What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Blade Runner 2049 - 4/10

I really wanted this movie to be better than it was. I suspected it wouldn't be great, as I find Villeneuve among the most overrated directors out there. But I really didn't think it would be this bad.

I'm not a huge fan of the original, except - of course - for the visuals and the Vangelis soundtrack. But, still, there should have been every opportunity to provide an interesting sequel - given the potential of the setting and ways to advance the plot.

Seriously, while the original is really just a pretty borefest - the material is SO ripe for molding into several amazing follow-ups that a monkey should be able to direct a decent successor. I guess not. Strange things happen when expectations grow too high.

In reality, it's just a bunch of bullshit featuring the most simplistic plot imaginable. They also accomplish not doing a single interesting thing with the loose threads of the first movie.

It starts out well enough - and I found myself rather intrigued. Until Jared Leto entered the screen and managed to underwhelm rather excessively, which sort of set the tone for the rest of the experience. Didn't expect that, as I'm a fan of his work in other films.

Nothing much happened in almost 3 hours - which is much like the first film (only an hour more of that), except here it felt forced and more of an imitation than anything else.

It's easy to tell they tried hard when it comes to the aesthetic - and yet they couldn't match a movie that's 35 years old. Not even close, in fact - even if I do concede a few scenes were rather attractive looking.

Same goes for the soundtrack.

About the best thing I can say for the film is that it features one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen (the holographic girlfriend) - and I have to give praise to the female antagonist as well, which I thought did a great job with her character. She was quite unsettling and did the whole not-human thing in a unique and unfamiliar way. Not an easy thing to accomplish.

Also, Ford actually got to act a little for the first time in a long while. He did more than just put on his usual cool face.

The rest of the film is really just a whole bunch of nothing.

I find it ironic that a movie like Bright gets a ton of shit from the critics while this crap got all the praise.

The Emperor's New Clothes is as relevant now as it ever was.

NewDArt said:

Blade Runner 2049 - 4/10

I really wanted this movie to be better than it was. I suspected it wouldn't be great, as I find Villeneuve among the most overrated directors out there. But I really didn't think it would be this bad.

Click to expand...

I'm surprised you're not a Villeneuve fan. I wasn't as impressed with Arrival (although I still enjoyed it), but I think Sicario was one of his bests, so if you haven't seen that one, highly recommended. I looking forward to seeing what he does with Dune.

Blade Runner I think it a lot more enjoyable for people when they understand what it is before they see it. It's a Film Noir in a scifi setting. Not a SciFi action flick. If someone is expecting another Fifth Element, look elsewhere. If you didn't like the first Blade Runner, you won't like the sequel.

Caddy said:

I'm surprised you're not a Villeneuve fan. I wasn't as impressed with Arrival (although I still enjoyed it), but I think Sicario was one of his bests, so if you haven't seen that one, highly recommended. I looking forward to seeing what he does with Dune.

Blade Runner I think it a lot more enjoyable for people when they understand what it is before they see it. It's a Film Noir in a scifi setting. Not a SciFi action flick. If someone is expecting another Fifth Element, look elsewhere. If you didn't like the first Blade Runner, you won't like the sequel.

Click to expand...

Arrival was basically crap. I did like Enemy quite a bit, though. Prisoners was a decent crime drama - but nothing beyond that. I think I understood what Sicario was going for - and it had some intensity in its scenes, but I got so bored with it that I never finished it. It was just too familiar and too full of the same kind of "imagine your own qualities" while trying to seem profound as BR 2049 and Arrival.

Arrival had a great soundtrack, though.

I really wish I had your ability of making movies better by using the correct watching strategy

But I think I've mentioned before that it doesn't work like that for me.

Though, I admit, I did expect more from this movie than I usually do. However, since I've seen all of Villenueve's movies as well as the first Blade Runner several times - I would have to be a very strange person to expect another Fifth Element.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the Fifth Element - though I concede it's silly fun. Besson lost it around the time he did that film. Loved his previous work, though - especially Leon.

