movies

[The Third Man]

I just saw Ghost in the Shell myself. Here's what I wrote about it elsewhere:

I'll just kill two birds with one stone and compare the two, since I imagine most people would wonder, why see this and not just the original? They actually emphasize very different themes. The original only lightly touches on the idea of what makes a human a human, instead focusing on the idea of technology/artificial intelligence/the internet as evolutionary steps for mankind, but this one explicitly foregrounds those identity concerns. What's more, it draws a direct link between dehumanization, globalism, corporatism, and the deep state, so that, if anything, this film shares more in common with RoboCop - albeit updated for concerns that have become more acute in 2017 - than the original GitS, which treated the idea of cybernetic enhancement, the erosion of identity, and bodily autonomy with much less skepticism. (Though, I will say, the new film does lack for its subtlety.)

It's pretty deft at touching on all this stuff too, because it's very easy to simply appreciate this as a mystery-action thriller. A lot of its thematic cues are built into the cinematography, the plot, the design of the world itself, without ever having to be expressly conveyed through dialogue. Which isn't to say it's a brilliant screenplay - like I said, it lacks for subtlety - but it's very streamlined. It also loses some of the headier philosophizing of the original, but YMMV on how you feel about that change, because it always struck me as rather...clunky, in the original. Great in theory, left something to be desired in practice.

It also shares intertextuality with A.I., Her, Blade Runner, The Matrix, etc. - and while, granted, a lot of the themes it shares with those films are common ground for cyberpunk/science fiction, it's clear when it's nodding to a specific work. A few examples I can think of: the way the city is dwarfed by those massive Blade Runner-esque advertising holograms, which dominate the landscape and the characters; the way Scarlett Johannsen's inability to appreciate physical touch points to her role in Her; and a nod to the black cat glitch in The Matrix.

I don't think I need to convince anybody that this [expletive] is bliss injected straight into your eyeballs, either. a e s t h e t i c

If you're worried that it would be an action-packed remake, it really doesn't have very much action. Like, maybe ten or fifteen minutes' worth. There's a recontextualization of the famous tank battle from the original, but every other action setpiece is pretty brief.

[Famous Mortimer]

I wish I went to see the film you did!

There's one scene where they're, I think, in a bay, or the camera is outside the city, looking at it, and we see the looming holographic advertising hoardings. Who, exactly, were those hoardings pointing at? Boat captains? Long-distance swimmers? (It's possible I may have misunderstood the location of the scene) And the new eyes her sidekick had fitted - hope he never has to rely on peripheral vision.

The nod to the Matrix (sorry, the intertextuality) is more in the beyond-played-out slow motion gunplay than it is in the glitching. There, it's

[SHOW]

an indication that reality is a construct; with this, it's just that she had some false memories implanted, in exactly the same way as the episode of "Stargate SG-1" I watched the other night.

I remain to be convinced that it was bliss injected into my eyeballs, too - it just looked like every other cyberpunk thriller I've ever seen, only with a lot more money to throw at the screen. Significantly less interesting to look at than "Blade Runner" or "The Matrix", I thought. Oh, and why did Takeshi Kitano take this role if he wasn't going to bother acting? He looked permanently like he'd just been woken up from a nice dream and resented having to read his lines.

I just checked and it seems that the 90s movie has a significantly higher Rotten Tomatoes rating than this new one - I might have to check that one out (I'm completely unfamiliar with the GITS world). I didn't hate this new one, I just thought it was a bit dull.

[stlouie_lipp]

Finally watched Kong: Skull Island last night. (It's not the greatest Kong movie ever, that would be The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters) However, it was a really good spectacle movie. Thought it had a pretty fresh approach and take.

Went to see it yesterday. Loved it. 2 hours of fun!

[MuntyJay]

Book Thief - is a masterpiece, a very touchy story, 10/10

[MrCrowesGarden]

[go birds]

Finally got a chance to see GET OUT and my initial reaction was....that was it? "Sup with all the hype?"

It was good, dont get me wrong, but near perfect on rotten tomatoes good? Nahhhh.

Maybe i need to watch again, but it came up short imo

[JoeMcKim]

Finally got a chance to see GET OUT and my initial reaction was....that was it? "Sup with all the hype?"

It was good, dont get me wrong, but near perfect on rotten tomatoes good? Nahhhh.

Maybe i need to watch again, but it came up short imo

I haven't seen the movie yet but Get Out looks like such a weird movie. It almost likes like a movie parodying a horror movie. It's like this can't be a real movie can it?

[Famous Mortimer]

I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

About a week after I saw it, a group called "Conscious Conversations" had a public forum about it - it was interesting to see what a large group of black people thought of it, and how some of the scenes that just passed me by had a special resonance for a lot of them.

[ghostrunner]

I guess Colossal isn't getting a wide release, which puzzles me. Seems like a good theater experience and I had it mentally marked down as something to go see with my wife.

[Famous Mortimer]

Looking forward to the new Kingsman film, the first one was amazing and fingers are crossed that the new one is good too (the "teaser" released yesterday was quite funny, and caused some sites to go through it frame by frame, as I'm sure the producers knew it would).

But never mind that, as I just watched the two "CyberTracker" movies starring Don The Dragon Wilson, from the mid 90s. So many explosions! So much car destruction! Such a daft plot!