Movies in General

vesicles said:

Has anyone started watching the second season of Daredevil on Netflix? I have finished about 6 episodes and absolutely love it. They introduced some awesome new characters (don't worry. I won't name them). This season is even better than season 1. With the origin story out of the way, it now feels like a full-fledged comic book story. I'm having goosebumps when some of the new characters come out. I feel like I'm back to high school and reading an actual issue of a comics. It's awesome.

In a sense, many good superhero TV shows, like Arrow, Flash, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, even Heroes, have this comic book feel. I was pretty disappointed when they cancelled Heroes only after 4 seasons...

Legends of future tomorrow is a little disappointing to me. They've gathered some awesome actors but I just don't feel the chemistry. It's boring...

On the other hand, I can never get that "comic book" feel when watching the movies... I still love the movies, but not because they remind me of comic books. Mostly, I love them because they blow stuff up, big time! And I love it!

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I'm also 6 episodes in definitely upped their game in the second season of DareDevil.

The fun thing is the MCU is about fun and kind of lite and the DCCU is going dark and brutally while their respective tv shows are the reverse. Excluding Agents of SHEILD Marvel's Netflix shows are as dark if not darker than the DC movies. While DC's tv shows almost fall in line with the Marvel movies the darkest DC tv show is probably Gotham.

ABC78 said:

I'm also 6 episodes in definitely upped their game in the second season of DareDevil.

The fun thing is the MCU is about fun and kind of lite and the DCCU is going dark and brutally while their respective tv shows are the reverse. Excluding Agents of SHEILD Marvel's Netflix shows are as dark if not darker than the DC movies. While DC's tv shows almost fall in line with the Marvel movies the darkest DC tv show is probably Gotham.

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I think it's more about which tone is appropriate for the property. The MCU runs the gamut between silly and outlandish (Guardians) to dark and gritty (Netflix) but each film/show is tonally consistent with the source material. The DCEU material suffers a bit since some characters (Superman) aren't dark, brooding characters to begin with. I think one of the reasons why Batfleck is getting a great deal of praise is that the Batman character meshes very well with the dark, semi-realistic world that Snyder created. Superman, not so much.

Okay just back from Batman V. Superman.
First I think they got the title order right. This is very much a batman movie with strong Superman moments mixed in, I think this was done because we already have the established Cavill Superman, but with a new Batfleck. They at times overused dreams and memories but all and all it kinda worked. From Bruce Waynes ascent to heaven on the wings of bats, the Mad Max like dystopian future, the bat demon attack and the resurrection of Jonathan Kent. This is a movie that aimed to set the two major players. Or as I like to think it the DCU dark and light Messianic figures.
It also set the third major player Lex Luthor and establish the footing of the Justice league franchise. Wonder Woman was a brilliant choice for use in this set up. Although I kinda Wish they had used the established TV line of Flash in the mix. Looks like they are not using Ryan Reynold's Green lantern, The film bombed and Ryan was much better suited for DP then GL. Hal Jordan is snarky to be sure but Ryan is a 11 on the snark factor Hal is a solid 7.

DC and Marvel, both brilliantly timed there releases Deadpool on Valentine's day. BVS on Good Friday and Civil war in may leaves openings for each to grab theater time without stepping on each other. Nothing kills a cult film like having it open the same week as a overlapping cult. You can't have a Star Trek Movie open the same time as a Star wars or Doctor Who It would Cannibalize the
fandoms and make for poor sales all around.

Production was excellent. SF was exceptionally good. Acting was above par all around, Their were however issues.
Boy meets Bat,
Superman in this line is establishing Clark Kent as a any thing but Mild mannered reporter. He is seriously bucking for a pulitzer and at times it seems more like Smallville was Playing Lois Lane well Lois was playing Clark. I mean Lois is working but she seemed more mellow than the typical spitfire lois we all remember. as shown in Man of Steel, Lois and Clark have fast tracked the relationship.

