cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1541244

Beautiful and emotional!

Such an endearing story, told in such a marvelous way. This is what animation is for, I mean, everything is so beautiful and fluid and whimsical. I particularly liked the mice, but the bears are cool too.

The music is also stupendous, gorgeous strings and piano throughout the film. The little sections when Ernest plays piano and violin for Célestine are so adorable, and it actually sounds great. The voice acting is incredible as well, so much emotion in every word!

I'm a big character guy, and the varied cast really sells this movie. I suppose one could argue that characters outside of Ernest and Célestine are a bit one-dimensional, in that they're stuck in their ways and consumed by prejudice, blind to the world and obsessed with the otherness of the other species. Still, I feel that they serve their purpose perfectly, and they're all HILARIOUS! Once again, the animation shines here, granting these characters a certain absurdity of movement to match the absurdity of their ideologies. It also lets Célestine show how persistent and determined to change Ernest she is with more than just her words, namely with her ability to appear from anywhere after being tossed out, which also makes for some absolutely hilarious scenes.

The messaging is on point, of course. This movie is from 2012, which is more than a decade ago, but things really haven't changed. The characterization of society as divided yet equal, and of how, fundamentally, the great divider is class rather than anything else (for which species is a catch-all stand-in), strikes hard. The pervasiveness of hatred rooted in fear, and the initial scenes showing how this fear is nurture rather than nature really struck a chord with me. Ernest and Célestine both struggling with authority figures and their expectations of them, of the role they were meant to take in their respective societies, really pushes this idea that the system is flawed and broken.

The ending was a bit underwhelming, perhaps. That's really the only negative thing I can point out. It felt like things were resolved very easily. It's a metaphor, and really it's a bit on the nose, but I guess I just wanted another chase scene...

What do you think?

Rating: 5/5

I tried watching it right now and turned it off about half way through. The deep and meaningful, touching story is gone, only to be replaced by annoying, contrived characters, and unbelievable situations. I don't understand how this movie is getting such good reviews. I genuinely loved the original, but was mostly just annoyed by all the noise and ridiculous characters in this remake.

Looking for examples of well shot, but horrible movies.

Prometheus is a good example. Beautifully shot, excellent cast, amazing effects...TERRIBLE MOVIE. I tried rewatching it, and am just in awe of horribly written it is. Theres a new plot hole introduced almost every time someone speaks.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1109255

One of the wittiest movies I've ever watched! It's hilarious!!

The animation is gorgeous, and the soundtrack is also incredible. The voice acting by Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed is also spectacular, and even Eugene Lee Yang (of The Try Guys fame) does a very decent job.

The story doesn't leave much to be desired either. It tackles themes of isolation, not finding your place in the world, and discrimination, both on an individual and systemic level.

Though it doesn't actually address the problem of systemic oppression, preferring instead to scapegoat a single character.

Actually, that single element of the story really stung. It's clear that they went to great lengths to have a very diverse cast of characters, and it's obvious they're trying to be progressive, and this is meant to be a progressive story. However, I can't help but think that it's all posturing, if in the end all the systems that allowed such horrible mentalities to fester still remain intact, with only the "top dog" being taken down. You can't fix a system by removing an individual.

There's so much more I'd like to say about this, but I feel this isn't the place. Plus, this is clearly a kid's movie, a very good one with a deep message and complex characters, but still. I suppose the message is still a net positive despite such a massive blunder.

Additionally, there's a dance sequence in the middle that feels so painfully out of place I almost cringed myself to death. Thankfully it was very short.

Overall, I think this movie was good. It's not really gonna blow anyone's socks off, but it might make some people think, and it's very easy on the eyes and ears.

What do you think?

Rating: 4/5

Watch on Netflix!
Arr 🏴‍☠️!!!

Not bad, creepy and weird, i suggest you watch the whole thing before you recommend it to your Ireland obsessed folks

I really enjoyed this. The style is very much "del toro" and the stop motion animations were excellent. One of the best stop motion animated movies I've seen.

What are your thoughts on this movie if you've seen it?

