The reverse of that post I’ve made a week ago…
Rules: pick one movie or series and explain why you actually enjoyed it despite the criticism.
For me: The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, by far the best ST stuff ever made, I couldn’t take seriously the original universe with the dated effects and stiff acting, same goes for NG… These movies did ST actually great looking and much more believable, not just the effects.
Super Mario Bros. with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. I don’t care how bad it is. It’s in the campy so-bad it’s good pool of movies and nothing anyone says can change my mind. The fact that they were drunk off their asses just makes it even funnier in my opinion.
I saw that shit in theaters. Also Final Fantasy Spirits Within.
Neither time did I fully comprehend what I had just witnessed.
Specifically because the directors had no idea what they were doing, the whole thing ended up being wildly creative. I’ve always unironically enjoyed it.
Seeing it in the theater as a kid was wild. I was confused but I loved it. I could tell it wasn’t Nintendos Mario Bros but it definitely has its own charm.
I thought Waterworld was fine.
Waterworld and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
Waterworld is ocean Fallout and RHPoT is fucking meme central. Plus RH is my childhood nostalgia movie, I’ve probably watched it over a couple hundred times just on VHS.
Waterworld is Mad Max on a boat
The pitch was probably something like “What if Mad Max but instead of sand we have water?” And the producer guy would be something like “Will the people still be dirty even with all that water?” And the screen writer guy: “Wouldn’t be an post apocalyptic world if the people is not dirty”
I grew up with Men in Tights. My room mate grew up with Spaceballs. It was really fun to swap movies and show each other another Mel Brooks movie.
(If you dont treat those titles and movies, that sentence has a very different meaning)
Both feature Kevin Costner’s ass
Zardoz. Say what you will about Sean Connery running around in a bright red romper, it was original.
The Postman. Compared to other post apocalyptic cheese fests it feels like a more nuanced display of societal breakdown and the re-emergence of the barter economy.
Wait. The Postman isn’t considered good? I never bothered looking it up. I thought it was a damn good movie. It really makes you think.
This also reminds me of the social analysis of what actually happens to masses in post disasters.
Look at the breakdown of Katrina. Yes there was rape and murder, but mostly people banded together to survive. There’s always going to be a criminal element and crimes of opportunity. But it wasn’t some selfish, self centered hellscape of every man for themselves. People helped each other and actually showed humanity.
I really like that movie too. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it and now I want to watch it again
As a non-fan, I thought the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies were well received. All the casual trek fans around me seemed to like them, at least
I really like star trek as a whole (besides discovery and picard (mostly)). I think JJ Abrams Star Trek is absolutely great. It’s a cometely different take and it’ great entertainment around some great themes.
Batman v Superman and Justice League (I didn’t watch original versions though).
That’s an important distinction. The director’s cuts were worlds better than the originals.
John Carter
Rat Race
Lucy.
It’s a really fun action/sci-fi flick. I don’t know why people dismiss it for being scientifically inaccurate. Who went into it thinking it was realistic? LoL.
Who doesn’t like Lucy?
Norm MacDonald’s Dirty Work is actually pretty funny.
Lots of people love to hate Cloud Atlas. I see it as flawed work of art with a good message and an amazing cast, produced under such nearly impossible circumstances that we are more than lucky it ever saw the light of day.
It needed to be like 4 hours longer to capture the feel of the book. Some of the actors didn’t have the range to pull off all their parts which caused some sequences to fall flat. It’s still good though, I remember hearing a lot of positive things about it.
It has one of the coolest trailers ever
The concept behind Cloud Atlas made for a much better movie than book, IMHO.
Having the same actor play the same part in each time made following the plot easier, at least for me. The book was a bit of a slog at times and following each characterization was confusing.
Plus some of the casting in the movie was really good. Jim Brodbent in particular, I thought, delivered a spectacularly good performance.
You’re probably right. I’ve never read the book.
Having the same actor play the same part in each time made following the plot easier, at least for me.
This is what I expected to see on first watch, and was a bit confused that at least some actors did actually “switch sides” between timelines. Going by interviews, it seems this was possibly meant to reflect an evolution of souls. But to me the message of the movie works just as well, if not better, if you leave out the concept of persistence of souls or individuals altogether, accept that some of them just look similar, and think more in terms of repeating patterns and ideas across eras.
Jim Brodbent in particular, I thought, delivered a spectacularly good performance.
Hard agree. His contemporary and light-hearted “shady publicist to nursing home jail break” plotline also really worked well to ground the movie in between epic-dramatic segments.
What’s the message? I didn’t really catch any, besides some notions about souls, reincarnation and sex not being fixed.
The things you mention are narrative elements. The message is repeated almost like a mantra throughout the movie, and later revealed or summarized as the ‘prophetic’ words of Son-Mi:
Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
This is the core thesis of the movie, standing in direct opposition to the various antagonists’ ideology, which can be summed up as self-serving nihilism and upholding the status quo of might makes right / the natural order by any means.
Thanks. That completely slipped from my memory.
Reminds me of The Egg short story I’ve reread yesterday.
