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Rate the latest movie you've seen.

Started by GalacticBusDriver, February 16, 2013, 12:37:09 AM

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Cavebear

Quote from: Munch on September 19, 2017, 05:42:12 PM
Back. That was fun, the movie was a lot of fun, the thing that sort of left a red cloud over my head though were the two nod head guys two rows back whispering loudly thoughout the movie, and raising their whisper levels higher when the volume got higher, because everyone who paid to see the movie so wanted a idiots commentary throughout. Seriously, they need a law in place to shut up in cinema, if your meant to turn off your phone in the cinema, you should shut your mouth too for it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. 8/10.

I broke this into two halves, first part is my thoughts on the original tv movie, the second parts about the new film.

The thing with IT, is how much of an impact its had on me for years now. I never read the book, and likely never will, just based on the size of the thing, and from what I gather from reviews King bloat a lot of the story with more details then is really needed for a story. Sure its his original, but when you've had a preconceived idea of a story for so long, namely the Tim Curry tv adaptation, then reading the book now might change my perception of a few things, and I kinda don't want that.

I saw the original tv movie when I was 11, forced to watch it when my brother got a vhs copy from a friend and made me watch it when I slept on the floor of his bedroom when my grandmother came to visit, he did that a lot, and it probably why I love horror movies so much now. But for all the stuff I saw back then, for me the IT tv movie had the most impact, mostly because of Tim Curry's role, but also the child actors in the first part were pretty dam good too, and even today I will like that first half due to those roles.

What I liked about Tim Curry's version, is how he subverted expectations so much. He posed as a happy smiling clown on screen, and as the kid, I had that preconceived idea of clowns being nice and friendly, this being back in the late 1980s well before the times of which clowns became creatures of fear they are today. So going in as a kid then, seeing tim curry being all smiling and friendly one scene surprised me.

Only for that expectation to be shattered when he did something terrifying.

As a kid, even though I was told it was a horror, I wasn't expecting something like that, and it left its mark on me about subverting expectations, and maybe even introduced me to the idea of the uncanny valley, that something that seems unnatural can lead to that kind of fear and expectation. 

Anyway thats the original series, seeing that as a kid and seeing it now, I can see a lot of the faults and cringeworthy moments in it, but I still think the child actors in the tv series and Tim Curry still hold up today.



This new version however is something both similar and different, but still delivers.

Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd as Pennywise is pretty fantastic, but he plays a very different kind of character. Its kind of like comparing Christopher Reeve's superman to Henry Cavill's superman, both are great performances, but are both unique in their execution. SkarsgÃ¥rd goes full on creepy with Pennywise here, unlike Tim Curry, he doesn't subvert your expectations, he simply is a creepy as hell clown like from old times, and in a way that works. The problem with the original I suppose is once you knew how evil Tim Curry's pennywise was, the charm of the soft smiling clown is already lost in the first scene. Here, SkarsgÃ¥rd  gives that uncanny performance, along with the special effects and makeup, the small details like the cracked face paint and his expressions are the stuff of nightmares.

The kid performers in this are awesome, infact I'd say better then the original, maybe a couple cringe moments here and there but overall they delivered their roles blood well, and you ended up feeling for the characters and all the shit they go though. And unlike in the original, the adult actors were pretty good too.

the camerawork, the lighting, the sound and music, all of it was awesome. The actual horror elements in it were pretty good too, when it comes to horror, if you do nothing but cheap jump scares, you deflate the audience and it makes the experience kinda shallow. This movie built up expectations, and their were no cheap jump scares, they were all delivered well, including one that even made me jump (the two idiots rows back saying it almost made them wet themselves).

The thing with any adaptation is the director is taking a property, breaking it down, and putting it back together in how he thinks it should be seen. There is no way you can adapt kings original book of this story, its to big. So for what he did with it, the director, Andy Muschietti, did a fantastic job of trimming so much fat from the story and only leaving in the important stuff, or making it a better cinematic experience.