What is your favorite stop motion animated movie?

Lately I've using letterboxd and it becomes my favorite.

That's according to one anonymous animator

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1470711

Nuclear bombs keep going off over the horizon of Asteroid City (population 87). “Another atom bomb test,” the characters declare, with some combination of intrigue and boredom. They trot out of the diner to look at the tiny mushroom cloud, snap a few pictures, and go back inside for more coffee. It’s 1955. This isn’t unusual anymore.

Living in the shadow of the bombs is what Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is about — literal bombs, and also a host of other life-shattering things like loss, and existential dread, and a world changing so fast it’s hard to hang on to it. Real things, in other words, the kind everyone has to deal with. The emotions we can’t outrun, but we try to anyhow.

That Anderson set Asteroid City in 1955 is a bit of trickery, a degree of separation between the characters’ reality and our own. We live in (dare I say) uniquely frightening times, but so do these people, for whom the Cold War and a rapidly changing social order is their psychic wallpaper. Much of the movie is specifically set in September 1955, a month bookended by two events: the United States’ decision to embark on Project Vanguard, which would try unsuccessfully to beat the Soviets at putting a satellite into space; and the tragic car accident that took the life of James Dean, the iconic actor who embodied the rising rebellion of the youth. (I don’t think it’s an accident that a cop car in hot pursuit of a careening vehicle keeps rushing through the town’s one intersection.)

“If you wanted to live a nice, quiet, peaceful life, you picked the wrong time to get born,” General Gibson (Jeffrey Wright) exhorts a crowd of teenagers and their parents, assembled in Asteroid City to celebrate the landing of a meteorite there thousands of years earlier. The children have entered their wildly advanced science experiments in a contest, which the military plans to snap up; the space race is in their eyes. Later, when things go south, youths are interrogated in a manner suspiciously reminiscent of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Grown men fight, and others try to calm them down by reminding them, “We’re not in Guadalcanal anymore.” Two men point guns at one another against the backdrop of a desert. “We’re not in Guadalcanal anymore.” Focus Features

It feels reminiscent of something real, but this is also all fiction — as the movie’s narrator puts it, “an apocryphal fabrication.” Fiction puts a layer between us and real history, a way of looking at the past through different eyes. It has another function, too: Through fiction, we process our emotions by proxy, whether we’re the artists or the audience.

That’s the subject of Asteroid City, which nests fiction inside of fiction inside of fiction. (I promise it’s easier to watch than it sounds.) Here is the most succinct description of the levels of its made-up-ness: It is a scripted movie that pretends to be a TV show in which actors stage a fictionalized version of the making of a play telling the fictional story of a place that doesn’t exist. We also see the play, but it is shot like a movie. (I am Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.)

The central, in-color plot of the film centers on the group gathered in Asteroid City for a three-day meteorite celebration when their lives are upended by a, shall we say, unexpected visitor. But Asteroid City actually introduces itself to us as an old-school anthology TV show, shot in black and white, hosted by a sonorous host (Bryan Cranston). What we’re about to see, he gravely tells us, is the story behind the making of a play called Asteroid City, about a place that doesn’t exist. It’s both an apocryphal fabrication and an “authentic look into the work of a theatrical production.”

What follows intercuts the color story — which turns out to be kind of a hyperreal version of the “play,” which we see shot as a film — and black-and-white scenes, often staged like little mini-plays, about various moments during Asteroid City’s production. (The play, not the movie we’re watching. If you need a walk or a stiff drink right now, that’s fine.)

This all means that in this movie Scarlett Johansson, for instance, plays an actress who plays an actress playing an actress. Similarly, Jason Schwartzman — the closest to a lead this absurdly stacked cast has — plays an actor who is desperate to figure out the motivations of his character, a war photographer who burns his hand on a sandwich iron. (Schwartzman is styled to reference several famous actors, perhaps most significantly a very famous photo of James Dean.) A fairground teeming with attractions and also signs that say things like “Alien Parking” and “Spacecraft Sighting.” Many classic theatre and movie references litter Asteroid City, including this one, which recalls Billy Wilder’s 1951 classic Ace in the Hole. Focus Features

Piling on these layers, each with its own combination of artifice and “authenticity,” is where Anderson shows what he’s doing. He’s interested in those piles. The impossible pursuit of authentic emotion through making art that can never really be all that “real” is one of Asteroid City’s themes; a fair amount of the film dwells on an acting class and its students, who are trying, in the style of The Actors Studio and “the method,” to find ways to give authentic performances in the very contrived medium of the theater.

