noiseredux's Monthly VG Movie: Once Upon Atari

[Hobie-wan]

Oh yes, the Avalon soundtrack is excellent too. I paid the import premium for it.

[marurun]

I watched this on Netflix and thought it was OK. There were some interesting ideas played with, but the flow of the movie was awkward in places. Better than I expected but not as good as I hoped. The music was good, but everything Kenji Kawai does is pretty good, as long as you don't mind that he doesn't break out of a particular atmospheric mold, ever. Reminded me a lot of the soundtracks to the Patlabor movies.

Whatever you do, skip Assault Girls. It's not really a sequel, though I think it's supposed to take place in the same universe. It's crap. Don't even bother.

[Nemoide]

I'm only really familiar with Mamoru Oshii for Urusei Yatsura and Ghost in the Shell, so I'm glad to expand my horizons a bit. I watched this today and... "okay" is about as good as I can rate it. (Even after getting past the weird subtitles for lines that aren't in the original language soundtrack.)
I kept thinking that it felt like a poor man's eXistenZ and by the end, I'd say that this was definitely the case. A lot of things are kept super-ambiguous, which I am normally a fan of, but I got the impression that the movie was trying to be two different things: a sci-fi action film and a somewhat avant-garde exploration of human/media interaction. In the end, it's just kind of flat. The first hour of the movie drags on with its beautifully shot but hopelessly dull images of rust-colored virtual militants, I thought the final part felt like it was trying too hard to be a mindfuck and came off flat.

What if... the world we live in... is THE MATRIX.

The amount of ambiguity and unexplained elements made things much less compelling than I feel it should have been. They talk about different player classes, but I never understood how they're supposed to be different - everyone looks like normal people equipped in standard military gear, a boring choice IMO. I couldn't bring myself to care in the slightest about Ash's desire to get to the next level or find the Ghost.

I'm hesitant to say that it was a bad movie though. The cinematography really is top-notch and the art direction gives a certain mysterious quality to the world. Still, it didn't resonate with me and for a movie of this nature that's kind of the most important part.

(...now I want to rewatch eXistenZ... maybe I'll wait for it to be a pick in a later month?)

[noiseredux]

thanks for bumping Nemiode!

While I don't expect any of us to love every pick, I'm glad that you seem so willing to give these movies a try. I haven't watched it yet myself, was kind of waiting (hoping) for a bit more conversation first. Now that you've done that, I'll try to watch it in the next day or so myself.

eXistenZ is fucking awesome. I love that movie. But I'd say go ahead and watch it as a bonus for this month. I don't expect to see it on the 2014 calendar the way a lot of my tentative list is filling out.

[noiseredux]

So I'm about 45 mins now. And I had to stop the movie to say... Nemoide, I'm really with you. Beautifully shot. Wonderful score. But so so so boring and aimless. I've had trouble getting myself to keep interested in just this first half. Wow.

[noiseredux]

Now Playing:


Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy



2001, 69 minutes, Unrated.

Trailer:

To coincide with the Together Retro game club's pick of Metal Gear this month, we'll be watching Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy, a 2009 Italian fanfilm that has gotten considerable rave from major media outlets since its release and has even impressed Hideo Kojima himself.

Because I haven’t watched the movie myself yet, I’ll have to grab the plot summary from its Wikipedia entry: The movie is divided into three parts, the first part entitled "The Overnight Nation" is sixty-nine minutes long and follows Snake as he joins Philanthropy, an organization created in order to stop Metal Gears around the world. Snake (Giacomo Talamini) teams up with Elizabeth Laeken (Patrizia Liccardi) and Pierre Leclerc (Nicola Cecconi) as they attempt to find out what's really going on in "The Overnight Nation". The movie is set in 2007, taking place before or right after the first part of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Philanthropy was written, directed and edited by Giacomo Talamini, a 27-year-old Italian student filmmaker who also stars in the movie as Solid Snake.

You can stream or download this film for free (with or without subtitles) via its website: http://www.mgs-philanthropy.net/

[Nemoide]

I'm going to sit this one out because I've never actually played any of the Metal Gear games!
...And yes I know I'm missing out on a very relevant TR at the same time! D:

[noiseredux]

Hey guys, so I tried this back about two years ago now and the whole thread died in a fast fire after 3 months. But I have thought about restarting it a few times now and sort of gauging interest to see if anybody would still be interested in following along if I started this thread up again.

There's no denying that a lot of the movies I'll be picking around considered "bad," but even bad films are fun to discuss. I've got some stuff in mind to help vary the picks as well. And another thought I had was trying to do 'showing times' where maybe folks could attempt to all watch at the same time with an IRC chat window open or something. I don't know, just kind of putting the idea out there.

[marurun]

Anything that's on Netflix or Amazon Prime that would be action-packed enough to workout to, I'm in.

[Nemoide]

I'm down for most movies! Maybe a bad-classic like Double Dragon, Super Mario Bros., or Street Fighter. Or maybe one of the "I remember thinking it was good" movies like Resident Evil or Mortal Kombat. I've heard good/ridiculous things about the Doom movie. And eXistenZ is still worth having a group-discussion about IMO.
(Not sure I'd ever want to revisit something like Tomb Raider or House of the Dead though.)

No promises about watching while on IRC though. I do most of my computing and watching in different rooms.