So worth it, if you've ever seen the tv movie or read the book, or even if not, this is worth a look.

I do have just a couple nit-picks, but it didn't take anything out of the movie, so spoilers.

In it at the start we see pennywise luring georgie in, and biting off his arm, before pulling him into the sewers. This was pretty graphic compared to the tv movie as it was only implied back then. Seeing this raises some questions, if pennywise/IT is a manifestation, or a physical entity that can effect the physical world, a shape shifter, which I often assumed was a non-corporeal entity, but this one pretty much comfirms IT is a shapeshifter and not just a physic image.

So he eats children who are afraid because fear tastes so much sweeter to him, but then at the end of the movie we see the bodies of dozens of missing children floating in IT's lair, since we see him using his deadlights on Beverly Marsh, making her float in the air in a comatose state. Does this mean the other children floating in his lair are also in a comatose state, are they dead, why hasn't he consumed them, were none of all those children afraid of him so he did the same to all of them as he did Beverly? We know he ate Georgie because all they found of him in the end was his raincoat.

Thats really my only nit-pick actually, but it didn't take me out of the movie at all.

Sorry for the long review, just like putting my mind about movies down somewhere.

Fine with me horror is really just a laugh to me, but just what ever kid needs - a scary clown, LOL!  Bet this one ruins kids' birthday parties for years.  ;)
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

I think it was somewhere in Texas a couple of years ago where a high school girl was texting during a movie, and when asked to put her phone away, she refused, so management expelled her from the theater.  So she goes home incensed about not being able to text whenever she feels like it, calls the theater, and tells them she will never come back to their crappy theater because they threw her out for texting her girlfriend, and bla bla bla for another 3 minutes of this childish loss of self control.

So the theater stops playing their professionally made "Please don't talk or text during the movie," and starts playing the recording of the girl doing her high school tantrum over the phone, and ends the recording with their own message that they are serious about their do not disturb others policy.  NPR ran the news story, and actually played the recording of the girl doing her self centered rant.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on September 19, 2017, 08:55:25 AM
85% at Rotten Tomatoes.  You might be thinking of another movie.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/it_2017

I'm going to the movies today also, but I'll see either Wind River or Mother.
Wind River was excellent. I damn near froze to death.

But really, how much trouble could there be if they only needed one Avenger?
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Cavebear on September 19, 2017, 06:13:56 PM
Fine with me horror is really just a laugh to me, but just what ever kid needs - a scary clown, LOL!  Bet this one ruins kids' birthday parties for years.  ;)
Compare and contrast John Wayne Gayce.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Munch

Quote from: Cavebear on September 19, 2017, 06:13:56 PM
Fine with me horror is really just a laugh to me, but just what ever kid needs - a scary clown, LOL!  Bet this one ruins kids' birthday parties for years.  ;)

its not like the current adaptation is something new, if anything the original tv movie and the real horror story of John Wayne Gayce, along with bands like insane clown posse, started this trend of evil clowns in culture.
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Hydra009

#2510
Quote from: Munch on September 19, 2017, 05:42:12 PMWhat I liked about Tim Curry's version, is how he subverted expectations so much. He posed as a happy smiling clown on screen, and as the kid, I had that preconceived idea of clowns being nice and friendly, this being back in the late 1980s well before the times of which clowns became creatures of fear they are today. So going in as a kid then, seeing tim curry being all smiling and friendly one scene surprised me.
Same.  Tim Curry was great because he didn't just run at you with an axe.  He enticed you in, started being creepy as hell, then got more and more monstrous and threatening.

A lot of his scenes weren't scary in a traditional way - no one's particularly scared of balloons filled with blood or happy carnival music or insults like "girly boy" - but because of how it's put together, it really was legitimately creepy, especially as a kid.

QuoteSkarsgård goes full on creepy with Pennywise here, unlike Tim Curry, he doesn't subvert your expectations, he simply is a creepy as hell clown like from old times, and in a way that works.
That doesn't sound like a good change.  :(

I like that all the child actors and music and stuff are all better, but changing the villain like that...I dunno if I'm even going to go see it.