It spoke to me when I watched it at the right point in my personal development. As is often the case with movies or experiences that try to convey something meaningful, whether the message lands depends just as much on the watcher. I honestly don’t blame anyone for whom it was a lengthy and confusing blurb. The narrative structure and casting choices are so far outside what audiences are used to, that the script was thrown out by every major Hollywood studio at the time despite the prestigious names behind it. I myself was quite confused on some of the timelines and characters until my 2nd rewatch, and that’s a lot to ask for a movie of this length. It really never had a shot at mass appeal, so in an economic sense those studios were right. I’m just fascinated and grateful it ever got made. It truly was a leap of faith and a labor of love for many, the Wachowskis and Tom Hanks in particular. And I feel like this shines through in the final release, rough edges and all.
I read the story you linked and I absolutely see the parallels. I feel like I may have read it once already years ago. It’s quite the philosophically intriguing concept.
Kurzgesagt has also arranged it in short film form if that’s your thing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI Personally, it’s one of the most impactful stories I’ve read.
I can watch really bad movies as long as the score is good, and cloud atlas has a banger score. How they weave the different timelines while playing that music really does it for me. I’ve watched it a few times and now that you reminded me I’ll probably watch it again soon.
Ain’t that the tru-tru.
I absolutely loved Cloud Atlas and I was crying at the end. I didn’t know anything about it, didn’t know about the book, didn’t know it was hated until now. Just a movie that I liked the trailer for, so I watched it and I’m glad I did.
Not universally hated by any means. But there are plenty of people that expect a movie to fit a certain Hollywood formula, which includes not challenging your audience too much. And so they judge movies by standards that an epic artistic endeavor like Cloud Atlas was never trying to meet.
Also the whole “gender- and race-bending” made some people uncomfortable, even though it’s merely the same actors portraying completely different characters.
Add to this that certain influential studio voices in Hollywood had previously rejected the project outright when they were first approached by the Wachowskis. So it was clear they would never give it a fair shake after it was produced in Europe, against their judgment and without their blessing, and under such unconventional circumstances.
Check out Mr. Nobody (2009) if you liked Cloud Atlas.
Man, I love that movie totally unironically. Cannibal Hugh Grant, dude.
The Prince of Persia movie. Also God’s of Egypt.
Jupiter Ascending. It was a low writing effort but big budget high fantasy with a slightly too perfect protagonist, “science” that makes absolutely 0 sense, and a cartoonishly evil villain just absolutely chewing the scenery which is pretty common, except most most of the time the protagonist is male. I loved seeing the equivalent of my 13 y/o mary sue fanfiction on a movie screen with a massive budget (edit: and channing tatum as her loyal dog consort-boyfriend). Just this once. More than that would get as tired just as quickly as the male equivalent. But just this once it was delicious. I have the poster framed actually, the real poster from the theater, my friend who worked there saved it for me.
This is one of my comfort movies. I really wish it had done well and I feel like the marketing team dropped the ball on it. The whole bureaucracy navigation montage was a fun ride.
Its my dream to write an epic ballad about four people attempting to navigate such a planet except its been recently renovated to be candyland themed to be easier and more pleasant to access (it is not). One dude is trying to get a copy of the deed to his dad’s farm on a distant planet, one dude is trying to find out if he passed the CDL exam for interstellar cargo hauling, and the last is a moderately rich kid trying to get his license reinstated after a DUI.
As someone who absolutely loved Cloud Atlas, I read the reviews for Jupiter Ascending hoping to be blown away yet again and I just couldn’t bring myself to even watch it. Considering The Matrix Resurrections was so bad I almost left the theater, I thought I chose right… Wachowskis have repeatedly missed the mark lately. Maybe I’ll give it a watch anyway.
I mean it’s not good. It’s a gas station hot dog (terrible but surprisingly tasty when you’re drunk) the same as that sort of thing is with a male protagonist, but it’s fun to watch when that’s all you’re watching it for and just this once it’s nice to see a girl to do it for a change.
How could you not mention the cat ears on the male love interest? Easily the most iconic part
I was trying to figure out how to fit in everything I love about the male love interest without making it sound weird but lbr after putting up with female love interests in movies like this for years we all earned Channing Tatum as a dog consort-boyfriend.
SOLO - I know everyone hated on this film, but we get a space western mixed with a heist movie. Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover are icing on the cake. Plus we get a robot uprising. 5 bags of popcorn and throw in a couple of those Darth Vader cups.
It’s easily the best Star Wars movie in the last 30 years. Its only major faults are some bits of bad cinematography and a bit of cringey fan service.
That’s Rogue One.
I did like Solo, but can’t but feel it would have been better had the main character not been Han Solo, because nobody was really going to live up to Harrison Ford in the originals.
Its easily Roque One, Theres just no competition movie wise. In general its Andor, that show was just peak Star Wars
Nah, Rogue One is as bad as the other sequels. The main character is about as interesting as a wet dish rag. Several of the side characters are annoying. Zombie Tarkin. There’s no story arc or characters that are worth caring about and the entire plot is just a thin excuse to have cringey fan service and CG action scenes.
I did not enjoy the sequels, but Solo? Yeah, that is a solid fun time. I even have a Solo T-shirt that I still wear on occasion.
I don’t think this is really a hot take. I know quite a few star wars fans and most of them (including me) love Solo, even those who can’t stand any of the other new movies.
For some reason I was thinking you were talking about that Mario Van Peebles movie
Yea I enjoyed Solo, good popcorn flick
