Last movie watched...

[JamesC]

"Director Verhoeven says his satirical use of irony and hyperbole is "playing with fascism or fascist imagery to point out certain aspects of American society... of course, the movie is about 'Let's all go to war and let's all die."

"Interview: Paul Verhoeven", by Scott Tobias". The A.V. Club. April 3, 2007. Retrieved 2011-03-24.

[radiator]

I think with the ID4 / Pacific Rim thing, we're arguing about whether the characters are interesting or not. For me the answer is no, they're so uninteresting that I don't care what happens to them and I can't invest in the rest of the film.

Which is fair - characters are not those films' strong point. In the case of Pacific Rim, the dull lead character is probably that film's biggest problem.

I guess it comes down to what you personally think is important in a film, and what you're willing to overlook. For me a strong - or at least functional - plot is absolutely vital. Something you can analyse and question without it completely falling apart. Especially in blockbusters - where I want to be taken along for the ride - if I'm ever confused about plot points or questioning character motivations (unless there are narrative reasons for ambiguity), the spell is broken and I'm taken out of the film, regardless of how good the visuals or acting are.

Ultimately, I guess I'd rather see a well-executed formulaic/predictable movie than one packed with twists and turns that don't really follow any kind of narrative logic - which is my main complaint with most modern blockbusters.

To summarise: Fury Road ruled, and Jurassic World sucked.

[Professor Bear]

Surely the validity or otherwise of character motivation is a subjective evaluation?  I would imagine it to be more reflective of the individual viewer's opinion of the surrounding film, and it's not much of a stretch to think that the same could be said of a film's plot - if you stop and think about the plots for Die Hard or Aliens, for instance, they're kind of ludicrous and it really falls on the viewer to let themselves be entertained.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Somebody on Chaturbate suggested that Smiley-Facem was the best stoner movie I fell for it. I had a look found that it was on You-Tube. It was made and released in 2007 when I was kind of dead to a lot of things around except here. 

Now, I thought there is something special about Anne Faris, but in in this film she reminds me of some dumb cabbage patch kid that was allowed to grow up a bit. She looks and acts every-bit as dumb as she was meant to be in this film and I'm not sure why I showed interest in her when I saw her in film she made two years earlier called Just Friends with a much chubbier version of that dude from the Green Lantern film.

She looked totally desirable to me in that film aside from the fact that she was only in a supporting role to Amy Smart who I recalled from Butterfly-Effect (Although I'm, a bit bored with this film now, I had saw it multiple times because of it's originality!) and some film action-thriller with that English tough-guy who did those Transporter films. 

Incidently, Chris Pratt who's supposed to be a spouse of  Anne Faris right now and she seems to have matured just fine, but I still no longer interested. Anyway, he has some new skit where he does a pretty convincing impersonation of this English tough guy while doing a commercial for steak and cheese rolls. The impersonation isn't so good as his ability to intimidate.

BTW I almost killed myself, by accident while watching this stoner film and never got to the end of it before some milk from a stray carton I had been drinking from earlier had found it's way into one of the sockets on the power bored I had my computer set-up plugged into.

Now only did my computer shut down, but all appliances that ran on a separate circuit to the house lighting, fridge and the stove lost power for the next twelve hours.

The rest of the night and next day until lunch time (Yesterday.) was more hell than I was accustomed to and I think if my power-board didn't have a safety featured built into it. I might now be typing here right now.

You almost lost me for a second there....

I will be more careful wit the almost empty containers of what ever beverage I have been drinking from now on.

[Richmond Clements]

What in the name of shit have I just read?

[Goaty]

What I just read?

[Famous Mortimer]

...Starship Troopers isn't ironic...

Baffled.

Really? All those gung-ho military recruitment vids peppered throughout are pure tongue-in-cheek, surely.

Starship Troopers (film and, if memory serves, book) is one of the best military satires in modern movie history.

[Theblazeuk]

Starship Troopers isn't ironic is satire and there aren't any military in Alien 3.

FTFY

I know it's satire. That's why I said it wasn't ironic.

Cheers

Jim

I beg your pardon then

[Jim_Campbell]

Starship Troopers (film and, if memory serves, book) is one of the best military satires in modern movie history.

The film is a brilliant piece of satire. There's some question over how satirical Heinlein thought he was being when he wrote some of the more right-wing elements of the original book.

Cheers

Jim

[Goaty]

As got quiet evening last night, so I watch some film on Netflix, there was a new film, The Guest, I thought it was some art-house film with that guy of Downton Abbey as ex-solider stay at his dead mate's family. It was slow at start, then it changes into WTF!

Wow that was great film! And find out the team behind it did You're Next. other excellent film!

[Keef Monkey]

Really, really liked You're Next! Had been waiting for The Guest to appear on Netflix, must have missed it. Will get that watched at the weekend I think.

[Link Prime]

Really, really liked You're Next! Had been waiting for The Guest to appear on Netflix, must have missed it. Will get that watched at the weekend I think.

I picked both up cheaply on Amazon a few months ago (a fiver each as I recall), and quite enjoyed them.

Impressive performance by Dan Stevens in The Guest.

[Link Prime]

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

One to watch.

Sounds interesting Greg, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Famous Mortimer]

Starship Troopers (film and, if memory serves, book) is one of the best military satires in modern movie history.

The film is a brilliant piece of satire. There's some question over how satirical Heinlein thought he was being when he wrote some of the more right-wing elements of the original book.

Cheers

Jim

I'm going by very old memories - it must be 20 years since I read the book; and I always had it in my head he wrote an anti-war novel around the same time. I've just had a quick scan of his bibliography and nothing leaps out, but it does make me wonder what I'd think of stuff like "Stranger In A Strange Land" and "I Will Fear No Evil" as an adult.

But never mind that! Movies. Watch "Starship Troopers", you guys, it's absolutely brilliant.

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm going by very old memories - it must be 20 years since I read the book;

A few more than that for me — I'll confess that the allegedly right wing under/overtones passed the teenage me by, but I have heard it mentioned since then. Without re-reading the book, I can't say whether it's a valid reading of the text, but it's certainly something I've seen brought up more than once.

Cheers

Jim