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Re: Walking It Back?

Eddie wrote:

In terms of me walking something back.....The Matrix.  And yeah....I mean the first one.  To me it does not hold up, and it's just not something I particularly enjoy rewatching.  Even the fights feel really old and not terribly good at delivering story or character.

This. I love Agent Smith, and the fountain of memes that the film has become is amazing, but it doesn't hold up. The effects are very badly dated in parts (the chase between the Squiddies and the Nebuchadnezzer in particular is cringe-worthy) and the fight scenes are cartoony, but more importantly the backstory doesn't make a whole lot of sense (as pointed out by Trey in the WAYDM), and Reeves/Moss can't hack it—they have pretty much no chemistry and are very boring to watch, and it doesn't help that their kiss, in addition to feeling totally unearned—there is no reason Trinity should have fallen in love with this man or vice versa—skirts the deus ex machina line pretty raggedly.

Add to that the weird feeling I had watching it that was generated by seeing The Formula first, and thus seeing all of the moments in The Matrix that The Formula was referencing as references The Matrix was making to The Formula before my brain could work out was happening...yeah, it just felt weird.

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  • From: Bristol. Again.
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Re: Walking It Back?

I really didn't like Hot Fuzz when I first saw it, having loved SPACED and Shaun of the Dead it didn't quite click, it wasn't for a few years that I completely reversed my opinion on it.

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  • From: Maryland
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Re: Walking It Back?

Eddie wrote:

This.  All day.  THere's literally no point in asking me if I liked a movie as soon as the house lights come up because I'm almost always, "HAPPY!  FILM HAPPENED AT MY FACE AND POPCORN."  It took about two days for my issue with MAN OF STEEL to manifest.  Rare is it a film that I walk out completely hating (BATMAN AND ROBIN) or completely floored because I loved it so much (HER).

Ha, I agree with that point, though MAN OF STEEL happened to be one of those rare films I walked out of hating.

My disappointment with the Hobbit films has continually increased over time. I'm not quite sure if it has peaked yet. I don't dare hope the third one will slow that process.

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  • From: Norway
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Re: Walking It Back?

I didn't like Kill Bill vol. 2 until I rewatched it a couple of years ago. I guess I just wasn't in the right mindset back in 04 for a talkative, slow movie.

But I did like the Star Wars prequels and the Matrix sequels until WAYDM pointed out their errors.

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  • From: State of Idaho
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Re: Walking It Back?

Tomahawk wrote:

I didn't like Kill Bill vol. 2 until I rewatched it a couple of years ago. I guess I just wasn't in the right mindset back in 04 for a talkative, slow movie.

But I did like the Star Wars prequels and the Matrix sequels until WAYDM pointed out their errors.


I agree with the prequels. I still have a soft spot (some would say in the head) for Attack of the Clones, probably because I defended it for so long. But, WAYDM movie certainly revealed many of the flaws, even if I don't agree with all of them, I do recognize them as problems. Also, Phantom Menace is still one of my all time favorite WAYDM episodes.

The Matrix sequels I agree with more so, but I was not as invested in them as I was the Star Wars movies. The Matrix sequels was pretty much a waste of idea potential, with some decent lines and performances but rather incoherent story. I will say this: made a great video game wink

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  • From: Kent, England
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Re: Walking It Back?

I too have that 'cinema glow' coming out, and despite knowing that this feeling is misleading I often still let this form my judgement of the film overall - so I've returned from films like Man of Steel and Star Trek 2 and have posted to the the forum whilst still on the buzz. Mistakes were made.

I walked back on 'Wreck it Ralph' recently, first seeing it with some friends a while ago and then with some of my nephews and nieces; the second time was so much more fun.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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  • From: Bristol. Again.
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Re: Walking It Back?

I walked back on Star Trek Into Darkness after Fireproof's well made arguments.  wink

Well at least I went from hating it to seeing it as a pretty bad movie that wasn't an a front to everything Star Trek represented.

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  • From: Van Dieman's Land
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Re: Walking It Back?

