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2 hours ago, Ish said:

Finding actors who aren’t from Japan who speak Japanese with enough fluency to be able to act is probably extremely challenging. It’s not just about the words either, acting isn’t just repeating the words written down on paper.

You couldn’t just hand Lawrence Olivier the script to Ikiru and expect the same level of performance that Takashi Shimura was able to give. Doesn’t matter that they’re both actors of extraordinary talent, Olivier didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the physicality, and just couldn’t do it. Likewise, Shimura couldn’t have replaced Olivier. 

I go back and forth on this one. On the one hand, yes to all of the above logic. On the other hand, it could all be about race and the cultural acceptance of a member of a different race in their film/TV shows, especially in a lead role. 

And in fairness, Bleach was terrible, so even with excellent foreign actors, it probably wouldn't have helped anything. 

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4 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Jesus Christ, people! QFT

Just seemed you were baiting people, so I left it alone. Plus, not realm of chaos. Also, never saw that movie, so I don't really know if you were wrong. 

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Shotcaller. 

 

Solid prison/caper movie. It's hard to love these movies because they are so very common but this is competent in all aspects and good enough that I watched it twice. Probably my favorite aspect was how it utilized actors that you will recognize from other roles but gave them material that broke their type cast pretty decisively. I always appreciate that. Weak points include that it milked every cliche from the prison milieu. No pun intended. The 'first night' sequence is way too familiar by now. My favorite performance is from the wife... its really believable even in the middle of a movie that isn't especially. 

 

 

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I've seen Caligula some three or four times. I've even owned the "Imperial Edition" re-cut that left out most of the unsimulated sex scenes that Guccione added during post-production to try to make it something more like what Gore Vidal intended... and, frankly, its not a good film. Malcolm McDowell is brilliant, Helen Mirren is fantastic, and Peter O'Toole is... well, he's Peter O'Toole. Nuff said.  But, overall, the movie is just bad. Not as horribly wretched as some of the reviews contemporary with its release make it sound, but it's still a relentlessly tacky spectacle from start to finish. Worth watching for cinephiles interested in it as a historical curiosity, since its cross between Grand Guignol and Art Haus will probably never be duplicated. But that's the only reason I'd ever recommend it. 

But, holy [big bad swear word], that opening monologue is epic: I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God.

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Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle) a 2013 French film, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh. It's a coming of age story that is also a coming to terms with my sexual orientation story... It won the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival along with a bunch of other awards, all well deserved. Not a film for everybody, but if you're the sotry of person that would be interested in an art house lesbian coming of age story based on a radical feminist comic book entièrement en français then this is the movie for you!

(Yes, I am aware I have odd taste.)

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42 minutes ago, Ish said:

I've seen Caligula some three or four times. I've even the "Imperial Edition" re-cut that left out most of the unsimulated sex scenes that Guccione added during post-production to try to make it something more like what Gore Vidal intended... and, frankly, its not a good film. Malcolm McDowell is brilliant, Helen Mirren is fantastic, and Peter O'Toole is... well, he's Peter O'Toole. Nuff said.  But, overall, the movie is just bad. Not as horribly wretched as some of the reviews contemporary with its release make it sound, but it's still a relentlessly tacky spectacle from start to finish. Worth watching for cinephiles interested in it as a historical curiosity, since its cross between Grand Guignol and Art Haus will probably never be duplicated. But that's the only reason I'd ever recommend it. 

But, holy [big bad swear word], that opening monologue is epic: I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God.

Caligula would be forgivable if it were just bizarre and profane and a-historical and generally disgusting. The thing that makes it irredeemable is that it takes so much amazing talent and historical context and wastes it. It contains some amazing quotes and isolated performances and takes all the wind from them. Pee Yew. 

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3 hours ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

@Romans832, @paxmiles  I really very much highly doubt you guys have seen Caligula. Malcolm McDowell in his prime.  

And you would be correct, for me anyway. Didn't seem like my cup of tea.

