Utopia Talk / Politics / Netflix Flicks (volume 1)

obaminated Member	Mon Feb 12 12:29:02 The Ritual (2017) is a solid horror flick on Netflix. Netflix claims it is an original production but it was a UK inde that they bought the rights to. It is a great horror, doesn't rely on jumpscares and has a fantastic pay off. Watch it.
obaminated Member	Mon Feb 12 12:30:37 SPOILERS!!! I would cut that loki bastard apart with a knife and axe.
Renzo Marquez Member	Mon Feb 12 18:31:24 Cold in July is pretty good. I watched it awhile ago so it might not still be on Netflix.
Forwyn Member	Tue Feb 13 12:40:48 After hearing Cloverfield Paradox get heaped with shit, I went on a Cloverfield watching spree and enjoyed it.
Renzo Marquez Member	Tue Feb 13 16:44:24 I haven't watched the new one yet but 10 Cloverfield Lane was pretty good.
obaminated Member	Tue Feb 13 19:44:29 Paradox is a piece of shit.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Feb 13 20:17:30 ..agreed on Paradox: bad movie. But I really liked 10 Cloverfield Lane and have even rewatched it for fun — one of my favorite horrors from the last few years along with "Under the Skin" (2013), "It Follows" (2014) and "Don't Breathe" (2016).
CrownRoyal Member	Wed Feb 14 19:44:51 Cloverfield with John Goodman was a good flick, I did not see the original Cloverfield, and for this new one the reviews are brutal, so I don't know if it is worth watching
smart dude Member	Wed Feb 14 21:01:16 10 Cloverfield Lane was great. Because John Goodman is a top 10 actor of his generation. Even J(ew) J(ew) Abrams can't fuck up a film that has Goodman in it.
obaminated Member	Wed Feb 14 21:59:31 Did not expect antisemitism in this thread.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Wed Feb 14 22:36:48 He can't help it, he is partial to big fat men.
Cherub Cow Member	Thu Feb 15 02:28:38 "Even J(ew) J(ew) Abrams can't fuck up a film that has Goodman in it." JJ Abrams has been a terrible director, but he seems to be pretty hands off with producing — just writes a check and gets out of the way. I'm sure he would have ruined "10.." if he'd ever visited the set ;D
CrownRoyal Member	Sun Feb 25 20:18:49 has anyone seen "Mute"? I think this is new.
CrownRoyal Member	Sun Feb 25 20:19:11 I might watch it now
hood Member	Sun Feb 25 20:54:04 "I'm sure he would have ruined "10.." if he'd ever visited the set ;D" Goodman would have ended up being an alien/monster/demon/whatevertheyare.
obaminated Member	Mon Feb 26 00:24:40 I genuinely dont understand the abrams hate, he literally revitalized to huge billion dollar franchises. He is legit. He won't win an oscar anytime soon (but people said that about speilberg prior to Schindlers list). Anyways. Mute was very fucking confusing. It had two storylines between Rudd and Skarsgarrd, then fused em together by changing Rudd's character completely. Plus there was a sympathetic pedophile? It was a fucking odd movie.
hood Member	Mon Feb 26 00:33:06 "I genuinely dont understand the abrams hate" Maybe because his Star Trek movies were passable as Trek movies go, and his Star War movies have been sub par to categorically awful.
obaminated Member	Mon Feb 26 00:38:05 Homie, he made one star wars movie and it is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time. Again, this hate is fucking weird.
hood Member	Mon Feb 26 01:30:07 Homie, he was brought in as an executive producer after they re-orged.
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Feb 26 18:22:36 "and it is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time." Do we need to take a step back and realize (again) that high-grossing movies are not necessarily *good* movies? .. "I genuinely dont understand the abrams hate" J.J. Abrams is also known for having butchered "Lost" — which he and Damon Lindelof created as a series of bazaar ideas which they themselves did not understand and thus to which they could give no complete story. When it comes to Star Wars and Star Trek, his objective is to make money by catering to the lowest of lows: high spectacle movies with zero substance, recycled plots, and safe clichés. He is "legit" in that he has the most successful used car salesman personality in Hollywood.
smart dude Member	Mon Feb 26 19:10:50 "he made one star wars movie and it is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time." He can't be credited for the success of a film that already has a HUGE built-in fan base.
