hey I thought Covenant was plenty enjoyable honestly. It felt like it was sort of a Blade Runner-y take on the Prometheus stuff, and worked as a neat bridge between Prometheus and Alien.

Granted, Alien (and Predator, and Blade Runner) is one of my fav franchises ever so I'm a total geek/apologist for this stuff. But still, I really liked it.

Don’t lump Blade Runner together with any Alien other than Alien and maybe Prometheus. Please.

ACTUALLY... have you read some of the fan theories that the two movies (original Alien and BR) exist in the same universe? Interesting, right?

Revenge of the Nerds 3. :D

I thought Alien: Covenant was fun, but confusing. It doesn't really feel like it quite belongs with the other alien movies though.
Also it lacks Sigourney Weaver.

The 1st time I really thought DiCaprio was believable in a tough/grownup role was in The Departed. Not a great film (but better than some say) it was the one, though, where I think I finally 'got' the whole DiCaprio thing.

They're not really fan theories given that Scott basically confirmed.

But uh yeah, I probably didn't make it clear how geeky I am about these franchises and how much time I've spent/wasted reading about connections.

Put it this way, I'm the guy who bought Soldier on DVD because of the BR connection.

EDIT: I'm geeky enough about this to have this sitting in my Google Drive...


I mean there's even a scene/dialogue in Covenant that clearly echoes a scene/dialogue in the original BR.

IDGAF. I expect a full long thing about how this is all just fan theory and whatever and I'm wrong. But... I don't care.

Prometheus is the stupidest movie ever. http://www.movieplotholes.com/prometheus.html

I promise you there are much "stupider" movies than Prometheus.

ah right. i dont remember him in that movie. i remember the other guy who looks like marky mark. matt damon? or was it marky fucking mark? those 2 look the same. but yeah, i barely recall the departed. for some reason that’s another scorsese movie i didn’t like much, like the story was too obvious? or something. vera farmiga was in it i think? and i vaguely remember i hated her character...

i think i once saw the chinese original version and liked it better, actually. but can’t remember a lot of that either.

hmm...

man. what’s wrong ith me. i’m a difficult customer.

maybe i should give it a second look, ha ha ha. would come handy but i remember very little except for the basic infiltration plot.

so lionardo was the counterpart to matt damon?

i’ll check it out :D

No, you’re right. I haven’t gone into the rabbit hole, but I think it’s confirmed. I read that Scott said that, and the Tyrell corporation is referenced by name in Alien DVD. They run the same software, etc.

But I didn’t know you were so into BR. That’s, like, my fave franchise ever. We should geek out about it!

(Either BR or Nolan’s Dark Knight of course)

NO YOU ARE STUPID!!

NO! I'M STUPID! Wait? what?

Oh gosh sev. Yeah I adore BR hard. Yeah man.

I'm with you on Dark Knight as well but fairly sure you were aware of that.

This movie is pretty good. Feels very influenced by early Spike Lee and possibly Clerks era Kevin Smith.

Haha, Mark Whalberg and Matt Damon were in it.

DiCaprio played the undercover cop who infiltrates Jack Nicholson's gang.

Swear if I hear about that film one more time...

Jack Nicholson was fucking great on that film. For the most part.i actually did enjoy that film and I've nothing against ol Leo. However, that film actually has one of the last shots in any film EVER. Fuck me, talk about heavy handed. You'd expect that sort of stuff from anyone but Scorcese.

aaaahaaaahaaahaaaa! ok. no wonder im confused


scorsese can be very heavy handed for sure. maybe that’s part of his success: he always hammers on the point he’s trying to make and the audiences don’t miss it. he;s not praised for his subtlety, he’s more about the spectacle. think about taxi driver or raging bull: what’s most memorable is the spectacle.

in gangs of new york the end was really terrible with the fade of the modern skyline and an ugly u2 song about “the hands that built america” and o man that last bit made me cringe and i wanted to throw a rock at my tv...

the opening fight though, holy fuck, that thing was THE BEST.

so i googled “scorsese subtlety” after i wrote that and found this great interview/article with him and ebert

https://www.rogerebert.com/interview...artin-scorsese

and he’s right he can be subtle i guess (and he’s also blamed for taking that away it looks). but the age of innocence, while very good, was not a great public “success.” beautifully shot though, damn.

anyway, putting that aside, a great little thing to read, that link.

That is true. Id actually forgotten about that til you mentioned it. VGod knows why jhe thought that was a good idea.

