hmm I’ve never read about zombies, interesting
Werewolf by Night wasn’t horrible, but it’s just more Marvel…
totally agree. also yeah, gone girl ruled
it was so good that it kind of even predicated a real life true crime scenario
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I look forward to the OP seeing this masterpiece.
About as thorough of a repudiation of his premise as any longtime sci-fi fan could have dared to hope.
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I loved it, but I also expect to see some of the most frustrating takes possible because of its length and/or a bunch of weird contrarian nitpicks because of its cultural popularity. It’s a franchise that’s attracted some of the laziest criticisms i can remember
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I’m going to see it, but besides the visual effects and soundtrack, I didn’t feel part 1 lived up to the hype. I am a fan of the books.
Luckily we’re sharp enough to see through such folly and lazy takes, eh…? 
I don’t know how anyone can come out of that film and not recognise it as an absolute behemoth of technical and storytelling might. Denis really kept that thing on the tracks, against the odds.
Our man Hans Zimmer has done beautiful work here as well…
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It’s better than Pt1 and I don’t think anyone that sees it is going to hear that as a hot-take.
Hope you enjoy it.
My only advice is to seek the biggest screen you can find. The IMAX cut is worth it.
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I have seen recommendations for infinity pool and have just watched it, would suggest watching kill list instead
Not at all the same film, but basically better in every way, don’t like to be reductive, but infinity pool seemed complete shite to me
So negative, so anti-human, I just don’t see watch I should get from this, and I generally love insane films!
I feel compelled only because it’s a 2+ hour film and I wish I hadn’t spent that time myself
More positively, have seen poor things and the zone of interest in the cinema and for sure are both worth it
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I will sound like a “film snob” and perhaps I am to some extent, but yes, I do believe there is rarely anything worth watching anymore for me.
In the last two years for example, i only really enjoyed “No Bears” (highly recommend!) and Oppenheimer.
Yeah, Infinity Pool wasn’t what I expected, but it was Brandon Cronenberg, so I wouldn’t pass it up. It was an utterly deranged performance from Mia Goth and a surprisingly vulnerable Alexander Skarsgard (just coming off The Northman). I still enjoyed it, but not as much as Possessor.
I just rewatched Kill List maybe a month ago, and it’s good even in a second viewing. The domestic scenes, especially the dinner party, are gut wrenching. Great slow burn, all building to that ending (woof).
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No problem necessarily with the performances, at the same time, I did not enjoy any of them, so for suresy well have my head going into it
Fucking Dune Part 2 is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. Had several spiritual awakenings throughout. Amazing film, and certainly top five sequels ever (although technically not a sequel). Can’t wait to see what they do with part 3 when it eventually comes out in 3-4 years.
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i actually think its true that media is better than ever and simultaneously worse than ever.
when i was younger, around 14-15 in 2003-ish and just getting into slightly interesting things like gummo or waking life, requiem for a dream, fantastic planet, fear and loathing, donnie darko, memento, fight club, eternal sunshne. like the very beginning of cool movies for a kid in my era and maybe even before that i remember always thinkging “man, i wish movies and tv were more interesting”
back then every tv show, even the slightly more interesting ones all had the same general look, nothing really creative or out of the ordinary happened. its like they were always following some strict guidebook for what they had to create art inside of. evern something like the x-files could do some innovative things, but very very minor sci-fi channel-esque creative elements
movies were the same. i remember having a conversation with a friend when we were like early teens getting high listening to mellow gold under a blacklight and saying “what if you could take an ordinary movie and just add certain creative elements like neon soaked sets which expressed or symbolized certain feelings, used better sound design elements instead of “mickey mousing” orchestration that every single movie used up until very very recently, and had creepy unnerving and just extremely abnormal things happen within the realm of these seemingly normal films. what if they didnt linger on boring long scenes in order to make the film feel more cinematic/classic and deep artificially and they made stories that were actually shocking and intruiging, didnt use the typically 3 act structure where in the 3rd act you had to sit through the same long drawn out drama no matter what genre you were watching. if the cinematographer and editors made use of unique creative camera work and color grading and sound design.”
obviously we didnt predict A24, but it was the sort of thing i always hoped for. so i was very happy to see certain tv shows and movies that finally did cool things and took risks. made them look actually visually appealing. not like 2001 a space odyssey, but really visually pleasing like actual eye candy. beyond the black rainbow, drive, mandy, good time.
