Anyone watch the animated Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf movie that just came out on Netflix? It follows the story of Vesemir, the mentor of Geralt. Vesemir begins life essentially as a poor serf but runs away with a Witcher to grow into a swashbuckling man with tricks up his sleeve. Details and character development later, he becomes more principled and turns into the role model we see later with Geralt. For some reason I thought this was going to be an episodic show. The writers did a good job with the story and character development but I feel like I was watching Castlevania (some of the same staff created this show). It didn't have that cold hopeless eastern European feel that the games capture, was a lot more gothic to me. I could see there being another movie after this to show Geralt coming up under Vesemir's tutelage. Overall I'd give it a 7/10.
No Time To Die There are actual spoilers below, so, you know, don't click if you don't want to be spoiled. Spoiler Meh. I think it may be the weakest Daniel Craig entry. I liked the definitive way they blew him up to kill him off. Although the standard "James Bond will return" at the end makes it kind of goofy. Like, none of the recent titles have "James Bond" and the poster just has "007" on it. So, with Noomi introduced as the new 007, couldn't they have just said "007 will return" if they're interested in continuing, but revitalizing the franchise? Because, James Bond is definitely dead, and now whomever the new James Bond is to continue the story means the name was just the agent all along and not his real name? I dunno) I was fine that he now has a kid, and it seemed that that was also able to stay consistent with killing him. So, again, the next film would have 007, but not James Bond. And, then, 2 or 3 films from now, the new 007 could be Mathilde Bond after she's grown up. But, whatever. There definitely needed to be more Ana de Armas in this movie. She's so great. And, Lea Seydoux is intriguing, but I saw plenty of her (read: all of her, from every angle) in Blue Is The Warmest Colour. I thought Rami Malek did okay, but the writing for him, both dialogue and some of the contrived plot stuff, was weak. I would rather they have pumped up his part and cut out the Blofield stuff altogether. They could have handled that part of the plot, if needed to close the Spectre loop with some exposition from another character. The car chase(s) and motorcycle stunts were tight and the scenery of Italy(?) and Norway were teriffic, but I'd have liked more of both. Overall, I was underwhelmed.
Dune Excellent cinematography and acting and doesn’t cut much from the book. I really enjoyed it, but not a lot happens because so much work needs to be done to set up the world building. My wife liked it too and she’s never read the book. Very excited for part two.
Dune Villeneuve can direct the hell out of sci-fi. The production design is exemplary, the cinematography is breathtaking, and the pacing felt right. My biggest gripe as I come to the internet after watching is that Warner Brothers hasn't even greenlit Part 2 yet. How in the fuck do you decide you're going to adapt Dune and only commit to the first half of the first book? At minimum you film both at the same time and release them a year apart (although a much smaller gap would have been my preference). 8/10 with the potential to go higher if Part 2 delivers a cohesive piece like Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Did anyone else feel like this could be going into a 3-Parter? It just felt like the stopping point was too early for a decent 2-Part film.
I had the same feeling while reading the book, but it wrapped up in about as many more pages as the another film would have minutes, so I expect they can get it done. I also think Villaneuve pitched it to the financiers as a two parter, so that's what they've been planning from the start.
Just saw it this weekend. I've read (I think) books 1-5; my cousin - who saw it with me - hasn't read any. He LOVED it. Was on the edge of his seat the whole time and engrossed. I thought it was very well done, although I was watching it a) knowing what would happen and b) comparing it to the book. I think they nailed the cinematography. They nailed the casting with one exception: Liet Keynes. It should have never been switched to female...Liet is the leader of ALL Fremen, ergo that means he can beat all the sietch leaders in hand-to-hand combat. Also, the actress who played the part did so from a weak, "My hands are tied I'm not allowed to" perspective, which is incorrect. Liet was ostensibly the emperor's emissary on Arrakis and head of all Fremen to boot. Dude was in charge of everything and never bowed to outside authority (witness how he didn't feel compelled to actually obey the emperor). Just an incorrect casting decision in an effort to have more female leads, I think. I had been worried that Jason Mamoa was cast wrong, because Duncan Idaho was written as a stocky, black ladies' man. I pictured him as more of an Idris Elba type. Mamoa nailed it, though. Well done there. They finished the movie exactly where I thought they would. I also thought it was brilliant how they ended Leto, given that the state dinner scene wasn't in the movie. My only critique (besides Keynes) was that this really should have been an eight-part series. I imagine it would have been ungodly expensive, but imagine if they had this budget and didn't have to pack so much info into four hours.
