What are you watching?

[PDB]

Haven't done this in a while so time for an update:

In Theaters

Baby Driver- I really can't hate a movie that starts with a car chase set to the John Spencer's Blue Explosion track, Bellbottoms. So I kind of loved this film. I even liked Jamie Fox in it, who I normally can't stand. Rest of the cast is great. Nice greasy, villainous roll for Hamm. Can't find too much fault in the film. Many were put off by truncated romance but I just took it for movie/Hollywood short-hand. Anyway another winner from Wright. 3.5/5

Wonder Woman- I like this movie but it seems less then the general public. Certainly the best DC movie by a country mile. It got there by ripping off the Marvel formula, which is not necessary a bad thing but also comes with the Marvel weaknesses. Namely, a terrible third act. Otherwise Gal Gadot was great. Much better then I thought she had in her; embodying both a bad ass and naive at the same time. Pine was great, taking Gal and the audience through the space of WW1. Having Danny Huston is your film is never a bad thing. Also of note, the WW1 sequences were great. It's just a shame that the third act goes into standard bad guy fight with an antagonist and SFXs that are...boring. Like I said, reminds me of 2nd tier marvel like Ant-Man and Doc Strange. Good just not great. 3/5

Despicable Me 3- My daughter loved it. 5/5 from her

Alien Covenant- So....not sure on this one. Not a great sequel to Prometheus, not a great prequel to Alien. Better then Prometheus in terms of plot but still containing Prometheus' weakness. Namely, characters who act irrationally to further the plot. Without ruining anything, I'm going to repeat someone's opinion I read on the internet. If Scott took his ideas for this (and Prometheus) and put them into a Blade Runner movie, it would make for an amazing, insightful movie. The idea of creators and those they create is an interesting premise, it just doesn't work in AC. As it stands, AC is trying to do too much. Its trying to be a Prometheus squeal and add in those ideas. Trying to add the terror and action of Alien and Aliens. It wants to be smart as it's character are acting dumb. It's hard to not focus on the negative because like Prometheus, there may be a good movie there left in the editing. As for the good: Fassbender is great in a dual roll. He always brings it to every roll and seems to enjoy playing polar opposites here. I was shocked how good Danny McBride was. I truly dislike him and was surprised to actually like his character in this. Dariusz Wolski's eye is amazing as always. Say what you will about the ups and downs of Scott's current films but his secret weapon has been Wolski's beautiful cinematography. It's a shame he doesn't get the praise of many of his peers. So maybe a very, very generous 3/5 until I watch it again

Video

Free Fire- Certainly Ben Wheatley's most conventional and accessible movie. I got to say on first pass, I really liked this. Not sure how much hold up in a second viewing. It was just the right length (~90 mins) for it's story of a bunch of people with poor aim shooting at each other after a illegal gun deal goes bad. And what a great cast giving their all: Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer (who I like but can't catch a break), Sharlto Copley (as his normal crazy character) and Sam Riley. 3.5/5

Control- And speaking of Sam Riley, I was randomly re-watching the Ian Curtis/Joy Division movie by the great Anton Corbijn. Love the music, love the performances, love the direction, love the story, love the black and white (standard for Corbjn) and love the direction. 4/5

Magnificent Seven (2016)- Slowly catching up on the movies I missed when my son was born. I guess I can't complain about this being a remake since it's a remake of a remake. But judging it verses the 60s film and not Seven Samurai, it lacks the charm of the original and the cast. But to be frank, you will never match the cast of the original MS. That was right place, right time. Having said all that, in a vacuum, I enjoyed this film. Nothing original in the plot. Denzel is great as always. It's really hard at this point for him to give a bad performance. Pratt is good too, adding a little bit of menace to his nice guy persona. Hawke and D'Onofrio are also fine, seemly on a break from a Blumhouse film. Super happy to see Lee Byung-hun is something better after the abysmal Terminator Genisys. Side Note: If you have never seen any of Lee Byung-hun's Korean films, you are really missing out. I Saw the Devil, The Good, the Bad, the Weird (another "sort-of" western) and especially A Bittersweet Life are truly excellent films. Just don't be turned off by subtitles. In the end, I'm just happy to see a westerns being made and there is nothing truly bad to complain about. 3/5