QuoteIn it at the start we see pennywise luring georgie in, and biting off his arm, before pulling him into the sewers. This was pretty graphic compared to the tv movie as it was only implied back then.
I kinda liked that it was implied.  I don't remember, but didn't his brother hope that Georgie might still be alive?

QuoteSeeing this raises some questions, if pennywise/IT is a manifestation, or a physical entity that can effect the physical world, a shape shifter, which I often assumed was a non-corporeal entity, but this one pretty much comfirms IT is a shapeshifter and not just a physic image.
I always took him as an extremely limited Q.  He can change forms, disappear and appear at will, literally jump out of a book, but he has limits.  He can't stay non-corporeal for long or do it often.  He has a physical body and can be harmed/destroyed.

QuoteSo he eats children who are afraid because fear tastes so much sweeter to him, but then at the end of the movie we see the bodies of dozens of missing children floating in IT's lair, since we see him using his deadlights on Beverly Marsh, making her float in the air in a comatose state.
Wait...they literally float?  In the air?  Because I always assumed by "they float" he meant that people's bodies float in the water.  You know, the deadman's float.

Munch

#2511
Quote from: Hydra009 on September 19, 2017, 06:38:54 PM

Wait...they literally float?  In the air?  Because I always assumed by "they float" he meant that people's bodies float in the water.  You know, the deadman's float.

sorry for the spoilers first off, I did give a warning but still sorry if you didn't wanna see that part. But yes, the children are literally floating in the air in his lair, dunno if their dead or not even, but yeah in the original that was my interpretation that floating meaning in the waters, since its a sewer.

I suppose though given what IT is, an entity from the macroverse that's composed of 'deadlights', there isn't a reason why it couldn't have done this anyway, just the director changing something up for cinematic presentation.

This goes in with what I say about adaptation, sometimes a good story can only work when transferred to film if its adapted well, so taking liberties or changing something out while respecting the source material is in the nature of any good director.
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

SGOS

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 19, 2017, 06:23:21 PM
Wind River was excellent. I damn near froze to death.

But really, how much trouble could there be if they only needed one Avenger?
Maybe two Avengers, but I'm not sure.  I think the actress that played the FBI agent might have been the gal from the Avengers that would sneak up next to someone and "poof" them with a little handful of her mystical red smoke and screw with their heads.  Yeah, that's who it was, I just looked her up:  Elizabeth Olsen.

Hydra009

Quote from: Munch on September 19, 2017, 06:45:36 PMsorry for the spoilers first off, I did give a warning but still sorry if you didn't wanna see that part.
lol, the floating thing doesn't seem too integral to the plot and it's been 30 years since the book was published, so unless the new version has a completely different ending and you talk about that in detail, no spoiler tags are necessary imho.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on September 19, 2017, 06:47:55 PM
Maybe two Avengers, but I'm not sure.  I think the actress that played the FBI agent might have been the gal from the Avengers that would sneak up next to someone and "poof" them with a little handful of her mystical red smoke and screw with their heads.  Yeah, that's who it was, I just looked her up:  Elizabeth Olsen.
You mean Scarlett Witch?
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

#2515
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 19, 2017, 06:54:24 PM
You mean Scarlett Witch?
I couldn't remember the name of her Avengers character.  But that would be a good name for her.


Munch

'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: SGOS on September 19, 2017, 06:56:51 PM
I couldn't remember the name of her Avengers character.  But that would be a good name for her.


Just remember that she was married to "Quick Silver" in "Godzilla".
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Sal1981

Transformers the last knight or some shit - 1/10

I didn't, honestly, want to watch the rest of this piece of shit movie. So, I didn't.

Gawdzilla Sama

Currently watching "Wonder Woman". Gal Gadot and some guys, I think. Definitely Gal. Definitely.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers