I don’t really care about Star Wars
The Wilhelm scream is not, and never was, a funny inside joke. When you’re watching an intense action scene and suddenly you hear this high pitched and often way to loudly mixed scream it instantly ruins the immersion.
Any movie that adds it is instantly ruined for me. I can somewhat excuse older movies since it wasn’t that wildly used yet but any contemporary director/audio engineer adding it really needs to get the idea out of their head that it’s funny/clever/subtle. Cause it’s not.
I’m mixed on this. If it’s a serious movie, then I agree wholeheartedly. It’s not funny and it breaks my immersion.
But if it’s a more relaxed or even funny movie? Bring it on, the more subtle the better, I love hearing it, always gives me a chuckle when I’m in a chuckling mood.
Like most inside jokes, it was better before the internet.
Now it’s the The Narwhal Bacons At Midnight of the industry.
Completely agree… There is exactly one scene where the Wilhelm scream is appropriate and that’s it.
That’s because the officer falling is Ben Burt, the sound designer for Star Wars and many other movies, who made the scream his signature. (Although he didn’t originate it.)
That doesn’t clock as the traditional Wilhelm scream to me.
I’m not trying to say you’re wrong, I don’t know much about this. I’m just saying if I were watching this with zero context, I wouldn’t recognize it as being the Wilhelm scream. Whereas normally I hear it in every movie it’s in, pretty clearly.
Now that you mention it, the scream in that clip is similar but a bit different. Good catch.
The main point I was trying to make was that the person getting knocked off and falling is the person who made it popular. Personally, I hate the Wilhelm scream. It’s way over used and really doesn’t add anything to the scene it’s in.
More theaters need a rotation of classics. There’s a whole subset of movies I’d love to see in theaters again and having to wait for some small theater half an hour away to show one of those for one weekend a year is a bummer.
We have a local theater here that basically only runs classics, it’s pretty great.
This is why I love my local theater, comparatively cheap tickets and the best prints for old classics running all the time.
Sometimes they also bring in the director, or someone else that was involved in the production to talk about the movie. Those are really fun.
Sorry, chief. Best we can do is a lousy remake instead. That’s because the licensing rights for oldies are too hard to figure out so we can’t be bothered, and all creativity in Hollywood died in 1999.
Nuh-uh. What about the matrix?
Shit. You’re right.
Yeah. I’ve had people fight me tooth and nail repeatedly that the Matrix was a “2000s movie.” I think this is another one of those Berenstain Bears things.
(Most likely people watched it on DVD in the year 2000, since for a while there The Matrix was the movie that sold DVD players.)
Its funny because when I was young bargain theaters would play old stuff they could get cheap regularly. I think its tougher now that people can see something whenever they like.
Money enables art only to a certain point. Past that the stakes (money) is so high that all the decisions in making the movie is done by committee.
Committees are incapable of making art.
Committees are incapable of making art.
A t-shirt slogan I would wear.
I think there’s a fine line between collaboration and committee (members of a band can collaborate to make good music). But capitalism definitely works against art.
I don’t want big name celebrities doing voice over for animated movies. Give me actual VAs
Is Mark Hamill an exception? Or is he a voice actor that happens to have done some face acting as well?
Mark is a voice actor that has done some on screen work. I don’t care much about star wars and his joker and trickster is peak. Note though him in the long walk was epic.
You’ll probably get a kick out of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL-VHe_4GmE
he was a face actor until that
car accidentwampa fucked it up.Yeah, but the wampa never acted again, so I think justice was done. Their career is over.
based on his voice work as Skips from Regular Show, most definitely he’s actually got the chops for it.
I genuinely do not want to see famous actors in any media, at all. I don’t want to recognize anyone in a movie.
My son is big cinephile, and he complains about how contemporary movies are all filled with people who look like nepo-baby actors. He says they all have iPhone face: no matter what time period they’re supposed to be in, they all look like they’ve seen an iPhone.
He longs for the old days when older unattractive actors were in demand as character actors.
I always find the first moments of movies with famous actors disconcerting. Why is Jack from Titanic here? Oh, he is not Jack from Titanic, just has his body-suit…
‘Black Mirror’ was great because I don’t know anyone in it.
Which is why I can’t stand Will Smith movies. Or Vin Diesel. Or any of the other dozen actors who don’t actually go out of their way and act.
The Bear had an episode with a family reunion where everyone was a famous actor, so you have some familiarity with them, but they were so characterized, it wasn’t off-putting.
I do agree though those actors that are always the same persona (e.g. The Rock), do throw me away from what I’m watching.
That is a hot take.
Cinematic universes shouldn’t live forever. At some point, there is just too much of it, both for people making it and for people watching it.
I think it’s more that we turned cinematic universes into a forced content machine to have x number of side character movies per year, with one major tentpole event every few years, with tv shows, video games, and comics all filing in gaps along the way. It’s exhausting. I’m fine with a connected universe that is allowed to live and breathe in it’s own.
Warm Bodies is an homage to the Shakespeare Cinematic Universe. Just, with zombies.
How old is the Shakespeare Cinematic Universe? Does it count if it started out live-action?
