Last movie watched...

[Colin YNWA]

A friend at work recommended Bo Burnham to me and his film Inside. Now Bo Burnham is a musical stand-up (look I didn't know so maybe you don't and so I thought I should say?) and Inside is a 'documentry' of sorts of what he went through during Lockdown. So I checked him up on Netflix he had a couple of 'Specials'... not sure they count as movies but comedy stand-up by Richard Pryor, Steve Martin etc was when I was a kid and my way of discovering great comedy so I reckon this goes here.... ANYWAY...

He had a couple of stand-up shows on and decided it would be a good idea to check them out before going into such a high concept piece, to get a sense of him as a comedian first, so watched Bo Burnham - Make Happy and heaven above its brilliant. The best, most original comedian I've seen in a long time. Its honest, sharp and funny. Sometimes uncomfortably funny, but bloody funny.

Then the end. Which is still astonishingly funny, but also haunting. Just genius, liberatingly honest and crushingly funny.

If you have Netflix check it out. If you don't, get Netflix.

I'm a bit scared to watch 'Inside' now... excited but scared!

[Colin YNWA]

Bo Burnham - Inside

I'm very glad I checked his other specials before watching this as having a wider sense of the themes Bo Burnham uses in his comedy really helped get additional meaning from this. That said its so burning honest, so raw and on the surface unflitered means its simply a brilliant film in its own right and doesn't require any preknowledge of its creator.

While 'Make Happy' and 'What' (What being a proto Make Happy without quite the depth but with all the fantastic chuckles and well worth watching as well) are traditional format tv standup specials in format if not content - they both transcend what you've have seen before, think watching Bill Hicks for the first time - Inside is something entirely different.

Bo Burnham filmed the 'comedy special' in a single room during the pandemic entirely by himself, over a year (or so) with no one else present. It still plays with the idea of the relationship a performer has with his audience, deals with our new relationship with social media its much more directly about mental health and absolutely compelling. Its less obviously 'funny' than the other specials but all the more powerful for it and to be honest I laughed harder at the points where the comedy hits.

By the end I was in tears (all be it manly northern working class male tears) its just a work of absolute honest genius and so exposed - as he very clearly illustrated at the end that its quite a hard watch ... but I'll be watching it again very soon as its simply one of the best things I've seen for a long, long time.

[pictsy]

I've given up on the Dragon Ball Z movies, much like how I gave up on the Dragon Ball Z series.  I decided to watch a different piece of crap.

Raw Deal
It starts off pretty fine.  Arnie is infiltrating a Mafia organisation or something to find out who the rat is in the police force or FBI or something.  I don't know.  Then he just kills them all at the end.  I don't know why, if that was a valid solution, he didn't just do that to begin with.  What a waste of time.  A bad point of view about policing in a film that is utterly pointless in it's own incompetence.  Nevertheless, I'd never watched it before and it's not the worst Arnie film I've seen.  That's not saying much though.

[Tiplodocus]

Star Wars: Rogue One.

Still really like it. Looking forward to Andor.

[Hawkmumbler]

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE & DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

A multiversal double, with one being among the most exocentrically joyous, fun and charming movies I'm likely to see all year filled with exquisite action sequences and tight (if at times over edited) choreography, endearing performances, and a  weirdly layered pay off to oft egged familial trauma narrative.

And the other was the latest MCU movie. Which shite, and I'll leave it at that.

[Colin YNWA]

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE ....
A multiversal double, with one being among the most exocentrically joyous, fun and charming movies I'm likely to see all year filled with exquisite action sequences and tight (if at times over edited) choreography, endearing performances, and a  weirdly layered pay off to oft egged familial trauma narrative.

Really want to see that film! Everything you say confirms I should.

[Dark Jimbo]

And the other was the latest MCU movie. Which shite, and I'll leave it at that.

Why are you still watching these?

[CalHab]

I enjoyed Dr Strange, but then I like Sam Raimi, Marvel and Marvel movies (in that order). If you don't like those, then I'm not sure why you'd stump up your hard earned cash for a ticket.

[Hawkmumbler]

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE ....
A multiversal double, with one being among the most exocentrically joyous, fun and charming movies I'm likely to see all year filled with exquisite action sequences and tight (if at times over edited) choreography, endearing performances, and a  weirdly layered pay off to oft egged familial trauma narrative.