Wrath of Orion Member	Mon Feb 26 19:20:11 "I genuinely dont understand the abrams hate" Mainly it's the current "cool" thing to do.
obaminated Member	Mon Feb 26 20:11:48 Yeah, this is stupid. The guy revamped and fixed two major franchises. People and critics love the new Star Trek films because they are modeled after the Star Trek film he made. People and critics loved Force Awakens because he understood how to properly treat the material, as spectacle. Star Wars is not Shakespeare, it doesn't need serious political drama or complex character motivations. It has always been a spectacle. As to "butchering" Lost. He flipping made Lost. Lost would not exist if JJ Abrams wasn't involved at it's inception. Him directing the pilot episode wasn't an accident. If you feel like Lost got... lost... in it's storytelling, you should blame Cuse who was kind of making up the mythology on the fly. Ultimately Abrams is an above average director with a lot of vision and talent, he doesn't have nuance. But again. That is what everyone said about Speilberg prior to him making Shindlers list. Abrams just needs to make a movie for "the academy" and people will take him seriously, but right now he clearly isn't interested in pandering to critics and just wants to make popcorn flicks for the masses, which he excels at.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Feb 27 02:00:27 [WoO]: "Mainly it's the current "cool" thing to do." Nice try, unless by "current" you mean from 1999 to the present day. Felicity *did* happen, and if you forgot what he did there, then that only gets him a delay to Lost in 2004. I guess it's "cool" to consistently dislike hacks. .. [obaminated]: "People and critics loved Force Awakens because he understood how to properly treat the material, as spectacle." "People and critics" like it was a universally loved movie? No. Some people and some critics? Sure. I called it "mediocre" and "nothing memorable or interesting" when it came out. Spectacle can't just exist as spectacle for its own sake. Some fencing experts can put on Darth Maul costumes, rig exceptional effects, have a neat fight in the woods behind their grandpa's house in Alabama, and that can be a nice spectacle, but it's meaningless and devoid of story or continuity (a shockingly sad amount of such videos exist on YouTube, btw — seconds long vague references to revenges being fulfilled or bounties being collected, all for the sake of a 5-minute light saber fight). Episode V and VI did not have this problem. They had "spectacular" moments, but there was still an interesting narrative and fun characters to follow. The new Star Wars is shedding interesting characters and narrative for the sake of over-saturated spectacle — the same problem Lucas had in Episodes 1-3: "Let's see how many thousands of space fighters we can fit on the screen at once. *Surely* that makes a better movie!" No. It fucking doesn't. .. [obaminated]: "Star Wars is not Shakespeare, it doesn't need serious political drama or complex character motivations." That's an interesting perspective on Star Wars, especially since Lucas did not seem to think this **at all** and completely ruined Episodes 1-3 because of it. Remember how he tried to weave a complex plot of trade federations, secret planets, surveillance states, senate votes, intergalactic politics, and would-be assassins into a story that probably should have just been about a rage-fueled Anakin falling to Darth Sidious? It's that over-saturation issue again: he wanted all of the effects and maximum plot to go with it — too many stories at once all failing to convey what should have existed in a few powerful scenes (and in fact a good edit exists which reduces episodes 1-3 into a pretty watchable <2 hour movie). So you may be correct about Star Wars not needing serious political drama or Shakespearean elements, but you are flat wrong about this being the case in Disney's working canon. They have *embraced* Lucas' errors, or do we forget a tangential trip that two meaningless characters take to a gambler's paradise, or a space fight that managed to CGI porgs into almost every shot just in case viewers thought that not enough was happening in frame? Abrams and directors like him merely want to saturate. They cater to the "more is better" idea because it's profitable, not because it's good. If you tell a dozen idiots that a parking lot cost 2 billion USD to complete, then they'll all go to see the lot because it's a curiosity and a novelty, but when they leave it'll still just be a parking lot. .. [obaminated]: "As to "butchering" Lost. He flipping made Lost. Lost