With very few exceptions, the “Theatre” is dead to me. Last film I saw in one was Blade Runner 2049- a proper movie. There was nearly nobody else in my theater, but when I left there were tons of people leaving some stupid piece of shit movie down the hall.
I remember Blade Runner being pretty full when I saw it
Glad to hear it.
Having The Rock in your movie makes it worse.
Given his script caveats to get him to star, you’re right.
I’ve only liked maybe two Rock movies and he still had hair in both of them.
I think you’re reversing causality. Movies that were bound to be bad cast The Rock. We need to experiment by casting The Rock in a Paul Thomas Anderson.
casting The Rock in a Paul Thomas Anderson
It’s complicated.
Movies in general aren’t interesting to me. I much prefer video games.
my wife said something akin to this in a discussion we had. I was saying how I mostly use video as background and rarely pay attention to it now.
Mmorpg is like a weekly TV show but you get to control it. It’s very addictive.
The Disney-churn Marvell/Star Wars slop has ruined the film industry. No one is willing to risk a thing on original IP when remakes/reboots/continuations are taking in the bank.
We will never see another Stranger Than Fiction, or Dead Poets Society or, Eternal Sunshine while the low hanging fruit is such a hot commodity. And it will never not be a hot commodity.
We will never see another Stranger Than Fiction, or Dead Poets Society or, Eternal Sunshine
Original movies like that are still being made, much much more than ever before.
Just not in Hollywood. And you won’t get a trailer for those movies fed to you by Youtube’s algorithm, you have to look for them yourself.
My recent favorites were Flow and The Outrun (both from 2024).
Edit: Using this comment to plug one of my favorite original movies of all time:
The Guard (2011)
(The first 2 minutes set the tone of the movie well)Yeah people will only consume content that had been marketed to them then turn around and complain that no original stuff is being made :'(
It’s funny cause I’m old enough to remember the exact same thing being said during times that are now considered a golden age.
So really we should vote with our wallets and agree to not watch cinema pollution like that then
Waaaay ahead of you. It’s too bad way too many people still watch that shit enough to justify it.
Sadly, I think that slop flicks will remain popular the same way and for the same reasons McDonald’s is.
I agree with your point about established ip being safe and attractive to executives.
I disagree with your point about “never see another eternal sunshine” type movie. Everything everywhere all at once. The substance. Sinners. There are gems.
The same thing happened in the 50s with big budget epic movies trying to appeal to everyone, I think Cleopatra was at the tail end of it.
This was a problem before Marvel or the Star Wars reboots. Execs will always go for what seems safer and an established IP with a fanbase is safer than something brand new. A tale as old as time.
Also cinema is so old that nothing new happens. The same problem occurred in the 30s, 50s, etc… each time needing a “new wave” to break the execs out of their trance.
And they’re right. People are more willing to pay for things they’re familiar with. People keep blaming movie studios for doing what People clearly want.
Who controls which movies make money? The audience does.
Who controls which movies are produced?
They choose based on what will make money. People keep complaining that they have the nerve to produce what people will most likely pay to see. If the majority of the audience really didn’t want franchises, they’d stop paying to see them
You’re proving my point without an effort. Thank you.
I cannot stand The Godfather. Any mafia shit, really. I hate the whole family hierarchy thing, I hate the guise of freedom when it’s just an organization reminiscent of cops or the military, and I hate the blind loyalty to a system that only serves one person or family, it’s all just so petty and capitalistic, the mafia is fucking stupid.
You’re not supposed to like the Mafia in these movies.
Yeah thats what you were supposed to take away from that movie, the creator of it isn’t trying to glorify that life but show you how pathetic it is. But idiots watch it and take the wrong message
As is the typical pattern.
“So you see, the lesson is that Gatsby’s pursuit of wealth only kept him further from-“
“Dude, that guy’s parties were AWESOME! He had like a freaking circus there and all! What minority group do I have to brutalize to be like him??”
That’s why the sopranos is pretty good. They are just pathetic overweight old guys who have no connection to italy, but try really hard to pretend they have.
Even better is that a certain kind of group still think they are bad ass, because they kinda fail to see the point.
This is like saying that you hate ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Full Metal Jacket’ because you hate army.
You say that like I’m obligated to appreciate the film just because it claims to be critical of the mafia and if I don’t like it then I just didn’t get it. That’s not the case, I get it. I don’t like those films either, and yes, it’s because they’re army movies. Regardless of being critical of the subject material, you cannot make a movie entirely about the mafia (let alone, three of them), or the army, or anything, without romanticizing the subject matter. Do you have any idea how many people saw The Godfather and fell in love with the idea of the mafia, or Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now and fell in love with the idea of being in the military, or SLC Punk and fell in love with the idea of being a poser? All those people fucking loved those movies. Some people missing the point doesn’t mean that everyone who gets the point is obliged to think a movie is good. The Godfather fucking sucks, because it’s about stupid people doing stupid things and sucking their own dicks about it.
Sounds like you want films to be only about sunshine and daisies.
you cannot make a movie entirely about the mafia (let alone, three of them), or the army, or anything, without romanticizing the subject matter.
