Movie Talk

[stansimpson]

I've got my Thursday night IMAX tickets for the early screening of Dune (2021) purchased. Only one more day until the Atreides leave Caladan and step foot on Arrakis.

When I joined this forum a dozen years ago, my only affiliation with Dune was its reputation as a box office bomb. That turned to practically a meme for this sub. And that was its reputation for me for many years.

Within the past 3 years, I have seen the David Lynch movie (Alan Smithee edition), read the book, played the board game, and overall familiarized myself with the universe.

It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a movie. I guess you could say I HAVE AWAKENED!

[Variety of Cells]

I've got my Thursday night IMAX tickets for the early screening of Dune (2021) purchased. Only one more day until the Atreides leave Caladan and step foot on Arrakis.

When I joined this forum a dozen years ago, my only affiliation with Dune was its reputation as a box office bomb. That turned to practically a meme for this sub. And that was its reputation for me for many years.

Within the past 3 years, I have seen the David Lynch movie (Alan Smithee edition), read the book, played the board game, and overall familiarized myself with the universe.

It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a movie. I guess you could say I HAVE AWAKENED!

You're in for a treat.

[Cyrusso]

K, so I was thinking back to the most notorious bomb of 2022, Morbius... and...well... it wasn't good. But, at least it was only 90 minutes. That's the same thing I said about Jonah Hex. It may have been bad, but at least it was mercifully short, clocking in at ONLY 81 minutes.

Correction, Morbius was One hour and 44 minutes. So I guess I need to do a redaction and say at least it was much shorter than the average Marvel movie.

What the fuck is it anyway with Marvel movies from Sony? It's like unless they're hyper-focused on Spider-man, their results are almost always lame. Venom was okay, and I thought Carnage wasn't too, too bad... but between those movies, Morbius, and the upcoming Madame Web, I feel like Sony are the biggest indifferent to comic book movie jackasses of all time. I might say they're right up there with Warner bros with the DCEU and the Salkinds with the 3rd and 4th Superman movies.

Sure, Madame Web could be fun.... but color me skeptical.

[Pak-Man]

Spider-Man is all Sony has the rights to, and they can use ancillary Spider-Man characters without giving Disney anything, so if they want a slice of that sweet Marvel Pie, they have to dig deep.

[LucasM]

Spider-Man is all Sony has the rights to, and they can use ancillary Spider-Man characters without giving Disney anything, so if they want a slice of that sweet Marvel Pie, they have to dig deep.

And, yeah, the biggest problem that I think Sony has, is that they don't hire people to write, direct, and act in the films who actually LIKE the characters and care about the stories.  Sony is creating what they consider 'bankable product', instead of 'art'.  Whether one likes the stories they tell or not, the MCU is intended to have fun stories, with inherent respect for the characters.  Sony has neither of those.

[Cyrusso]

A long time ago, I posted on the forum about how much I LOVE the Commentary for Blood Simple, the commentary from a somebody named Kenneth Loring. According to a cursory google search, Loring was portrayed by actor Jim Piddock.

Well, although he's Loring, the commentary track is anything but BORING.
*Crickets*

It's still an outrageously funny commentary track, due partially to the fact that Blood Simple is NOT a movie you're supposed to laugh at. It is a straight up suspenseful murder mystery with little to no humorous moments, so to hear this Loring guy talk about how the opening scene in a car was filmed upside down and in reverse and how a dog in the film was in fact animatronic(while playing this role 100% straight) is just mind-bogglingly insane, but also marvelous.

It's too bad commentaries are not much of a thing anymore. I remember listening to the commentaries for the Simpsons dvd sets ALL the time, and sometimes they were almost as funny as the episodes. I find it sad that most streaming internet services don't even bother with adding commentary tracks, AT ALL!!! If you watch digital simpsons episodes on Amazon prime or Disney+... there's no commentary track available... EVER!!!!

Anybody else notice this trend lately? I thought it was really sad that commentary tracks are just a thing of the past now. It was a great way of extending the versatility of DVD/Blu-Ray players... it's like studios don't give a fuck anymore... which now that I think of it... totally makes sense.

So in short.... streaming services suck(in part) because they don't have all the shit the fucking dvd's did, god dammit.

[LucasM]

I agree Cyrusso.  After being blown away by 'Barbie' I was REALLY looking forward to commentary tracks.  [An idea how much I love the film: I gave eight copies as holiday gifts... basically to everyone I buy gifts for.]  I'd hoped for two commentaries on the Blu-ray (in a perfect world): one with Greta Gerwig alone or her with Noah Baumbach, and maybe a second with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.  I can't imagine that those would have been anything but hysterical and insanely informative.

And commentaries on the film/Blu-ray?  Non-existent.

You are right: far too many films no longer have commentaries.  My guess is that the studios don't want to pay enough to get the people involved to spend an additional 2+ hours of their time on commentary tracks.  I think just like other extras on discs being whittled away at (with rare exceptions), the studios are thinking, "they'll buy it regardless - and we don't include these with digital copies which suckers people are happy to pay more for than the physical releases (which also include a digital release ) - so what do we care?"

Capitalistic greed.  I see it right up there with Prime's 'free' shipping: the original was "2-day shipping".  Gradually Bozos changed it to "usually once a week", while increasing the cost of Prime.