would not exist if JJ Abrams wasn't involved at it's inception." Only partially correct. Abrams was approached by Damon Lindelof, who wanted to pitch an idea for "Alias" but got an interview with Abrams because he'd also made up a ridiculous launch-plot for a story about a plane crashing on a desert island where a cripple was magically healed and a polar bear was present. Abrams ignored Lindelof's Alias idea — which Lindelof had actually invested time, energy, and thought in creating — and had Lindelof throw together more ideas for the island drama. Lindelof and Abrams then went to ABC with their pitch, and ABC accepted their idea only after Lindelof and Abrams agreed to terms which they made clear after episode 2 that they had no intention of keeping (mainly that all of the mysteries would be solved and that a finite run was planned). So basically, Lindelof was the conceptual creator of the show, but due to Abrams, everything that Lindelof came up with was abandoned after episode 1. Episode 1 was the hook, and everything afterwards was an excuse to fuck viewers for weekly ratings. They intentionally bailed on the idea of a closed story with a limited run because it was more profitable for them (mainly Abrams, since he was the larger producing credit) to keep spinning more mysteries without solving old ones. A shorter way to think of it: Idea for a story (you may have heard of this): Humanity sends its first astronaut to Mars. The astronaut finds a cave and explores it. Inside is the remains of a dead human, and nearby is a message that says something like, "The last of us fled to Planet 3 (Earth)". Interesting concept, right? But what do you think would happen if a good writer took that idea to a struggling JJ Abrams who at the time had only one directorial credit? Abrams would make money, surely. .. [obaminated]: "he doesn't have nuance. But again. That is what everyone said about Speilberg prior to him making Shindlers list." Shindler's List had its own problems, and Spielberg isn't exactly a good example if you remember that he ruined his own Indiana Jones franchise in 2008 when he and Lucas thought that they could actually be a positive influence on the writing (the same delusion that caused Lucas to think that Star Wars' popularity meant that he had a total talent for Episodes 1-3). The other thing is that making lots of money by director-producing shit doesn't free a person to do things that will not be shit, it just means that someone spent a lot of time learning to become shit. Abrams could very well direct a movie that wins Academy awards (as if that's a good metric), but he would probably do it the same way that Spielberg did: pandering to a known list of Academy voters. So it goes back to the "10 Cloverfield Road" issue: a good movie can still be made under Abrams' *producer* name, but probably not as a director. The production would need to be heavily insulated from his influence. When it comes to big productions, there can be a lot of insulation. A mediocre director can get great funding from say, Focus Features, and Focus will make them look amazing because Focus will provide great cameras and cinematographers. Similarly Abrams is now tapped into talented people via effects giants and the labor and casting unions, and he can even get good scripts from good writers because people know his name and want to get paid for their work by submitting to him, but he has no raw talent and may only be a liability to talented people if he decides to manage too closely. He is a salesman and a conman who will reverse-engineer a marketing strategy and a presentation campaign to pander to the lowest of the low. So we do at least agree that "he just wants to make popcorn flicks for the masses, which he excels at."
hood Member	Tue Feb 27 08:05:43 It should also be noted that sequels of long abandoned but popular properties are just a good way to make money. Jurassic World wasn't exactly a great movie, it was average at best, but people loved it because it was a fucking dinosaur movie and it had been decades since a decent dinosaur movie had been released with the scope of Jurassic World. I enjoyed it for exactly that: fucking dinosaurs with enough plot to cover Both Star Trek and Star Wars received this same boost. Popular properties long left to languish without any quality love finally received a decent enough reboot. Not a great reboot, but something just unoffensive enough to pass, and let the setting take it for the rest of the ride. I feel like Abrams is fairly interchangeable with Michael Bay.
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