redhorsejacket
@redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
- Comment on The Sims Competitor inZOI Sells 1 Million in a Week, Krafton Declares It a ‘Long-Term Franchise IP’ 1 week ago:
Higher fidelity for sure, as one would expect when comparing games released 10 years apart, but idk if it’s “better” per se. Of course this is totally subjective, but I feel like there’s no style to inZoi, unless we define “generic AI output” as a style.
- Comment on Official Discussion - Me and My Waifu (SPOILERS) 1 week ago:
I ate the onion.
- Comment on Three original movies are being released in theaters today 2 weeks ago:
Don’t get me wrong, it absolutely is that, but that’s the surface level shit that got the movie financed. Underneath those obligatory trappings (which the film itself seems relatively uninterested in exploring) is a film so ridiculous, I have to question if they are pulling a sneaky and engaging in knowing parody. I refuse to spoil where the second act of that movie leads, because it was a wonderful surprise while I was watching what I figured was going to be, as you said, “dollar store John Wick”.
I gotta be clear though, it still isn’t better than a 3/5 even with an aggressively charitable attitude, but it should be criticized for its actual faults, not for what people assume it is.
- Comment on Three original movies are being released in theaters today 2 weeks ago:
Of the many accusations that you can hurl at it, I don’t know if “generic” applies to The Beekeeper. Like, the plot in that movie really goes places. Most of them ridiculously stupid,
- Comment on New ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie in the Works from ‘District 9’ Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp (Exclusive) 4 weeks ago:
I watched the older animated one (Invasion) a few months ago, and my experience tracks with you. Brain bug is taking over a Federation ship and trying to crash into Earth for conquest purposes (sort of an Alen: Resurrection thing going on there). It’s up to Rico, Carmen, and (maybe) Carl to stop the ship before it arrives. It’s 90 minutes of mid-2010s videogame cutscene, and is a fun bit of frivolous nothing, if that’s what you want.
The latter animated movie (Traitor of Mars) brings back Casper van Dien (and Dina Meyer, which is interesting depending on if this is a sequel or a prequel), but I’ve not seen that one yet.
- Comment on New ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie in the Works from ‘District 9’ Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp (Exclusive) 4 weeks ago:
I don’t believe Heinlein ever wrote a sequel to Starship Troopers, though certainly the “military science fiction” genre owes a lot to that book.
Ed Neumeier (who wrote Robocop and the 97 movie) however, wrote and directed the 2 live action film sequels. The second is, from memory, God awful and not worth a watch. The third is ALSO God awful as I recall, but it has the advantage of going pretty big with its ideas, so there’s a bit of zany fun to be had. Plus, despite it being one of the defining features of the book, it’s also the first time (I think) power armor makes an appearance in the film franchise. Casper van Dien’s star had fallen sufficiently by that point too, so he also reprises his role as Rico, which is another point in its favor.
There also a handful of computer animated movies and a TV series that I believe originated in Japan. They are about on par, quality wise, with the CGI Resident Evil movies. Depending on your tastes, that could either be a mild endorsement or a resounding condemnation.
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 4 weeks ago:
Man, I literally wound up listening to that entire playlist last night after I posted the comment. I’ve only seen the film once, probably a decade or more in the past at this point, so I really only had the overall impression of the score in my head. It’s even better than I remember it.
Also, I put together that Nyman also composed the score to Gattaca, which is another very stirring soundtrack. I can hear elements it in the more traditional portions of Ravenous.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 4 weeks ago:
I watched the Scott Adkins film Accident Man this week. It’s a film for a particular audience, one pre-disposed to enjoy direct-to-video action/martial arts schlock. On that level, it’s fairly successful, though limitations of budget and time are apparent in the fight choreo. I’d guess about 10% of the blows are mistimed, or aimed obviously wide. Furthermore, as a showcase for stunt performers, they wisely avoid overly editing the fight sequences, but (presumably in an effort to inject “intensity” without utilizing editing) the camerawork strays occasionally into unmotivated shaky cam territory. It isn’t hugely distracting outside of a couple beats though, and, without rapid fire cutting, the action remains mostly legible.
Speaking of stunt performers, the cast is the obvious selling point of the film. Adkins, Michael Jai White, Ray Park, Amy Johnston, and Ray Stevenson are probably the biggest draws for the film’s intended audience, and they certainly deliver. While anyone who has seen Black Dynamite knows that Michael Jai White has excellent comedic instincts in addition to his physical prowess, I was pleasantly surprised by Ray Park, who I found to be quite funny as White’s partner in crime. Stevenson provides some of his trademark intensity and gravitas, and a handful of other trusty character actors fill out the cast list. Comparatively speaking, Johnston draws the short straw, as her katana-wielding honey pot assassin suffers the most from the movie’s early 90s, deliberately edgy, independent comics origins.
