I recently watched Mary Poppins Returns. I’ve never seen a movie that better fit the description of “sure you can copy my homework, just change things up a bit so nobody can tell”. Even though it was trying to recreate so much stuff from a movie that came out in 1964, somehow they did a ton of elements worse.
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Across the Spider-Verse still holds up really well on a second rewatch.
Gwen’s world is super freaking gorgeous and detailed, and her theme/leitmotif is epic.
I loved noticing more details like how
there are a lot of parallel camera shots, like Miles catching Gwen with the web in Mumbhattan and it snapping, and Gwen catching Miles in Nueva York and him snapping it. OR the shot of Miles opening the door to his roof party early in the film, vs. opening that same roof door on Earth42 near the end of the film.
When Miles arrives at the Spider Society HQ, everyone he initially passes by has a speech bubble appear above their heads. It’s a bit hard to read with the framerate, but I’m pretty sure they’re all “Spot” puns.
I caught a “We don’t know where he is in the Hole wide world!”
During the Spider-Canon/Intervention scene, I read this from someone else’s detail, but Hobie really is lazer-focused on Miles throughout that scene. Has his full attention pinned to that kid, and even helps him out by reminding him to use his full palms for his Venom blasts, that allows him to escape the holographic net.
When Hobie also starts stealing bits of tech off the walls when going to see Miguel, he tells Miles it’s probably “useless” junk, meant to “keep his distracted from the truth”. Then I think he has his “I don’t got a Scooby-Doo*, mate” about what that truth is…
When Gwen tries to sneak away from her dad later on in the film, as he is reflected in the window it looks like he’s approaching with a gun (but it turns out to be her penguin plushie)
When Miles escapes to his home world and Miguel and the gang “give chase”, you’re initially fooled by both scenes having rain and being illuminated by red neon lighting.
Well it turns out, I think, that Earth 42 simply had red accenting in its world’s style. Miles doesn’t appear near any neon signs, that’s just how it looked at that moment (and how later when he meets Uncle Aaron, the skyline starts looking very purple.
Near the end of the film, when Miles is in “his room” he wears a purple sweater, and most of the apartment’s lighting he passes through is the Prowler purple and green.
The final scene with Miles tied up on the punching bag, and the shot under it with his sneakers, is definitely a visual reference to the first movie having Peter B Parker tied up to a punching bag.
“Don’t watch the mouth, watch the hands” is clear, as you briefly see Miles rip a hole in the glove they attached to his hand, letting him touch the chain with his bio-electricity…
With all the testiminoals coming out recently from some of the artists and animators of the film – it feels like a delay is very likely, probably at least a year, if they haven’t started much of any work on the 2nd part at all (and info that they were still massively overworked for this thing)!
No idea why they’d have set the dates for the two films so close together like this, if they’d hadn’t actually worked on it back-to-back or at the same time! Unless Sony somehow had an entirely different massive team of animators work on the other film without anyone knowing!
(P.S.: If it gets more people interested to see it in theatres, fine, it’s probably okay, but I’ve been seeing so many random unofficial screenshots and clearly cam-footage clips being spread across the internet, it feels like a lot more people than usual are opting to see this footage second-hand, online. That’s disappointing.)
P.P.S.:
Some idiot thought he was really funny when just after Miles does his “I’m Spider-Man” speech to his Mom-42 he yelled out “Spider-Man is black??!!”.
Wow. Some people chuckled but I thought it was lame and horribly timed (not to mention a bit racist?)
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Seems to be a trend to do and film that right now, ruining that great moment for many people
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ew.
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Well, good news and bad news. Good news Dial of Destiny isn’t bad. Bad news is it’s not great either.
I’d say first 30 minutes is where the film really shines cause it’s what people want out of Indy adventures which is him in his prime beating up Nazis and getting the mcguffin.
I’d say it’s interchangeable with Crystal Skull, but that’s cause I’m in the boat where Crystal Skull aged better than most action adventures released in awhile.
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Who is your favourite fearless hero?
Puss in Boots! The Last Wish!
Wow! This is such a fantastic film!
Do I remember the first one from 2011? Hell no! Do I need to? Hell no!
This film was one gorgeous piece of work. Playing around with a painterly style, varying framerates, 2D effects, some WILD perspective shots at times, and a personal, scary, touching story about Puss finding value after having lost 8 of his 9 lives…
I loved how pure evil the villain was and all the creative fairy tale and legendary weapons he referenced with his immense collection of magic tools.
Harvey Guillen as Perrito was an adorable character who avoids all the “annoying clingy” sidekick tropes by his sheer wholesomeness and optimism (and kind of dumb-ness)
Oh gosh, this was a really good film that definitely lived up to all the hype I kept hearing/reading about back in December/January.
Given that end credits scene, if they choose to return to Shrek with this new style and playfulness, well I think it might turn out good!
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
I am a massive Indiana Jones fan. I think Raiders of the Lost Ark might be one of the best action-adventure movies of all time, I will gladly defend Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, or at least chunks of it.
The Dial of Destiny isn’t good. The opening sequence with young Indy is though. The de-aging effects are better than I expected (though noticable). You can still spot them from time to time, but it’s not bad. At one point in the sequence they re-used a bit from the tank chase in Last Crusade and I got literal chills.
The rest doesn’t feel like an Indiana Jones film. There’s some decent action, but none of it contains any of the trademark slapstick moments that I love so much, nor does it feel like Indy gets the shit kicked out of him anywhere near the level he does in the classic movies… And if the action doesn’t contain these bits, then decent isn’t enough.
