Over/Under-rated movies: the redux

Culture
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I have to side more with @ChuckV on this, in that spoiler tagging (or asking for same) is not trying to change the subject. I’m generally all about protecting against spoilers, and probably for longer than most netizens deem necessary, especially when a spoiler-tag tool is available, as it is here. This is not a SW-specific thread, and contains more than enough general-interest movie-related content that I don’t think it’s fair to exclude people just because they’d rather not have plot details revealed unexpectedly for a movie whose home-video release is only a couple months old. I should not have assumed that anyone who cared that much about TLJ plot points must have seen it by now. We’re near the upper reasonable limit, I imagine, for how long such mystery should be necessarily be preserved, but the area is still gray, and since the spoiler tag is available here, I should have used it.

Sorry about that, Chuck.

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No problem. I was arguing for others more than myself.

(And/or perhaps myself in a situation where I’m more interested in the content. It was no doubt a mistake to start out by saying I didn’t “give a shit about Star Wars,” as this may have put some on the defensive, but I was actually aiming for a “look I don’t care about this instance personally, but…” vibe.)

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So, Mrs. Cynical and I just finished watching CA:tWS (“Catwhizz” for short).

I admit that my earlier judgment was hasty and that, after watching The Avengers, Catwhizz made a lot more sense, especially once we watched it all the way through.

I’m glad we gave it a second chance and watched it through again (mostly for continuity’s sake) but I’m still not entirely convinced by it as a movie.

My main criticisms (for what they are worth):

1. Editing. This is a problem all the way through the MCU movies and TV series that I have seen so far. Cuts last half a beat longer than they should, or are cut off a moment too early. The Hulk movies are the worst for this that I have seen but it’s genuinely jarring at points in all of the franchises, where it feels like the studio pressured them to cut off or add an extra half a second to individual scenes in a 2 hour movie.

I’m not particularly pedantic about this sort of thing but sometimes it breaks the rhythm so badly that I’ve laughed out loud for the wrong reason, because I can’t help but imagine the editing studio giving it to the intern and then saying “close enough” on a clearly sloppy cut.

The lack of editing also applies to the first hour of Catwhizz, which is just a mess of sloppy exposition that they could have significantly trimmed down.

2. Plot Armour. There is an inherent lack of drama in watching invincible characters fight with no risk of death. Thor avoided this by framing itself as a constant struggle between the powers that are fighting over the universe. Catwhizz doesn’t even try to avoid it, because it knows it’s 2 hours of exposition and not a movie in its own right.

3. Why is Scarlett Johansson? That’s not a typo, I just don’t feel the need for a predicate in that sentence.

I don’t get the appeal at all; I seem to be one of very few hetero men who don’t find her attractive and I feel like the child in the story about the naked emperor. She’s a terrible actor who has difficulty moving her face into impersonations of human emotions because she’s too busy trying to pout and look “sexy” and yet somehow, she’s one of the highest paid female actors on the planet.

(Full disclosure: I was living in Japan and studying Japanese when I first saw her in Lost in Translation, just after the movie came out. I despise the movie to this day. It’s horribly racist and plays off both central characters’ white privilege for “furriners, amirite?” hijinx all the way through. Don’t even get me started on the live-action Ghost in the Shell…)

ETA: ugh, formatting. Anyone want to let me know how to not indent numbered lists? Thanks, @nimelennar!

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  1. I can’t engage with you on that level. I haven’t noticed anything off with the timing, but then, I haven’t been taught much about that sort of thing.
  2. Agreed, 100%. If you exclude the deaths of villains and death-by-origin-story (Yensen and Erskine), there have been exactly two emotionally meaningful deaths in the MCU to that point: Bucky and Coulson. The fact that neither of them are actually dead makes it even worse. You’re freaking Marvel Comics. You have more superheroes than you know what to do with. Kill a few of them!
  3. I do find her attractive but… I don’t know. I don’t exactly watch superhero movies for the quality of acting. I haven’t noticed her being exceptionally bad at acting (and the fact that Widow is supposed to be an emotionally shut-down superspy would mask a lot of bad acting regardless), but I haven’t really been looking either.

As for the numbered lists, put a backslash (\) in front of the period for the list.

For example:

1. One
2. Two
3. Three

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

    1\. One
2\. Two
3\. Three

1. One
2. Two
3. Three

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I’m a pedant about many things but editing is not normally one of them. I’m not sure whether it’s because the totally legitimate versions of the movies that I have legally bought have been edited for different markets or what, but something about the way that the shots are cut together feels really shoddy a lot of the time.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I watching shoddy edits of otherwise slick movies?

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In my world there are two ScarJos: acting ScarJo and being-photographed ScarJo.

Acting ScarJo shows up first, in films like An American Rhapsody. She still shows up in films like Under the Skin and Hitchcock.

Note those are all non-blockbusters.

Being-photographed ScarJo shows up in the blockbusters. She does a series of poses with some choreography – which, I’m convinced, is exactly what’s wanted from her by the directors.

Keira Knightly gets the same criticism for the same reasons. So does Anne Hathaway. So does Keanu Reeves, who was amazing in Scanner Darkly long after he’d been written off as not being able to act.

