It's class, and the acid scene is an all timer

Birthed a fantastic meme format

Gremill wrote:

35. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Nicholas Cage plays Nic Cage, a desperate faded actor looking for a comeback but unable to decide whether he wants to be an artist or a film star. He makes too many films, he has no quality control because he's on the verge of bankruptcy and his ex and daughter can't stand his self-obsession. Then he gets an offer of $1m to go to a rich fans birthday party in Mallorca. Absurd, funny (at times hilarious), super-meta and featuring both versions of Cage battling for domination (sometimes in the same scene or even sentence and a few times literally) this is a great time if you just sit back and accept to ludicrousness of the premise. Pedro Pascal nearly walks away with the entire film and the scene that they are both on acid is fucking brilliant. I loved it, even if it really does walk the line between being great and just falling to bits from the pressure of it's own self-reference. 8

This inspired me to rewatch Paddington 2. So good.

Paddington 2 is the best. Marmalade.

But then that would mean Cruise acknowledging that he is old and will not, despite promises from Xenu, live forever at the side of LRH.

What a cunt

That's what happens when you ride two horses - I presume he has a production role in the MI films - owns the IP rights - so he likely has a heavy investment sunk into it.

Sometimes They Dead Reckoning Again

davyK wrote:

That's what happens when you ride two horses - I presume he has a production role in the MI films - owns the IP rights - so he likely has a heavy investment sunk into it.

Literally says "A Tom Cruise Production" in big letters at the start of this one.
Can't remember if the last one said that

Barbie
In some ways I'm still not entirely sure what I made of Barbie.  It has a hell of a lot to recommend it - it's funny, the performances are brilliant, the design is pretty extraordinary, the songs are great and it does the near impossible job of placating both those who love, and those who hate Barbie.

I also felt it didn't quite work. I think there's a couple of things that pulled me out of it.  The first is that this is one of the least subtle films I've ever seen. I know that's kind of the point, but still - whilst it's great that there's a film so happily wearing its feminist colours on its sleeve, it feels the need to tell, not merely show - grinding to a halt to do so several times.  This in itself would be fine if it didn't also conclude in a manner that sits on the fence more than you might have expected. (Big spoilers for the ending follow)
So, yeah, as a comedy, I very much enjoyed it, and it's definitely a fun couple of hours.  As a piece of social commentary tucked within a 2 hour advert though - not so much.

(Though, having whinged about the films lack of subtlety I gather Ben Shapiro's made a 45 minute video in which he continues to fail to understand it, so what do I know?)


Oppenheimer

I was expecting to hate this. I was of the view that Nolan's been off the boil for a while, and that I had no real desire to see a 3 hour movie about a man I already knew a fair bit about.

It was, however, absolutely spectacular.  I didn't notice the 3 hour runtime at all.  Predictably the roster of Very Famous Actors are all excellent (Murphy and RDJ will surely get nominations). I saw it in an IMAX, and the sheer seat shaking force of the thing is breathtaking - whilst massive faces are less ridiculous than expected, especially when every wrinkle on that face is acting its socks off.

It's not perfect. It's a Nolan film, so there were brief bits where I couldn't quite catch what people were saying.  Similarly, it's a Nolan film so the women feel much more of an after thought.  (There was a discussion on the film thread about whether the nudity in this film is gratuitous. It's not, it's there for a very clear and specific thematic reason. But that reason is "This Lady Personifies Irresistible Sexual Desire And We Will Show That By Having Her Almost Always Naked."). Like Barbie, it is also not a subtle film, but unlike Barbie it makes its points using every tool available.

Imperfections aside, it's magnificent. I was going to wait until this was on a streaming service (and then probably not get round to it).  I'm really glad I didn't - a fine film and, yes, dammit, one you should see in a cinema.

Wham!
Maybe the simplest documentary I’ve ever seen. Montage footage with the two of them talking through their career from childhood to the farewell gig. Pleasant, but you won’t learn anything new.

b0r1s wrote:

Joined the Oppenhypetrain. Have booked IMAX for Saturday.

Apparently the Melbourne IMAX is the only cinema in the southern hemisphere to have an IMAX film print. People are coming from other countries to see it here. Now I see why it's sold out through till the end of August. I've got my tickets for Friday. Should be a pretty lush thing.

I imagine it's the same as the Melbourne one. 1570. 15 spoke 70mm print I think is what that means.

Kow wrote:

Apparently the 70mm IMAX film print is 18km long and weighs 272 kilos. There is no cinema here that can show it.

Well it is dealing with quite a heavy topic

poprock wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

So George is archive footage then?

Fuck knows how long that Wham film has sat in a vault unfinished. It seems to be just a hack job of editing stuff around a very old pair of individual audio interviews with the two of them. The end result is nice though. Literally - it’s nice. Pleasant. It’s good enough.

A Wham, no bam, thank you madam that was delightful.