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Spuckuk
Aug 11, 2009

Being a bastard works



hallebarrysoetoro posted:

star wars could have been saved by people listening to the argument that star trek tng was better than star wars

also after re-watching mr. robot i forgot how hilariously anti-capitalist it was before it toned down to total succdem

Have you uh, watched the final season?

Its good again.

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Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

CATS sucks. Maybe it's because I spend so much time of my life looking at weird stuff on the internet I didn't experience the kind of uncanny terror I was hoping for, so I just had to take in how bad it is. Trying to fully realize CATS with CGI was such an awful idea. Having characters in skin tight leotards with hair either sewed in or digitally inserted onto them just buries them all in a half inch layer of unreal fur - and that covers up all of their musculature while giving the dance an unreal sensation because it can become impossible to tell what's CG and what's real. That pic of the guy who plays Skimbleshanks (The Railway Cat) that you're supposed to get horny for? All of that cut lean musculature - the perfect dancer's physique, it's buried under CGI fur and red suspenders. It's a thoroughly asexualized experience in spite of everyone lithely moving their supple bodies with feline precision. Everyone who interpreted this as horny is probably a dog person. You can't even really enjoy the dancing on its own merits because there's too much going on at once to really focus in on a particular performance. Everyone is doing their own thing - like a cat - and the lack of coordination saps all the sense of pageantry. It's just pure chaos, but not in a good kind of fun way.

So the skin-tight CGI cat people have practically zero aesthetic appeal, and it does away with half of what makes a stage musical impressive - which is the makeup and costuming. The closest thing to a costume are the massively oversized fur coats and prop jewelry. The staging also sucks because CGI fills in all the background, and the image itself is hazy so that you can't tell what's a real prop and what's CGI so it ends up taking on the appearance of mid-stage uncanny valley CGI like The Polar Express, which is especially glaring because Skimbleshanks's (The Railway Cat) number takes you inside a rail car.

And this is all held back even more by CATS not being a good musical to begin with. 80% of the songs are just each Jellical candidate cat saying their name, what they do, and why they want to be the Jellical choice. The story isn't told through the music, the music just ends up describing characters who ultimately only play bit parts. Just total vestigial arms of a production that's already only 90 minutes long.

I did end up laughing a lot, not at anything the movie wants you to laugh at which is all lame theater kid humor filtered through Marvel-like irony, but at all of the bad decisions that got poured into this film, and how often the musical numbers over-repeat a single line or beat just once too long to overstay its welcome. The only bit I sincerely liked was when Idris Elba was on the screen, because he's the only actor that brings a kind of menacing charisma. Almost everyone else has zero charisma, either because their characters are written that way or because the performers themselves are terminally lame.

So should you go see CATS? Like I said, everyone in Northwest Arkansas was going to see a movie - but the only people watching CATS was me and a couple other pairs of people who looked like 20 something theater kids. So you will not have to deal with overcrowding. I would recommend going to see it because it's a pure spectacle of bad decision making and artistic choices. It's like watching a 90 minute extended scene of the Joker burning that big pile of money. It's 100 million dollars flaming on the screen, and it's horribly glorious.

Uncle Wemus
Mar 4, 2004

All the cats names sound like Harry Potter characters and it makes me angry

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

I'm Twinklebottom the judgical cat
I stare at people on the street and
Judge them for being fat

Son of Thunderbeast
Sep 21, 2002


and thanks Peter K for that review! It confirms everything I'm hoping for from this trainwreck.

I haven't been this excited to watch something in a theater since... poo poo I dunno. lord of the rings

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

The weirdest thing about it that almost nobody has pointed out is, there's plenty of times where the performers are wearing shoes. So sometimes you'll have these nude furry dancers but they're wearing full on kicks, pumps, spats, or tap dancing shoes while other performers are barefooted. It just sucks you right out of any sense of immersion because it's like watching a streaker pop locking on a football field.

I also wouldn't recommend taking kids to see it, not because they could get sexually confused by genital-less cat people (which is a possibility), but because the mice are all played by children. So the mice are tiny in stature, have big round bodies, and have childrens' faces sticking out seamlessly from their heads. They're all also tiny compared to the cats, and they're in existential fear of being eaten alive at any moment. When they get on the ground and run around the speed of motion is also out of synch with how fast they're running so it looks like they're gliding across the ground in a PS1 cutscene.

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I'm watching JoJo Rabbit and this movie fuckin rips

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Yeah jojo owns

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

so i finally got around to the mandalorian and my big pedantic nerd nitpick is that baby yoda loving ain't baby yoda!

It's just a baby of the yoda species

this is all just because lucas intentionally wouldn't reveal the name of yoda's species, so they have no other word to call him. If it was a baby wookie, no one would be calling it baby chewie

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos
i would call him baby chewie, and he would be my precious space dog.

Uncle Wemus
Mar 4, 2004

https://twitter.com/ConceptHuman/status/1210326840323256320

Tiberius Christ
Mar 4, 2009

Baby yoda has very mysterious origins it could be a clone of regular yoda which is why hes so force sensitive

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

Tiberius Christ posted:

Baby yoda has very mysterious origins it could be a clone of regular yoda which is why hes so force sensitive

yooda

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug
the yoda species has never been identified. George Lucas was very serious about keeping it that way. wookieepedia has the scoop.

quote:

For reasons unknown, George Lucas maintained a strict policy of keeping the history, name, origin, and whereabouts of this species unknown. When asked what species Yoda is, Lucas has only joked, "He's a frog." In the documentary "From Puppets to Pixels," he joked that Yoda is "the illegitimate child of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy."