xXx: The Return of Xander Cage- My brother I loved to watch the original in full ironic mode. Quoting terrible lines and pointing out the general garbage nature of it. This is just garbage. To be fair I was mostly watching for Donny Yen and was truly enjoying Toni Collette "can you believe this s***" look everytime she delivered a line but the main problem is Vin Diesel. I don't hate Diesel per say but just can't get over a 50 year old man doing "extreme sports" and bedding 20 year old women. It's embarrassing to watch, it should of embarrassed to him at the script stage. It just feels like bad ideas on top of bad ideas. Still haven't finished the movie but score so far is 1/5

[spoRv]

The only ones I've seen are WW and AC, and I agree with what you wrote; but a second watch on AC could lead you to discover new, tiny details that would improve (probably) your rating.

[Jetrell Fo]

I just watched the lamest documentary ever ... The People Vs. George Lucas. Very disappointing.

[PDB]

In Theaters

Side note right off the bat. I consider this a pretty good year (2017) for movies so far. I'm having a hard time giving a poor rating (under 3) to any movie that I have seen in theaters. I find that odd since I've been called critical in the past. Anyway, Dunkirk doesn't change any of that.

Dunkirk- From the start to the end, I was riveted to this movie. It's all motion, all movement, all direction. There is no plot beyond the skeleton we are given and almost no character development. To me none of that hurt the film given its short run time (for a Nolan film). It was interesting to see Nolan bring back his fractured time structure that has been "missing" for the last few films. I rarely have a problem with that structure but here it robbed the film of a little of it's tension but that's a minor grip. Also of note the sound design was amazing. 4/5

Also since it's a Nolan film I paid a great amount of attention to the color. I saw this on DCP (Barco 4Ks) and am going to see it in 70mm/5-perf this Friday to compare. The movie was green. Very green. Very green and yellow with the occasional teal on the beach. I looked at the original trailer right after watching the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eMt3SrfFU

and found it too be a way toned down version of what I saw. Pump up the greens and add a ton of saturation and you maybe have what I saw. A good example is that trailer still has reasonable human skin tone whereas with the DCP the skin tones where blown away by the color timing. Also of note, you can tell it was chemical color timed as the shots where sometimes inconsistent, something you don't see with computer grading nowadays.

Spider-Man: Homecoming- Well this was the best Spider-Man since Spider-Man 2 That seems to be damning with faint praise but it was really enjoyable. And that's the best part, it was fun. Not moody, angry or full of self loathing. Spider-man wants to help, wants to be a good guy but his inexperience causes him to screw up. That just just made you love the character all that much more. The cast was great. Tom Holland was probably the best Peter Parker ever put on screen (Sorry Tobey). Michael Keaton continues his great revival. Loved the Chris Evans cameo ("pretty sure he is a war criminal"). RDJ, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover and Bokeem Woodbine were all excellent. It was better then the Amazings and certainly SM3. Was it better then 1? Maybe. I loved that this got rid of the origin with the spider bite and Uncle Ben, so I might be hard on 1 because of that. But I'm pretty sure I like 2 better. Anyway 4/5

Color wise the movie was very warm with an emphasis on reds and yellows in daylight scenes. Nothing odd or unusual.

Video

Split- The revival of M. Night continues. James McAvoy is giving it his all. Anya Taylor-Joy is really talented and on the rise. I can't even really fault the direction. I just was ok with the film. Certainly not worthy of the praise it got (which I think is solely based on the ending). The story just seemed to be filled with the worse and over-used cliches. And that just took me out of the film time and time again. 2.5/5

Jason Bourne- They came back for this? A directionless, murky plot claiming to be insight and even prophetic? That's why when you have made a great trilogy you should never go to a forth. There are very few good third films and certainly far, far fewer 4th. 2.5/5

