hafital goes to the movies
It used to be that going to the movies was this big social event. Friends getting together, going to the movies, getting dinner, a drink, etc etc. But now I'm old and don't have the time and the patience and most days my friends and I don't always want to see the same films. So, I've been going by myself and it is AWESOME. It's like one of my new favorite things, to go see a movie all by myself. I love it. I'll go with friends, if someone organizes it, or I'll go with a date or my mom, etc, but more often than not, I go alone. It's cool.
LUCY
So, I was intrigued by this movie not so much for the concept (which I feel is kind of a tired idea already. We all know we don't use all of our brain.) but because it was an action film with a female lead without a romance. SO RARE. And also, anything I can do that will let the folks at Marvel seriously consider a Black Widow movie, I will do, if I can.
It's a shame it wasn't a better film!
Stuff:
~ I liked Lucy. I liked that she was a totally normal girl having a totally normal young adult carefree time in a foreign country. Before having the bad luck of having the worst one night stand.
~ Except that I seem to be hardwired now to expect Scarlett Johansson to reveal that she's really working for a government agency or maybe even a rogue agency, and that I kept expecting her to, well, reveal that, and she didn't. Because Lucy is totally normal. For the first part of the film before her drug-affected change really took hold, I thought the story was that she WAS an undercover agent that was there to get the drug for her employers and that the biological changes would, you know complicate things, with lots of action sequences, etc. And then she'd be badass AND the most evolved human ever.
~ Not that this would have been a better film. I don't think it would have, actually, largely because it's entirely too predicable.
~ I am not sure what the intercut nature shots were for. Aside from making some kind of point.
~ The movie failed in it's own logic, here and there, particularly in the end, when they've already established that she can put everyone to sleep and stop bullets, but then apparently nearing 100% of her brain capacity, she still couldn't do 2 things at once, and so had to have her cop friends and the bad guys have a big shoot out and lots of dead people because she needed to concentrate. wtf?
~ But, aside from all that, Scarlett Johansson has entered into that select group of actors whom I love no matter what they do (RDJ, I'm looking at you), so for the enjoyment of seeing her for an hour and a half, well, I don't know if I'd spend more money on it, but I didn't complain. It's a silly movie, and she's really cute in it.
And then I went to go see Snowpiercer.
I liked this a lot more than I liked Lucy. It's a better film. But it also failed in it's own logic, though. A LOT. Wtf, movies? Come on, now. I'm guessing we're actually not supposed to take things that literally with Snowpiercer, but STILL.
~ The look of the film pretty much won me over.
~ I sincerely hope that all of humanity perishes rather than be stuck on a train for even a short amount of time.
~ I spent some of my time watching this film trying to do the math about how a train can circumnavigate the world and have that be exactly one year. I wondered if perhaps they hadn't actually been stuck on the train as long as they had, but then everyone had aged to what would correspond to the number of years.
~ My favorite part might have been the school train car scene. SO CREEPY. That scene was note perfect.
~ Also, Tilda really loves playing roles like this. I hope she never stops.
~ My favorite character was Yona.
~ I was not wild about the reveal at the end. It needed to be planted better.
~ There were a lot of weird little problems with the concept and the film as a whole that, well, I would list but frankly it's been a few weeks and my memory is not what it used to be, but I think why it is largely a film that so many have been disappointed in is that there isn't actually a point to any of it. So, it's ultimately unfulfilling. You are not happy that Yona and the little boy survive, or that her father and CE sacrifice themselves for their survival. It is not a bittersweet ending. It's just kind of a relief. You're like FINALLY. lol.
~ However, I still thought it was a good film, for all that. Some atypical casting, some interesting visuals, a lot of people not afraid to be ugly and unlikable, and even where you can say that it failed, at least it failed in interesting ways. It tried something.
~Also, pretty much everything you see was a choice and there was a purpose for it. You can tell that it was thought out, even if it failed. It's so easy for films these days to be pretty damn careless.
~I would never have classified myself as even remotely interested in Chris Evans before Captain America: Winter Soldier. I am a changed woman now. Whatever. I love Steve Rogers, but I think CE is about a thousand times more attractive with the darker hair and the beard. I'm just saying.
And then finally, I went to a free screening for Guardians of the Galaxy.
~ First of all, let me just complain about my distressing need to misspell "guardians" as "gaurdians" every damn time. oi.
~ When I first heard about this movie, I thought I would skip it. I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I'm ON BOARD for all the other films, but this one looked dumb and lacking either Black Widow or Captain America. So, I wasn't going to go. But then it came out and everyone on FB said they liked it. I would normally be very sad at my letting FB sway any decision of mine. But frankly, I'm all for fun movies, so I thought I would go.