My favorite sci-fi movies include Alien, The Fountain, Solaris and a few others. Westworld is the best thing I've seen in over a decade when it comes to material like this - and it went a million miles beyond this movie in terms of something to say.

There are a few genres I tend to get bored with, but - in general - I just like good movies. To me, that's mostly about the script. As in, is the movie saying something - or is it entertaining me in new ways. If not those, then is it doing something familiar in a particular good way.

I tend to like movies that provoke an emotional or intellectual response - and I prefer the response to be as intense as possible.

2049 did nothing like that, for me.

The first Blade Runner is what I would consider a good movie, because it was SO ahead of its time in terms of the overall aesthetic. I didn't think much of the script - but the acting was solid, especially from Hauer - who did provoke an emotional response. I was too young to really appreciate the whole replicant moralising at the time - but, as an adult, I've been disappointed with how little the movie is actually saying about it - or doing with it. Which is the main reason I think it's overrated.

I think people love how it looks - but I think most of what they think is good about it is something they've come up with themselves and yet give all the credit to Scott for his fantastic eye. I was never very good at imagining a movie - I prefer to just watch them and have the creators come up with the content.

If the idea is that I have to find my own qualities - that's ok, but there still needs to be enough material to work from. Movies like The Fountain and Black Swan excel at that - because they don't serve the "meaning" for the audience - they just provide a lot of unique angles and emotions to use as the source of those qualities. The meaning is "almost" entirely there - but you get to conclude whatever you conclude.

The original Blade Runner doesn't actually seem to give anything beyond what's served at face value. A very pretty something at face value - but that's about it.

So, apart from expecting a quality film from 2049, based on the absurdly high metascore - I also expected something special when it comes to visuals and music.

As I said, I didn't really get those. On top of that, I got one boring movie with very little to say. I did like the premise in itself - but absolutely nothing was done with it.

The antagonist seemed to have zero motive for anything (he was just a satan-like sadist, apparently). Tyrell was a hundred times more compelling without resorting to ultra cliche and cheap torture or slaughtering of innocents. This script had all but nothing new or interesting to say about the subject matter.

I'm afraid I didn't go into it with the wrong expectations. It was just not a very good movie.

To me, that is. We all like different things for different reasons.

I was the opposite. I absolutely loved Arrival but though Sicario was contrived and boring. Having said that blade runner 2049 didn't particularly tickle myself. I'd give it a 6.5/10; scario 7/10 and arrival 9/10.

Caddy said:

I'm surprised you're not a Villeneuve fan. I wasn't as impressed with Arrival (although I still enjoyed it), but I think Sicario was one of his bests, so if you haven't seen that one, highly recommended. I looking forward to seeing what he does with Dune.

Blade Runner I think it a lot more enjoyable for people when they understand what it is before they see it. It's a Film Noir in a scifi setting. Not a SciFi action flick. If someone is expecting another Fifth Element, look elsewhere. If you didn't like the first Blade Runner, you won't like the sequel.

Click to expand...

Bright - 4/10

I rarely find myself siding with critics over fellow moviegoers, but, my god… what a terrible movie.

I went in with a positive attitude and some expectations after seeing how high the user reviews are. I was left scratching my head and wondering if I had watched the same movie so many others were raving about.

Utterly cliche and predictable to the extreme, and that's probably being too kind.

Bright - mm, 6/10 for me.

First half was pretty boring, latter half was OK as a late night evening flick where you don't have to pay much attention. But I liked the setting -- reminded me of and would lend itself well to a Shadowrun type of story.

Caddy said:

I looking forward to seeing what he does with Dune.

Click to expand...

I hadn't heard about this. So there's going to be a new Dune film adaption? Villeneuve now officially has my attention.

The whole scoring thing on the last couple of pages reminds me of:
1 - How useless scores are in general
2 - How we tend to auto-scale our scoring based on how we have pre-judged the category.

In other words, we can give a Hallmark Christmas movie (like Snowed Inn Christmas) 7/10 based on it being a Hallmark Christmas movie, compared to the 3/10 for Snowmance.

