Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 23, 2023 21:08:05 GMT -8
Hi, sorry, ProBoards has not been loading for me for ages otherwise I would have logged in with this sooner. Alright, since you all wanted this, all the theatrical releases of 2022 that I remember having watched in 2022, from best to worst:
EEAAO (duh)
3000 Years of Longing (weird IMO given Miller's last genre film was so acclaimed that no one is talking about this film)
Bullet Train (yes, I'm as surprised as you are. it was fun!) Easter Sunday
Nope Men (Alex Garland is so good that he can make a movie with no plot and the worst's stupidest feminist "subtext" and it's GREAT anyway)
2 Knives 2 Out (Ben Shapiro is correct about this movie, much as it pains me to say it, but I liked it anyway)
Bodies Bodies Bodies
The Black Phone (mostly for the adorably un-nostalgic '70s milieu and A+ needle drops - like Stranger Things but not shit)
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Ha Ha Nic Cage Is Wacky, The Movie! (if this was just My Dinner with Andre with Cage and Pascal it would be the film of the decade)
The 90-Minute Bob's Burgers Episode That Was Released in Theatres for Some Reason
See How They Run (the "we have Knives Out 2 at home!" of movies; I did not crack a single smile)
There's a couple films I missed in theaters that I'm going to check out now that I have Hulu - Fresh and maaaybe Prey, although having no nostalgia for Predator makes me think I'll skip that one. Jer, I kind of want to watch Mad God now, having had no idea this movie existed. Did you catch Wendell & Wild? It's insane to me that Henry Selick & Jordan Peele made a movie together and it somehow flew completely under the radar. (EDIT: wait, nvm, you did see it and were underwhelmed. whatever, it's Key and Peele's Coraline, there is no way I am not going to have a good time here.)
Anyways, regarding Metropolis, it's hardly a "perfect" film (it's big and silly, and the big denouement at the end -- "THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE HEAD AND THE HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!" -- is super-corny), but it's such a grand, ambitious visual experience that's permanently wedged in my sub-conscious, and influenced so....many....notable films in the years that followed. It's just ridiculous (Fritz Lang actually hated the picture when he first finished it, but grew to appreciate it over time), and I love it. And I'm glad you saw the, uh, most complete version available, because despite the rough, stitched-together sections with so much visual degradation, it's definitely better than the shorter version that existed for years. And the original sections were pretty well preserved, and still look great today! Ha - figures you'd all be getting into Metropolis immediately before the film entered the public domain earlier this year!
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 23, 2023 21:46:31 GMT -8
Oh, right, Elvis, I saw that. Some people might think it's perverse that Baz Luhrmann chose to focus the movie not on Elvis himself, but on the creepy Euro kobold-man enthralled by Americana and yet totally unable to grok its appeal nor its soul, who thus desperately tries to mold Elvis into a glitzy multimedia spectacle more to his liking. I think it's apt.
Fine, I'll preempt your "in English, Q" - it was pretty bad! It is very weird to see a movie that asserts that Elvis is the GOAT, a rock'n'roll god whose croon transforms any ol' opry into a goddamn orgy... and then basically decides, um, no actually, Elvis sucks, we need to zhuzh up this film with fucking Doja Cat. The film's mandatory acknowledgement of the black roots of rock'n'roll is exactly as half-hearted as you'd expect. Luhrmann should thank his lucky stars that Austin Butler is so astonishingly good here.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 24, 2023 8:40:08 GMT -8
There's a couple films I missed in theaters that I'm going to check out now that I have Hulu - Fresh and maaaybe Prey, although having no nostalgia for Predator makes me think I'll skip that one. Jer, I kind of want to watch Mad God now, having had no idea this movie existed. Did you catch Wendell & Wild? It's insane to me that Henry Selick & Jordan Peele made a movie together and it somehow flew completely under the radar. (EDIT: wait, nvm, you did see it and were underwhelmed. whatever, it's Key and Peele's Coraline, there is no way I am not going to have a good time here.) Fresh and Prey were also films that almost made my Honorable Mentions for the year (along with Bullet Train, which - despite its insistence to spell out every single story connection with quick and unnecessary flashbacks - was indeed a lot of fun). Too bad they didn't have any colons in the title, which was my HM theme this year apparently. Mad God is definitely worth watching (it's available on AMC+, which may be the most criminally underrated of all streaming services), though brace yourself for some pretty icky visuals. Just a great use of stop-motion to create character and atmosphere all around. And yeah, I was disappointed by Wendell & Wild, despite the pedigrees of Peele and Selick; the story was jumbled and overcrowded, and I did not care for the lead character (who it turns out is neither Wendell nor Wild). Great animation, though - between those two films, plus Marcel and GDT's Pinocchio (which will probably win the Oscar), it was a strong year for stop-motion. Speaking of Oscars, I did let out an audible groan when Elvis scooped up a Best Picture nomination. Butler is great (and I wouldn't mind him winning), but that was definitely one of my more arduous film experiences of the year. (And I generally like Elvis' music.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 24, 2023 12:10:01 GMT -8
Oh yeah, the Oscar noms are out now. I guess I'll give them a quick look... (Ew, gross. Both Top Gun AND Avatar got in for Best Picture. TGM's screenplay has no business being on any shortlist. And Giacchino was robbed in not getting a nomination for his Batman score, but he's prolific enough that he'll have plenty of other opportunities in the future. Greig Fraser should've been nominated for Cinematography as well, but he won for Dune last year, so whatever. Anyways, the Spielberg film is a safe, straight-down-the-middle choice, so it's probably winning Best Picture. It's....fine, I guess. Glad Stephanie Hsu got some recognition, because she's been a bit overlooked on the awards circuit in favour of Jamie Lee Curtis.)