It’s an interesting situation. The film doesn’t do anything that is as egregious as some of the stuff in Skull, but instead it just goes in the opposite direction and doesn’t do anything interesting at all.
I feel like the beginning shows so much promise. It even features a implied McGuffin that I think would’ve been a lot better. I guess it would’ve been too expensive, but I would’ve preferred to see this story with the de-aging all the way through, with maybe an old Indy epilog.
Maybe I’ll feel different about it upon a re-watch, but now… I am disappointed.
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Eh. If other people like it that’s fine.
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That’s not really saying much. That’s like Attack of the Clones scoring higher than Phantom Menace: it don’t mean much.
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Phantom Menace has a scene with Jabba the Hutt in it, that alone makes it the better movie.
Oh and btw check out how oddly cute he looks in the Phantom Menace tie in game!
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Saw it too and not a big fan either, probably never going to rewatch it. Not going to go deep into the boring plot, but I will have to rant a bit about the characters.
Good things first, I really liked the de-aged Indy even though he sounds older than he should. The opening scene was definitely my favorite one and I would have preferred an entire film like that as well. Toby Jones’ character was likeable unlike his sociopath daughter and the dollar store Short Round we got for the rest of the movie. Antonio Banderas’ character doesn’t get to do anything before being killed and the two old side characters are merely fan service for a few minutes. Oh and Indy’s son is dead lol.
It’s always a pleasure to see Mads Mikkelsen as a villain, but here his character has no interesting traits, instead of that he just has superpowers (surviving the train accident and conveniently teleporting to the boat when Indy and the others were underwater). At least I found his actual death appropriate - he died because he didn’t understand the artifact. I think the henchman should have been killed before that by Indy though, at least one proper fight scene with old Indy, please…
As for Indy himself, don’t even get me started on how he deserved better. Really, what we got was this old miserable guy whose family is gone and has no direction in his life. In Syracuse he even just asks to die before the insufferable Kathleen Kennedy self-insert suddenly has redemption arc and brings him back home by force.
I have to say, it’s a pathetic film that has no point to even exist. We didn’t need to see old Indy, especially when he’s treated this badly.
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AotC has Christopher Lee and Sam Jackson with a purple lightsaber: debate over.
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I haven’t seen it but from what I heard Indiana Jones 5 illustrates that most people would rather see an 87 year old get beaten up on film for their amusement than confront their mortality.
But it will happen, you will have hit 87 and you will find that you have not lived a life as full as Indy’s life, you will find you are not the well-rounded individual that Jones is even in your prime, when you are old and grey you won’t have Indy’s luxury of a sharp mind because of your continuous, mindless consumption of empty corporate sanctioned cultural signifiers and then you will die. Have a swell day! 
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I don’t go to see an Indiana Jones movie for gritty realism just like I don’t play video games where I’d have to do same shit that I do every day in real life, as I see them merely as means of escapism. I don’t need to see how the guy is old and miserable because the movies are about epic adventures and beating up bad guys.
But I’d rather not have an action adventure film with an 80-year-old lead character in the first place.
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I watched a cam rip between last night and this morning, and really it just felt like every other Lucasfilm offering since the 2012 Disney acquisition: empty, manufactured and forgettable. I’m honestly not even that big of an Indiana Jones fan in general, but it’s kind of a shame that the franchise is ending on such a lacklustre note.
Also, as a big Mads Mikkelson fan, I’m torn on his Hollywood success. On one hand, it’s cool that he’s getting loaded doing all of these big Disney productions, but his talent is really being wasted being cast as generic bad man over and over. The man starred in The Hunt and Hannibal, he’s one of the most talented actors working today but nobody’s utilizing him in interesting ways for these big productions. Just something that bugs me a bit.
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Didn’t:
- find the Ark of the Covenant
- fight nazies
- experience actual spirits
- defeat a death cult
- save a village
- find the Holy Grail
- talk to an actual knight from medieval times
- fight reds
- see actual aliens and their space ship
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I just don’t get it, a lot of people seem to think this was a brand new Indy film that was exactly like the last four but not a lot of what I have seen of it doesn’t really say that it will be a prescriptivist adventure film at all.
Hah that would imply that Disney wanted to take a significant risk in the direction of the series. They made one film that was radically different from a hugely popular series it was in and the online backlash it got and still continues to get was/is so strong it scared them into taking artistic half-measures ever since.
Dials is that same sort of glad-handing approach where the creatives are just allowed to be creative enough to allow for something radically different but never given enough room or freedom to develop it into anything substantial at all so you get mutant films like this that are both paeans to the same old and attempts at making something new.
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Yeah, you can still do all of those things.
We still haven’t found the Ark? Well just go to Ethiopia and dig.
Fight Nazis? Still plenty of them, book a flight to Florida.
Experience Actual Spirits? Kill yourself! Plenty of ghosts in the undiscovered country.
Defeat a death cult? All cults are death cults when you think about it. Just find a Scientology Recruitment Centre and start wailing on the auditors.
Save a village? Join the Peace Corps or Peacekeepers, better yet fight UN Peacekeepers you wouldn’t believe how awful some of them are.
Find the Holy Grail? Just go to the UK and dig, you will find it eventually.
Talk to a Medieval knight? Plenty of them in crypts and tombs all over Europe, Just talk to one of them, you didn’t say they had to talk back.
Fight Communists? Again there are still plenty of them, go to Reddit and yell at Tankies for half an hour or something.
See actual aliens and their space ship? Just go to Nevada and stare upwards, it is that simple.
Lonely Planet, please hire me. I am obviously the world’s best travel planner.
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