~ And then I saw some say it was sexist and that made me sad. But at the same time I wasn't surprised.
~ So, I went, and it had everything I expected when I put together that a) people loved the movie but that also b) people thought it was sexist. That pretty much guaranteed that it would have few female characters, and the few aside from the main ones would be disposable, and that the main dude would be a charming rogue who charms and is roguish. Hollywood LOVES the charming rogue who charms and is roguish, expecting the fact that he's a hero to make the roguishness be okay. Or something.
~ I saw someone compare Starlord to (JJ Abrams's) Jim Kirk. I see the similarities, but I have to say that Starlord and Guardians of the Galaxy in general, are far less sexist than the JJ Abram's Star Trek films. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. As a whole, I'll take Guardians (and all of the MCU film so far) over JJ Abram's Star Trek. ANY DAY. Of course, that's a bit like choosing between somewhat distasteful desserts.
~ I am even more unfamiliar with the comics this was based on. I don't know who any of these characters are, their stories, nothing. Who are these people? Is this what's beyond Asgard? Where are we? Where is earth in all this? Why is earth always a backwater, backwards planet?? lol.
~Also, it amuses me how earthlike the, is it Nova? planet is represented. I mean, slap some crazy skin colors on some extras, do their hair all weird, and voila!
~ I am probably very alone in this opinion, but I am not a huge Zoe Saldana fan. So, I had to get over that. But I liked her story, and I liked Amy Pond her sister, too. That was of course the more interesting relationship story in this film which got no air time at all.
~ I had no idea who Chris Pratt was before this. I would have wanted someone a little more interesting in that role, less so regular, ordinary looking. But, he was charming. And roguish.
~ They could have taken the literal, no metaphor understanding Destroyer person a little farther. They had like 2 jokes and then dropped it.
~ The rest of the film was fun, no real complaints. I liked it. I'll watch it again in the comfort of my own home. Screening audiences are loud and like to laugh and clap so I missed a ton of stuff. I once again got bored during the battle scenes. Seriously, cut 10 minutes out of that. I thought it was kind of a waste of a Vin Diesal, but (shrug) Groot was so charming, so you know, it was cool. I was expecting to be very annoyed with Rocket, but he was fun. i was actually quite impressed with Bradley Cooper's voice work. It didn't sound like him at all!
Phew. Now I'm tired.
~~~
In other news, I have reached the end of the internet when it comes to Leverage, and specifically, Parker/Hardison/Eliot fiction. :(
I may actually have to write some. The bother!
Dreamwidth Post |
LUCY
So, I was intrigued by this movie not so much for the concept (which I feel is kind of a tired idea already. We all know we don't use all of our brain.) but because it was an action film with a female lead without a romance. SO RARE. And also, anything I can do that will let the folks at Marvel seriously consider a Black Widow movie, I will do, if I can.
It's a shame it wasn't a better film!
Stuff:
~ I liked Lucy. I liked that she was a totally normal girl having a totally normal young adult carefree time in a foreign country. Before having the bad luck of having the worst one night stand.
~ Except that I seem to be hardwired now to expect Scarlett Johansson to reveal that she's really working for a government agency or maybe even a rogue agency, and that I kept expecting her to, well, reveal that, and she didn't. Because Lucy is totally normal. For the first part of the film before her drug-affected change really took hold, I thought the story was that she WAS an undercover agent that was there to get the drug for her employers and that the biological changes would, you know complicate things, with lots of action sequences, etc. And then she'd be badass AND the most evolved human ever.
~ Not that this would have been a better film. I don't think it would have, actually, largely because it's entirely too predicable.
~ I am not sure what the intercut nature shots were for. Aside from making some kind of point.
~ The movie failed in it's own logic, here and there, particularly in the end, when they've already established that she can put everyone to sleep and stop bullets, but then apparently nearing 100% of her brain capacity, she still couldn't do 2 things at once, and so had to have her cop friends and the bad guys have a big shoot out and lots of dead people because she needed to concentrate. wtf?
~ But, aside from all that, Scarlett Johansson has entered into that select group of actors whom I love no matter what they do (RDJ, I'm looking at you), so for the enjoyment of seeing her for an hour and a half, well, I don't know if I'd spend more money on it, but I didn't complain. It's a silly movie, and she's really cute in it.
And then I went to go see Snowpiercer.
I liked this a lot more than I liked Lucy. It's a better film. But it also failed in it's own logic, though. A LOT. Wtf, movies? Come on, now. I'm guessing we're actually not supposed to take things that literally with Snowpiercer, but STILL.
~ The look of the film pretty much won me over.
