Nothing beats ROTJ.
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i’m far from the star wars fan i used to be, but it’s handily one of my favourites. there are a few bumps (casino sequence is a bit too long for my tastes and leia poppins looked a bit silly), but i like the fact it had a point to make.
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: the last 40 or so minutes of that film are cinematic gold. so is the first 20 or so to be fair.
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Just watched Don’t Look Up. Really well done. Jonah Hill is hilarious and everyone else is as good as you expect them to be.
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There are two main problems with the sequel trilogy. First, there’s no political commentary/narrative, whether subtle (like the originals) or more in your face (like the prequels). Second, Disney took the same hands off approach that they took with Rogue One. Unfortunately, while that may work for a standalone film (and it certainly did for Rogue One) it almost never does for a series where coordination is paramount. As result, in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, we get problem 2b; Disney let J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson do whatever the hell they wanted. Abrams essentially remade New Hope with hints of the old expanded universe, Johnson made a Rian Johnson movie with Star Wars characters and then, finally, Abrams made the second movie he would have made and the third film all at the same time.
TL;DR: not enough politics or narrative focus, or:
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It’s really crazy to me how this panned out. I would have expected Disney to ruin the trilogy by doing the exact opposite; micro-managing every aspect of the sequel trilogy by committee to perfectly set up for the next 5 trilogies and 17 spin-off TV shows. Instead they did the opposite. No forward planning whatsoever, leading to a disjointed narrative across the three films. Such a strange turn of events!
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i think you’re right, but i wouldn’t say the last jedi was guilty of either.
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They probably wanted to avoid even the appearance of “studio interference” but there’s a fine line between too much and too little and Disney missed it here.
That’s probably why I like it the best of the sequel trilogy.
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The Last Jedi certainly didn’t lack narratives. That is the film’s biggest problem, it is like three or four stories bundled together. You could make three-four good films with each story but they decided to make one film which wound up being decent with lows and highs.
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Perhaps so. Maybe they could have avoided too much ‘studio interference’ by appointing one showrunner (i.e. J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, whoever) to oversee the whole trilogy from the outset. Or at least start with a cohesive vision for how the story would unfold. Instead, it feels like they made everything up as they went along.
Ironically, the lack of confidence in a plan for the trilogy itself represents studio interference. It feels like they were hedging their bets. “Let’s see how Episode 7 plays out financially and then make a decision on how to proceed”.
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that but maybe it’s just a better movie than the other two? heck, i prefer it to anything in the prequels and a new hope. 
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Just saw 355 with my mate. It’s about exactly what you expect but it was super fun and I’ll watch anything with Jessica Chastain or Penelope Cruz in it. This one’s got both.
About a 1/3 of the way through I was worried bc the action sequences just weren’t up to par yet, but then all of a sudden it gets much better. Also I’ll have to go look and see if HK paid for an incredible amount of product placement bc nearly every firearm was a HK, but they all work for government agencies so it makes sense they would have weapons that are not built to a price point, but are built to be the very best on earth.
All in all totally worth it.
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Yeah, it wasn’t a wasted time spent watching 
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Just rewatched Godzilla vs Destoroyah with my friend yesterday. I love this movie, its action packed and tense, Destoroyah is a worthy opponent for Godzilla and my god, the last 15min or so are an emotional Rollercoaster that makes my eyes wet… And i get goosebumps when Akira Ifukubes classic Godzilla theme kicks in.
Definitely in my Top 5 Godzilla Movies.
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Loved that flick! Such a shame Spacey turned out to be a chi-mo. He’s such a good actor. I guess he’s in a new movie called The Man Who Drew God, but I have no idea if it’s a big budget film or just some small production that got him involved for the PR boost the controversy would bring.
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turns out he really was blinded by the balls on a kid
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Such a well-crafted film that holds up really well on re-watches!
There’s tons of musical details (like visuals lining up with sound effects and the music) dialogue callbacks and interconnectivity. It’s probably my favourite Edgar Wright movie, though Hot Fuzz comes close as well.
The opening scene for instance, has a such tiny detail. At 2:44, the song goes “I wanna dance!”, and the car speeds by some graffiti that says “Dance”. It’s half a second, but some fun little detail to notice.
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Agreed! A great watch.
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With the NFL playoffs upon us I decided to dig out Any Given Sunday and re-watch it. I forgot just how loaded the cast of that movie is and how much I enjoyed the film. If you haven’t seen it you really need to. It was made in 1999 but is just as relevant today as it was then. Really the only thing that makes it feel dated is a two second scene where a player is listening to music on a CD walkman.
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I feel obligated to post this, in case you haven’t seen it :
Edgar Wright first foray into this kind of mise-en-scene in 2003. And something he admitted as the prototype for Baby Driver.
Fun fact : this music video can quickly be be seen as an easter egg in the movie.
(and special mention to the youtube comment from 11 years ago saying “jesus, if there were ever a music video just begging to be a full length film, this would be it.”)
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