Drunken Master 2- Been going through some of the Hong Kong Rescue custom BDs. Not going to review their work, which is very good but only going to look at the films themselves. So DM2...not much to say that hasn't been said. It is truly one of the best martial arts films ever made. Chan was at the top of his game physically. Anita Mui is hilariously charming in both the Cantonese and English versions. And then there is the director: Lau Kar-leung. Lau Kar-leung, to me, is without a doubt the best MA director. He could make even the slightest of plot entertaining. Just pure motion and grace. He truly is in the pantheon of my favorite directors with the like of Hitchcock and Leone. It's a shame Chan took him off the pic due to personality clashes and egos. Anyway 4.5/5

Phenomena (1985) (International Cut) - Also going through Argento lately. Watched Inferno for the first time and watching the IC of Phenomena for the first time. Still love this crazy, crazy film. Sadly, the last great Argento. 4/5

[Bigrob]

Finally got round to watching Twin Peaks : The Return (Had my SKY Q box installed over the weekend) and am loving every damn minute of it

Also seeing Blue Velvet on 35mm in a few weeks time

[PDB]

In Theaters

Dunkirk- From the start to the end, I was riveted to this movie. It's all motion, all movement, all direction. There is no plot beyond the skeleton we are given and almost no character development. To me none of that hurt the film given its short run time (for a Nolan film). It was interesting to see Nolan bring back his fractured time structure that has been "missing" for the last few films. I rarely have a problem with that structure but here it robbed the film of a little of it's tension but that's a minor grip. Also of note the sound design was amazing. 4/5

Also since it's a Nolan film I paid a great amount of attention to the color. I saw this on DCP (Barco 4Ks) and am going to see it in 70mm/5-perf this Friday to compare. The movie was green. Very green. Very green and yellow with the occasional teal on the beach. I looked at the original trailer right after watching the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eMt3SrfFU

and found it too be a way toned down version of what I saw. Pump up the greens and add a ton of saturation and you maybe have what I saw. A good example is that trailer still has reasonable human skin tone whereas with the DCP the skin tones where blown away by the color timing. Also of note, you can tell it was chemical color timed as the shots where sometimes inconsistent, something you don't see with computer grading nowadays.

Ok got back from another showing of Dunkirk. This time in 70mm/5perf and I got to say the movie looked totally different when compared to the DCP I saw. Where the DCP had strong greens and yellows, the 70mm had a ton of blues. Light power blue during the day shots with a desaturated feel and dark blues at night. The only time it pushed the greens a bit was inside the hull of the 1st ship and towards the end (no spoilers here) but not even a faction as much as the DCP. White tended to be close to white unlike in the DCP. It really looked like film with heavy contrast and occasional blown highlights in the skies. I quickly mocked up the looks while the information is fresh and my thoughts clear.

Original Trailer (Top)/DCP (Bot-Left)/70mm (Bot Right)


To be honest, the DCP might need to be pushed even more than that. Not sure why the giant color disparity exists but it was definitely there in the showings I saw.

One a side note, its always wonderful to watch film again, even with all it's fault. Even peaked into the projection booth to see that they plattered up the movie.

[spoRv]

Where the DCP had strong greens and yellows, the 70mm had a ton of blues.

Shouldn't be the same for Interstellar?

[PDB]

Where the DCP had strong greens and yellows, the 70mm had a ton of blues.

Shouldn't be the same for Interstellar?

Why?

[spoRv]

Shouldn't be the same for Interstellar?

Why?

Maybe because it's from the same director and it was released in various formats (DCP/35mm/70mm), and because some people claimed that the regraded pictures, which used that single "right" 70mm cell as color reference, were similar to what they remember from 70mm, while others claimed that the BD is very similar to what they remember from 35mm or DCP.

Human beings are creatures of habit (not as much as cats, but this is another story...), so ***maybe*** the same "settings" were applied to both (Interstellar and Dunkirk) - not necessarily by the director himself (or, at least, not only)... just speculations, of course.

[PDB]

No one claimed that Interstellar looked green and yellow in any form but particularly DCP or IMAX film. At least to my knowledge. Dark Knight possibly but not Interstellar. So it's not a one to one.

Last I checked it was the yellow/gray/white of the BD vs the film cells' blue/teal-ish look. Maybe you could draw conclusion about the Dunkirks film look to Interstellar look but it seems not the DCP.

This is just more of a reference for future Dunkirk projects and color debates.