Movie Critics Thread

[laproblematique]

Not a movie, but we just finished watching The Night Of. Was impressed by John Turturro's role, and surprised at how good he is outside of Transformers

I never had a foot phobia until that series.

[GoktimusPrime]

Finally got around to watching Disney's Moana (in flight movie)

The really interesting thing about it is the amount of real-life references that it's based on (magic & sorcery aside). e.g.
* The belief in the deity Maui is common across Polynesian cultures - some go by different names and there are variations to the story, but essentially it's the same deity (like comparing Zeus with Jupiter or Odin with Santa Claus etc.). The film also makes direct references to many of these variations and portrayals, such as his ability to shape-shift, his magic fishing hook and essentially being a super-Prometheus by stealing things from the gods/nature and gifting it to humans. That fact that he's voiced by Dwayne "Cliffjumper" Johnson just makes Maui even cooler.
* My absolute favourite scene is the song OPETAIA FOA'I, as it basically recounts the great oceanic voyages made by the Polynesians which is arguably one of the greatest expeditions embarked by humans - ever.

Think about it -- they sailed across the vast Pacific Ocean looking for tiny islands, not continents, islands. And they didn't do it on great tall ships like the British did, they did it with Hokule'a, great sea-faring canoes! And the song also accurately touches upon some of the navigational techniques used by the ancient Polynesians, including astronavigation, wind direction, wave direction etc. And the song also states that these techniques were passed onto future generations orally, which is true since the Polynesians had no written language (which makes their feats even more amazing - we live in an age of high literacy yet we have people who actually believe that the Earth is flat and that vaccines cause autism ). And the song also accurately states that the Polynesians didn't just find and settle new islands never to be seen again, they did find their way back to previously settled islands and maintained contact. One thing that Captain James Cook found amazing when he made contact with various Polynesian islands was that, despite the immense distance of geographic isolation, they had notable similarities in language, culture, religion etc. Just look at the Haka - it's most famous for being a Maori war cry, but there are variants of it in other Pacific Island nations like Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii etc.

And the one really interesting thing that Moana presents is an explanation for the Long Gap. Nobody knows why, but for approximately 2000 years the Western Polynesians stopped voyaging. Moana provides an explanation for this long pause (and the film explicitly depicts the Polynesians as having been explorers as being long lost knowledge). Of course the explanation is all based around magic, sorcery, deities etc., so probably not true, but this is a children's fairy tale after all, and I still think that it's really cool that it fits into real history.

Other interesting points:
* The protagonist is a girl who is a strong and independent character. She saves the day and isn't a hapless victim waiting for a man to rescue her. Although Maui does save her at times, she also saves him - thus they have a mutual dependency which leads to mutual respect.
* Zero romance. Maui is a demigod who is clearly above mortals. He initially attempts to exploit Moana and even resents her, but eventually they become good friends.
* AFAIK all the Polynesian characters were played by actors and actresses with Pacific Island ancestry. e.g. Moana is played by Hawaiian newcomer Auli'i Cravalho, Maui by Dwayne Johnson (Samoan ancestry - has lived in NZ and Hawaii), Temuera Morrison [size"1"](Maori - played Jango Fett and every Clone in Star Wars)[/size] and many more. Although there were a few non-Polynesian cast members including the hilarious Alan Tudyk as Heihei the chicken and Christopher Jackson as the singing voice Temuera Morrison's character (presumably cos Morrison can't sing). Dwayne Johnson does sing though (and he doesn't sound half bad)!

Overall a great movie. I personally wasn't even that interested in watching it - missed it when it was in cinemas and only watched it to kill time while on a plane, but ended up lovin' it when I wasn't even looking to.

[KaRNiV8L PRiME]

Saw GOTGvol2 on Thursday. Im under NDA until Monday 17:01 but can say it blew me away!!

[GoktimusPrime]

Yell For The Blue Sky - an absolutely beautiful film. I've never read the original comic book so I can't compare it, but the film itself is quite well done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aozora_Yell_(film)

[M-bot]

Saw Get Out. Holy crap. So so so awesome. Seriously, there will be few other releases better than Get Out this year. Do yourself a favour.

I'm Caucasian, I went with my best mate, who's black (Mauritian). He asked me before the film if I thought there were any interracial couples in the cinema, I replied "just us". We've been texting each other about the film since we saw it, there's so much to digest. Every single word uttered, every single action performed, every single plot point, set up and twist is deliberate and packed with meaning. Layer upon layer of text and subtext and metatext. Superbly acted too. Watch out for it next awards season, I'd be shocked if it didn't pull some bigs ones.

[shockNwave]

Saw GOTGvol2 on Thursday. Im under NDA until Monday 17:01 but can say it blew me away!!

Saw it over the weekend. Does for the first GOTG what Age of Ultron did for the first Avengers movie. It keeps the ship steady even if it doesn't build on it that much.

[jazzcomp]

Guardians Vol2 was fun to watch

[SuspectimusPrime]

Saw Get Out. Holy crap. So so so awesome. Seriously, there will be few other releases better than Get Out this year. Do yourself a favour.

I was really excited when I saw the trailer, and convinced my partner to agree to watching it. But before we got to setting in a date, she came across the trailer through YouTube - just a few seconds of the 2nd half - flashes of surgical equipment, ominous music, and voice of the narrator who sounds like he gargles diesel every night before he sleeps. Because of those few seconds, she's backed out.

It usually takes her a few weeks to forget about similar-levels of trauma so I might not get a chance to watch it in the cinemas before it's gone

[M-bot]

I was really excited when I saw the trailer, and convinced my partner to agree to watching it. But before we got to setting in a date, she came across the trailer through YouTube - just a few seconds of the 2nd half - flashes of surgical equipment, ominous music, and voice of the narrator who sounds like he gargles diesel every night before he sleeps. Because of those few seconds, she's backed out.

It usually takes her a few weeks to forget about similar-levels of trauma so I might not get a chance to watch it in the cinemas before it's gone

I've seen it promoted as a horror film. It's probably more of a thriller. There's horrific things going on in the movie, a few bits that are quite unsettling, but only one (maybe 2, if you include a bit where there is some surgery) occasion that you could consider as gore, and even that is pretty tame. They cut away from most of the violent acts, a lot of it happens just out of frame.

[i_amtrunks]

Guardians Vol2 was fun to watch

More emotional/personal than the first movie, but possibly more laugh out loud moments than the first one too. I could've walked out after the opening sequence/song and been satisfied, that is one of my all time favourite tunes.

A fine way to spend a few hours but nothing groundbreaking or must see, just enjoyable.

Strangely after the first GotG film, I went and bought every lego set, this time around I am really not interested in any but may break my "minifigure rule" and get Taserface just for the chuckles.