I will note, if you want more ratings and less talking, stop quoting me or linking my name to things. I don't mind the conversation, but if you keep talking to me, I feel that responding is reasonable.

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11 hours ago, Yarbicus said:

Hotel Artemis 7.5/10
Sort of a smaller scale Escape from New York. It only exists for violence and one liners. Lots of fun. Further proof that David Bautista is having more fun than anyone else in Hollywood.

Where did you see it, Yarb?  It is on my "that looked kinda cool but I missed it in theaters" list.

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Don't Watch This: No, really, don't bother. Actually, the first segment is decent, but all the others are far too short. I was expecting a proper anthology film, but it's barely half an hour long. And then for some reason, Netflix decided to put it up as a mini-series rather than just a movie, so each part is a separate episode and you have to wait for them to load, even the ones that are only like two minutes long. Most of them have potential, but need more time. Two to five minutes is not long enough for horror to work in film unless the creators are really, really good. And then the second one basically felt like the credits from the first season of American Horror Story: A series of disconnected images that could be scary with some context, but are just pointlessly weird and gross as it is.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: Ridiculously, wonderfully, deliciously over the top. Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder are kinda bad in the lead roles (and their attempts at London accents are awful), but that doesn't really matter when you've also got Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Grant, Billy Campbell, Cary Elwes, and Tom Waits all chewing the scenery so thoroughly that even Horace Fletcher would be satisfied. It's also the closest adaptation I've ever seen to the original book, and better than the rest because of it.

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Overlord - a solid "meh, could have been worse". Historical inaccuracies aside...it was an okay film. You won't feel cheated, but you won't feel like you got a great value either. For the hype of what it is supposed to be...there is not enough weird science/horror moments. There is really only one scene that qualifies, the rest of the time its just action. Also, no twists or surprises. It pretty much hops on the rails and stays there the whole time. It couldn't quite figure out what it wanted to be and sat too long in the middle. I think they were trying to make it plausible. Though they never even tried to explain why the "formula" worked. In the end, there just wasn't enough creepy suspenseful moments in the movie.

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A prayer before dawn.

 

If you feel like a prison movie without the cliches.. This is a biopic about an english boxer who serves time for drugs in thailand. A lot of it feels like a documentary. There is a refreshing lack of familiar movie tropes . No moralizing. No forced character arc. It just relates a sequence of events. Because there is no deliberate setup the tension feels real. It isn't predictable. There are elements of redemption and victory but they are owned by the characters in a way that feels more authentic than what movies usually do with these situations. It's really good. 

 

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Cloverfield: Good use of the found footage conceit. Gives us a reason for the camera being on, shows just enough to give us an idea of what's happening but takes its time with it, and "what's happening" is pretty well put together as well. The main negative point to the movie is that it fits in the frustratingly common trope of whoever has the camera being either a douchebag or an idiot. Still good despite that.

The Cloverfield Paradox: Pretty solid in and of itself. Reminds me a bit of Event Horizon, but a bit less over the top and a bit more grounded. Honestly, it mostly suffers from the bits that wedge it into the Cloverfield story. Probably would have been better received if it had been made and released on its own, like many other films that have been re-written to be a sequel to something else.

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The Ballad of Buster Scrubbs (Netflix)

I stopped with 24 minutes left. It's very well done, but it's a set of short stories that each one ends in a depressing way. The characters you like, die. The characters you want dead, live. Kinda like game of thrones in that respect. 

Short stories are all set in the West (which is the east for us here in Oregon/washington). Topics vary, but it gives a good array of wild west adventures. Moral people in an immoral setting sort of thing.

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Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. (Netflix)

4/5

Odd film. I had missed it before because it doesn't present as my kind of film. Reminds me a lot of Kung Fu Hustle - not sure if there's a genre yet that speaks to this type of film. Maybe action comedy, but I think slapstick when I hear that, and this isn't slapstick. Plot is decent, actors are fine, but it's the setting and visual gags that make this into a good film. Sort of a cross between Kung Fu Hustle and Dude Where's My Car....

I enjoyed it.

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