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

[prinnysquad]

Or a character with obsessive addictive tendencies. I’m not sure he’s a loop, just a representation of how addicts can relapse.

A man who almost lost his life, his girl, and who’s actions have caused countless civilian deaths and caused untold destruction.

Yet still, he can’t kick the habit. He wants to make this tech. He had to. But it’s caused such a disaster that he can only develop it for others, or sign up to accountability measures so that he can indulge his tendencies and reduce the guilt from the fallout. Ultron was his attempt at gifting mankind the ultimate ‘I’m sorry’. It was too good a chance for his arrogant personality to miss. Civil War was his defeated acceptance that he had to be reigned in and provided a crutch for his guilt.

[Dogg Thang]

Not seeing that, to be honest. Especially with Ultron because we don’t see that happen. It’s like it happened between movies or, more accurately, rewound between movies. The man we know at the end of Iron Man 3 is gone before the first frame of Age Of Ultron. So we don’t see a man go through a relapse, we just see a man in a static state of being who doesn’t reflect the change seen in the previous movie. And he learns nothing in that movie so he’s stagnant. Civil War doesn’t really do it because what he says and what he does don’t match. He still has learned nothing and, in Homecoming, he’s just tinkering away with projects that cause problems, like he has been doing since Iron Man 1. It’s not progression in any way.

But to be fair, it could be argued that I’m expecting too much for a series of comic book movies. There isn’t a single other character I can think of in the Marvel universe that has shown the growth Stark did in Iron Man 1 (arms dealer to superhero owning the role) and Iron Man 3 (trauma victim desperately trying to use tech as defence to a person finally comfortable with himself as a person). All the other characters are kind of just static too. So if anything, those Stark arcs are the exception, the anomalies. Nevertheless, they happened and I just find it disappointing that he went backwards and not seemingly as part of any story.

[prinnysquad]

Yes I agree with the lack of explanation leading into Ultron. That’s me filling in character gaps. Although, they get the sceptre very early on, so it could be argued that Stark’s change of heart relapse occurred at that moment there. I’m not sure how his actions and words in Civil War don’t match? Have I missed something? In Homecoming, does his tech cause problems? I’ve only watched it twice. I recall it having blocks on it to stop Peter from misusing elements of it, and he confiscates it when he feels it’s abused. This feels like Stark indulging his tech obsession, but dislocating himself from its use, and thus, blame for when it screws up.

[Dogg Thang]

Peter IS his project in Homecoming and, yeah, he gives Peter access to tech that doesn’t he hack and then get into trouble with? In Ultron, we see a whole new army of robots before they get the sceptre - undoing his big action and realisation of Iron Man 3 happened between movies. And Civil War is a messy one because Stark isn’t the only character problem there (Black Widow’s alignment is somewhat bizarre) but he talks about the need for the accords and to be reigned in like he has regrets and then spends most of the movie in big destructive fights, repeating every other movie he has been in including beating up his buddies to get his way like in Ultron before it, when this apparent realisation in Civil War is that they were actually right. The motivations in that particular film are all over the place.

[prinnysquad]

I can’t remember the bit with the robots! Shows how much this kid has smashing my brain. They aren’t suits though, are they? Does he vow to give up all tech development in IM3? Or just suits? I do see your point Dogg. It’s clumsy. I’m perhaps too forgiving. I really don’t mind the motivations and actions of the characters in Civil War. Spidey happenchancing on new abilities in his suit I wouldn’t particularly blame Stark for.

On the subject of Ultron, I seem to remember that the last time I watched it, I liked it a lot more than I did at the flicks.

[Dogg Thang]

No, he doesn’t give up all his tech development in Iron Man 3 but he learns some humility and the need for humanity and the ones he gets rid of are the suits that go remote, which are essentially the same idea as the robots he has at the start of Ultron. And importantly any sense of humility is gone. He goes through a lot in Iron Man, learning that his weapons are used for wrong and even after that, Stain gets access to his tech and so Stark is indirectly responsible for all of that and he knows it and this ties into Iron Man 3 where his arrogance and treating people badly also resulted in harm. Cut to Ultron and he is Iiterally fighting his own friends to arrogantly repeat a mistake in that very movie where his own tech yet again was turned against them, this time with pretty devastating consequences. He was really the only one who needed to be reigned in. You have to blame Stark for Spidey getting access to that tech because it’s the same thing again - it’s Stain, it’s Ultron. And he is so arrogant and unpleasant with Peter that it’s repeating both the mistakes of Iron Man and Iron Man 3 all in one but, by this stage, the Marvel movies have stopped acknowledging it because it’s just him now. It’s funny ol’ Stark.

Anyway, I’m looking too deeply into Marvel movies! And I don’t want to step on anyone’s enjoyment - I watch them because I enjoy them. They’re all fun films. And I don’t hold lack of development against any of the other characters so I’m not really being fair.

[prinnysquad]

Yes, I’ve enjoyed the chat! We differ on some stuff, but it’s been fun. I like talking about the films. We really are spoilt these days. When the bubble bursts and superhero films fall out of favour, we’ll look back at this era and feel privileged. There’s like 6 films released a year, and lots are really decent quality. Our kids will look back on this with jealousy.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, child me would be amazed at the thought that we’d one day get all these superhero movies.

[Dogg Thang]

I got the Ring collection on blu ray (the new Arrow one) and watched Ring last night. It has been a long time since I have seen it. It’s still a brilliant movie although it has lost much of its power for me through familiarity, comparing with the book which I reread just a couple of weeks ago* and probably in part to all that happened in horror since Ring. But a great watch and really interesting to study it rather than just watch it. There are very few moments in the movie of any threat and, in that sense, is beautifully understated but most shots are framed in such a way that there could be a threat. Parts of frame are left exposed in a way other movies wouldn’t do, like a door is in shot or a window or, often, a very dark patch. So even though the film does nothing to suggest that the plot is leading to a scare here, the shots always often have a real tension to them simply because of how they are framed. It’s made really well.