Squiggly_P wrote:

Titanic is another movie I flip flop on a lot. I'll watch it and think it's an overrated pile of crap that's too cliche and over-acted. The next time I'll be admiring the craft of it and how it basically does everything perfectly to manipulate its audience. If ever there was an example of a film that knows how to control the audience's emotional states, it's Titanic. It keeps sinking its claws deeper and deeper, getting a fantastic grip on you until the iceberg hits, and from that point on it's using that grip to throw you around like a rag doll. If you let it get its claws in in the lead-up you can't escape. If it can't get that purchase it needs, the whole movie falls apart. But even there there are a few parts in the tail end that just work.

I saw the 3D re-release in IMAX, and there were grown men crying all around me.

not long to go now...

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Re: Walking It Back?

Re-watched Cloverfield tonight in preparation for Godzilla, and I've walked back on it big-time. The idea is still cool I suppose, but I'm utterly over the found-footage aesthetic. All it does is distance you from the action and remind you that you're watching something fake. I think a story like this could work if it was shot in the vein of something like Gravity, but as is, it just throws the movie off-balance (any time there's a CG effects shot embedded into the footage, it jumps out at you because it clashes with the aesthetic).

On top of that, it really jumped out at me how un-interesting this group of people is and how shallow the characterization is. If you're not going to focus on the spectacle, you should take that opportunity to make me care about these bystanders, and it never really does. Doesn't help that their objective is incredibly stupid, no way these guys would tag along with Rob into the middle of a warzone, especially Marlena who barely knows them.

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Re: Walking It Back?

I'm not the biggest fan if Cloverfield as a film, but if you think of it as a lost episode of FELICITY (because the characters are practically the same) then it was awesome.

Eddie Doty

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  • From: Poland
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Re: Walking It Back?

bullet3 wrote:

I'm utterly over the found-footage aesthetic

I was never very fond of it in the first place. Just like 3D, found footage became a fad after the big success of one movie and now it's being routinely used without good reason. In some cases it's nothing more than a badly utilized gimmick (Apollo 18) or an excuse for low production values and lack of good cinematography.

Blair Witch still works pretty well, though.

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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  • From: Farmington, CT
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Re: Walking It Back?

I think Cloverfield is one of the few movies where found footage actually works, mainly because it's used purposefully. The point of the movie is to show what a monster movie looks like for a random person on the ground, which is a perspective rarely shown in favor of big wide shots of the monsters themselves. As opposed to Boring Found Footage Horror Movie #359, which only uses it because it's cheaper to produce a movie that way. I can count on two hands the number of found footage movies that use the aesthetic effectively and for a reason. Chronicle is another recent one.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Walking It Back?

I think Chronicle is the only one that I think justifies the aesthetic, because the filming is integral to the character arc of the antagonist.

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  • From: State of Idaho
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Re: Walking It Back?

Faldor wrote:

I walked back on Star Trek Into Darkness after Fireproof's well made arguments.  wink

Well at least I went from hating it to seeing it as a pretty bad movie that wasn't an a front to everything Star Trek represented.


I did...what now?

*runs to read his arguments again*

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  • From: Bristol. Again.
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Re: Walking It Back?

Nah, I'm just being trollin, it's still wank.  wink

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  • From: State of Idaho
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Re: Walking It Back?

Faldor wrote:

Nah, I'm just being trollin, it's still wank.  wink

That's what I thought. I never read a full retraction and apology from you wink

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  • From: Norway
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Re: Walking It Back?

Cloverfield is one of the worst examples of Found Footage there is. I remember liking it when it came out. Revisited it a few months ago. Didn't care at all about it.

Chronicle I liked, though. I might've to check it out again to see if I still feel that way, but yeah.

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  • From: Sweden
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Re: Walking It Back?

Cloverfield I have to agree with. I gave it an 8/10 after seeing it in theaters, and that score did reflect my initial impression from the biggest room at my local cinema.
Subsequent viewings does show it to be a pretty thin movie, and it doesn't really flow as organically as it could. Still for me a 6.5/10, I can't dislike it more.

The 2 biggest changes I've made personally are Mulholland Dr and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Mulholland Dr in particular went from an honest 3/10 when I saw it 2006-ish (1 of those points being solely for Angelo Badalamentis score), to a true 10/10 when I saw it again some 5 years later. The interim movie experience aswell as just being 5 years older and having further been exposed to different aesthetics and themes made that 2nd viewing a home run for me, a truly moving, haunting piece of visual and auditory beauty.

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