The Official Movie Thread

I was just reading an interview with Lynne Ramsay where she said she was hoping to make her "epic environmental horror" after a couple of years writing it, but Ad Astra was a little close to home and has apparently killed her ambition for the time being. Fucking sucks to hear Ad Astra isn't very good in that case.

Bit from the interview;

For years she nursed a desire to make a big metaphysical science-fiction movie, with a plot freely adapted from Moby-Dick. This strikes me as the perfect text for a director whose career has been a saga of prolonged deep dives and sudden, splashy reappearances. She still thinks she would like to do it, but probably not for the foreseeable future. She has yet to catch Ad Astra, James Gray’s acclaimed space saga, starring Brad Pitt as an astronaut on an obsessive search for his father. But she suspects that it might have slightly stolen her thunder.

“Every director has a labour-of-love project,” she says. “It’s like Stanley Kubrick always wanting to do Napoleon. So maybe I’ll make it when I’m 80 or something. But Ad Astra does feel a wee bit close to home. So yeah, James Gray probably got there first.”

 

I have been following updates on this movie (Mobius, Ramsay's proposed film, that is) for years, so super bummed to hear this. It's too bad that there's this unspoken cap on "metaphysical sci-fi" film--as though a director makes one, and others think "oh well, maybe in a decade." Fuck that, give us more metaphysical sci-fi films!

Also, Mobius is such a cool name for a sci-fi film adapted from Moby-Dick.

 

It's retarded, and such a market-focused way of thinking.

 

that was obvious. my thought process was, oh hey rms likes puppet master, maybe he'd be interested to know that the new puppet master movie (which rad thrash also just posted about) was written by zahler. i thought that was also obvious, but

 

and yeah ramsay's logic there is fucking dumb, who cares what other people are making? if anything she should be thinking "if james fucking gray--literally the most old-fashioned filmmaker currently working--can make a big budget sci-fi movie then surely i can".

i'm really intrigued by ad astra though. gray is a guy whose whole career has been built on old-timey 1930s melodramas and melancholy seventies crime pictures, and has spent the bulk of his career working with joaquin (with some help from marky mark)--kinda hard to imagine pitt or tommy lee jones in any of his films. it's just altogether a super weird project for him, definitely has lots of trainwreck potential (especially as i think his last two movies have each been weaker than the last) but could also be something quite unique.

 

Speaking of metaphysical sci-fi: http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/region/item/119110-fne-at-connecting-cottbus-2019-vesper-seeds?fbclid=IwAR2VAL-fMBDwRDnamem76oPsKJQgWef2PC4eTJYgNODvrevMf92dzFE2Ywo

Never heard of this Semper fellow but Buozyte is a phenomenal director. Vanishing Waves (2012) is one of the best sci-fi films in recent memory. Her debut The Collectress (2009) is terrific as well.

A new boom of weird sci-fi would be most welcome. There needs to be directors as crazy as Roeg and Zulawski were in the 70's doing things like The Man Who Fell to Earth and On the Silver Globe.

 

Speaking of metaphysical sci-fi, has anyone seen A.T. White's Starfish? It's been on my list for a while, but waiting to hear some thoughts (no spoilers, please).

 

yes yes
metaphysical sci-fi movies

 

There were a few cringey lines but the new terminator was not bad at all

 

Oscars: International Film Race Puts Spotlight on Extreme Female Characters

Some very interesting quotes in there. I'm liking May el-Toukhy more each day.

 

The worst aspect of identity politics in cinema for me isn't all the LGBTQ+/female leads/enforced racial minority casting/etc it's that they aren't willing to write compromised or morally ambiguous characters from those demographics. What makes me love all the straight/white/male characters over the years was never that they were perfect people.

 

I'll tell you what dude, really cool movie. Got traces of Zahlers fingerprints all over it, from some of the dialogue to the extreme violence. As a whole the story is pretty weak and the characters are all lames, but you don't watch a Puppet Master movie for the human characters. Lots of gore and great kills , if thats your thing, or you like the franchise in general then its worth checking out. They set it up for more sequels of course. Had to go back to the originals after.


Tonight

Spoiler

 

radical was ya mushroom growing doofus! Haha

I actually do , it's not their fault, but hard to imagine a brain that needs as much information to connect the dots as you do!

Confused the fuck out of me mang, have a good one


Anyone seen Herzogs family romance ? Hard to find where it's at in the world

 

Watching:

 

lol i have no idea whether you'll love or despise that one (assuming you haven't seen it before?). one of the most polarising movies ever probably.

 

I’ve actually taught that movie in a course called The Simulated Society. Students liked it more than The Matrix! I was shocked.

 

2nd time around for me, I keep having reoccuring dreams about the video game Dr. Mario and early this morning for some reason it made me want to rewatch it. Also it can't hurt to get a little hyped for I'm Thinking of Ending Things which is supposed to be out next year on Netflix.

 

Another late 90's gem. Great setting and a real interesting cast with Phoenix, Vaughn and Garofalo.

 

Speaking of metaphysical scifi, anyone seen this?