The Arrow transfer is lovely, retaining the film grain and looking pretty much exactly how I remember it when I first got to see it in a cinema.

What they have barely advertised is that there are actuallly four films in the set - it also includes Rasen, the first sequel to Ring which was wiped from existence due to not being very good and so they made Ring 2 instead. It’s interesting that some of the same characters are in both sequels, like a split timeline. I watched Rasen years ago but the HK DVD I had was a really bad transfer and that alone was distracting so I might give it a watch tonight.


*Ring is one instance where the film is so much better than the book but I had forgotten how much from the book is still intact in the film. I’m currently reading Loop, the 3rd book in the series, and what happens in that book is so unbelievably bad. It’s like the author hated Ring and wanted to actively destroy its legacy. So weird.

[Neon Ignition]

The irony of that discussion given the thread I'm starting today

Rocky III
The one that Pity's the Fool who doesn't like Eye of the Tiger. This one has a reasonable plot, the idea of Rocky riding the high life after his victory over Creed in the previous film only to discovery Mickey has been setting up patsy fights for him as he feels Rocky would lose otherwise. The threat of Mr T's hungry for a win fighter is fine however there are two key mistakes the third film makes, the first is Mr T himself. Clubber Lang as a concept is fine but Mr T lacks any and all subtlety as an actor meaning that other than shouting 'I kill you Balboa! You face me!' lots there's no context to his anger so he lacks the impact that Creed made with just as little screen time. The other is that the film is short, with an extra 30 minutes they could have really delved more into Rocky's shaken confidence and self doubt setting up the finale of him overcoming this and avenging Mickey carrying as much weight as the finale's of the first two films did. It's a good watch but the character subtlety is dropping.

Rocky IV
Yep, straight into the battle with Russia. With this one any attempt at subtlety is completely dead and gone, Lundgren's Drago is as one note as they come and the films heavy handed US vs Russia focus takes centre stage. From the cringe worthy robot to the half dozen montages in a 90 minute film, Stallone is creeping closer and closer to phoning these things in and yet... on this rewatch I enjoyed this more than the third film. It doesn't really move things anywhere as Paulie is still a bum whilst Adrianne exists only to complain at Rocky for fighting but it still clicks a little better than the third film and the scene with Creed trying and failing to fist bump Drago through to his convulsions on the ring floor are gold. I still hold the third and fourth films up well but still below the first two films.

Peter Pan
Disney's animated classic and ever increasingly insensitive film. I still forget how short they used to make them, it's never been one of my favourites but it's a lively enough film and the kids enjoyed watching it.

Ghost in the Shell
I came into this one as someone who is aware of the original but hasn't seen it. The result? Hmm, some nice looking shots but for me I found it to be pretty rubbish. It's just kind of there, there isn't any particular sense of caring about what's going on and it feels shallow and dated throughout.

[Dogg Thang]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ROCKY’S DETACHED RETINA?!!!

I watched Rasen (Spiral), the first Ring sequel. Taken as a sequel to Nakata’s Ring, it’s not a good film. On its own merits, it’s still not good. For a whole bunch of reasons but mainly because of the book it is based on. The book, Spiral, is not a good book. It’s dull, spends ages on science that just bottom line doesn’t work and there is only one creepy sequence in the whole book (worth noting that I don’t think the book is really meant to be a horror or scary book). Nakata stripped that stuff out of the first Ring so, in essence, Rasen is a sequel to a film that was never made. It’s a sequel to a whole different version of Ring.

It does differ from the book in places, partly to reconcile changes made in Nakata’s Ring and partly probably for time. Veering from the book was a good idea but it keeps all the wrong parts and strips out the one creepy part of the book. The logic of the book didn’t work and, instead of taking that all out or replacing it, they keep some of it - just enough to have it make even less sense.

And so it just plods along with no hint of tension or creepiness or anything that made Nakata’s Ring work. I kind of feel bad for the people involved because, even knowing the script Nakata was working from, it must have been hard to make a sequel without having seen the original (the two films were shot at the same time) so it must have come as a bit of a shock when they really saw how Nakata’s film came together.

Anyway, it’s definitely an interesting curiosity for anyone interested in Ring but not a good film.

[Dogg Thang]

And last night I watched Ring 2, the other sequel to Ring. Weird watching Rasen and Ring 2 so close together seeing as they feature many of the same main characters but in effectively totally different timelines. Rasen was wiped from existence for this one.

Ring 2 is a mixed bag. It has some effective tension, is definitely creepy but struggles a little to find its story and I think loses its way as it gets towards the end. Some really great sequences and it does have that eeriness that the first has while dialling things up a bit, which was probably right to do given that everyone watching it will already have seen the first. It just doesn't fully come together as a story and relies a lot on visiony things and people just knowing stuff (which to be fair, the original does too). The end is a little hard to buy, even in a story about a cursed video tape but, in comparison with Rasen, at least it has some clarity.

[charlesr]

Watched Lucy and Ghost in the Shell, back to back. Lucy was better. Still enjoyed GitS (lol) the second time around though.

[Atticus]

Watched My Darling Clementine last night. Now i want to watch a load more classic westerns.

[Neon Ignition]

Johnny English Strikes Again
I mean, I wish I could see Rowan Atkinson do something decent again. This was awful, just awful, devoid of any decent moment.