The Films You Watched Thread V: Dead Men Watch No Movies

[QualityChimp]

I watched Attack the Block last night. Loved it.

I wanted to, for various reasons (Director, concept, location, Precinct 13), but I didn't like the majority of characters.

I was quite happy to see the muggers and drug dealers torn asunder, so that kinda removed the tension.

I personally thought Tower Block was a much better film.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Block_(film)

[Dogg Thang]

That doesn’t sound as funny.

[QualityChimp]

There is that, but I can't remember there being much humour in AtB beyond Nick Frost's character.

[Dogg Thang]

I found the kids pretty funny in it.

[QualityChimp]

No, they needed to die for their crimes.

I only wanted the woman to survive.

[Dogg Thang]

That’s a bit harsh. They were just kids. Not good kids but kids nonetheless.

[QualityChimp]

Nah mate.

They weren't "just kids" they were muggers, gang members, cruel to animals and terrorised the neighbourhood.

Also, they seem to say “brap”, “merk” and “blud” for a solid 90 minutes. U get me?

[Dogg Thang]

They talk like Big Shaq! That’s funny and disarming.

[wakka]

They filmed a good amount of Attack the Block across the road from the house I used to live in at uni, at the now-demolished Heygate Estate next to Elephant & Castle (it's a massive development of fancy £600k+ flats now).

More than once we came back from clubbing (~4am, 5am) and we had to stand and wait before we could go into our road as they were filming the sequence where the aliens crawl all over the police van. The aliens at that point were men in furry black suits.

It's a good film, although I've not watched it since it came out. It's a solid lampooning of Southeast London culture mixed up with an action packed sci fi story...the white stoner guy who's listening to KRS One near the start resonated with all of us I recall (!).

[charlesr]

Captain Marvel was great. Loads of action. A little plot. My daughter laughed so hard at the cat that other people laughed at her laugh. The start of the credits was very trippy and beautiful. Great music. Good explanation of power level change.

[Dogg Thang]

My daughter laughed so hard at the cat that other people laughed at her laugh.

Yeah, we loved Captain Marvel. My youngest isn't all that much into superhero movies at all but the cat was a huge hit so that rescued the movie for her. The rest of us pretty much loved all of it.

[QualityChimp]

Managed to complete my Ghost in the Shell double-bill! (Although I fell asleep in the live-action film and had to rewind like I did for the anime the day before )

So Ghost in the Shell (1995) is a stone-cold classic.
It's not my fave old-skool anime, that's always going to be Akira, but love Patlabor, Fist of the North Star and Macross Plus.
It has a few faults like pacing and it's a little silly with the amount of nudity (in the manga, she's more clothed, but there is sauce there too) that makes me feel like an awkward teen.
It kinda fizzles out a bit at the end, IMHO.
However, it's a total thrill ride to get there and a feast for the eyes. It's interesting to see computers come into play with anime, and the "making of" documentary touches on it and they're used for more than just the scenes of vehicles being tracked, they're also used to help with depth perception by resizing layers as they get closer, blur background art to focus on the foreground and it was edited using the old AVID editing software.
It's just gorgeous though and feels like a lost art with computer animation being so prevalent these days.
The animators took a lot of time researching weapons, even going to a gun range and drawing sparks when bullets hit metal, but not on wood or stone.
In fact, there is so much going on in the background, it reminded me of a [MENTION=3144]Dogg Thang[/MENTION] animated gif!
I think this is only the second time seeing it and really enjoyed it.


Ghost in the Shell (2017)
I'm not sure where to start with this. OK, I'll start by saying that I really like the film, I think it'll really pop in 3D and the production design is amazing.
Every so often, a film's detailed props will really impress and stay with me. I'm thinking Aliens, The Fifth Element and Elysium.
From the various weapons, to the Thermoptic Camoflage to the futuristic Tokyo with its neon holographic adverts, it really shows how much effort went into it. I particularly loved Batou's Lotus!


It was fascinating to watch the film straight after the anime to compare and contrast.
The core story of the anime is that a terrorist is trecelessly hacking into systems and cyborgs and he plots to kill several VIPs. Section 9 are trying to track him down, but every lead is a dead end until the terrorist hands themselves in and it's not what they're expecting.

The live-action film takes loads of ideas and moments from the anime, but rewrites the story to be an origin tale with an amnesiac Mira Killian (Johansson) having an entirely robotic body with just her brain remaining from her body after her family were killed in a terrorist attack. A mysterious terrorist is killing key staff members of the robotics company that built her body and Killian and Section 9 are investigating.

There are some pretty direct lifts from the anime and it's impressive how much they've used it as a template for some shots.

It's hard to say which I prefer, because they both have their pros and cons. I'd like to see the remake in 3D at some point as it really is stunning to look at and I wanted to spend more time just exploring the city (roll on Cyberpunk 2077!). The original was also gorgeous to look at.

I went on to watch a few videos about some of the props that were on display, some that were on sale and some, like the Thermoptic Camouflage skinsuit at Weta.

[charlesr]

Watched the 2017 version last week. Such a spectacle. Taken as a live action version of an anime, it's bang on really. There weren't any moments that made me question my suspension of disbelief. Well, maybe just one - no seams on her face. But overall, it looks lovely, the plot is pretty good and it's the right length.

[fuse]

Not a fan of being the 'but the anime' guy, but they're very different beasts to me.

The original does have some amazing action scenes that were super high concept at the time, but whenever I watch it I'm far more caught up in the mood the whole thing creates - its pace can be very slow at times, and there's a lot of downbeat, melancholy scene-setting going on that I love. The way it's scored goes with this beautifully. It doesn't have answers, but it prompts questions about the relationship between one's humanity, and technology.

The remake does a good job of recreating a lot of the famous scenes, and even has a few of its own really great ideas. I remember there being a fixed-frame scene shot from above where some soldiers are piling through a door? That was great! But on the whole, it has the subtlety of a brick through a window. Minutes into it I had my head in my hands, with the opening dialogue being a clumsy mess that assumed that "ghost" and "shell" were too abstract for the audience to understand, and also that they needed explaining RIGHT AWAY before they lost interest. Fitting the whole story around the origins of the character made it a different story entirely. I don't outright hate it, but I wish they'd just made their own movie rather than riding off the back of something they clearly didn't feel was entirely appropriate for their audience.

[Atticus]

The Lady From Shanghai - a bit of an odd one from Orson Welles (writer, director, star). As became the formula after Kane he shot one thing and then the studio hacked it to bits and made their version. Apparently 60 minutes were cut from (what was supposed to be) the finished article and it also had the soundtrack replaced with something far more mundane. But such is the quality of his work even a hobbled version can't hide the greatness. It's a bit of an off-kilter film noir, casting a strange and sinister spell that I really enjoyed. It's no Touch of Evil but it's worth a look if you're a fan.