Prior to the creation of Yaddle for The Phantom Menace, Lucasfilm actively discouraged licensees from exploring Yoda's species, wishing to avoid confirming that an entire species of Yoda-like individuals even necessarily existed. Lines cut from Revenge of the Sith simply refer to the species as "Yoda's species."

Lucas's policy has resulted in certain Star Wars publications being canceled. A significant example was when Lucasfilm (likely at the direction of George Lucas) ordered the pulping of the entire print run of a yet-to-be-released Star Wars trading card depicting a group of the unknown tridactyl species worshiping a larger-than-life statue of one of their number, led in prayer by an individual who may have been intended to be Yoda.

Solid Poopsnake
Mar 27, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo
Nap Ghost
what are they hiding

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

people love the yoda baby more than they love their own baby! STAR WARS FANS NEED JESUS

Atrocious Joe
Sep 2, 2011

i do view Disney in the same way reformation era protestants viewed the Papacy

It's literally the anti-Christ and must be destroyed for good to succeed

hallebarrysoetoro
Jun 14, 2003

Spuckuk posted:

Have you uh, watched the final season?

Its good again.

i did and i was rewatching it, first season was subcomandante marcos but final season is pretty tame let's reform capitalism away from the oligarchs

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

The one thing I kept thinking about over and over again was like drat, I really wish they'd do cinematic adaptations of opera instead of trying to reheat stale Broadway productions. Just do it in Italian or German and give us subtitles.

HerraS
Apr 15, 2012

Looking professional when committing genocide is essential. This is mostly achieved by using a beret.

Olive drab colour ensures the genocider will remain hidden from his prey until it's too late for them to do anything.



well you see americans loving hate reading so thats never happening

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

Americans are watching anime in record numbers. Subbed and not dubbed. I believe the time is now.

hallebarrysoetoro
Jun 14, 2003
huge crossover potential for giant anime titty waifus and the operatic presentation of napoleon invading the italy tbf

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

a lot of opera viewing was just an excuse to peep through the binoculars at some bodiced up cleavage so the tradition is there

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos
let he who hasn't spanked it in an opera house throw the first stone.

Zoran
Aug 19, 2008

I lost to you once, monster. I shall not lose again! Die now, that our future can live!

this is theft of cined posting valor

Uncle Wemus
Mar 4, 2004

JJ if you are reading this thread please reboot Harry Potter next so it can finally die

Zoran posted:

this is theft of cined posting valor

oops sorry

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Boba Pearl posted:

let he who hasn't spanked it in an opera house throw the first stone.

I have a reason to go to Sydney

Flowers For Algeria
Dec 3, 2005

I humbly offer my services as forum inquisitor. There is absolutely no way I would abuse this power in any way.


Uncle Wemus posted:

JJ if you are reading this thread please reboot Harry Potter next so it can finally die


oops sorry

it’s called Fantastic Animals and it does the job pretty well

edit: the job of killing the franchise i mean

Flowers For Algeria has issued a correction as of 11:50 on Dec 27, 2019

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012
I watched midsommar yesterday, very pretty film

A Gnarlacious Bro
Apr 25, 2007

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

mandatory lesbian posted:

I watched midsommar yesterday, very pretty film

I like the anxious do-nothing fail-boyfriend, as well as the hilariously ghoulish intro sequence

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

sebmojo posted:

Yeah jojo owns

finished it yesterday, incredibly well done. easily one of my top 5 films of the year

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012

A Gnarlacious Bro posted:

I like the anxious do-nothing fail-boyfriend, as well as the hilariously ghoulish intro sequence

That guy sucked lol, was very glad she broke-up with him in the end

Atrocious Joe
Sep 2, 2011

https://twitter.com/mmegannnolan/status/1210574092975427586?s=20

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

https://twitter.com/oz_f/status/1210305825085870080?s=20

Reverend Dr
Feb 9, 2005

Thanks Reverend

Boba Pearl posted:

let he who hasn't spanked it in an opera house throw the first stone.

the phantom was a sex pest

Son of Thunderbeast
Sep 21, 2002

Reverend Dr posted:

the phantom was a sex pest

This came up in a game of Quiplash last night and our group all agreed that the Phantom of the Opera was a 19th-century French incel

Farm Frenzy
Jan 3, 2007

mandalorian finale was alright. between it and the wticher its nice watching something thats just really straightforward genre poo poo instead of fully post-postmodern

foobardog
Apr 19, 2007

There, now I can tell when you're posting.

-- A friend :)

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

The one thing I kept thinking about over and over again was like drat, I really wish they'd do cinematic adaptations of opera instead of trying to reheat stale Broadway productions. Just do it in Italian or German and give us subtitles.

I watched a production of The Flying Dutchman a few years ago and it was great and, yeah, give me that opera.

My lib friends didn't like it, though.


Wait, does liking something Wagner did make me a Nazi?

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

foobardog posted:

Wait, does liking something Wagner did make me a Nazi?

just say you like the Looney Tunes adaptation and you'll be fine

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Pancakes
May 21, 2001

Crypto-Rump Roast

Reverend Dr posted:

the phantom was a sex pest

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