~ I sincerely hope that all of humanity perishes rather than be stuck on a train for even a short amount of time.
~ I spent some of my time watching this film trying to do the math about how a train can circumnavigate the world and have that be exactly one year. I wondered if perhaps they hadn't actually been stuck on the train as long as they had, but then everyone had aged to what would correspond to the number of years.
~ My favorite part might have been the school train car scene. SO CREEPY. That scene was note perfect.
~ Also, Tilda really loves playing roles like this. I hope she never stops.
~ My favorite character was Yona.
~ I was not wild about the reveal at the end. It needed to be planted better.
~ There were a lot of weird little problems with the concept and the film as a whole that, well, I would list but frankly it's been a few weeks and my memory is not what it used to be, but I think why it is largely a film that so many have been disappointed in is that there isn't actually a point to any of it. So, it's ultimately unfulfilling. You are not happy that Yona and the little boy survive, or that her father and CE sacrifice themselves for their survival. It is not a bittersweet ending. It's just kind of a relief. You're like FINALLY. lol.
~ However, I still thought it was a good film, for all that. Some atypical casting, some interesting visuals, a lot of people not afraid to be ugly and unlikable, and even where you can say that it failed, at least it failed in interesting ways. It tried something.
~Also, pretty much everything you see was a choice and there was a purpose for it. You can tell that it was thought out, even if it failed. It's so easy for films these days to be pretty damn careless.
~I would never have classified myself as even remotely interested in Chris Evans before Captain America: Winter Soldier. I am a changed woman now. Whatever. I love Steve Rogers, but I think CE is about a thousand times more attractive with the darker hair and the beard. I'm just saying.
And then finally, I went to a free screening for Guardians of the Galaxy.
~ First of all, let me just complain about my distressing need to misspell "guardians" as "gaurdians" every damn time. oi.
~ When I first heard about this movie, I thought I would skip it. I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I'm ON BOARD for all the other films, but this one looked dumb and lacking either Black Widow or Captain America. So, I wasn't going to go. But then it came out and everyone on FB said they liked it. I would normally be very sad at my letting FB sway any decision of mine. But frankly, I'm all for fun movies, so I thought I would go.
~ And then I saw some say it was sexist and that made me sad. But at the same time I wasn't surprised.
~ So, I went, and it had everything I expected when I put together that a) people loved the movie but that also b) people thought it was sexist. That pretty much guaranteed that it would have few female characters, and the few aside from the main ones would be disposable, and that the main dude would be a charming rogue who charms and is roguish. Hollywood LOVES the charming rogue who charms and is roguish, expecting the fact that he's a hero to make the roguishness be okay. Or something.
~ I saw someone compare Starlord to (JJ Abrams's) Jim Kirk. I see the similarities, but I have to say that Starlord and Guardians of the Galaxy in general, are far less sexist than the JJ Abram's Star Trek films. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. As a whole, I'll take Guardians (and all of the MCU film so far) over JJ Abram's Star Trek. ANY DAY. Of course, that's a bit like choosing between somewhat distasteful desserts.
~ I am even more unfamiliar with the comics this was based on. I don't know who any of these characters are, their stories, nothing. Who are these people? Is this what's beyond Asgard? Where are we? Where is earth in all this? Why is earth always a backwater, backwards planet?? lol.
~Also, it amuses me how earthlike the, is it Nova? planet is represented. I mean, slap some crazy skin colors on some extras, do their hair all weird, and voila!
~ I am probably very alone in this opinion, but I am not a huge Zoe Saldana fan. So, I had to get over that. But I liked her story, and I liked Amy Pond her sister, too. That was of course the more interesting relationship story in this film which got no air time at all.
~ I had no idea who Chris Pratt was before this. I would have wanted someone a little more interesting in that role, less so regular, ordinary looking. But, he was charming. And roguish.
~ They could have taken the literal, no metaphor understanding Destroyer person a little farther. They had like 2 jokes and then dropped it.
~ The rest of the film was fun, no real complaints. I liked it. I'll watch it again in the comfort of my own home. Screening audiences are loud and like to laugh and clap so I missed a ton of stuff. I once again got bored during the battle scenes. Seriously, cut 10 minutes out of that. I thought it was kind of a waste of a Vin Diesal, but (shrug) Groot was so charming, so you know, it was cool. I was expecting to be very annoyed with Rocket, but he was fun. i was actually quite impressed with Bradley Cooper's voice work. It didn't sound like him at all!
Phew. Now I'm tired.
~~~
In other news, I have reached the end of the internet when it comes to Leverage, and specifically, Parker/Hardison/Eliot fiction. :(
I may actually have to write some. The bother!
Dreamwidth Post |