But that scoring is meaningless outside of the Hallmark Christmas sub-sub-sub-genre.

txa1265 said:

The whole scoring thing on the last couple of pages reminds me of:
1 - How useless scores are in general
2 - How we tend to auto-scale our scoring based on how we have pre-judged the category.

In other words, we can give a Hallmark Christmas movie (like Snowed Inn Christmas) 7/10 based on it being a Hallmark Christmas movie, compared to the 3/10 for Snowmance.

But that scoring is meaningless outside of the Hallmark Christmas sub-sub-sub-genre.

Click to expand...

You mean subjective opinions are not objective?

But they can still be interesting in terms of the exchange - so long as people don't take them personally.

NewDArt said:

About the best thing I can say for the film is that it features one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen (the holographic girlfriend)

Click to expand...

That's what I thought!

When a friend asked me what I thought about the film the first thing I mentioned was how hot his holograph girlfriend is. Then I went on about how he should have made more backups. As if just one like a real girl. Such a real girl thing to say.

Watched Mother - 2/10

Good acting and started well but turned into utter trash

Watched Last Jedi today. Loved it.

txa1265 said:

The whole scoring thing on the last couple of pages reminds me of:
1 - How useless scores are in general
2 - How we tend to auto-scale our scoring based on how we have pre-judged the category.

In other words, we can give a Hallmark Christmas movie (like Snowed Inn Christmas) 7/10 based on it being a Hallmark Christmas movie, compared to the 3/10 for Snowmance.

But that scoring is meaningless outside of the Hallmark Christmas sub-sub-sub-genre.

Click to expand...

I disagree. Scoring websites like IMDB have radically improved my movie watching experience. While individual scores don't mean much on their own, accumulated scores of thousands of people do indeed provide clues as to the extent to which you might find yourself wasting your time.

Sure, you might come across some oddities which you personally don't understand, such as something you think is dire having a 7.5 average, but in the main the average is usually extremely accurate. Brand new movies get hype or hate weighting, but that kind of thing is usually very visible and can be taken into consideration at the time if you're using it for theatrical releases.

For example, I recently got a load of fantasy movies from the 80s, 90s. I gave a couple a watch and couldn't get through them, so I looked up all the rest on IMDB, to which the best of the lot had a 6.0 and the worst a 3.8, so I didn't bother trying to watch any more of them.

Well, that is the difference between individual scores on a discussion forum (what I was referring to) and mass scoring aggregation.

My point is more that on an individual basis I would rather read the contextual assessment ... actually, that is ALL I care about.

Aggregates are useful - but they're anything but accurate in terms of matching the subjective.

Meaning, if a movie has a 7/10 average score - it does NOT mean it will be a 7/10 movie for you. But you can use the score to guage what it might be like for you - if you understand the audience and you take into account a vast majority of factors, including for how long the movie has been out and what the target audience is likely to be.

Also, I find that the closer a score gets to 5/10 - the more it can surprise you in ways both good and bad. A surprising amount of 5/10 movies are GREAT and an equal amount are utter crap - while not that many are truly average. At least, that's been my experience.

Getting something meaningful from an aggregate score takes years of experience and a genuine interest in the complexities of taste and human responses.

Also, there's a huge difference between user aggregates and critic aggregates.

For instance, IMDb scores are based on user aggregates - and that means it's really just a bunch of opinions that will largely depend on the kind of audience the movie appeals to.

I find the critic Metascore aggregate more useful - but it's still far, far from accurate in terms of reflecting how movies will appeal to me, personally.

I've seen a LOT of 80+ movies that were utter crap - and I've seen several sub 50 movies that were really good.

Probably the most relevant factor is time of release. Aggregate scores are at their least reliable right around release. Some movies drop very significantly in score over time - while others remain mostly stable throughout.

A lot of that has to do with psychology and hype. Even movie critics are utterly subject to their surroundings - and I find real attempts at being objective exceedingly rare.

Typically, I find that once a new very hyped movie is out - there's going to be a first wave of reviews that set the tone - and the VAST majority of critics will follow suit, and a smaller portion of them will go against the tide in order to stand out. Only a tiny handful seem to be truly balanced and unaffected by the word on the street or expectations.