I think that would have been great, but getting a commitment from Villaneuve for that kind of thing would have probably been a non-starter. Same with the bigger names like Oscar Isaac, Timothee Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, etc. 5 hours of content to open the series, and then possibly handing it off for sequels is a pretty good starting point I think.
Damn, I must really be the only one who didn't love this movie so much. It was very well made, the casting was fine except for Kynes as mentioned above, cinematography, the Harkonnen attack which the book never really "showed" us, it was neat. It's just so many small details, changes that didn't need changing, stuff they included that should have been left out, other things they added that were better off not. I wish I'd seen this before ever reading the book (literally, I just listened to the thing last month so it's still fresh). Spoiler Why give Paul a "fremen wikipedia" on the Desert Shuffle instead of just letting him figure it out? They'd already introduced thumpers by then, obviously the worms react to mechanical rhythm. Book Paul could put 2 and 2 together. Movie Paul needs a youtube tutorial. Why are the palm trees sacred all of a sudden? They were just decoration, luxury and excess, the entire point was for the Duke to take their water away and give it to the people. The whole spice harvester scene, maybe if they hadn't spent the time painting the spice as "galactic fentanyl" they could've squeezed in the Duke giving the spotter reward away (man of the people) and Paul seeing the Fremen walking away on the sand (setting up the eureka moment later). Kynes in the escape tunnel, "yes, I'm fremen". BITCH, REALLY? Never would've guessed, it's not like the movie went to any pains to explain that *anybody* who dabbles in spice gets the blue tint. They made it an exclusively Fremen trait, so show me the audience member who was actually surprised to hear it. Lady Jessica meeting the Shadout Mapes. That's the tweet. That's it for a start, I'm sure there's more I already forgot.
Watched it yesterday on edibles (if you can, YES). I lament not seeing it theatres because of the sheer scale of it, something that Villenueve is really good at. The sound and music were incredible. Truly unique, even among Hans Zimmmer's work. I can see how the Arab influences are....problematic for an American movie. The book actually uses the word "jihad", and the whole premise is essentially "Lawrence of Arabia in space". Chalamet as teenage Jesus is kind of bleh. It's an impossible role, but there were some moments that were silly or cringe-inducing. The rest of the cast fucking nailed it, though. Visually, it's just incredible. Like, normally in sci-fi movies there's a moment where the plot armor kicks in or it lingers in the uncanny valley in terms of stuff like how we perceive large things in motion (the dinosaurs in Jurassic park, for example: no actual critter moves like that). Spoiler: SPOILER Aside from their being no guns, which....??, that didn't happen. The space and flight-craft looked and felt very realistic, and moved how we'd expect them to. The odd callbacks to our culture (bull-fighting, the bagpipes) were odd enough to be remarkable, but not unrealistic. For me, it's a bit ethereal, they spent a lot of time on world-building, and the plot moved slower. In contrast with the 1984 version, where the voice-over, while goofy as fuck, allowed things to move quicker. Having read the book and watched the David Lynch version, I felt a little more informed. I'd be curious how clear some of it was for someone who wasn't familiar with it. I can see this being a massive franchise, but I'd wager it drops off after two. It reminds me of the "Ender's Game" series. It suits a book very well, and gets bizarre on film (violent super-children in space combat), and a lot of the philosophy is dated now. I think this didn't shy away from the philosophical or political undertones, but it didn't beat anyone over the head with it.
I don't think they ever had Spoiler guns in the sense that we know, actual projectiles fired by gun powder or even rail tech. Probably because their ships and structures had the same shields as the personal kind, that would repel any projectile coming above a certain speed. You saw the nukes slow down and drill to penetrate. So they instead had lasguns, lasers and such. Now the risk with them is that laser + shield = big bada boom, so in a way the Dune universe is just a big Gun Free Zone. There's no point, if you know your enemy has shields on everything. As the Atreides did, until Yueh turned them off.