With all that being said, the experience is sort of spoiled by the narrative tying the fights together. Adkins is an amoral assassin who views his targets not as people, but as deposits into his bank account. He is misanthropic to the extreme, and it’s a testament to Adkins’ charisma that I continued to watch after he justifies brutalizing a group of bar patrons (who, to be fair, are depicted as harassing a woman) as necessary to diffuse his “PMT - Post Murder Tension”. Tempting though it is to blame Stu Small and Adkins (who debuts as a screenwriter here), as I mentioned, the movie is an adaptation of an early 90s comic by Pat Mills. Mills is most famous for his involvement with the early Judge Dredd stories, so I’m inclined to believe that there’s an element of satire in just how edgy everybody is. Much of Adkins’ narration appears to be quoted directly from the comics, based on what I was able to find online, so I’d guess that much of what I’m about to criticize the film for is present in the source material and not a reflection of either writer.
The crux of the movie’s plot is Adkins’ ex-girlfriend (who, after leaving him, began a relationship with another woman) winds up dead, and Adkins sets out to uncover what happened. It’s established that Adkins has hang ups about the relationship’s end, because she was the only thing in his life that made him feel something. Despite this, it’s clear from everyone that he interacts with that she wanted nothing to do with him after they split, and the brief glimpses we get in flashbacks show him to have been utterly uninterested in her as a person, rather than a sex object. Additionally, Adkins discovers that Beth was pregnant with his child at the time of her murder (and that Beth and her new girlfriend, Charlie, intended to raise the child as their own), which he immediately gloms onto in exactly the sort of toxic, possessive masculinity that you might expect from the shittiest kinds of men. To the movie’s credit, there are a number of scenes in which Adkins’ personal “stake” in the plot is criticized by the less sociopathic characters. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fully commit to the bit, and there’s a third act pep talk from Charlie to Adkins that feels ridiculously unearned given their history. Additionally, it doesn’t sit right with me that Adkins is continuing to use misogynistic language pretty liberally during the final fight, when he’s supposed to have experienced some character development on that front.
Also, as a minor annoyance, despite the film’s title and his assassination gimmick being based around making his hits look like accidents, we really only see that twice, very early in the film. That’s kind of a bummer.
All things being equal though, the movie mostly delivered on the promise of its cast, and the narrative issues I have with it aren’t so glaring that I couldn’t be bothered to watch the interstitial scenes in between showdowns. 3/5 stars.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 4 weeks ago:
Well, consider me sold. Messy, but entertaining is exactly what I’d hope for from the sequels. Thanks for taking the time to reply!
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 4 weeks ago:
I can’t answer what my favorite is per se, but two of the most memorable scores I can think of are for Swiss Army Man and Ravenous.
I believe Daniels tapped the band Manchester Orchestra to do the music for Swiss Army Man. For whatever reason, they chose to have Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe sing on the soundtrack and the lyrics are usually just narrating what is happening on screen. case in point. It’s a lot of fun.
Equally avant-garde, but substantially more “challenging”, shall we say, the score for Ravenous is very striking and idiosyncratic, as befitting the film it’s accompanying. Also written by a popular musician, in part at any rate. Michael Nyman, the second composer, said Damon Albarn (of Blur and, later, The Gorillaz) wrote about 60% of the tracks and he composed the remainder. Several of the tracks were performed by people who had never played their assigned instruments before in their lives, to create a deliberately off-putting soundscape. Others are traditional period marching songs befitting the frontier America setting. Some are based around electronic loops and samples. And others are very traditional, pleasant (if ominous) orchestra pieces. It’s really a wild listen. Check it out for yourself.
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 4 weeks ago:
My local symphony regularly screens movies while playing all of the score, and I would LOVE if they would do Conan. Sadly, I think it’s unlikely, but I can dream! As far as I’m concerned, it is the Platonic ideal of an epic fantasy score.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 4 weeks ago:
Are the Re-Animator sequels worth a watch? I love the OG, but I’ve always assumed any sequels would lack its charm.
- Comment on The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale" 4 weeks ago:
He sucks, but it was such a good set-up for a shitty Dice Man style joke, I couldn’t resist.
- Comment on The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale" 4 weeks ago:
An emotional box? Enough about my wife!
- Comment on life changed due to shrimp 5 weeks ago:
“Keep your stick on the ice fellas, and remember, I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together!”
- Comment on Killing Floor 3 Delayed (With no new release date) 5 weeks ago:
Just came from another thread detailing them walking back the skin=class change. Glad to that’s being fixed, as that’s definitely the most egregious issue, but I’m very disappointed to hear the gunplay is less impactful. That was KF2’s biggest strength imo, esp as a Commando main when I played it frequently. Popping domes in slo Mo was art.
- Comment on Vinegar Syndrome Announces March Releases 1 month ago:
Brimstone and Treacle has my attention. An early 80s British Gothic movie about a conman worming his way into a family’s good grades and the con man is Sting? Sounds interesting if not thing else.