But there’s an added layer to what Anderson’s after. Humans have always processed their feelings through art, but modernity adds a wrench to the whole existence thing. There’s an aspect of alienation — of feeling as if the machines and inventions we build, which are terrifying enough to be able to wipe us out (like the bomb) or seemingly to take over our world altogether (like, say, generative AI), are estranging us from one another and even from ourselves. Art has always been the counterbalance to this, which is in part why groups like The Actors Studio sprung up in the early part of the 20th century. If you are working at a desk all day clacking on a typewriter, or operating a machine, or building a bureaucracy that might work like a machine, then going to the theater is supposed to jolt you back to remembering that you, at least, are not a machine.

It’s tantamount to either a confession or an explanation from someone like Anderson, whose work employs considerable artifice in its pursuit of authenticity. I confess that I don’t really like Anderson’s style, and have not loved most of his movies. It took me two viewings to really figure out Asteroid City. But I do admire that he’s an artist whose aesthetic is so firmly defined that even non-cinephiles can make poor imitations of his work using AI; in fact, it’s those replicas’ inability to actually latch onto the emotion that powers his work (the melancholy, the grief, the impishness) that make me appreciate him more.

That’s what I came to appreciate about this movie, and the more I think about it, the more wise I think it is. In Asteroid City, Anderson builds several worlds mediated by layers of performance, artifice, and technology, in which nonetheless real humans grieve, long for one another, fall in love, get hurt, and feel wonder. The layers they’ve put between themselves and their emotions crack and crumble. Their worlds are rocked, which leaves them thinking about things like the meaning of life, the existence of God, and whether they’re as alone as they feel like they are. The answer, he suggests, is found by sinking into the apocryphal fabrications of the artist’s imagination. “You can’t wake up,” the characters chant near the end of the movie, “if you don’t fall asleep.”

Asteroid City is playing in theaters.

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In a rare public show of affection, Adam Sandler celebrated 20 years of marriage with Jackie Sandler by sharing earlier this week a heartfelt tribute online.

The pair married during a private ceremony attended by their celebrity friends at Dick Clark’s mansion in Malibu on June 22, 2003, according to People.

Sandler, who is known to be media-shy, commemorated the day by posting a photo from their wedding on Thursday. Sandler is wearing a suit and taking the hand of Jackie, who is dressed in a spaghetti-strap wedding dress with a flowing train, as the “Wedding Singer” actor stares intently at her.

“Happy 20th my sweet Jackie!” Sandler captioned the photo posted Thursday on his Instagram account. “Your ‘I do’ was the best gift of my life. My heart has been yours since the first second I saw you and I love and appreciate your devoted soul more and more each day.”

“Us. The kids,” the “50 First Dates” actor continued. “Lets keep going and going babe. Lots of love to give you. Always.”

The Sandlers first met on the set of the 1999 comedy, “Big Daddy,” in which Adam Sandler starred, and Jackie, née Titone, played a waitress, according to People. During their Malibu wedding, high-profile guests included Jennifer Aniston, Jack Nicholson, Rodney Dangerfield and Sharon Osbourne. Sandler’s English bulldog, dressed in a custom-made tuxedo, was also in attendance.

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The pair went on to have two children together, daughters Sadie, 17, and Sunny, 14. The family of four even appeared onscreen together in Sandler’s 2020 Netflix romantic comedy, “The Wrong Missy.”

“I love you both so much!” longtime friend and collaborator and their wedding guest Rob Schneider commented on the post. “Here’s to the next 20!”