It's funny that you're all talking about Elvis now, though, because I resisted seeing it for all this time, but I finally decided to borrow it from my public library, because I noticed it had shown up on some Top 10 lists, and I want to see just how wrong some critics are about it (it's all in degrees, I suppose). I've never been a big Elvis fan to begin with, so it was never going to cater all that much to my sensibility, but I'll give it a chance anyways.
As for Metropolis, Quiara, it's been one of my favourite films for a few decades now (it's Jeremy that just saw it recently).
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 24, 2023 15:22:10 GMT -8
Based on other awards ceremonies - imperfect a gauge as they may be - the Best Picture contest is a three-way race between Fabelmans, Banshees of Insherin, and EEAaO (with Tar as a potential dark horse). I'm fine with either of the latter two winning, but I will be mildly disappointed if Fabelmans wins - it's a decent film, but fairly bland in spots, and hardly one of Spielberg's best. It may be helped by the Oscars' ranked-choice voting system, much as CODA was last year, since it's a broad crowd-pleaser with Oscar-bait overtones.
I'm not nearly as offended by the Top Gun: Maverick nomination as I am by the Elvis one. In fact, I'd argue there is a justifiable case for Top Gun: Maverick to win Best Picture - the Oscars have become more about industry-boosting than about quality in recent decades, and TGM did major work in boosting the industry during the summer movie season. The Academy has also taken a lot of heat over declining ratings, attributed to the lack of well-known nominees and an overabundance of politics, and what better way to wipe the slate than by rewarding a largely apolitical, crowd-pleasing blockbuster (particularly one that's a throwback to an earlier and glitzier age of Hollywood). Also, let's face it, the online reactions if TGM wins will be eve funnier than the reactions to Green Book. Anyway, not saying it's one of the year's best films (it isn't), but I will be very entertained if it wins.
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 2, 2023 16:08:16 GMT -8
Despite doing more in-year homework than usual (and even doing a decent bit of catch-up with my January), I once again haven't had much experience with the nominated films, to the point where there's only two categories I could reasonably make a statement on because I've actually seen two entries from them (Best Picture and Best Actor). In lieu of greater experience, I shall continue to use this guide from Bortposting, my favourite Facebook group:
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 8, 2023 6:36:06 GMT -8
Oh yeah, so TSPDT made a list of the 50 Most Critically-Acclaimed Films of 2022. Who'd have thought a Jackass film would be sitting (relatively) pretty?:
1. AFTERSUN Charlotte Wells 2. TÁR Todd Field 3. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Martin McDonagh 4. DECISION TO LEAVE Park Chan-wook 5. NOPE Jordan Peele 6. SAINT OMER Alice Diop 7. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert 8. EO Jerzy Skolimowski 9. THE FABELMANS Steven Spielberg 10. RRR S.S. Rajamouli 11. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED Laura Poitras 12. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE David Cronenberg 13. THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER Joanna Hogg 14. TOP GUN: MAVERICK Joseph Kosinski 15. HAPPENING Audrey Diwan 16. NO BEARS Jafar Panahi 17. TRIANGLE OF SADNESS Ruben Östlund 18. ELVIS Baz Luhrmann 19. GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO Guillermo del Toro 20. ONE FINE MORNING Mia Hansen-Løve 21. BENEDICTION Terence Davies 22. ARMAGEDDON TIME James Gray 23. CORSAGE Marie Kreutzer 24. THE NOVELIST'S FILM Hong Sang-soo 25. HIT THE ROAD Panah Panahi 26. WOMEN TALKING Sarah Polley 27. PACIFICTION Albert Serra 28. KIMI Steven Soderbergh 29. THE BATMAN Matt Reeves 30. THE CATHEDRAL Ricky D'Ambrose 31. BONES AND ALL Luca Guadagnino 32. AFTER YANG Kogonada 33. APOLLO 10½: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD Richard Linklater 34. SHOWING UP Kelly Reichardt 35. THE WOMAN KING Gina Prince-Bythewood 36. LIVING Oliver Hermanus 37. FIRE OF LOVE Sara Dosa 38. THE QUIET GIRL Colm Bairéad 39. BARBARIAN Zach Cregger 40. IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE Hong Sang-soo 41. FUNNY PAGES Owen Kline 42. GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY Rian Johnson 43. ALL THAT BREATHES Shaunak Sen 44. SHE SAID Maria Schrader 45. JACKASS FOREVER Jeff Tremaine 46. FLUX GOURMET Peter Strickland 47. MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON Dean Fleischer-Camp 48. MOONAGE DAYDREAM Brett Morgen 49. TURNING RED Domee Shi 50. WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR Jane Schoenbrun
Rather annoyed I'll be out of town when my local arthouse show the new Skolimowski, but them's the breaks.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 8, 2023 19:57:12 GMT -8
Weird that Elvis is so high on that list, but I guess the semantics of "Critically-Acclaimed" can vary, depending on whether you're taking awards coverage into consideration, as opposed to just an aggregate of reviews. Because that film is mid-60s on Metacritic and only around 77% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty middling.
As for the Jackass film, it seems like most of the acclaim is because some critics (who didn't give any of the previous Jackass movies particularly good reviews) thought it had a fair amount of endearing middle-aged male bonding? I honestly gave that thing a look with a fully-open-mind, and I mostly found it tedious and unfunny (and I'm more than capable of enjoying broad, slapsticky visual humour).
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