I hate this shit so much. We went through this same bad faith argument with the last Godzilla movie: critics give it shit for focusing on boring human characters with bad dialogue and morons who can only read headlines think the critics are mad that it focuses too much on Godzilla somehow. It's especially nauseating since Godzilla and King Kong were originally ABOUT things. Godzilla was about the consequences of nuclear war, King Kong was about the evils of colonialism, but now they are just IP that smash into each other in boring military propaganda movies.
Idk, it's often the same critics who praise the MCU movies, which are also poorly written military propaganda. So it's not like them disliking monke vs lizard is some anti-imperalist stance.
the main problem with MCU movies though is that they're just dull, nothing ever happens in them
It's not banter unless you get incredibly personal and way over the line
King Kong was about the evils of colonialism
I've never heard this interpretation of King Kong, can you elaborate?
Kong represents the slave trade, and is exploited by the white people and revolts. He's the hero of the film and the people who kidnap and abuse him are the bad guys.
It's not super coherent, but it's definitely at least marginally anti-colonial.
Kong is the hero, and Kong is meant to represent slavery and breaking free of the chains of colonial oppression. The trade itself would be the white guys who put him in a cage and brought him to New York.
It's not a perfect analogy, but the film is definitely sympathetic to Kong and his struggle with being imprisoned and shipped across an ocean by white people.
It's not like 1:1, but the movie gets people to feel bad about Kong being chained up and get them mad at the people who did it. The idea is that you leave the theater and think "why the fuck am I concerned about a clay monkey being chained and not the 13 million people that actually were chained".
I added an edit that tries to clear it up, but basically yeah. It gets you to sympathize with slavery by subverting it and not letting you get your defenses up first. The absurdity is that people would be upset about a claymation monkey being chained then go out and be racist to people who's ancestors actually were.
King Kong was about the evils of colonialism
The most recent King Kong was still about this. Monke absolutely massacreing American marines just after they got their asses beat by the VC.
The theme of the Skull Island was definitely "indigenous have the right to defend their land" and it wasn't subtle.
Yeah, every time a blockbuster gets shitty reviews there are people who try to conjure this stereotype of a snooty film critic who just doesn't understand fun. Then you look up "Superhero sequel number 42069" on Rotten Tomatoes and it has like 98%. What gives? Where are my pretentious film snobs?
This monkey movie seems well-reviewed thought.
Kind of reminds me about the discourse around Pacific Rim. People were criticizing the bland romance plot that dominated the screen (and got immediately dumped in the sequel, to add) but there was a narrative about anyone who didn't like PR was just a pretentious snob who can't enjoy a movie about robots and monsters.
Godzilla 1954: dropping nuclear bombs is bad actually.
Godzilla 2021: did you know that the military is super cool?
No, that's Shin Godzilla, directed by the Evangelion guy. There's 2016 Godzilla made by Americans, followed by King of the Monsters (2019) which I saw in-person in... oh god now I miss theaters :agony-deep:, and now Godzilla vs Kong.
The only thing I remember from the first Gareth Edwards Godzilla movie was some sort of tactical camo Bible some grunt was reading passages from to a bunch of TROOPS as they were parachuting from some big plane I'm pretty sure I own in GTA Online
I fucking hated that movie, wasn't that same hack also responsible for that other snorefest, Rogue One
I fucking hated that movie, wasn’t that same hack also responsible for that other snorefest, Rogue One
This makes so much sense now. Both had some cool sequences, but absolutely no sense of pacing.
I feel like breaking bad is like this. You just watch that show and enjoy it for what it is and not think too much, and it's great. Or you can get super into the details like my brother did i.e. the color of Skylar's nails in this ep is actually meaningful, and it's also great.
yeah but also once you've seen a cgi explosion you've sort of seen them all.
I feel like people overrate novelty. If you stop liking something after the novelty wears off you just dont like it.
There are people whose prefered entertainment for their whole lives are cool fun explosion movies, and they could be totally happy with that.
My Reddit review:
Great cinematography! I loved the acting, it was well acted. Good action. 9/10
When this place had downvotes I got jumped for saying Tenet was good.