Seeing some deleted scenes leak....oh, there will be a director's cut released in 2022 to keep interest high for a sequel.
I finally committed some time to watch Dune. I absolutely loved it. This. So much this. WB apparently wanted to make sure it was a hit before committing to part 2. WTF? They have greenlit it now. Due in October 2023. https://parade.com/1286199/samuelmurrian/dune-part-two-release-date-cast-trailer/
Army of Thieves After seeing it was a prequel to Army of the Dead, I thought it was going to be a zombie flick. It is not. It's a heist / action movie. It could have used a great car chase scene, but it's a fairly enjoyable Netlflix watch. Cast was good, script was tight, no ridiculous run time padding. I wish it would have come out first. The scenes with Dieter in AotD were more enjoyable with the backstory.
Free Guy I must have missed the memo on this one since other people seem to like it. I just didn’t dig it whatsoever, and I say that as someone who plays video games. Other movies that revolve around some game-ish plot like Boss Level we’re much better. Plus about 75% of the movie was filmed in the exact area where I used to work, so that was pretty distracting. Ryan Reynolds is perpetually annoying and this was a dud. 3/10
The Alpinist If you liked Free Solo, The Dawn Wall, and Meru, this documentary will be right up your alley. 9/10
Spider-Man: No Way Home Um....(shrugs). I think if you watched the trailers, you see the majority of the plot take shape. Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man thus far, and they do a great job of capturing a high school kid schtick. Zendaya's MJ and Batalon's Ned are adorable, and Dr. Strange as the straight man in a comedy angle isn't bad (Cumberbatch has epic deadpan). They do some epic pokes at conspiracy theorists and J. Jonah Jameson is essentially the MCU's Alex Jones, which is hilarious. The whole thing was....depressing, though. Spoiler: SPOILER First, the end result of the film was the thing he sought to avoid in the first place? (His friends and family not remembering him). And "curing" the villains? Like wasn't there entire movies about how that's not possible? This movie kicked you in the feels, but with no point to it! The plot devices in this were the real Iron Man...from the "fabricator" to the nano bots, to the "No Stark network access", it all felt kind of stitched together, like the weight of the MCU had started to make it hard to write. Of all the stories, why do a double take on "Into the Spider-verse", without any of the charm, wit, style and magic? Even the clone saga would have been a slightly better choice. The villains were pretty solid, with Alfred Molina's Doc Ock as a standout, but some of them were bad decisions when these movies got made (Sandman, Electro, the Lizard). I'm annoyed they didn't introduce anything/anyone new. For all the hype around this, it was either very thoroughly spoiled, or they didn't have any cause to introduce something new. I would have shit kittens to see Kraven the Hunter, Scorpion, the Rhino, hell, even Kingpin matching the "Hawkeye" tie-in. Nope. Just rehash. The scene with Venom at the credits was such a fucking letdown. That was the sixth of the "Sinister Six"....that never fucking showed up. I think that's the last time we see Tom Hardy as Venom, I doubt we'll ever see his version actually fight Spider-Man, which....sigh. The ending just kind of crushed me: dude is alone, no family, no friends, and is crushed, and for what? Like, if you're going to drop kick my feels, make it worth it. Nope. A Spider-Man nostalgia tour that was kind of fun, but fails to capture the charm of "Homecoming". It also felt too much like a vehicle to other MCU films, which is starting to get old. To be fair, I didn't really enjoy Far From Home much either. Between this and the Eternals, Marvel's Phase 4 is pretty sparse on quality. Shang-Chi was just ok (generic Asian fantasy film?), and I didn't bother watching Black Widow once I found out there was no lesbian sex scenes (and after watching 5 episodes, sex with Hawkeye would count as a lesbian scene). Next up is Doctor Strange 2, then Thor 4, and Black Panther 2 with Moon Knight and She-Hulk on TV. At some point, it seems the script got flipped and the good stuff was diverted to television, with the film components being....shitty.