i had this feeling about music too. like albums when i was growing up had at least a single that everyone bought the cd or cassette to own. then maybe 3-4 decent songs that you got used to after replaying the cd in your car 100 times a week. but the rest was very clearly filler with no thought put into it. why did we have to adhere to these classic rock principles? why couldnt people get more creative with sound design and rhythm and actually utilize technology to make interesting art outside of what they think people want based on the old media they bought because it was the only option they had
so now we have some really cool things. things that if they were made when i was a kid would have made my brain explode with disbelief. if i was told that the guy from ‘the whitest kids u know’ on IFC would eventually make an insane horror movie about a breastfeeding basement monster, i probably wouldnt have believed it. or i would have assumed it was going to turn out like Wrong Turn or JoyRide or Miss March. something that looks like Tucker Max produced a movie for American Pie fans in 2004. we absolutely did not have something like the american version of black mirror or an ari aster film. Euphoria would have been terrible if it were made 15 years earlier. eventually we had indie films like mumblecore. we had harmony korine. if you were able to handle disturbing movies you could watch jodorowsky or haneke or noe. but even gaspar noe didnt start to really let loose until Enter The Void in 2009. thats when things started looking like what i always imagined i wanted. music too. people started not being afraid to mix synths with weirdo pop and everything didnt have to be “rock and roll” or “nu-metal” and there were cool animated things for adults (which has gotten way out of control at this point, but in the adult swim days it was new and interesting, not just manchild cartoons/anime). and we didnt have to hear the same song over and over again on the same one or two local radio stations or cable channels with mtv and fuse and vh1 replaying the same things endlessly until we just think we like it because its what we’re used to. we have options now
or at least we had good run there for a minute before everyone lost their minds over an election. but at some point, we started becoming so politically brainwashed and divisive and progressivism was at the forefront of the collective consciousness. so art didnt really push boundaries anymore. and people who did take risks were now afraid or cancelled. and people started getting hired because of their ethnicity or minority status and not for their ideas or quality of work or capacity for innovative creative ideas. so while yes, we had this incredible rennaissance in the early-mid 2010’s/late 00’s, once 2016 hit, we were way too wetbrained to worry about good art anymore. i feel that when politics infects every corner of culture and art, it starts to decline. i prefer my art without overt political bias and themes. and i dont like it when some art is promoted over other art because of some kind of identity politics agenda. we’re constantly being told that something of low quality only got poor reviews because extremist trolls banned together and colluded to barrage some piece of work with low ratings because they are motivated by hatred for a certain type of person. it no longer matters if what you made is unique or good or new. they’ll just take away the star rating on netflix if you try to tell them you dont want low quality garbage. you have no say in what is acceptable quality anymore. rotten tomatoes will see that something has a low overall user score and try to equal it out with artificial critic reviews praising the diversity of the director as brave and progressive despite the quality of the actual work
i think we are lucky to have experienced this wave of new media that is dictated by what people actually watch via streaming services instead of what we are force fed on cable by decrepit ceos of time warner. but the streaming services have now turned into a political propaganda tool. netflix has an approved camera list and everything has to look like riverdale and has to have a minority cast/director/plot based around a victim story where the antagonist is some caricature of their politically ideological boogeyman
without merit based feedback and the kind of system that pushes the best quality to the top, what is motivating true artists and creatives to take risks and work hard to make something we havent yet experienced? when they could just make a superhero movie or they get passed over by the new female director who made a romantic comedy once
everything “kind of sucks now”
hell yeah, there it is.
was waiting for some more reviews to roll in around these parts. it’s as solid a rebuttal to the premise of this thread as we’re likely to find this year.
and the SOUNDTRACK. my god it’s been stuck in my head all week.
fyi the current word is that Denis is going to take some time off before tackling Pt.3 - the rumour is he’s developing “Rendevous with Rama” (which would be awesome) which would give him a breather from Arrakis + allow the characters to age-up appropriately.
but hard not to think it’s an absolute lock that Pt.3 will get done now with Pt.2’s monster opening week at the box office.
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the sound design in general was amazing, but there were some sounds that I literally audibly went “WOW”… what a movie…
btw I think there’s an interview floating around with Denis where he says that 3 is not in the works yet, only started doing script, iirc for part 1 and 2 they had the screenplay ready before starting shooting and he wanted at first shoot the simultaneously but the studio didn’t let him do it, but that shorten significantly the production time of part 2, imo part 3 can take much more then 2-3 years…
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yep, I was referencing those same interviews - he’s said the same thing on numerous ones now.
he’s currently writing the screenplay, and he wants to do it for sure - but he’s going to take a break first from Arrakis to clear his mind, do something different (and the added upshot will be the cast will age up appropriately for Dune Messiah which is set roughly 10~ years after Dune)
and f— yeah to the sound design my man. I think starting with Blade Runner 2049, his last few movies have had some of the most impressive mixdowns I’ve heard at the movies. At the IMAX it’s basically a rock opera.
a friend of mine who mixes for NIN had the fortune to be in the room on some of those mix sessions for 2049 and he said it was “basically the dream team of mixdown engineers” - and that totally tracks to my ears.
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But haven’t block busters always sucked though?
I think the problem with the film industry now is that studios don’t want to market anything other than block busters. Which was not the case in the past.
I think great cinema still exists, you just have to look a bit harder
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The other thing is is that we are all subject to sensory overload. Content is coming at you like a firehose - text, videos, audio 24/7 in the palm of your hand. You dont even have to go look for it - people send you stuff.
Even just all the many short videos people send each other , that alone creates it a culture where most people think that sitting down for 2 hours to watch a single story in a film is too slow moving.
So many film and TV makers also try to respond by overstimulation in their productions Which doesnt work. But it makes it all the worse for the few who DO try to take time and unfold a story in a property way, without rushing or using gimmicks.
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Loved it. Epic and phenomenal. Didn’t see it on imax though. Dolby Atmos.
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