Movies you've seen recently

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by ASL

Crazy Rich Asians. I cut it off at the thirty minute mark. I hadn’t laughed once by that point so it failed as a comedy, it wasn’t dramatic enough to be a drama, and I just didn’t give two shits about the characters or the situation they were in. Other than being "progressive"(which I guess having rich Chinese people wielding their wealth throughout Asia and briefly in the UK and US is supposed to be?) I don’t see what it offered. They could have at least called it Generally Tame Rich Chinese for a little truth in advertising.

I saw it to the end, but only because I was in a theater. If I had been at home, I’d have given up probably at the same point you did. Great job, you made decadence boring as hell. Chica should have stolen whatever wasn’t nailed down, done some light vandalism, and gotten on the first flight out of there, because I see nothing worth hanging around and putting up with that. The guy’s cute and has a great smile, but again, it’s not enough to be worth putting up with all that. Maybe hook up with the chick in the blonde wig; she seemed so much cooler than any member of that family.

[Errata]

Originally Posted by TallGeekyGirl

It's not really a comedy at all. Here's my take on it...

Originally Posted by TallGeekyGirl

Just don't expect to get any chuckles from it.

I went to see it. It's definitely not a lighthearted comedy, or a snappy one like the editing of the trailer would imply, but it does have distinct black comic elements. The audience at my theater laughed quite a few times.

I'd have to agree though, that as a whole it's not really a black comedy like it was billed. It's a drama, and there's as much tragedy as comedy.

[Sooeygun]

Watched the Fyre festival documentary on Netflix.

This one, not the other one.

Wow. I had followed some of what was going on through social media, but there was so much more that I didn't know. So many enablers that could have stopped it before it was too late.

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

Phantom Of The Paradise: I think the only complaint I have about this one is aimed at Led Zeppelin’s record label. It’s really jarring when the clumsy matting comes into play. Take a gander especially when Swan is introducing Beef—you can see the Death Records label awkwardly wipe in. Also, Swan’s company is explicitly mentioned as NOT being Death Records (he calls it a label), and you can still see the original Swan Song logo all over the place (like when Winslow is watching things—he’s caught behind the logo when he sabotages the Juicy Fruits, and it appears with the words SWAN SONG on the camera when he’s watching Swan and Phoenix in bed).

For those who don’t know it, picture it as The Phantom Of The Opera meets Faust, set in a 1970s nightclub. The story follows Winslow Leach (William Finley), a young composer writing a cantata based on Goethe/Marlowe’s story. The cantata is heard by Swan (Paul Williams), an entrepreneur looking for music to open his new club, and Winslow jumps at the chance to have his music reach millions. Of course, Swan doesn’t care to honour his side of the bargain, and absconds with the music, eventually putting Winslow in Sing Sing. Winslow escapes, steals his music, and is caught in a record press. Believed dead, Winslow is forced to sign a contract with Swan. Unfortunately, although Winslow finds a Christine in ingenue Phoenix (Jessica Harper), the contract gives Swan free rein to do whatever he wants. And so Swan signs glam-rocker Beef (Gerrit Graham, who is absolutely hilarious). This, of course, does not go over well. And then Winslow makes a few other discoveries.

Honestly, I think Beef is the best part of this movie.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Last night I was surprised to see Antman & The Wasp is on Netflix now.

I thought that Disney wasn't going to be licensing any further movies with them after 2018.

I watched The Adams Family. Haven't seen that movie since I was a kid, but it still holds up pretty well.

[dfresh]

crocoduck hunter, I think that Disney is not licensing any movies MADE after 2018, so the ones from last year will still show up. I will miss them when they leave Netflix since I am not going to add any subscription service, since the idea was to reduce my monthly costs by getting rid of cable.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Was that the distinction? Well, that makes sense, then.

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by Sooeygun

Watched the Fyre festival documentary on Netflix.

This one, not the other one.

Wow. I had followed some of what was going on through social media, but there was so much more that I didn't know. So many enablers that could have stopped it before it was too late.

