Miss having friends in your forum? We've migrated over to discord! Many of the threads that started here years ago continue on in a new setting. Come join us!
I just rewatched Short Term 12 the other night, and I think the fact that UPSTREAM COLOR, SHORT TERM 12, HER, and THE ACT OF KILLING came out in 1 year is kind of staggering. It's such a quiet, effortless, miracle of a story. Brie Larson does fantastic work and the tone is just right. If you haven't seen it, please do so. I honestly done know if my next curated film will be this or The Pawnbroker.
I don't think the poison needs to be set up so elaborately. It's poison. We understand how poison works. It's not even a magical poison or anything. A lot of people have speculated that it's mercury.
"In the northern air temple fight, for example, we saw the combustion woman on the airship and she fires a beam at the stable. We see Tenzin struggling in a fight with a less experienced airbender. It should not be a hard fight for him. " I'm not sure if Tenzin has had much experience in fighting airbenders due to them being wiped out until very recently.
Show
More importantly, Tenzin was NOT struggling in the fight with Zaheer. He was kicking Zaheer's ass. He only lost because he couldn't take on all 4 of the Red Lotus at once all by himself.
If there's one thing that bothered me about this episode, it's Clara's reaction. I buy that her character would react that way, but the meta-commentary was laid on way too thick.
1. Why don't the airbenders just hop down from the temple when they are attacked?
2. How did Combustion woman attack Tenzin, the stables, and Bumi, and damm!t, she is just everywhere at the Northern Air Temple.
3. Is bent lava magic? Heat dissipates. Lava cools.
4. Why did Bumi and his sister both need to 'cover the retreat'?
5. Can an earth bender be a metal bender or a lava bender and only one and not by choice? That is important. Why does it seem obvious in the finale but no one says anything when they are training to metal bend?
6. How does Combustion woman put down 5 professional metal bending police officers while also stalling 2 master metal benders? Why did they do nothing but throw rocks and fall? Why do the metalbenders not attack with metal until the single attack which ends the fight?
7. when did Mako learn both of the most powerful fire bending techniques of the previous series? Lightning and rocket flight are the top shelf of fire techniques and he didn't do either (or practice them) until the finale.
8. Why the double-cross with the airbenders? They put them in chains and gave no reason they wanted them. Why not keep their word and release the airbenders?
9. Why do they have to poison Korra in this specific cave? If they don't, why keep trying to kidnap her instead of throwing poison at her and keeping her busy until she dies?
Show
1. Jumping off a cliff is generally not a good idea.
2. She was on the deck of the airship, circling the temple. The temple doesn't have a wide radius, so she could have easily been in all of these places.
3. Everything is magic.
4. I don't remember what this refers to, actually.
5. Presumably, you're more naturally inclined to one or the other. Most benders aren't powerful enough to learn two forms of their element, let alone 3.
6. Because then the fight would've ended early.
7. I must've missed Mako doing rocket flight, but presumably the lightning thing came for the same reason that Bolin's lavabending did.
8. Where else were they going to go? The temple was destroyed, and they couldn't let them roam free. They didn't want them to find the others and lead them back to the bad guys.
9. It was important to Zaheer, I guess. And they needed to have Korra subdued so that she couldn't fight back while the poison killed her. Using those flimsy chains was a genuinely dumb move, I'll give you that. But all of their other encounters with her have been in the middle of battle while she was surrounded by tons of allies. Not the best time to poison someone.
I really liked the finale, particularly the final scene.
From comments online, they had a 13 episode plan and toward the end of that they were given an extra 13 episodes and had to figure out what they would do. So, they moved the season 2 Skye story to the extra episodes. AND THEN CAPTAIN AMERICA 2 EXPLODED THEIR BRAINS. The were shocked and had to take some time to figure out what it meant for the show. I think their scrambling was better than their planned stuff.
I'd be very surprised if they didn't know the plot of Captain America 2 before going in. Marvel Studios controls both of them, and the show is called "Agents of SHIELD." No way they would've left them scrambling. They want to keep tight control over their universe. Also, didn't this show go straight-to-series? I'm pretty sure they went in with a 22-episode order.
The Sam Adams article also suffers from the misapprehension that people can only approach movies from one of two possible perspectives (either 100% engaged, or 100% disengaged) and that ambivalence is for pussies.
You're confusing engagement with quality/appreciation. Not fully engaging with a movie IS a bad thing. It's a complete waste of time. Not engaging at all is worse, but Singer and Adams are making the point that Cinema Sins is pretending to engage with a work by counting those sins, but actually doing so is a far cry from the shallow "analysis" that they produce.
Cotterpin Doozer wrote:
The idea that these videos are steeped in and feed on negativity is a valid opinion, but that "negativity" is not based on any ill will towards films by the producers.
So? That's not the point. They're steeped in negativity towards art.
I don't agree with the assessment that CT, or any other nitpicker, is trying to take the fun out of films. I think they are deliberately fishing in the shallow end of the pool. Maybe they take themselves too seriously, I don't know. I just know that I enjoy it, but I also can enjoy deeper analysis (and frequently do) here, and other places.
Well, like I've said before, what they're "trying" to do and what they're actually doing can be two different things.
