'd guess cos they're silent and they're in a city area?).

On the writing front as well the Abstergos side is pretty much presented as pure bad guy stuff, yet I think they could have easily made them more "relatable" (as the games have had a crack at making it). It sucks cos Jeremy Irons is a great actor who has a habit of popping up in quite crap films, especially last year in both AC and BvS. They also under utilise Brendan Gleeson too, like they could have had a no-name for the role they had him in.

The animus itself was pretty great though, loved the design and felt it was much better, for the sake of a film, than the usual chair we have in the games. I felt the holograms could have maybe been a bit more saturated though, made it hard to figure out "oh hey he's chatting with his mum". And I appreciate their use of spanish in the film too, where they could have easily had it all in English and be "oh yeah the Animus translates on the fly", which iirc is the handwave in the games (despite the odd bit of actual italian or what not showing up). The stunts were all pretty great, though bits of the spanish side were quite forgettable and cliche.

It's unlikely to get a sequel, though I'd say it kinda stands on its own, which is a bit of a shame as I feel the AC franchise would work quite well from a film perspective and they had a lot of the jigsaw pieces in place here, just bits of the plot were a tad lazy.

[deanb]

Ghost in the Shell

 

Visually it's great. Upon Blu-Ray release I'll be poring all over its design. Some of the cinematography was pretty dang cool too (There's a raid midway through that's done from a birds eye view which is pretty cool looks a bit like an old RTS...or I guess Satellite Reign).Batou was absolutely a stand out for me (to be fair I quite enjoy him in SAC too). And there was complaints on his eyes being black instead of white, but they're clearly shown as lenses in this and lenses are black (I'm to understand it was prosthetic too which is cool, and I can believe that given they have done quite a bit of practical stuff). In fact the practical stuff is pretty great considering it's the kind of film you could easily do it all green screen with balls on sticks and such. Obviously the hologram stuff is all CGI mind. 

They also use this kind of cool cross between motion blur and slow mo that kinda looks like a toned down localised version of the "slowmo" effect in Dredd). It's really cool in a scene where Major is being attacked by three guys with glowing taser batons and they're leaving like a stream of light behind them. And also seen when she's fighting to show she's moving at super human speeds and motions (which despite a bit I'm about to complain on is well shown when she kicks a guy in the chest about 30 feet).

I put it in the okay section as;
I felt the ending was quite anti-climatic. It fell a bit flat and I felt that the film kinda seemed short. I've seen someone suggest it could have done with like a bog standard mission with the team near the start, bit more establishing of Section 9 and the team and I do agree with that assessment. 

The invisible fight in the shallow water was waayyy too fan servicey in having little reason to be in this film other than it was a cool bit of the original film. There are quite a few things from the original film and I'd say many of the fit in being reproduced (I got my wish for a scene with the fingers), but this felt a bit too forced and contrived. 

 

Aramaki was cool, and in fact I'd say cooler than he is in the originals. And was a really nice element that he spoke in subbed Japanese (I watch stuff dubbed so they all speak English...except when they speak Latin :P). Nice touch to show that cos of the cyber brains you just have things auto-translated for you.

Which brings us to Scarlets character.

She plays a character called "Major Mira Killian", which as we all know is a super Japanese name and there has been issues on her playing a totally Japanese character.

 

The film is less about the topic of souls and differences between humans and AI, this pretty much avoids AI topics for the most part, as the original is and more about memories and their tying in to identity. Due to the process of her full cyberisation Major has minimal memories prior, as revealed to be on purpose, and it is something discussed both by Batou (who envys her, since he's got a war past) and her doctor/creator (who takes on a kind of motherly caring role despite keeping her from truths).

But yes, due to her lack of memories she is "Mira" and referred to as such throughout the film. However it is revealed that she was a drifter of sorts called Motoko Kusanagi who was taken off the streets forcefully and subjected to the cyberisation experiment. Motoko Kusanagi is played by a Japanese actress (IMDB lists her as Kaori Yamamoto). Mira goes and visits her biological mother, who recognises her of sorts through her mannerisms. 

It kinda ties in with the whole ghost/shell element in that despite being externally no longer human she is still underneath it all herself and even her mum can see that.

So it does I guess put the studio at a bit of a hard spot since in order to justify the use of Scarlett they'd have to essentially give away a final third story element. It would have actually been a bit of a "wait what" to have her go from one Japanese actress to another Japanese actress, and have people going "oh so all Japanese look the same and that's why her mum recognises her?". Bit of a damned if do situation.

So in summary:
Looks great, characters are great, some weird editing/directing choices that make it a bit flat. I'm totally up for watching it again and digesting it some more. (compared to AC which I'm less inclined to)

[TheMightyEthan]

Changing the character to a Western name to make the character "actually" white instead of just being played by a white actor is only slightly less bad than having a white person straight up play a Japanese character.

