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Re: Movies!

#136
i watched Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice this afternoon. I enjoyed it as a one off action superhero film but they weren't the characters I grew up with. I don't agree with the "absolutely positively brilliant" review given by the Sun but it wasn't bad at all. :angel:
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Re: Movies!

#137
Victor Tombs wrote:i watched Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice this afternoon. I enjoyed it as a one off action superhero film but they weren't the characters I grew up with. I don't agree with the "absolutely positively brilliant" review given by the Sun but it wasn't bad at all. :angel:
Really?

I found the narrative to be poorly paced and lacking in coherence. I would posit that beyond the choppy plot the movie also featured tortured internal logic that left me openly questioning character actions and motivations.

The screenplay uses bits and pieces of a number of iconic comic book story arcs. Not much effort or thought appears to have gone into creating a single, coherent, tale out of these various plot strands.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
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Re: Movies!

#138
Tom wrote:Really?

I found the narrative to be poorly paced and lacking in coherence. I would posit that beyond the choppy plot the movie also featured tortured internal logic that left me openly questioning character actions and motivations.

The screenplay uses bits and pieces of a number of iconic comic book story arcs. Not much effort or thought appears to have gone into creating a single, coherent, tale out of these various plot strands.
I don't get out much, Tom, so I've only seen the ultimate version. As DC superhero movies go I've seen worse. It's not going to win any awards but it was watchable and by suspending judgement concerning the characters as they were portrayed I found myself being entertained.

For some reason DC material seems to be far more entertaining in made for television presentations rather than cinema productions. :angel:
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Re: Movies!

#139
Victor Tombs wrote:
Tom wrote:Really?

I found the narrative to be poorly paced and lacking in coherence. I would posit that beyond the choppy plot the movie also featured tortured internal logic that left me openly questioning character actions and motivations.

The screenplay uses bits and pieces of a number of iconic comic book story arcs. Not much effort or thought appears to have gone into creating a single, coherent, tale out of these various plot strands.
I don't get out much, Tom, so I've only seen the ultimate version. As DC superhero movies go I've seen worse. It's not going to win any awards but it was watchable and by suspending judgement concerning the characters as they were portrayed I found myself being entertained.

For some reason DC material seems to be far more entertaining in made for television presentations rather than cinema productions. :angel:
You are right, Victor. As hypercritical as my post may have come across, I do think that the movie has a number of things going for it. It is certainly visually striking and I, for one, had no issue with its dark and moody atmosphere and tone.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
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Re: Movies!

#141
Just watched Marvel's Civil War for the first time.
Mildly pleased to discover that I somehow, without any effort, managed to avoid any significant spoilers.

Loved it, from start to finish (credits included: yeah, I'm one of those -- interesting names are interesting). Avengers seem to be incapable of disappointing me. :mrgreen: :squirrel:
"omg such tech many efficiency WOW" ~ Josh Parnell
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Re: Movies!

#143
Baile nam Fonn wrote:Just watched Marvel's Civil War for the first time.
Mildly pleased to discover that I somehow, without any effort, managed to avoid any significant spoilers.

Loved it, from start to finish (credits included: yeah, I'm one of those -- interesting names are interesting). Avengers seem to be incapable of disappointing me. :mrgreen: :squirrel:
Watched just as an action movie, it's great fun.

I didn't care for the subtext, though, which was nearly made explicit by the writers in the scene at Avengers HQ:
Vision: In the 8 years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, a number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurable rate.
Steve Rogers: Are you saying it's our fault?
Vision: I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe. Oversight... Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.
I find it pretty hard not to read that as "America created the terrorists; the violence in the world will stop when America stops throwing its weight around."

To which Captain "America" replied:
Steve Rogers: We may not be perfect but the safest hands are still our own.
Seen in this light, the theme of this movie is that a renegade (Captain) America gets what it deserves for using its power in the world, even if it thinks it's doing good, and that by refusing to do as it's told by the rest of the world, (Captain) America deserves to be treated as an outlaw criminal.

At that point, the story of Captain America: Civil War decayed into Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, which was an effort to satirize American action in the world as fascist. In the DVD commentary track, Verhoeven explicitly expresses his opinion that America is a fascist nation -- the movie was just a better way to dramatize that belief than for him to simply state it.

The writers themselves make no evasions: yes, the character of Captain America is a metaphor for the country. So how they wrote him in this film, and the reaction of the other characters to Captain America, is a direct representation of how they think other countries see America. As screenplay writer Stephen McFeely put it:
It is not our place to necessarily inject our politics all over this movie, and it is not our place to say exactly what the nature of America is, but I’m also a knee-jerk lefty Hollywood screenwriter.
So: Personally, I could have done without the story of a CAPTAIN AMERICA movie being written as an apologetic revenge fantasy.

But hey, great action sequences.

[Note: Obviously this is a pretty strong opinion. I appreciate that others may object to my criticism as either "seeing things that aren't there (it's only a movie)" or "yes, they did intend to use a movie to express the personal political belief you describe, but they're factually right and you're just wrong." I will not be drawn into a big back-and-forth debate on this, but if someone wants to express an alternative view in a friendly, thoughtful way, please do... and it does occur to me that a movie that can generate rational conversation about a subject that matters is maybe not entirely a storytelling failure after all.]
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Re: Movies!

#144
I too watched Marvel's Civil War - Captain America and enjoyed the experience. I can't say I paid much heed to any of the political messages contained therein but as a piece of superhero entertainment I was absorbed from the beginning to the end. :D
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Re: Movies!

#145
Dinosawer wrote:We just watched ep 1 of season 2 of DC's Legends of Tomorrow
OMG SO AWESOME
:mrgreen:
I'm glad to read that, Dino. I'm not as engrossed in the first season of this title as I hoped I would be. I'm only part way through it yet but it seems to be lacking something. :angel:
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Re: Movies!

#148
IronDuke wrote:My brain tends to edit out political messages in movies since I usually disagree with all of them. :mrgreen: I just kept it down to the basic premise of what was supposed to happen to the Avengers. I, probably sadly, very much enjoyed watching them tear each other apart because I think they're all egotistic entitled jerks. :ghost: :ghost:

--IronDuke
Exactly :thumbup:

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DC's LoT was very good, although I also had the feeling that it lacked something on the way. Towards the end gets better, that's for sure. On the other hand, a lot of series tend to take off somewhere between season 2 and 3. Once you're done with ST:DS9, for instance, you barely can't believe how the first two seasons were. The last seasons are so good that you can only say "this thing was awesome all the way!". In reality only a handful of episodes from S1 and 2 were up to par. We can only count us lucky that back then TPTB didn't smash good series on first sight.
I have been - and always shall be - your friend.

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