How is the God device in this movie in any way compelling? It amounts to nothing but a series of needless guesswork. It begs the question why don’t you just tell him? It’s the plot of a badly written romantic comedy. We are given no reason for God not to tell Noah. Now, had the movie not been clear about the existence of God it would have made things much more interesting. Then the focus turns to Noah and his judgement and whether he is right, has gone insane or whatnot. Having everything rely on Noah would make a huge difference, in fact, all the difference. Taking the story from God’s hands into human hands. The story would have had poignancy. In God’s hands the story is moot, what will happen is God’s will. Now the only thing the movie is saying is that we should listen to God, cause God.
See, I find this version way less interesting. Uncertainty is what makes the movie so compelling, but not the binary uncertainty that you're suggesting. Noah keeps trying to figure out exactly WHY God wants what He wants, when the whole point was for Noah to come to a conclusion about humanity for himself.
Boiling it down to "Is God real or is Noah crazy?" just isn't as dramatic as what we got. And your last sentence just isn't correct, because the whole climax hinges on Noah NOT listening to God.
Good article by Matt Singer on this topic. He makes a great point that these videos rarely cover unpopular movies, because fewer people would watch those videos. Choice bits:
While there are still a few talented essayists carving out a valuable place for themselves in the world of criticism (like Kevin B. Lee, who has contributed video essays to The Dissolve, and recently created a fascinating “premake” of Transformers: Age Of Extinction), and a few video makers who manage to straddle the line between entertainment and intelligent criticism (like Red Letter Media, the creators of an infamously brutal series of video reviews of the Star Wars prequels, and the producers of a sharp, though less-traffic-friendly series called Half In The Bag), it seems like many of the most talented amateur editors have gravitated away from video essays toward supercuts and comedy series, which are easier to digest, and therefore more readily viral on social media. A few years ago, we seemed on the cusp of a revolution in film criticism. Now it seems like we’ve taken a step or two back.
These videos feed on the fact that negativity spreads faster on social media than positivity, and contribute to an increasingly sour air in the world of online movie fandom. CinemaSins’ website proclaims that “sometimes, even great movies suck,” but watching these nitpicking videos regularly suggests that every movie sucks. And if everything sucks, why care about movies at all?
But what bothers me more is the mindset these videos both foster and feed on, one which rewards approaching movies like a vengeful middle-school teacher, red pen clutched firmly in humorless hand. Louis Malle once said that if any of his editors were to win an award, he'd fire them, because if viewers were paying attention to the editing they weren't watching the film. The same goes for the "Everything Wrong With..." crowd, for whom a movie is just an opportunity to crack (not especially) wise. CinemaSins, you're no Crow T. Robot.
But by constantly trying to stay ahead of the movie, nitpickers aren't proving their smarts so much as their shallowness, advertising their inability or unwillingness to engage with a work of art and expecting to be applauded for it.
Fair point. For the record, I was never once confused by the film. I think it's extremely straightforward. It's just so packed with details that only appeal to fans.
As a television series, Farscape had the luxury of time. Filling the universe gives the writers hooks for future episodes, as the world is sustained each week there needs to be more content.
The Holy Grail is a retelling of a well known story, we understand who King Arthur is through cultural osmosis. We also have a history Monty Python. No matter the role, we know Cleese.
It's one thing to point at the screen and exclaim about all the things - they were plentiful and pretty, and another to appreciate what any of it means or why it matters.
This is true. I think it fits with the film's brash attitude to assume that you know what it's talking about, though. "Oh, you don't know who the Collector is? Well you can fuck right off then. We don't need your kind here."
Then again, I don't know how comfortable I am with nerd culture being powerful enough to adopt that attitude.
It took forever to get going, but once they got in the restaurant I really enjoyed it. It definitely didn't need to be 80 minutes, though. Some scenes dragged on and on, and it felt like Moffat was really pleased with himself for doing a mediocre job.
This episode really was the best and worst of Moffat. Some very funny lines ("Nothing is more important than my egomania!") and at least one clever twist (the Impossible Girl newspaper thing was great) but then there were things he kept driving into the ground. How many times did Jenny and Vastra bring up that they were married? Like, we get it, it's super cool that you have a lesbian relationship on your show. Those characters can talk about other things besides being married.
I really liked Clara in this episode, more than I've liked her in the past. I thought Capaldi was terrible for a while, but he's growing on me. I honestly think that the writing is still in Eleven-mode, and Moffat & co. need to catch up to what Capaldi is doing. Once that happens I'll probably enjoy Twelve more.
I saw this movie as the good version of the story of Abraham and Isaac on the mountain. Noah eventually decides that the love he has for his family doesn't outweigh the love he has for his god, and God says, "Yup, nailed it!" and there are rainbows and happiness and stuff.
Oh yeah, all that alcoholism and banished sons, all rainbows and joy over here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the last scene of the movie the family reuniting and Noah doing the ceremony with the snakeskin and God making a rainbow?
I saw this movie as the good version of the story of Abraham and Isaac on the mountain. Noah eventually decides that the love he has for his family doesn't outweigh the love he has for his god, and God says, "Yup, nailed it!" and there are rainbows and happiness and stuff.