The Dark knight.
Don't expect a cape twirl from this batman, this is about as far as you could get from Adam West as humanly possible. This is a very angry batman, This is not Michael Keaton or Val Kilmer or George Clooney or even Christian Bale. This is a Aggressive Angry, Sadistic Batman who was more willing to kill than any other film batman, I liked it. Also Affleck did not phone in the physicality where the earlier were little actors who put on rubber muscles Affleck clearly bulked up.
The Toys were all their. the batmobile was cool but I felt rather on the small scale. I mean If you the batman I think you should have a Jet powered MRAP. The Tumbler looks huge for it's actual size and has intimidation. This batmobile was tiny It was like a indy car. The batwing bad mother! awsome! the batarang was lethal, The Grapple gun was cool and Bats was willing to use a grenade launcher. He also pulled out the big guns on supes.

The Lady
Wonder woman was a total Amazon. just the right mix of class, Beauty and hardened warrior. she was dead on And I am hoping to see more from her as Diana Prince. She could flirt with Bruce or body slam a monster with equal ease.

They were combining a lot of epic lines that really did not need to be combined. This story is derived from two comics the Dark knight returns and The Death of Superman and the return of Doomsday. they took these three Epic stories broke them up and blended them into one that really demands more machiavellian hand wave that is not exactly achieved. It requires you to believe that Lex Luthor knows who everyone is, this however results in a very Bipolar story.
everything boarders on denying that a character knows something to flat out admitting it, and it all hinges on a single tiny detail.

I was also impressed with Affleck's bulk. He is already a big guy. He's 6' 10", I think. And he looks very intimidating during that training sequence.

I also liked this aggressive Batman. This is the Frank Miller version of Batman, with which I fell in love.

In my first post after just coming back from the movie, I said I wasn't decided on which Batman, Bale's or Affleck's, would be the best Batman. Now I have made up my mind. It should be Affleck's. It's the intimidating and aggressive nature of the character that I enjoyed. I wasn't very into Batman comics until I got my hands on the Frank Miller Batman graphic novel. Batman has been one of my favorite superheroes ever since.

Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg was weird, in a way that I didn't like too much. It didn't have the intimidating factor that lets people believe that he's fit to be an opponent of Batman and Superman. Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was the only part of the movie that I didn't like. His shaved look at the end looked a little better.

I don't care how much bulk Ben Afleck puts on he is still a pus in my book. Dare Devil just got lucky because of his Hollywood connection allows him a lead role as Batman, in which someone else deserve it more.

Anti-China Movie ’10 Years’ Crowned at Hong Kong Film Awards

“

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,” a low-budget feature which portrays a dark imagining of Hong Kong’s future under Chinese rule, was named as best film at the

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on Sunday night.

The film, which is made up of five shorts each depicting changes to Hong Kong society ten years into the future, has already attracted controversy. In one segment the local Cantonese language has become useless, to be replaced by standard Mandarin. In another segment a political activist sets himself on fire.

The film’s win is certain to anger authorities in Beijing. “Thank you for having the courage to give this award to us,” said Andrew Choi, one of the film’s co-producers from the stage.

The win for “10 Years” may also further stir the ‘localism’ movement in Hong Kong. This upswelling of anti-authoritarianism sparked a riot in the streets of Hong Kong on the first day of Chinese New Year. In the last week it has seen a group of students unveil plans for a political party that would seek independence from

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for the territory, which was handed back to China in 1997 by the U.K., the former colonial power. Hong Kong authorities have refused to register the independence party.

The film was released under the radar in Hong Kong in late 2015, but became a surprise, modest box office hit. It earned some HK$6 million (US$780,000) in Hong Kong, before exhibitors in the territory got cold feet and removed it from their screens.

With access to cinemas denied, the film was instead shown at some 30 public venues around the territory over the weekend.

It is unclear whether there were instructions from China for cinema to stop exhibiting the film. However, Chinese authorities are clearly furious. Mainland Chinese tabloid newspaper The Global Times castigated the film as a “disease of the mind.”

Shortly after “10 Years” was announced as an HKFA nominee mainland Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said that it would drop its normal live broadcast of the awards show. Mainland Internet giant Tencent quickly followed and said that it would also not stream the ceremony on the web in China.

