Film

[Eoin McLove]

Backrooms in the cinema on Fri. Thought it was great.

Last week:

Do The Right Thing
Clockers
Malcolm X
25th Hour
The Order

25th Hour is a great film. I think I actually have the DVD somewhere.

[Eoin McLove]

Just back from The Odyssey. Pretty good, I thought. The guff about the woke casting is nonsense- the two actors who are the focus of the right-woke ire appear so little in the overall film as to barely make any real difference at all. Pathetic storm in a teacup whinging.

I thought it was visually good overall, but the Cyclops looked off somehow. He didn't quite mesh visually into the scenes. I wonder if we reached the limitations of what CGI can achieve with TLOTR. There needs to be some kind of new development made in that area because after all these years they can never get it right.

I also felt that the city of Troy looked a bit too set-like. A lack of people about, or maybe it was too tidy and ordered looking? It didn't look completely convincing somehow.

Other than that, I think it clipped along pretty well and was an immersive watch.

[Bürggermeister]

I think that's a Nolan feature at this stage, he prefers loads of extras to CGI crowds but rarely feels like he has the amount of people he needs. It didn't work with Dunkirk, either. There were supposed to be 300,000 men on that beach, not 300.

[Carnage]

His sets tend to look a bit 'sterile' alright.

[Necro Red]

It's great. I didn't like the "mom" and "dad's but other than that I'd struggle find fault. Casting, as you said, doesn't interfere or stand out as an issue. 

i said the same thing, a bit americanised in parts, but it was tense and epic as fuck. That it was class

[Emphyrio]

It's great. I didn't like the "mom" and "dad's but other than that I'd struggle find fault. Casting, as you said, doesn't interfere or stand out as an issue. 

i said the same thing, a bit americanised in parts, but it was tense and epic as fuck. That it was class

100%

Emily Wilson (whose translation Nolan  used as a reference) has come out with a scathing review. I picked up her book last week but it'll be a while before I get to read it. It was missing sex scenes was one of her issues. I thought that was an odd complaint.

[Emphyrio]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd692n215ndo

That review if anyone is interested.

[Eoin McLove]

I picked that book up today, coincidentally.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Will be going tomorrow I think. Haven't read Wilson's review, but it's already annoying me and being picked up and brandished by all the mooks who didn't in any way grasp Oppenheimer either.

[Eoin McLove]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd692n215ndo

That review if anyone is interested.

Wow. She really went to town on it. I think the truth is somewhere very much in the middle of her scathing appraisal and the gushing praise. It's far from awful, but some of her points are valid. That said, how do you build character depth while managing to include all of the various adventures. Something maybe had to give? Or else you end up with The Odyssey Part 1... and the franchise that ends up trailing along after that for a hundred fucking years!

[Emphyrio]

Exactly. To fill out the characters properly couldn't be done in one movie. 3 hour running time is pushing it for many people. Of course sacrifices have to be made. I just wanted to see something akin to Jason and the Argonauts helmed by Nolan, using modern technology and the budget to do it, so for me it did exactly what I was looking for.

[Eoin McLove]

That's it. I picked up the book, so now I can get the full scope of the tale. Job done. A fillum seldom has the ability to capture the depth of character within a book. That's just a limitation of the medium.

[Emphyrio]

Aye. I picked up the original or whatever version a couple of months ago but just couldn't deal with the poetry style. Had hoped to read it before the movie came out but fuckit. Since stuck into a 4 series thing that'll keep me preoccupied for another couple of weeks at least. I'll start Wilson's translation then and see what the hullabaloo is all about.

[astfgyl]

I went in to watch The Odyssey without reading anything about it other than seeing some stuff on twitter about woke casting but it made no difference to what I thought of the film itself. I just thought the events on each island felt a bit rushed but there was indeed a lot to fit in and even 3 hours ish couldn't flesh it all out. I brought the young lads to it and they didn't get bored at all, which is a fair achievement. Read some reviews after watching it and thought they were scathing for the sake of being scathing. When I mentioned the casting not being great I didn't mean at all about the supposed woke thing, I just meant that none of the performances were particularly involving but again there was no standout awful performance either.

I did laugh a bit going through Rotten Tomatoes reviews in that every single unverified reviewer gave it a terrible going over but every verified reviewer was gushing in praise. Yet the tomatometer was like 99 percent or something. I'd call it a 3 out of 5 but an enjoyable 3 out of 5. As mentioned above, I was also after a Jason and The Argonauts style romp, which it fairly was, so no real complaints.

Edit: Just read that review on the BBC link and she's right about it to an extent

[astfgyl]

Watching Glory here now and I have to say that the way the battles were fought in the American civil war have to be the stupidest way battles were ever fought, like walking straight into cannon fire not even running to make it hard on the enemy. Seriously what the fuck was that about. Thought the same thing any time I saw any depiction of those battles it's utterly ridiculous. And the boys playing the gammy little tunes to spur them all on is fucking hilariously insane as well. Good lord the old days were fucking mad. I mean war is fucking mad anyway but this stuff is especially insane

Film's alright though