[Thursday Next]

Yeah, on white washing, I don't see why they couldn't have chosen two very different looking Japanese actresses (if you want to make sure that westerners can tell the difference and that it isn't lowkey "You all look alike" stuff).

I liked the general presentation of GitS, nails that cyberpunky, blade runner vibe. Because I don't follow the manga and only watched the anime movie ages ago it didn't feel like a betrayal of the source.

What I didn't like was that they used a sledgehammer to get their points across. "This is your shell. Your mind is a ghost. We are now going to put your ghost in a shell so there will be a ghost in the shell." Repeat about six times throughout the movie just in case people are wondering why there aren't any haunted crustaceans running about...

I mean, surely people have heard, even in passing of "ghost in the machine" and the concept of our organic bodies being shells for our consciousness? Do we really need such blunt tools to explain this more?

[Mister Jack]

For the record, I don't think they cast Scarlett as the Major because they were afraid to have a Japanese lead.  I think they did it because they were trying to bank on having a household name as their star and there just aren't many Japanese actresses over here who are famous, let alone as famous as Scarlett.  It didn't work, but I still think they were more concerned about recognition than race.

[Thursday Next]

Oh sure, part of the reason is that Scarlett is way more famous in Asia than the most famous Asian actress is in the US, so it has more "global appeal" for want of a better term.

This interview is quite interesting on how the race swap doesn't work. I honestly missed the unconscious racism of "We made the best robotic bodies possible and guess what, turns out white guys and girls are best. Sorry Japanese brain, you have a new home now."

[deanb]

18 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

For the record, I don't think they cast Scarlett as the Major because they were afraid to have a Japanese lead.  I think they did it because they were trying to bank on having a household name as their star and there just aren't many Japanese actresses over here who are famous, let alone as famous as Scarlett.  It didn't work, but I still think they were more concerned about recognition than race.

This is pretty much the primary reason from an "sausage factory" stand point on why she's the Major.

"Hey money guys we'd like to make a live-action adaptation of a Japanese animated movie. Please give us lots of money to do this."

"Okay, but we want a return on investment. We're already at a risk on adapting an anime given *points to Dragonball Evolution*. So make sure there's a big star to draw the crowds"
"Well we had planned on Rinko Kikuchi"
"Never heard of her, no money for you"
"Okay what about ScarJo"
"The lead female from the billion dollar grossing Avengers franchise? Sure, here's your money go make your film"

(also if you didn't catch it right at the opening when it's rattling off the producers it's partly Chinese funded, which probably goes further than any to explain why it's a big hollywood star).

Also personally I think it's reaching to equate the "it's the best of robotics" to be "they're saying white is better" when it's much more linear to equate it with "replacing your parts with super-servos and artificial skin that can be tougher and healed easier, and given you tech that lets you go invisible is better". Hanlons razor n all. If Major was a black actress you'd have people going "oh she can run faster cos she's black" and it's "no, she can run faster cos her legs are made from high-end motors and hydraulics".

[TheMightyEthan]

I don't think Thursday meant that they were intentionally trying to say "they're better cause they're white," just that that is an unfortunate implication that arises when "making them better" also makes them white.  So yes, Hanlon's razor, they probably didn't even think of it, but really they should be trying to be more cognizant of this stuff.

[deanb]

Oh it's not Thursday saying that, it's from the interview.

Quote

Okatsuka: And they f—ed up in the process because now it looks even worse. The text at the beginning of the movie explained that Hanka Robotics is making a being that's the best of human and the best of robotics. For some reason, the best stuff they make happens to be white. Michael Pitt used to be Hideo.

Which I've only just noticed counter to the headline isn't actually with Japanese actresses at all as all but one are American. Which makes it as good an interview as asking Mark Hamill the plight of English actors being cast as villains because he is of English-descent.

Which I think is a big part of the backlash, it's quite an American thing with racism n what not. Like, the actually Japanese director of the original movie is all "so what?". I'd say it's a decent thing to note that the Japanese mother doesn't act like a traditionally Japanese mother would (though the interviewee says of "especially moms generation" which given the setting would actually be like..our generation). However it's a bit brought down by being she's directed like an "American bitch" and "mimicking an American" and "get us to act American" when...the director is English. And hugging your mum is certainly something you'd do over here. (Also I think a black British director would probably have the mother hug too, so it's not a "I knew she was directed by white directors" thing either..).

[TheMightyEthan]

I think that quote is essentially the same as what Thursday said: just saying it's unfortunate implications, not actually saying they did it maliciously.

And anyway, talking about how Japanese people from Japan feel about it is completely missing the point.  I can't find it now but I saw a really good post on the topic from a 2nd generation Japanese-American woman talking about how in Japan they're surrounded by media portraying Japanese people as heroes, and just including them in general, so one movie making them white doesn't matter, but in America that isn't the case at all.  And since it's an American movie, that is rightly the context in which it is being judged.