Which is, not surprisingly, much like people are in all aspects of life. Most follow the crowd - some go against it, and a few don't really care about the crowd.

Which is why I would never recommend following aggregate scores as a guide, but more as a single tool in a larger toolbox you can occasionally use to guage…. something about movies.

txa1265 said:

Well, that is the difference between individual scores on a discussion forum (what I was referring to) and mass scoring aggregation.

My point is more that on an individual basis I would rather read the contextual assessment … actually, that is ALL I care about.

Click to expand...

Again, I would disagree on a general level. On a small and unique board such as this where most people post quite regularly and the number of new faces is relatively small then its easier to gauge if someone has similar tastes to yourself and, should you be desperate to avoid spoilers then the headline number can act as a good spoiler-free shorthand. The text can then be read in full once the movie has been seen.

I guess this will depend a lot on the extent to which you like spoilers before watching something.

NewDArt said:

Aggregates are useful - but they're anything but accurate in terms of matching the subjective.

Meaning, if a movie has a 7/10 average score - it does NOT mean it will be a 7/10 movie for you. But you can use the score to guage what it might be like for you - if you understand the audience and you take into account a vast majority of factors, including for how long the movie has been out and what the target audience is likely to be.

Also, I find that the closer a score gets to 5/10 - the more it can surprise you in ways both good and bad. A surprising amount of 5/10 movies are GREAT and an equal amount are utter crap - while not that many are truly average. At least, that's been my experience.

Getting something meaningful from an aggregate score takes years of experience and a genuine interest in the complexities of taste and human responses.

Also, there's a huge difference between user aggregates and critic aggregates.

For instance, IMDb scores are based on user aggregates - and that means it's really just a bunch of opinions that will largely depend on the kind of audience the movie appeals to.

I find the critic Metascore aggregate more useful - but it's still far, far from accurate in terms of reflecting how movies will appeal to me, personally.

I've seen a LOT of 80+ movies that were utter crap - and I've seen several sub 50 movies that were really good.

Probably the most relevant factor is time of release. Aggregate scores are at their least reliable right around release. Some movies drop very significantly in score over time - while others remain mostly stable throughout.

A lot of that has to do with psychology and hype. Even movie critics are utterly subject to their surroundings - and I find real attempts at being objective exceedingly rare.

Typically, I find that once a new very hyped movie is out - there's going to be a first wave of reviews that set the tone - and the VAST majority of critics will follow suit, and a smaller portion of them will go against the tide in order to stand out. Only a tiny handful seem to be truly balanced and unaffected by the word on the street or expectations.

Which is, not surprisingly, much like people are in all aspects of life. Most follow the crowd - some go against it, and a few don't really care about the crowd.

Which is why I would never recommend following aggregate scores as a guide, but more as a single tool in a larger toolbox you can occasionally use to guage…. something about movies.

Click to expand...

I suspect a lot of your post here is remembering the occasional trend-buckers and highlighting them as your main example. As I said, there will always be movies for which you don't 'get' the rating, but even in these cases it's not too much of a logical leap. I believe the term is usually 'guilty pleasures' and similar terminology and usually surrounds movies like Scorpion King or Daredevil, etc, where they're technically a bit poor, obviously a bit dumb, but could still have something tangibly 'fun' about them to certain people.

The genuine dreck you likely wouldn't even know existed until you saw it was available, such as straight to DVD stuff or stuff that's released in country A but was held back from international release (for reasons of being a bit poor, not because it cost too much etc, to which if even the locals didn't like it, what hope does it really have etc).

The issue of time is a really good one and one that's worth expanding on. Some movies really do die with time, both from their references and from their technical issues, while, likewise, some movies can suddenly resurrect themselves, often for similar reasons, mostly when people die, or remakes get made, or someone famous re-tweets it, etc.

A good example of this would be something like The Police Squad TV series, which only got 6 episodes and was quickly cancelled, but later became a huge classic once The Naked Gun stormed the early 1990s. As you rightly say, sometimes people just need to be 'trained' to 'get' something.

