To answer REPO’s question…I have been watching movies. I saw No Time to Die (in theaters!), which was a solid Bond film. It’s a fitting end to Daniel Craig’s run as the legendary super-spy, and it has a lot of great subtle callbacks to both classic Bond films and, shockingly, Metal Gear Solid. I really liked it, but I think it’ll be divisive, even among Bond fans, much like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (which is its clearest influence).
Last night, my wife and I rewatched A Room With a View, which is one of the best period dramas committed to film and my wife’s very favorite film. As usual, I loved it.
Mostly horror, but I also saw No Time to Die, and I'm in the camp where it didn't work for me, though I'd say it's for script issues. The performances are fantastic, the cinematography amazing, the action intense, but there were confused character motivations that bother me a lot.
Ack wrote:Mostly horror, but I also saw No Time to Die, and I'm in the camp where it didn't work for me, though I'd say it's for script issues. The performances are fantastic, the cinematography amazing, the action intense, but there were confused character motivations that bother me a lot.
Oh yeah…you can drive a truck through some of the plot holes, and some of the character motivations are baffling. Maybe that’s just another call out to Metal Gear Solid, though.
Regarding the action sequences, I must admit that the scenes with Ana de Armas in Cuba are some of the best in any Bond film.
Ack wrote:Mostly horror, but I also saw No Time to Die, and I'm in the camp where it didn't work for me, though I'd say it's for script issues. The performances are fantastic, the cinematography amazing, the action intense, but there were confused character motivations that bother me a lot.
Oh yeah…you can drive a truck through some of the plot holes, and some of the character motivations are baffling. Maybe that’s just another call out to Metal Gear Solid, though.
Regarding the action sequences, I must admit that the scenes with Ana de Armas in Cuba are some of the best in any Bond film.
Absolutely in agreement about the scenes with Ana de Armas. Apparently she was only available for a short time, and Craig was recovering from injury for part of it, so that's why they had to split up the way they did. But the end result was electrifying. I spent the rest of the film wanting to see more of her, and I really hope she does more action work after this, because she was phenomenal.
I think Craig was a great Bond, but the scripts let him down. The Bond franchise is run by a small group of weirdos who should have one professional goal: protecting and promoting the franchise and getting a new movie out the door every 24 to 36 months. This thing should be a well-oiled machine at this point, but it hardly seems so. Every time they make a new movie it's like they've never made a James Bond movie before and they're going to have to figure out everything on the fly. It's a recipe for troubled productions and screenplays with four writers.
With the possible exception of times like now when you know you're going to have to recast, they should just about be ready to go into pre-production on a follow-up every time a new movie premieres. It's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: you're never gonna stop.
I thought the new movie was okay. Lots of good stuff in it, and I had a decent time watching it, but I don't think I'll rank it high over time. My problems with the last third of the film were compounded by the fact that I simply could not understand Rami Malek's final speech. Clearly he was giving Bond bad news, but I had to watch a YouTube video to find out exactly what it was.
marurun wrote: We’re not going to rubber stamp your horrible decisions.
VHS94, the latest in the found footage horror anthology film series. As is typical for the VHS series, it starts with a wraparound focusing on characters finding out about disturbing videos that we see.
REPO Man wrote:VHS94, the latest in the found footage horror anthology film series. As is typical for the VHS series, it starts with a wraparound focusing on characters finding out about disturbing videos that we see.
I enjoyed it.
I kinda got tired of found footage movies. The underwater horror flick, The Deep House, looks interesting though. may have to check it out. Ratings suck but most of that genre do.