[deanb]

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract

The DC animated movies have been far superior to their live action output so far but I'd say this is one of the weaker ones so far. Though I feel that most of my mehness towards it is as soon as Terra shows up you go "oh wait I know this storyline", and you think "but maybe they'll go with something a bit different here?"...nope.

I did find the jokes about Starfire and Nightwings relationship amusing as a side plot.

"Starfire and Nightwing have a training duel
Starfire: "You did very well, you lasted far longer this time"
Teen Titans: *snigger*
Starfire: "I meant in training of course, he's very proficient when we have s-"
Nightwing: "KORI!"

Also it's in a kind of pseudo Young Justice world too (not sure if it's canonically following it mind, but much the same character set). Voice wise, cos I was "I recognise that voice but from where" Christina Ricci is Terra, and not a "I recognise that voice" but did the name, Dr Tam is Nightwing. Oh and the relationship between Slade and Terra is certainly not what you got in the old Cartoon Network show. :/

 

It's worth a shot and all, especially if you like the current animated output (I'd say it's worth giving a shot) and fond memories of Teen Titans back in the day, but I felt it was jsut a bit flat and cliched in the telling.

[Thursday Next]

Precisely as Ethan says. I don't think there was an explicit "the best robot is a white person robot because round eyes etc. are objectively superior" message. At the same time when you take a Japanese person and say "we are going to perfect you." and as part of that perfection process she becomes white because that's just what the android making machine made by the Japanese, in Japan, for Japanese consumers happens to be set to on the day that they churned out the Major it displays an unconscious, unintentionally racist message that white is superior that could, and should have been avoided.

They could for example have crow-barred in a reason that Matoko now looks like the Major, like the Major was in section 9 already, and actually died, so they covered up the death and copied her body to avoid questions as to where this random Japanese girl sprung from.

In short, they made a conscious decision to choose a white actress to play Major, they should at least have had a conscious decision behind the in fiction Major being white.

[deanb]

18 minutes ago, Thursday Next said:

 she becomes white because that's just what the android making machine made by the Japanese, in Japan, for Japanese consumers happens to be set to on the day that they churned out the Major it displays an unconscious, unintentionally racist message that white is superior that could, and should have been avoided.

The guy running the company and the woman who kind of "designed" the robots were both clearly white though, so I'm not sure it's cut and dry as a Japanese company*, or that they're developing these high end experimental cyber bodies that they send the first (successful) one off to a specialist task force for average joe japanese consumers. Given the company also had spider tanks I'd assumed it was definitely a more military role that had in mind for this; soldiers with no past to hang on to, super speed and strength, high end hacking abilities, and easily repairable bodies and such. 

On the flip side there's the thing of where you cast her as Japanese but then plotwise within the story you end up instead of the question of "why would you kidnap a japanese woman, and turn her into another japanese woman" or they do like a laser scan n remake her exact and then it's "why was it a big mystery of her past when a face scan would go "oh you're not Mira you're Motoko". I know in the original she's in a cybernetic body from very young and SAC shows she's attached to her particular frame (despite Batous insistence she get a male body) but is she at all based on her original "human" looks? (obviously as she got older she'd have little to base herself on in that regard). The first (or second) episode of SAC, with the Geisha bots in, even revolves around a cyber brain being put in another guys body to sneak it out the country so it's obviously a thing within that world.

I understand that diversity in casting is a sore poin, but I feel that GitS handled it pretty well. Aramaki is a Japanese actor who speaks Japanese throughout, something they could have easily just had him going on in English but instead this was a nice touch and added a bit of depth to the film and the "cyberisation of society" stuff, and IIRC ScarJo is actually the only american in Section 9 and looking into it...yeah that's the case. Got a mix of Danish, Singapore, Japanese, Australian, and Zimbabwean. I just kinda feel that peoples minds went "oh hollywood is adapting an anime film, let's latch onto the first thing we can to tear it down", and that was ScarJos casting at the exclusion of all else. Especially considering there's elements of the film you could use to tear it apart on its own merits such as some of the lazy wholesale use of entire scenes from the 1985 movie rather than deleicate touches (e.g the water uzi/invisible fight versus Oulets secretary with the split fingers thing). Or discussions that in a film built so much around the digital it features some excellent practical props and effects work.

*IIRC from the anime stuff it's implied Japan has quite advanced laws around cybernetics compared to other places such as the "American Empire" (the global politics is never alluded to in the film including, as noted, where this is set), so a lot of the development happens there. Same as nowadays Silicon Valley is the hotbed for tech start ups and Hollywood the home of cinema (though that was more about a lack of laws :P)