I'm looking at the poster for the movie you're talking about, and...

...I don't know what movie you're talking about, but the poster is awful.

It's also victim of the new directive where apparently every movie poster has to be a gradient from blue to red.

Has its moments, mostly in the form of some very funny gags, but it feels like the mostly effusive praise is due to our collective refusal to admit this franchise is now less than perfect.

The whole exercise is curiously empty. Forky as both a character and a concept is rife with possibilities (for those who haven't been following the marketing, he's a spork who's horrified to gain sentience after he's made into a toy by the gang's new kid), but any attempt at an arc for him is just abandoned after the first act. Most of the old supporting cast is sidelined in favor of new faces, getting one or two (or even zero) lines apiece, and even Buzz is granted only the most eye-rolling, cursory development. The ending is being lauded as waterworks-inducing, but for me it was where the seams streched to the breaking point; the emotional manipulation is so obvious, the final lines so perfunctory, that it felt like cynicism more than anything.

Also, while I'm sure part of it is simply that I grew up on the original films and not this one, the aesthetic is... really ugly. It's a Frankenstein of photorealistic glitz combined with the classic blocky, stylized look of the toys, one that constantly feels at odds with itself.

Randy Newman remains the GOAT, and Tom Hanks does his damnedest. Keanu for president.

Approximately a 9.8 on the Goldblum scale. Fun bit of newspaper-movie fluff that coasts on its performances, of which his is easily the standout; also notable as one of exactly sixteen American feature films directed by a woman in the 1970s.

What can you do after something as huge as the Infinity War / Endgame two-parter? You can make

I had a lot of fun with it. Tom Holland's Peter Parker is just as adorable as ever and his friends are fun to watch too. Even Happy Hogan gets to do something interesting. After so many failed attepts (two movie series by Columbia/Sony) they finally got Spidey right, both in animation (Spider-Verse) and live action.

A WARNING: avoiding spoilers is crucial with this movie. Also, it's good to stay for the two post-credit scenes, they're important.

I really enjoyed Stand and Ollie, I don’t know much about Laurel and Hardy outside of seeing their films on afternoon telly when I was very, very young but the story of the double act that’s been through it’s ups and downs really hit home.

The performances really blew me away, Steve Coogan, who is perhaps best known for yelling “Dan” in a car park and John C. Riley who is usually an indicator that a film will be bad were really on top form.

Really enjoyable film and by the end I had a bit of a tear in my eye, I need to track down more silent comedies.

In honour of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and many years of hearing about it - I finally watched From The Earth To The Moon and, well... Daaaammmn it's good! That score, yo!

Certainly the best docu-drama I've seen. There's a couple of goofy episodes, but I dug 'em. Definitely a great comprehensive look at the Apollo missions.

I could watch Mr Hanks do bits to camera all day long.

'Spider' is still the best docu-drama about engineers fighting deadlines and budgets ever put to screen. Absolutely unparalleled.

Yep. Right there with ya. It's stunning!

I watched Klute t'other day. Man is that ending intense.

As an aside - I only know Jane Fonda from a 1980's work out VHS my mother had kicking around.

Last edited by Regan (2019-07-23 17:35:16)

I am in awe that this movie exists.

Besides the uncanny prescience of the political commentary (the President making the new capital Lynchburg, Virginia, OMG), Carpenter really had the balls to write a slapstick takedown of US imperialism that features

AND IT GOT DISTRIBUTED BY A MAJOR STUDIO?!?!

Not to hold it up as an untouchable paragon of satire or anything—the political instincts are good but sometimes muddled, and the representation isn't without problems, just like in Escape from New York.

Last edited by Abbie (2019-07-31 03:54:24)

Just rewatched for the first time in probably ten years. Not everything holds up IMO—some of the self-aware remix-culture jokes step on the emotional beats—but it's still maybe the best deconstruction of fandom self-loathing ever made.

It's really, really sad how much its portrayal of fan masochism still rings true. The obsessive, self-righteous rage it was critiquing in a post-TPM context is just as strong almost two decades later for the new movies*—rather than learning from prequel hate, the community doubled down. "Which came first, Star Wars or the cynicism?"

I see a lot of myself in Tom—specifically me from around eight years ago or so who was just absolutely obnoxious in their self-flagellating, performative hatred for George Lucas. Realizing how similar we were was one of the things that got me off the ledge re: my obsession with the franchise, which I remain extremely grateful for.

On the fun side, it's retroactively become this weird period artifact of the fanfilm community, which is only strengthened by the fact that the only place you can get a copy is the TFN archive. 'Twas a simpler time. (That said, I hope Chris has a backup copy somewhere just in case.)

*this is specifically referring to the toxic internet discourse continuously going on at scream-level about movies that are already several years old, not people who just don't like the Disney movies, tbc

Last edited by Abbie (2019-09-11 14:41:42)