Really want to see that film! Everything you say confirms I should. Buckaroo Banzai as a wuxia.

Its wonderful, so so so wonderful.

I enjoyed Dr Strange, but then I like Sam Raimi, Marvel and Marvel movies (in that order). If you don't like those, then I'm not sure why you'd stump up your hard earned cash for a ticket.

In my defence I haven't seen the last, what, five? I only saw this one in the vein hope some of the Raimicore would make it into the finished piece. It didn't, so was a suitable DNF. I don't think anyone can doubt these are made by committee at this point, none of the auteur directors hallmarks made it into the finished film. A real shame, as I did have SOME hopes for this one.

I'm not sure why you'd stump up your hard earned cash for a ticket.

'Raises jolly roger and rattles wallet of saved money'

[Funt Solo]

It is interesting as a debate point, though, isn't it? I suppose one might "not like horror movies" - or, y'know, insert whatever genre. But is it weird that people who don't like a Marvel movie are told to just back off if they don't like it. I've watched all the Star Wars movies, and not liked quite a few. Should I not try the next one in the hope that the quality improves?

Thing is, if I went down that path, I'd have missed out on Rogue One (which I rate) and The Mandalorian (which was a bucket o' fun). With Marvel - a lot of which is basically cloning the template of "WHANG! BANG! SAVED THE EARTH AGAIN!", I'd have missed out on WandaVision (and Guardians of the Galaxy) if I'd switched off at the twentieth repeat of Hulk's ennui shoehorned clumsily into a scene where CGI rent-a-baddies swarm around a big city protecting a planet buster.

Corralling any genre (but let's pick on Marvel, because it's on topic) behind "not for you, this" signage surely only plays into Scorsese's notion that they're "not cinema".

See also: 2000 AD. If I'd stopped at The Grudgefather etc.

[Mister Pops]

Calling Marvel a specific genre  is like calling McDonalds a specific cuisine.

[Funt Solo]

Calling Marvel a specific genre  is like calling McDonalds a specific cuisine.

Well, you're right*. I don't think the gist of my post relied on my consistant and correct use of the term "genre", though.

 *(But they've marketed the fuck out of the MCU, enough that people do refer it to it as a cultural unit. A bit like McDonalds.)

[Hawkmumbler]

Corralling any genre (but let's pick on Marvel, because it's on topic) behind "not for you, this" signage surely only plays into Scorsese's notion that they're "not cinema".

Entirely in Marties defense, thats an often misrepresented air quote that completely cuts out the nuance of his take.

From NYT 2019:
"It [Cinema] was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form-
Cinema is an art form that brings you the unexpected. In superhero movies, nothing is at risk."

Which, I think considering we (and the entire internet) has this debate every 2 months or so, I think indicates he was profoundly on the button.

[CalHab]

Corralling any genre (but let's pick on Marvel, because it's on topic) behind "not for you, this" signage surely only plays into Scorsese's notion that they're "not cinema".

I agree with that. But, when I hear the same "MCU is boring/derivative/cynical commercial shite" points being made about every Marvel movie, I tune out and just want the debate to move on. I completely understand why some people don't like them (I don't like lots of the MCU films), but maybe we should just give it a rest.

[Funt Solo]

Corralling any genre (but let's pick on Marvel, because it's on topic) behind "not for you, this" signage surely only plays into Scorsese's notion that they're "not cinema".

Entirely in Marties defense, thats an often misrepresented air quote that completely cuts out the nuance of his take.

From NYT 2019:
"It [Cinema] was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form-
Cinema is an art form that brings you the unexpected. In superhero movies, nothing is at risk."

Which, I think considering we (and the entire internet) has this debate every 2 months or so, I think indicates he was profoundly on the button.

Thanks for reminding me about the subtler original point. See - now if they made a film of Zenith's Phase 1, I think that risk factor comes back in. Or, we could find examples of superhero movies that manage to involve risk - like Unbreakable, for example.

Definitely one of those cases where I agree with Scorsese's point in principle, but I can also find examples that question it. (That's without getting into the idea that perhaps cinema isn't actually what he wants it to be, anymore.)

---

To the point that the argument is stale, I suppose people will stop discussing it if the movies stop being made. I can't really blame the studios for making hay while the sun shines - but people are gonna be commenting on that hay. That hay dollar's a big dollar.