I keep meaning to get to watching one of those documentaries. I've overheard some clips from my dad watching it, and it just sounds like the most legendary of clusterNFBSKs. Like Richard Cable, I have a morbid fascination with massive clusterNFBSKs where somehow everything comes together to turn everything into shit. Anyone can be a mediocre screwup, those are as common as table salt, but a ClusterNFBSK on the level of the Fyre Festival is something seen only on rare occasions. It is a shitty miracle in that nothing worked, everything that could go wrong, did, and there were so many points along the way that some clear-headed individual could have stepped in and put a stop to this, but no one did. It's a miracle that no one stopped it, but it's a miracle made of shit.

This clip from one of the documentaries, serves as a source of morbid fascination. I keep trying to figure out what is worse, that Billy McFarland told Andy King to give the guy in customs a blowjob, so they can get their water through, the fact that King was willing to do it, or the fact that he was willing to admit on camera to being willing to do it. Granted, it didn't happen, but still.

[ASL]

I saw both. There is a fair amount of overlap in material/interview subjects, but there’s enough independent material between the two that they’re both watchable without spoiling each other. I would recommend them in the order I viewed (Netflix, then Hulu) just because the Hulu one seems to undercut the Netflix one a bit (in terms of vilifying a group that Netflix portrays mostly positively) and the Hulu one has McFarland himself being interviewed, so when watched second it’s kind of like providing the climax while the Netflix documentary provides the setup.

What I found interesting was that while the festival truly was a cluster-NFBSK, it was at least that: a cluster-NFBSK (as opposed to nothing). It was the rare sort of muddled mess between an outright scam and just a really bad job, like if it was possible to half-pop a kernel of popcorn (which it sort of is, as I’m sure we’ve all seen kernels where the shell has just started to burst, but didn’t quite manage to blow out and become edible).

So, yeah. Fyre Festival was a half-popped kernel of pop-corn. If it had been fully popped and just not very good or not popped at all, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about it.

[Mouse]

I saw the Netflix version, haven’t watched the Hulu documentary. There really is something bizarrely fascinating about such a massive clusterNFBSK, though I find myself wondering how McFarland was able to get this shitshow going in the first place. His wealth barely existed in the first place and came from a shitty, dubious credit card operation he ran. Yet so many people were willing to throw money at him to try to get this thing going. Yeah, they were conned, but it feels annoyingly simplistic to chalk it up to, “They’re too stupid!” Because there were probably plenty of old, established money being thrown at this, money in the hands of people/organizations who had been wealthy for decades and probably knew something about good/bad investments.

And of course after this festival went down like the Hindenburg, and he’s getting tons of bad press and facing jail time, McFarland still tries to pull another con, even though the authorities are already breathing down his neck, and it’s a con so obvious that it could be taken down with a five minute Google search.

If anyone still had any delusions we are living in a meritocracy, well, let me tell you about this deal I have on oceanfront property in Oklahoma. Trust me, you should really get in on this.

It was nice to hear in other magazine articles that people have stepped up to help Maryann Rolle. Of all the people involved with the festival, aside from the anonymous wage slaves who put their noses to the grinders for this, she’s the one I felt the most sympathy for. She was an islander who was in charge of catering, overseeing a massive crew that worked day and night trying to get this thing going. She and her workers did all this hard labor without pay, expecting a huge payout when the festival started, and the potentially even huger payouts from future events for the community if the festival succeeded.

But it didn’t. And afterwards, Rolle dipped into her savings and personally paid out 50K to her workers, because she knew they desperately needed the money, had worked damn hard to earn it, only to get screwed over.

On a happier note, I saw The Lego Movie 2. And I really can’t blather about this movie because really it’s hard to talk about good art, save to say that it’s good. When it comes to bad art, there are so many angles to approach criticism from, but good art just works. Just as enjoyable as the first. As always, I appreciate the little touches they have in the film like how if you look closely in several scenes, you can see fingerprint smudges on the blocks that make up Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi. Another reminder of the reality lurking beyond the LEGO characters. And yes, there is a delightfully catchy song ala Everything Is Awesome. I suppose I should apologize for what I’ve just done, but I don’t think I will. I believe in spreading pain around.