Fellow actor Nick Swardson, who has also appeared in films alongside Sandler and was at the wedding, recalled the ceremony in a comment: “When you said ‘I saba doo,’ everyone wept. congrats. Love you both. Jackie is amazing. You sometimes smell. Blessings.”

Adam, Jackie and their children will also star together in the Netflix comedy, “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” based on the young adult novel of the same name by Fiona Rosenbloom. Idina Menzel also stars in the movie expected to be released later this year.

The “Uncut Gems” actor is carrying out his deal with Netflix that was first inked in 2014 and renewed in 2020. His 2022 sports drama for Netflix, “Hustle,” directed by Jeremiah Zagar, received critical acclaim and awards-season buzz. Sandler was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance.

Spoilers are allowed.

Whenever I finish watching a new movie, I like to go to Reddit and browse the discussion threads to see what people thought of it. From now on, I'll start a thread here if it doesn't already exist.

What did you think of the movie? How did you interpret the ending? Feel free to discuss anything about the movie you like.

No spoilers for Resurrections please, I've only watched the first 3 movies in the last couple of days. Yes, I know that I'm 20 years late to the party.

I think the first movie is great, I hated the long action scenes in the second (Neo vs the Smith army got boring after a couple of minutes, and added no value), and mostly enjoyed the third, even though it didn't really feel like a Matrix movie.

I've read that the fourth is terrible. Is that because it ruined people's nostalgia, or is it really that bad? I'm probably going to watch it either way, just like to hear your opinions.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.cl/post/45377

Well, for me the movie was disappointing, but anyway it should be the beginning of new DCEU, so there's a lot of unanswered questions. I think the main question is who will be the new DCEU Batman. What do you think?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1442655

Sequels are practically the lifeblood of Hollywood. Still, greenlighting a sequel to a four-decade-old movie is extraordinary. So when the legendary Mel Brooks reached out to Nick Kroll about fashioning a long-awaited “Part II” to the cult 1981 comedy “History of the World, Part I,” the “Big Mouth” creator was admittedly taken aback.

“It’s probably one of the most surreal things that’s ever happened not only in my career but in my life because he’s truly my hero and my biggest comedy influence,” Kroll says. “So if it had just been the call, it would’ve been a career highlight. But then, actually getting to work with him and make this show alongside him was just beyond anything I could have imagined.”

The original 20th Century Fox release featured story lines set during the Stone Age, the Roman Empire and the French Revolution, among other eras, with additional comedic bits (and musical numbers) thrown in for good measure. Fast-forward to 2020 and it’s clear the film’s narrative format was perfectly suited for the style of a contemporary sketch comedy television show — something right up Kroll’s alley after the success of 2013-15’s “The Kroll Show.”

But Kroll knew he’d need collaborators to cover a much wider canvas than what his Comedy Central series entailed. He first approached Wanda Sykes, who, as a lifelong Brooks fan, was a very fast yes. Screenwriters and comedians Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen came on board soon after for not only their on-screen talents but, notably, having a ton of experience with writers rooms.

“It was definitely the hardest thing we’d ever embarked on,” Barinholtz notes. “It had been a hot minute since I had been writing sketches. It had been pretty much since ‘Mad TV.’ And then you fall in love with the sketch world all over again.” A group of dancers in red, white and blue, 1970s disco era coordinated costumes.

Wanda Sykes as Shirley Chisholm in “History of the World Part 2” on Hulu.

( Tyler Golden / Hulu)

The writing process was spread out over three or four months of Zoom calls with a huge staff trying to figure out what worked, what didn’t and what could fit their production budget.

“We each had pet projects or pet story lines that we knew we wanted,” Kroll says. “I was interested in something around the Russian Revolution, Ike and Dave were interested in the Civil War, and Wanda was interested in Shirley Chisholm. And then, we thought the story of Jesus and Mary would be a great other big, tent-pole story, and then we would build out the rest from there.”