I'm happy without scores - btw Arrival was really really good on all levels ('cept if you are an action freak). How's that ?

you said:

I'm happy without scores - btw Arrival was really really good on all levels ('cept if you are an action freak). How's that ?

Click to expand...

I would likely disregard your reviews whatever you wrote. No offence and all, but you seem to have a huge "like it or lump it" approach to everything, which contradicts my very soul. And I've no doubt visa-versa, as you clearly didn't give two shits about a single word I wrote…

I suspect a lot of your post here is remembering the occasional trend-buckers and highlighting them as your main example. As I said, there will always be movies for which you don't 'get' the rating, but even in these cases it's not too much of a logical leap. I believe the term is usually 'guilty pleasures' and similar terminology and usually surrounds movies like Scorpion King or Daredevil, etc, where they're technically a bit poor, obviously a bit dumb, but could still have something tangibly 'fun' about them to certain people.

Click to expand...

No, I actually mean what I say.

Also, I like to think I "get" most ratings - but that doesn't translate to me agreeing with them very often. In fact, I'd say I rarely agree with aggregate scores of any kind.

Great examples would be nearly all modern Marvel movies. I know exactly why they're rated so high - and yet I despise nearly all of them. Truly, I find them quite terrible in most ways.

In the case of Marvel movies - they're all targeted as wide as possible, meaning the mainstream.

While there are many factors to consider, the gist of it is relatively simple. Modern Marvel movies are great at hitting what the mainstream expects of them. They're excellent blueprint factory line products.

They're sort of like the Ubisoft games of the movie industry.

But let me give you my personal guarentee that I do NOT agree with those scores in any way whatsoever - and they've very, very far from being trendbuckers. They ARE the trend.

Translation: You absolutely CAN'T use aggregate scores the way you suggest. Unless, of course, you always fit square into the audience and you think like the majority in that audience thinks.

In that case, maybe it's possible.

NewDArt said:

No, I actually mean what I say.

Also, I like to think I "get" most ratings - but that doesn't translate to me agreeing with them very often. In fact, I'd say I rarely agree with aggregate scores of any kind.

Great examples would be nearly all modern Marvel movies. I know exactly why they're rated so high - and yet I despise nearly all of them. Truly, I find them quite terrible in most ways.

In the case of Marvel movies - they're all targeted as wide as possible, meaning the mainstream.

While there are many factors to consider, the gist of it is relatively simple. Modern Marvel movies are great at hitting what the mainstream expects of them. They're excellent blueprint factory line products.

They're sort of like the Ubisoft games of the movie industry.

But let me give you my personal guarentee that I do NOT agree with those scores in any way whatsoever - and they've very, very far from being trendbuckers. They ARE the trend.

Translation: You absolutely CAN'T use aggregate scores the way you suggest. Unless, of course, you always fit square into the audience and you think like the majority in that audience thinks.

In that case, maybe it's possible.

Click to expand...

I have no idea why you'd equate distaste for an entire genre as something that disproves the value of aggregate scoring. I'm not a huge fan of RomComs, but I wouldn't disregard all RomComs as having 'meaningless' aggregate scores and, should I wish to see a RomCom, perhaps because a significant other has requested watching one, then the aggregates would at least give me a guide to choosing one that might at least have a better chance of being watchable, as the aggregate will include lots of people who also don't like RomComs.

The current aggregate for the first Avengers movie is 8.1, and I personally thought this was one of the best examples of modern super hero movies. Captain America: The First Avenger on the other hand, I found to be a really rather boring and disappointing movie, and that has an aggregate of 6.9. If someone didn't know which one to buy for their kid and were trying to get one that was at least possibly interesting to watch then the aggregate pretty much nails it. Sure, you could argue the semantics of individual taste, but, to all intents and purposes and for all considerations regarding 'useful information', the aggregate scoring seems to work extremely well, because the first Avengers movie is indeed objectively a lot better than the first Captain America movie.

While there will be people who think differently, for possibly obscure reasons, the aggregate is 100x more accurate and useful than any single wall of text about the two movies.