- Comment on Star Wars: Kathleen Kennedy Expected to Retire from Lucasfilm 1 month ago:
She’s 71 and has been producing films since ET. I’m pretty sure she’s not pulling a Palpatine here.
- Comment on Anon experiences freedom 1 month ago:
He wasn’t necessarily wrong, he was just an asshole. The context for the meme was a speech he gave in vehement opposition to a proposed bill amendment which would have codified net neutrality principles into law. The concept he was blundering through explaining was basically just an eli5 version of limited bandwidth. I send this message (or, in his parlance, this internet) from my phone to Lemmy. It travels through a series of tubes to get there. If the tubes are clogged with traffic, my message might have to get in line. And that’s not fair to people who have the money to not be treated like a poor.
Fun fact, Senator Stevens was the longest serving senator to lose a bid for reelection, largely due the fact that he was embroiled in a big corruption scandal at the time. The conviction ended up being vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct though, and I didn’t care to dive any deeper, but I’m inclined to believe he was a grifter. Rest in piss.
- Comment on Anon experiences freedom 1 month ago:
If it makes you feel any better, you can rest assured that Capitol Hill doesn’t know how the Internet works either.
- Comment on Basic courtesy 1 month ago:
cart retrievers are paid to do a job. I allow them to do it.
You intentionally make that job more difficult under some presumption that you’re ACTUALLY doing them a favor?
Cool.
- Comment on Are people around you still excited about MCU movies? 1 month ago:
A charming, yet baffling, lack of guile comes to mind.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 1 month ago:
I watched Speed for the first time last night. I can’t explain why it has taken me so long to see it, considering how much I love action schlock. Hell, I’ve seen Speed 2 multiple times.
It was great, though it had to win me over. Once Keanu boards the bus, I thought it found its stride, or maybe I finally settled into the movie’s vibe. The most surprising thing about my experience (to the extent that it was nearly the only thing I wrote about in my letterboxd diary) was how compelling I found Keanu. I suspect that I’m biased by his post-John Wick resurgence and Internet darling status, but I really thought he was, in his own way, implying a huge amount about his character’s interior life through his line readings and body language. As I understand it, that was not the consensus at the time.
It very much convinced me that I should get my butt into gear when it comes to looking at other 90s action movies. I feel like the whole decade is just packed with other, similar blind spots. At the very least, I’m advancing Point Break to the top of my watchlist.
- Comment on Are there still good movies review personal blogs? Which ones do you read? Looking for some content that would be more review and discussion oriented than industry news 2 months ago:
I don’t know if any specific blogs that still operate in that sort of space, but I will say I’ve had luck with finding folks on letterboxd who put care and thought into their reviews. Admittedly, you still have to sort through a lot of "this was good! I liked it!"to find those reviewers, but it’s not impossible. My starting spot was looking up the hosts of some of the movie podcasts I listen to (shout out to Blank Check and Eye of the Duck) and then seeing who they interact with on the platform, checking those folks out, and so on.
- Comment on Michael Mann: Heat (1995) | Bank Robbery Scene 2 months ago:
It is my constant hope that my local Alamo will bring this back someday and I’ll be able to watch (and more importantly hear) this in an actual theater. As you pointed out, the sound engineering in this is almost more important than the visuals for conveying the intensity here, and I have to imagine that it is simply concussive with the aid of professional sound equipment.
- Comment on imagine 2 months ago:
What kind of monster steals 30 kids’ lunches?
- Comment on Films by Steven Spielberg 2 months ago:
I guess I was hoping you would have an argument to make about Spielberg’s filmography, since "he hasn’t done anything good since Temple of Doom is a nutty statement to me. I don’t see how you could hold that opinion, and I was asking for you to explain what it was about his post-1984 output that rubbed you the wrong way, in the hopes of possibly unlocking another angle by which to evaluate these movies.
However, based upon your statement that you’re unsure of how to explain your opinion, I’m thinking I was barking up the wrong tree for that sort of discussion. If you don’t engage with film criticism in that way, we’ll just be talking past one another, I fear.
- Comment on Films by Steven Spielberg 2 months ago:
Hot take. Would you like to expand on that?
- Comment on HoMM3 is still fun! 2 months ago:
4 was something of a departure from the formula, wasn’t it?
HoMM2 was my game from the series. For whatever reason, I never really progressed past that one, even though I had heard 3 was the consensus favorite.
- Comment on Anon thinks Aragorn could have done more 2 months ago:
Idle thought, not fully staffed: kinda turns the whole “you cannot use the tools of the Enemy, as they are evil in and of themselves and will bring even the most noble low” vibe of the books on its head.
Or, at least, I seem to recall passages to the effect of fear being one of Sauron’s chief weapons. Could probably find a lit crit essay on this subject if I went digging.
