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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27509 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Out of curiosity, what movies would you say capture that male, high-octane, martial precision?

I didn't think of it in these terms, but I think DuplexFields captured exactly what I was feeling when I watched The Matrix: Resurrections, compared to the original The Matrix, vis a vis the action scenes. The first film was full of that high-octane martial precision, famously so. Almost down to the individual punch, each action of each character in each fight scene seemed like another paragraph in the story being told, holding intent and purpose that communicated the flow of how the particular fight was going, what emotions the combatants might have been experiencing, what sorts of risks and rewards they were seeking, etc. The soft reboot, directed by one of the two original directors, had none of that, and the fight scenes looked like little more than people waving their hands at each other while explosions went off in the background, along with super-ugly slowmo.

Now I'm wondering how much, if any, of the transition of the gender from male-to-female of the one director who directed both films played into this. The soft reboot also didn't hire the same martial arts choreographer (or perhaps any martial arts choreographer? I don't recall) that they did for the 1st 3 films, which obviously must have played a factor, but that just moves it back a step of why did the director decide that she wanted her Matrix film not to make use of an martial arts choreographer, or was okay with putting her name on the film if she was prevented from hiring one by executives?

My interpretation of Matrix 4 is that it's a giant FU to the Hollywood exec who came up with the idea to make one. The hints aren't exactly subtle. From that perspective it's no surprise they were half-assing the fight. Other than the fights Keanu Reeves looks like he was specifically directed to look like he doesn't care, and doesn't want to be there.

I'll recommend the Chris Hemsworth Extraction flicks.

I remember reading that Hemsworth was tapped for a US adaptation of The Raid films. I didn't think it would work because American fight choreography wouldn't capture the appeal of silat.

Suddenly I'm watching a prison fight in Extraction 2 that feels very similar to Raid 2's. And it works! Sure, the protagonist has merc gear and guns, and it dodges direct comparisons to the Indonesian films since it's not an adaptation. But without knowing anything about Extraction's production history, it feels like vestiges of the old pitch made their way in.

I was specifically thinking of the gold standard in cape flicks, the big Iron Man/Thor/Captain America fight in Avengers, although the fights in Iron Man 2 choreographed by Genndy Tartakovsky are tremendous. I could pick through a half-dozen good Marvel fights with high stakes and high emotions with good choreography.

The first fight in The Marvels had a lot of spectacle, but like Black Panther 2’s big fight, it just became too over-choreographed, dance-like, and blatantly stuntperson-reliant, and the cameras were zoom-and-pan messes. The second fight was CG-heavy and bounced between several sites, and with better direction could have been a classic Marvel fight.

Inception. Any Christopher Nolan movie really. People say he can't even write female characters.

Mad Max: Fury Road?

Master and Commander?

Crank 2: High Voltage

Fury Road was exactly what I had in mind. Or maybe something like Bourne Identity or John Wick.

I still haven't seen Master and Commander, actually.

I still haven't seen Master and Commander, actually

2003 saw the release of two big naval films, Master and Commander and Pirates of the Carribbean. It is a sad indictment of our fallen world that Master and Commander stopped at 1 film (despite having a huge amount of written book plots that could easily be turned into movies) while Pirates of the Caribbean became a huge franchise.

I guess I'll just leave people with this...

In some ways I think it's better they didn't make a millions sequel movies. Knowing how cinema developed now, there's a decent chance they would have ruined what is truly sublime source material.

With respect to your link, the score and sound were top notch. I'm still impressed how much justice they did to the role music plays in the books. Midshipmen Geoghegan appears something like three times in The Yellow Admiral, but I still think about his tragic death whenever I hear the Oboe Quartet.

I still haven't seen Master and Commander, actually.

Worthwhile. It's like a manly and warm-hearted 19th British century writer, such as Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, or Rider Haggard somehow travelled through time and made a big budget film, with a talented cast and astounding craftsmanship by the crew.

Master and Commander is so effortlessly high quality it makes me weep remembering it was basically an “average” excellent movie that we simply took for granted that we would be treated to up to a dozen times a year for like basically 15 years between 1993 - 2008.

It’s also, hilariously, completely bereft of female dialogue. I find it to be a very funny coincidence but frog twitter and their world see it as a sign akin to a burning bush.

It’s fucking rad, A+ would recommend.

Watched it. Liked it overall, but I just can't get myself to like Russell Crowe. Not sure why exactly. I'm somehow under the very vague impression that he's too full of himself and not half the actor he thinks he is, but I can't actually pinpoint why I see him that way.

Still, nice movie. 1 out of 1, did not regret giving two irreplaceable hours of my finite, fleeting life for it.

You gotta watch it. If only for the hilarious french accents.

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