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Quick re: Keanu. Let’s not forget Thumbsucker. He was the best part of that film.

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I think Keanu would have been better off as a silent actor. He generally looks like he means what he is saying, but his voice has been a limitation. There’s a bit of gruff hoarseness to it that doesn’t always suit his roles (with a little work he could have developed a pretty good tough guy voice) and he doesn’t seem readily able to do normal inflection (exaggerated Bill and Ted dude-isms, he can do).

He has gotten better with it over time. I think the limitation is still there, but he can more readily work within it.

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That blows away my pet theory. He has a narrow face and a small mouth – not unlike Buster Keaton, which does link to the silent film idea.

But Keaton was famous for going through his entire films virtually stone-faced – a way to make all those stunts funny, not scary.

Keanu does a lot with his voice, er, to your point, he tries to. I remember seeing him in Much Ado About Nothing and people laughing when he said “I hate him”, because he sounded angry but his face didn’t change enough to please them.

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I still haven’t seen that. I did hear it being discussed at work when it was out and they were talking about the clues and I was all oh duh he is dead but just doesn’t know it and every one of the clues you mentioned were gimmies to someone who has seen as many movies as I have.

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I know he does do a lot of gee Ted I can’t seem to get out of this role movies… I quite enjoyed the hell out of John Wick. He did good in that one and the cinematography and fight scenes were excellent. And while
it is a predictable and overdone story they manage to do a fresh take on it.

ETA I should see John Wick 2 sometime.

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That reminds of when the Harry Potter books were still being released and people were losing their minds over what happened to Dumbledore at the end of Half-Blood Prince. A writer reported she said to a friend, “He was the mentor figure. What did you think would happen?” And the friend was all “but weren’t you shocked?”. The writer said no, she wasn’t, but she admired it for being well done.

That’s the thing about spoilers. Spoilers for whom? If you’re one of those people who knows whodunnit by the end of the first act, you’re just there to enjoy the execution.

(And the Sixth Sense is very well executed on that front. Even when you know you get lost in the psychology, or at least I do.)

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Or even in some shows like Columbo. You know who did it right from the start as they show you. The fun is watching the schlubby little detective trip up the murderer and figure it all out.

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Well, I should rephrase. He can work as a silent actor mostly because of the Kuleshov effect. He often displays a suitable blankness which the audience can project their own ideas on. Sometimes all you need to do is affect the right pose and let the audience do the rest. Which, these days, is a skill. Not many male actors know how to do that anymore. (R.I.P. John Philip Law.)

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I like Keanu Reeves. He is one of those people who has that movie star magic halo around him, where the camera just eats him up. Like a lot of people who have that quality, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. He was just touched by the Gods and somehow he can do this thing where he is very consistent in his performances and can carry a movie from beginning to end. He isn’t really handsome but you can’t stop watching his face. His voice is weird and shouldn’t work and his acting isn’t crafty. But he still seduces you. I appreciate people who have this magical thing, charisma.

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image

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That’s a really good way to put it. We watched the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still the other night. I seldom like the remake more than the original, but this one was an exception. His acting is wooden, he’s not very expressive, but he does have that certain undefinable something that makes him a star.

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I don’t get it about him. To me, nearly everything he does, he’s still Ted “Theodore” Logan. I think his finest hour was River’s Edge. I remember how woefully miscast he was in Dracula and Dangerous Liaisons and it’s just really hard for me to see past that, even now, 30 years later.

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I have finally seen the entirety of “The Last Picture Show.” In the past few years I’ve bumped into this film a number of times on television. I’ve seen most of it, but as a series of bits and pieces out of their correct order. Now I am able to give a definitive description of the movie: it’s “Hud,” but with fewer cows and more boobs. Lots of boobs, in fact. More than were probably necessary for the telling of the story.

But it’s a curious movie because it doesn’t really have a story. What it has instead is great actors delivering great performances in a dusty, windswept locale. I have a feeling that in the nothingness of the story there is potentially a deeper meaning that I will have to think about during subsequent viewings. Like the tagline on the original poster, “Anarene, Texas, 1951. Nothing much has changed…” There’s a lot of poetry in that line. That one line is almost as good the entirety of the movie.

One of the themes of the movie is how a group of people’s life start to fall apart when one character, Sam the Lion, dies. This is indeed true. In fact, the whole movie starts to fall apart at that point too.

I really wish Sonny had kept driving at he end. He shouldn’t have gone back to Ruth Popper. That was a very believable action on his part, but it is not evidence of personal growth. Nothing much changed, I guess.

To me, the most interesting thing about this movie is finding out that Tonny Bennett recorded the original recording of “Blue Velvet” a decade before Bobby Vinton got his limp hands on it. I have no idea how I have not heard his version before, fan of Mitch Miller that I am.

Another theme of the movie is the general pathetic pointlessness of love, or should I say “passion?” In that regard this film l lot like “La Règle du Jeu.” Yes. It’s similar in message to La Règle du Jeu, but with boobs. Lots of boobs.

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Have you seen Paper Moon? I thought Last Picture Show was fairly great, but loved PM.

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