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

I watched Super Mario Bros yet again, and it seems to me that we as viewers seem to put a lot more thought into this than anyone responsible for its conception.

Even ignoring the fact that the film bears no resemblance to the games, the premise is nonsensical, the approach is muddled and even the little bits like “how people that evolved from reptiles can have boobs and vaginas” (and, apparently, navels) can gnaw at the mind. There are other questions too, such as “when the worlds merge, what happens to the extras in Dinohattan?” (The only characters even shown to go to Brooklyn are Mario, Koopa and the Goombas—the women exit through the portal…somehow…and the only change to Brooklyn is the uncomfortable one that makes mincemeat of geography).

[ASL]

Originally Posted by Mouse

But it didn’t. And afterwards, Rolle dipped into her savings and personally paid out 50K to her workers, because she knew they desperately needed the money, had worked damn hard to earn it, only to get screwed over.

Well, she claimed to have paid that money to her workers. I’m happy to believe she did, but not enough to donate or encourage others to donate money over it. I’m jaded like that.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by Jusenkyo no Pikachu

I watched Super Mario Bros yet again, and it seems to me that we as viewers seem to put a lot more thought into this than anyone responsible for its conception.

As I recall, the original script wasn't even intended to be for Super Mario Bros. Late in planning, someone had the idea to license it or something.

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

It was always going to be an adaptation. It’s just that the script went through an insane amount of changes and the directors disagreed with each other.

[crocoduck_hunter]

What I saw about it said that it was originally just a story about dinosaur people living in a parallel world, and the video game was licensed for it because it was popular and they thought it would help attract a bigger audience: they were uninterested in the franchise itself. On top of that, the script was rewritten on virtually a daily basis, causing the lead actors to A) stop reading the scripts and B) actually start showing up on set drunk.

[Crius of CoH]

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

What I saw about it said that it was originally just a story about dinosaur people living in a parallel world, and the video game was licensed for it because it was popular and they thought it would help attract a bigger audience: they were uninterested in the franchise itself. On top of that, the script was rewritten on virtually a daily basis, causing the lead actors to A) stop reading the scripts and B) actually start showing up on set drunk.

So, there was a potentially decent movie ruined by slapping a license on it. And other stuff, but I'll run with the license.

Now I kinda want to see it, to find out if I can discover the lost movie underneath it.

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

Sorry. You’re going to be disappointed. The movie started as a license. Nintendo actually liked the original script, which was, as crocoduck_hunter said, completely rewritten by the time shooting wrapped.

https://youtu.be/Ve26GpPDTgY

[crocoduck_hunter]

What happened was that the directors had a script for a movie that they then pitched to Nintendo which was adapted into the Super Mario franchise. The issue was that the directors didn't actually care about the Super Mario franchise and didn't bother researching it or looking for consistency. Nintendo, meanwhile, actually had creative control of the film but took a completely hands-off approach because they didn't care that much and regarded Super Mario Bros as being too big to fail.

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

Dad put on Varg Veum: Bitre Blomster, a movie we have thanks to a convoluted series of events involving Rebecka Liljeberg being cute back when she was 17 and in a (unrelated) movie that had a profanity in its title (she’s the brunette, and I was 17 when I saw the movie). It’s the only Varg Veum movie we have.

For those unaware (probably a lot of you) this is a series about a PI who (in this story) is hired to track down a politician’s secret lover while the police look for her kid. This comes together in the craziest way possible (which even involves a brothel he just happened to be investigating earlier, and ends up preventing terrorism).

It’s pretty good, and I should probably check out more in the series.

[ASL]

Planet of the Apes (1968). Just re-watched it for the first time in a while. In the middle of the third act, they mentioned the shore along a river being impassable at high tide. That got me thinking... even if we allow that biological humans weren't enough of a cue (suspension of disbelief for a common Sci-Fi trope), shouldn’t Taylor have figured out he was on Earth simply by looking up at the Moon at some point? He was on the planet for some days prior to being captured. And up to a week after he escaped at the end.