Way too bold a claim.
Sounds like you don’t understand different tastes and perspectives. I never said that that is inherently a bad thing, I just hate movies focused on military and authoritarian conformity and hierarchy as their main appeal, which is what the mafia is. As I said, I think the mafia is fucking stupid, I’m not asking for movies to be sunshine, I’m saying I don’t give a fuck about stupid mafia bullshit and glorified tales of such. Same goes for hoorah military shit. I’m not even saying it shouldn’t have been made, I just don’t like it, that was the point of this whole post. You can like the movie regardless of how stupid I think it is, art is subjective.
And creating a movie is a glorification of its materials, no matter the intent behind the creator. Just look at Fight Club, SLC Punk, Wall Street, The Punisher, Lolita, Full Metal Jacket, The Joker, etc… That’s not negotiable.
Ah, so ‘District 9’ glorifies refugee camps, ‘Black Mirror’ glorifies techno-authoritarianism, ‘Life Is Beautiful’ glorifies Nazi concentration camps, ‘Idiocracy’ glorifies abject stupidity, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ glorifies abusive psychiatric hospitals, ‘Soylent Green’ glorifies overpopulation?
Your take was bizarre before, but with that comment it’s plain idiotic.
You’re intentionally misinterpreting what I’m saying, and it shows. You know what I’m getting at, I’m not playing in to this purposely obtuse bullshitery. I don’t like The Godfather and have valid criticisms of the films, get the fuck over it.
Also, you didn’t understand those movies and shows at all if you think those were the themes and subjects they were focusing on and exploring. Learn how to examine and interpret a story, you’re only seeing the metaphors, maybe watch some stuff on media literacy and film studies.
This is laughable coming from a guy who wrote “creating a movie is a glorification of its materials, no matter the intent behind the creator. That’s not negotiable.” Learn to take your head out of your ass before talking shit.
One beautiful thing about art - and, for me, especially movies - is that they reveal truths within ourselves.
The first time I saw Fight Club, the “true” meaning went WAY over my head. I was young, I just saw a cool action flick with a twist ending. To me, the message was Fuck the System. I grew up, though. I can now clearly see the deeper themes, like warning about toxic masculinity and groupthink.
Similarly, Starship Troopers was a favorite of mine. I never understood the parallels to fascism when I was younger - I just rooted for Johnny and the gang.
The Godfather and Apocalypse Now fall squarely into that same set of movies. These are all movies that I enjoyed when I was young, but the themes were just beyond me. And that’s OK. My point is that you are definitely NOT obligated to appreciate these films. But maybe you can understand why these films are studied and rewatched and discussed. At least part of the reason is because someone who saw a film 5 or 10 or 30 years ago is only just now starting to understand it.
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I agree that the system sucks and that, IRL, they’re bad people and harmful to society. Still a good movie though.
I lost focus on the second movie, but the first one was decent
Lookie here boys, we gots ourselves a tough guy. Hey, Rico, why don’t you show our friend what happens to tough guys round here. Maybe a little swim with the fishies will show him we ain’t so bad after all.
It insists upon itself.
“COZ IT HAS A VALID POINT TO MAKE, IT’S INSISTENT!”
I actually like sitting in the first few rows.
Damn. Didn’t think I’d find a psychopath in a comment thread about movies but there you go!
Thus we can only assume that you are a giraffe or an okapi.
there is another option
I’ll just sit in the back and give you some space
First actual hot take I’ve seen in this post so far
I actually saw a family arguing about this today. The mother was like “we can sit anywhere, don’t you wanna sit down here in the front” and the daughter was like “no, I don’t want to crane my neck”. I was mildly annoyed because there was assigned seating and therefore the mother was encouraging rule breaking, but I minded my own business and didn’t say anything
I didn’t think One Battle After Another was very good. Felt like my generation’s Crash, though not nearly as bad
Actual hottake unlike the OP
But…Crash was a pic everyone needed to have seen. Is OBaA the same?
Crash was a hard watch.
Crash was absolutely trash, this movie was at least watchable. It’s admittedly a really unfair comparison.
The reason I make it is because I feel the movie is getting a lot of praise because of what it’s “about” - and I use that word lightly because it’s not really…about anything. It’s just the pretense for the movie.
The movie opens with a revolutionary group raiding an ICE detention center to free people.
The resistance was just entirely too goofy. It felt like 3 scenes from Dumb and Dumber were shoehorned into an action/thriller.
Good bones, though. It was a solid idea. Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor are absolutely unforgettable as Lockjaw and Perfidia.
I agree…what was the resistance fighting for? Why did we spend 45 minutes watching them fuck shit up with no explained goal?
All of the performances were great but Lockjaw was a stupid fuckin character. Hated the twist with him and hated the plot around it which…was apparently the ONLY plot because nothing else really happens.
Which feels weird to say because there was so much going on in the movie. But there’s only so much going on because everything in the movie exists for a single purpose and then it goes away. Every character has a single motivation.
I’m particularly mad because I walked in expecting to love it after several people whose movie opinions I almost always agree with told me they loved it. But I don’t love it, I’m neutral on it at best.