^^^ yeah, Gook was pretty good. Nice dynamics of an ugly incident story. Good characters, too. Well dimensioned, I especially liked the hip hop Korean brother character.

Regarding Blade Runner (which, by the way, I consider way way overrated) have you fans had a chance to see the tv show Altered Carbon? It really takes a lot of the BR schtik and runs with it. Some is terribly derivative, some seems fairly innovative. It is a gore fest, though...

I haven't seen Altered Carbon yet, but it looks like something I'd really enjoy.

I watched the first episode of PKD's Electric Dreams (which was actually like the 4th ep in the UK) though, and I thought it was very cool. It's an anthology thing - like how Black Mirror is where each ep is its own thing. This first ep had Terrance Howard and Anna Paquin, and played around w/ the Total Recall concept. Good stuff.

i read some articles about the editing of the movie and apparently the weinsteins demanded cut upon cut. the story was supposed to be an hour longer. i’d like to believe it would have worked better that way, one of my complaints about this movie is that it appears overly compressed

and maybe that cut was a kind of shorthand to make up for something else, or maybe it was supposed to appear in some sort of context and couldn’t so they slapped it together that way.

now that the weinsteins are being sold for parts maybe scorsese can buy it back and reedit xD

No such movie exists. Prove me wrong.

Are you thinking of NEW YORK, NEW YORK? That was Liza Minnelli.

Falling in Love (1984) ??? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087233/

OH SHIT! SCORSESE WAS IN IT BUT DIDN’T DIRECT!

lol me

thank you yes



you’re right you’re right. in my addled mind things were different.

what can i say? memory is poetic and it creates facts

Honestly, his performance was the one thing I really didn't like in that film. It just felt like he was hamming it up, and was never anyone other than Jack Nicholson the entire time he was on screen. I know DDL hammed it up in GoNY but at least he did it with a certain virtuosity, and effectively carried that film singlehandedly. Whereas I just though JN was doing his trademark Mad Jack routine, which people seem to either love or hate.

Yeah, I remember watching ABOUT SCHMIDT and thinking, "Oh right. Jack's an actor."

It's sometimes hard to remember. In damn near everything else, he's always so...Jack.

It's good. You should check it out. I just posted more about it in the What TV are you watching (live, dvd, etc.)? thread.

Your opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

It's Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson. HOW can that be a bad thing?!

lol no


the answer was already here!


about schmidt was great

my wife loves About Schmidt. after years of trying we finally watched it. I found it "meh." Didn't give a flying fuck about their bullshit problems.

lolwut?

who is the their you’re talking about here?

also, “problems” aside, it was hilarious!

the main characters. the road trip. the retirement. that shit plays hard to ancient academy of Motion Pictures voters. They love that bullshit.

did you... miss the satire?

Annhiialation...well, not exactly like the book, but a good effort. The art department obviously had a good time with it. A few of my thoughts on the first time thru (def will watch it again some time). Soundtrack good and bad. I didn't at ALL like the folk guitar and CSNY being included, but some of the Eno-esque atmospherics were OK. Too much standard military reactionary in it. When in doubt, add an AR15.... Not at the right times, per the book either. And a bit too much of the gore, too, not like the book there, either. But most of the acting was good, Natalie Portman is excellent, Issac OK and JJ Leigh was about right, too. Rodrigues, NO. Not a good fit.

satire? All I saw was a boring fucking story about a loser and his fucking relationship problems. I hate those kinds of movies. I find them pointless suffering and not funny.

noooo! you were supposed to laugh! lololol

unless you sell water beds—then it’s serious business

the story wasn’t pointless. the characters were. the story was about the futility of the average american life, a critique of normality, the emptiness of suburban life, the ridiculousness of being an emotional incompetent, of following along what you’re expected to do,. etc. etc. “everything that you’ve done all your life is shit”. get a mouthful of ashes.

the movie had a philosophical point, which was a critique of middle class values and conformity. all done with great bitterness and irony. and yes, the point is made through characters and “relationships,” but “relationships” are not the point of the movie— this wasn’t a soap opera at all. this was a red hot poker up middle america’s ass.

anyway, not your kind of movie, i get it, but i just wanted to defend the movie from what i see as a mischaracterization.

as for the movie’s real weak points, i’d say maybe it looks down too much on its characters and fails to recognize the potential virtues of the culture it portrays, but then it would not be a satire, but something else.

Beerfest, yo.