Once he signed off on the structure, Brooks started pitching jokes he had been sitting on for “literally decades.” For instance, Barinholtz knew he wanted to do a segment in which he’d play Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. He recalls, “We kind of said [to Brooks], ‘Yeah, well we have this Grant Civil War piece.’ And he goes, ‘Perfect. When Lee signs the treaty, he’ll turn over and his saber will hit all of his men in the nuts.’ And it’s just like, boom, there you go. That is in the show. He’s 96, but he’s still spry. You could pitch him something and he can think about it for a second and give you a really smart insight on that pitch.”

Sykes concurs, saying that keeping the show in Brooks’ comedic spirit was paramount. She notes, “We had to have his blessing and his approval, or we would’ve been idiots, really, and very arrogant and full of ourselves to think that, ‘Oh, we got this.’ No, no, no. I would always ask, ‘What did Mel say?’ This is his baby, and we would just all feel so honored to be that next generation to keep it going. I hope he’s still around and we can do some more.”

This was also a major opportunity for Sykes to play Chisholm, the first woman to run for a major party’s nomination for president of the United States, a moment the show captures by having Chisholm’s life play out as though it’s in the context of a Norman Lear ’70s sitcom. It was something the comedian had been trying to get off the ground for years.

“I’ve always wanted to do something about Shirley Chisholm, and my producing partner, Page Hurwitz, and I, we’ve always laughed about that,” Sykes says. “Because whatever we were talking about, I would say, ‘Yeah, and then I can play Shirley Chisholm.’ And she was like, ‘Wanda, really? Come on. It’s a cooking show.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, then I’ll do Shirley Chisholm’s favorite dishes.’ We got a kick out of that.”

Still, Sykes says the hardest nut to crack for any of their ideas was: “How do you make it Mel? How do you Mel it up?” One thing Kroll realized is that Brooks’ movies are funny first and foremost. While he’s engaged in social satire, he’s not terribly political and he was invariably silly. Kroll notes, “That became the guiding light for us as we figured out tonally what we wanted to do, and it really became always going back to that.”

Not only was Brooks involved creatively, but he also narrates the show. For Kroll, directing Brooks led to a number of “nerve-racking and titillating” sessions. Kroll recalls, “Him either being like, ‘Oh, that’s funny’ or, ‘No, no, that’s stupid’; either way you’re living on a razor’s edge. Or pitching him a joke. Truly the idea that I would ever pitch a joke to Mel Brooks and watch his head go back with a laugh is crazy to me.” As if posed at a conference, men in military and formal civilian costumes salute.

Even world leaders are not safe from satire in “History of the World, Part II.”

(Aaron Epstein /Hulu)

When it came to casting the approximately 300 roles for the series, the producers soon discovered they would have no problem recruiting familiar faces to take part. A who’s who of comedic talents including Quinta Brunson, Jack Black, Pamela Adlon, Josh Gad, Emily Ratajkowski, Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani, to name just a few, stepped up for the chance to work in a Mel Brooks production.

“There were definitely people like Johnny Knoxville who called Nick the day it was announced and was, ‘Literally anything, whatever you are doing.’ Then there were so many people who we called, and it was just such an easy yes,” Barinholtz says. “Anyone who was available and in town said yes.”

After all the blood, sweat and laughs, critical approval was one thing, but viewers tuning in to such an old-school property was something else. In a pleasant surprise, “History of the World, Part II” was a hit for Hulu cracking the top 10 of Nielsen’s original programs streaming chart for the week of March 6. Barinholtz, in particular, did not expect a decidedly new fan base to materialize.

“I knew that guys my age were going to watch it, but the other night at this party, my friend’s daughter’s friend came up,” Barinholtz recalls. “She’s, like, a 19-year-old woman, and she was like, ‘I’m a huge fan.’ I thought she was going to say of ‘The Mindy Project’ and she says ‘History of the World, Part II.’ And I was like, ‘Wow.’ I think it’s one of those things where it’s been so long since the first one came out, people just can’t wait to tell me what they think.”

Anyone else seen it yet? I’m a fan of Bert - but not a die hard by any means. I was hoping it would just be entertaining, but it was awesome!!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1430902

More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “Mission: Impossible” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December, the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight, taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “Ghost Protocol,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby, in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.