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Brumby said:

Anti-China Movie ’10 Years’ Crowned at Hong Kong Film Awards

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Chinese censors were definitely being incompetent in censoring mention of it, should have mentioned it and given it some reviews and used it as a teaching opportunity instead. Though since it is a blatantly anti-China movie it behooves the censors to ban it from being shown anyways, however just like other banned movies interested people will find a way to watch it.

The movie is fear mongering fiction that makes ideological leaps to blame China for universal post-colonial, globalization, and simply change-is-difficult issues Hong Kong needs to deal with but is instead in denial about, at least by the recent Hong Kong protesters, many opposition politicians, and the few secessionists, with nothing but prejudiced egotism.

Which is what actually makes this movie a great teaching opportunity about the universal real life issues Hong Kong faces same as the rest of the world and different possible ways to try to overcome them.

PanAsian said:

Chinese censors were definitely being incompetent in censoring mention of it, should have mentioned it and given it some reviews and used it as a teaching opportunity instead. Though since it is a blatantly anti-China movie it behooves the censors to ban it from being shown anyways, however just like other banned movies interested people will find a way to watch it.

The movie is fear mongering fiction that makes ideological leaps to blame China for universal post-colonial, globalization, and simply change-is-difficult issues Hong Kong needs to deal with but is instead in denial about, at least by the recent Hong Kong protesters, many opposition politicians, and the few secessionists, with nothing but prejudiced egotism.

Which is what actually makes this movie a great teaching opportunity about the universal real life issues Hong Kong faces same as the rest of the world and different possible ways to try to overcome them.

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I watched a lot of HK films because I understand Cantonese. It initially caught my attention because it won the best picture and my first reaction was where did this movie come from. It did not register on the radar as typically movies that win awards usually are already well publicised before they get to the award stage. I think the fact that China banned the movie only adds fuel to the publicity. I haven't watched it and so I have no view on the artistic content or the nature of the movie. Reviews suggest the storyline relates to local HK issues and in my view might find a different take when watched from different geographic lenses.

I guess I'm an outliner in not enjoying the BvS movie.

To me, it was too much of a hack job to be enjoyable as it left way too many gaping plot holes.

It would have been much better done as a Part I and Part II combo or even trilogy.

The premise of the story was a good one, but horribly executed.

It needed far more set up to let to audience know how Lex found out about the true identities of Bat and Sup, and a lot more work to show how he secretly cultivated and manipulated Bat's animosity towards Sup into outright hatred.

As it stands, Bat was just way too angry at Sup for no good reason.

Lex was also a massive let down and light weight. Eisenberg clearly knew he was out of his depth, so tried to add some 'edge' to his character by trying to imitate Heath-Joker.

But he only mangled to come off as annoying rather than threatening.

He seemed like the serial-killer-wannaby emo teen who tortures fluffy bunnies behind a shed but cries and self harms when someone speaks to him harshly.

A good superhero story needs a top villain to support him.

You needed a Lex who is calculating, patient, charismatic, lethal and brilliant. Someone who is at least the intellectual equal, if not superior of Bat.

I think MCU definitely has a big casting advantage over DC because of its first mover advantage allowed it to lock down most of the best established actors for their franchise. Most of the names I can think of who could have done a great Lex are already signed on with Marvel, so I assume would rule them out for DC.

The likes of Tom Hiddleston or Benedict Cumberbatch would have made a formidable Lex. Instead, we got some over the top loony toon who you have trouble picturing planning and executing a kids' birthday party, never mind someone who could play Bat and Sup against each other like chess pieces on a board.

To be honest, given the fact that Bat is already old in this version of events, it would have been acceptable to also have an older Lex. That would open up very strong actors like Bryan Cranston, or, my favourite, Peter Dinklage.

With actors of that calibre, it would have justified a two parter or trilogy to tell this story in a far better way, and also make the studio a shedload more money. So its a big opportunity missed for all.

I was impressed with Afleck as Batman, but his Bruce was subpar. Bale made the superior Bruce, while Afleck was the better Bat.

Star Wars Rogue One Teaser Trailer will be dropping tomorrow on ABC Good Morning America.