I haven't seen Tenet, I don't even know the plot. But going off of the poster and knowing the director I feel like I've seen it already lol
I am on Google images and looking at pictures. I also know that Tenet was chosen because it is a palindrome and it has something to do with time travel, or something. Tell me if my predictions are correct:
There's a white guy and a black guy. The black guy is, like, some highly competent and important... Something? Like, he's some kind of action man, but you know, intelligent, sophisticated action man. He's the character that does stuff. The white guy is some kind of scientist action man who works for the government and is exploring experimental time travel technology or something, but also does stuff. Or rather time manipulation, basically Adam Sandler's Click but directed by Christopher Nolan. There is also a woman, I didn't see her in the posters but I am sure there is some white girl involved who is maybe also some kind of scientist and has a quasi romance with the black guy that never gets explicit because Nolan is afraid of sex but he knows he has to put it in his movie.
There is a non linear narrative aided by the time manipulation thing. It is essentially a heist movie, which also involves stereotypical foreign bad guys. He's already done Asians in Inception so I'm guessing they'll go back to the other standard Hollywood villain type, Slavs (although he has kinda done that to in TDK iirc). I say there is definitely some evil slavs involved somewhere, but maybe they won't be the main villain. There will definitely be a small "side quest" during the first quarter or so of the movie, so maybe that is where slavs are involved. Also some kind of terrorist.
I also expect that it is hard to figure out who the real bad guy is and what they want. Also there's gonna be lots of dumb twists and some girl who betrays someone. The soundtrack is basically a bunch of Zimmer bwooms. The ending is ambiguous and involves some kind of nonsense bro philosophy about time, and the black guy talking very sternly. There will also be a very hard choice somewhere in the course of the movie, where it's like, should we or should we not use the time manipulation thing? Perhaps this will involve the white girl dying.
The backbone of the movie though is gonna be weird high concept action sequences involving time manipulation. There's gonna be lots of buildings collapsing and there will definitely be some kind of sequence involving water flowing in reverse or something like that. In between the sequences there's "serious" pseudopholosophical conversations mostly between the white guy and the black guy taking place on fancy rooftops, and then something happens and the black guy has to punch Russians.
Pretty much right on the money actually. There are some genuinely neat sequences - well, like one and a half - but it lacked a lot of the flair and hype you'd expect for a decade-long passion project. Like, it was surprisingly conventional and linear, and maybe a bit boring? Every bit of dialogue is exposition.
Also Nolan's insistence on a theatre release is single handledly responsible for killing cinema. So.
Pretty much right on the money actually.
Lmao for real? I honestly haven't even seen the trailer, I really didn't know anything about it beyond hearing someone say that Tenet is a palindrome and has something to do with time travel, and seeing that people didn't like it very much.
Every bit of dialogue is exposition.
Oh yeah I forgot to say copious exposition, that's most Nolan movies and I know this wasn't one of people's favorite movies so I just assumed the worst stuff about his movies would be more worse in this one.
Also Nolan’s insistence on a theatre release is single handledly responsible for killing cinema.
Responsible for killing his movie I guess, but cinema? Why?
I was being a little flippant, but long and the short of it: Nolan demanded that his mastapeece be shown on the big screen in the middle of a pandemic, and it was probably the largest film to actually make it to cinemas last year. The fact that cinemas were partially closed, that audiences weren't too keen to go out, and that the film itself was kinda mediocre all combined to a poor box office. This lead directly to things like big movies like Bond and Dune getting further delayed, and Warner Bros to announce that all their films will be getting simultaneous digital release on HBO Max - which then lead to things like Denis Villeneuve to write an open letter decrying the death of cinema.
Granted, this was the direction things were heading anyways, and it mostly affects blockbusters and corporate multiplexes that stake their business in wide scale releases. But in any case, a A-list director's pet project bombing didn't help the ongoing conversations about the slow death of theatres.
Movies can do both coherent critiques and symbolism and big dumb action - Robocop springs to mind - and it's perfectly fine to critique a movie for choosing not do to that, especially when it's part of two franchises that historically have
I mean the flip side is that it's valid to judge movies that both do and do not offer cogent critiques on the caliber of their big dumb action scenes
The "monsterverse" movies have been alright, although I think the 2014 Godzilla film was probably the best out of all of them and they've gotten a bit lazier since. I've always been a huge Godzilla fan since I was a kid though, so I appreciate what they are trying to do....sometimes the movies feel a bit inconsistent or rushed though.
Bout to throw this sucker on. Going in with an open mind - Zilla 2014 was dope in IMAX and Skull Island was unironically kino, but KotM was trash outside of the nostalgia value.
Edit: it was ok
I grew up on rubber suit Godzilla movies, and I'm planning on watching this one this weekend. I figure it's got to be better than King of the Monsters, that movie sucked ass.
Real leftists only watch old Soviet films and nothing else ever
