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filmgeek99's Replies
Agreed, the acting was horrible too. The lead girl either overacts or underacts in every scene she's in, while the rest of the cast is either wooden or monotone. Just dreadful all-around.
Probably will be.
I honestly fail to see the point of a movie centered around Gollum.
A film going for a docudrama look doesn't necessarily mean bland visuals. Plenty of movies that go for a raw, gritty, cinema verite look have far better visuals than what Bigelow has done lately. Going back to my two examples earlier, both Alfonso Cuaron and the Safdie brothers make far better use of a similar style in their works.
Children of Men, for instance, while also having a very gritty, documentary-esque look to it, is a far more visceral and visually striking film as a whole as Cuaron makes far better uses of long takes and motivated camera moves as opposed to Bigelow's more sporadic style.
Heaven Knows What, similarly, is also a gritty film, but its visual style compliments the story far more than any of Bigelow's recent works. There, the Safdies make use of very shallow depth of field on purpose to add to the feeling of being trapped and isolated from drug addiction. There's more expressive lighting too, as while most of the film appears very naturally lit, some scenes deliberately employ a more colorful hue to visually represent the high of doing heroin.
You seem to fail to grasp the difference between what a director does vs. what a DP does. The director is usually the one who designs the shot list, blocks out the scene, and coordinates the movement/framing of each shot. The DP, meanwhile, usually focuses primarily on the lighting and the technical nitty gritty behind each frame (exposure, white balance, contrast ratio etc). There's always some overlap between them but that's usually how it works.
A key way to figure out just how good a director is visually is to look at the consistency in their overall works. A genuinely solid visual director would generally make nothing but good-looking films for the majority of their career, whereas a slightly lesser director may fluctuate a bit based on the DP they hire and the subject matter they tackle. The latter is likely the camp where Kathryn Bigelow belongs.
Do you understand me now?
Okay, firstly, why are you getting this emotional over an argument on a movie director of all things? Is Kathryn Bigelow your mom or something? Please keep in mind, I never even said she's a bad director, just that her visual sense is nothing to write home about.
"Please feel free to elaborate on iconic L.A shots in Point Break of which "nothing particularly stands out" such as the tense street lit conversations between Johnny Utah and Angelo Pappas, the nighttime football game, and the adrenaline fueled skydiving scenes to name just a few."
Like I said in my OP, I've only seen Bigelow's most recent batch of films (2009-present) so I can't say much about Point Break, but if you're referring to just simple establishing shots of the city or quick cut action scenes that obscure the actors' faces a lot, then I hate to break this to you but Bigelow probably didn't shoot them. Generally, shots for a film made on that scale that don't feature the lead actors are usually filmed by a second unit crew. And if you're referring to the lighting in the street conversation scenes, then my point from my last post sustains, the lighting is more in the hands of the DP than the director.
Of course, Kathryn herself needs to have the good sense as a director to know the kind of shots the second unit has to get in conjunction with what she filmed to make a scene flow well when cut together later, as well as have good taste in regards to approving/rejecting ideas from the DP, but those are things that are still generally more controlled by those separate units rather than the director themselves.
The effectiveness of those elements in Point Break do prove that she is rather competent in her job, but the fact that her more recent, smaller films (at least in comparison to PB) had such unremarkable visuals is likely a sign of her weakness as a filmmaker. Those films most likely had a lot less stuff shot by a second unit, which is what likely led to them being much weaker visually. Do you get it now?
"Look at the nighttime scenes between Gary Busey and Keanu. Look at that lighting, color and intensity."
That's more of the DP's work than it is Kathryn's. Unless if you are one of those very rare directors who know hows to do the DP's job just as well they do (Kubrick, Cameron, Fincher), chances are, most of the lighting and coloration would be determined mainly by the cinematographer. The director usually just gives some general pointers.
What the director does have much better control over are camera angles, shot sizes, focus lengths, blocking, and movements. And in the case of Kathryn, while none of those elements are necessarily terrible in her works, nothing particularly stands out about them either.
The fact that her earlier works were more traditionally cinematic suggests that she is capable of creating something more aesthetically pleasing and impactful on a pure technical level, but it also makes her decision to embrace the modern Paul Greengrass knockoff style even more of a head scratcher.
"Absolute trash take from OP"
Okay, but why? Explain why you disagree.
bump
From what I hear, he's just a really indecisive, scatterbrained guy who largely just makes the movie up as he goes only to have it fixed later in post. Almost all of his movies have had drastic reshoots as Liman doesn't seem to know what he wants until he sees it in the edit, which obviously pleases no one on set. I think that's where he got his reputation for being difficult from, rather than him being an asshole.
Don't worry, it's been on my watchlist for a while.
That was Harold Ramis, I believe. Haven't seen it yet but not surprised. Actor-turned-directors are almost always bland visually.
Isn't he kind of a one-hit wonder?
Really dumb take from Fincher. He's willing to go along with the idea of a teenager fighting bad guys in his red and blue pajamas but he can't accept the origin of how he got his powers?
This and the stupid comments he made in regards to Joker reinforces my beliefs that Fincher's a guy who thinks he's smarter than he actually is.
bump
Formerly underrated, currently overrated.
Bond fans love to always toss the term "underrated" whenever anyone brings up Timothy Dalton, but the thing is, how can he be underrated if everyone seems to like him? The only reason that phrase gets thrown around, is simply because Dalton isn't as well-known to general audiences as someone like Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan, but that's more due to the fact that he was only in two movies rather than people not caring for them (both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill are frequently cited as some of the best Bond films by fans).
Personally, I love Dalton's performance in The Living Daylights but I'm not quite a big a fan of his turn in Licence to Kill. Timmy's performance in the latter just felt overwrought and excessive to me, with far too much emphasis on how mean and angry he is in every scene. His performance feels rather one-note to me in that film, as for all the talks of Dalton being the closest Bond to the one in the novels, his portrayal feels too outwardly explosive and short-tempered to be truly in line with Fleming (still probably the closest portrayal of the character, but not as accurate as some fans make him out to be) and it honestly makes him a bit unlikable in places.
If he had continued his tenure with a performance and tone more in line with The Living Daylights, that of a serious and determined Bond with a bit of fiery streak but not overly angry in every scene, I think I would've ranked Dalton as one of my top 3 favorites. As is, I think he's good but I think the fans in recent years have overrated his performance vastly.
My picks:
2001 - Naomi Watts/Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive)
2002 - Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil)
2003 - Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)
2004 - Kate Beckinsale (Van Helsing)
2005 - Carla Gugino (Sin City)
2006 - Kate Winslet (Little Children)
2007 - Monica Bellucci (Shoot 'em Up)
2008 - Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
2009 - Julianna Guill (Friday the 13th)
2010 - Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
2011 - Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
2012 - Jessica Chastain (Lawless)
2013 - Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street)
2014 - Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow)
2015 - Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation)
2016 - Morena Baccarin (Deadpool)
2017 - Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water)
2018 - Elizabeth Debicki (Widows)
2019 - Margot Robbie (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
No, but there is this: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2F5o1SKuo1dbNOM-MxK3yM32wPsRW0Ly8317LSsQQcONw.gif%3Fformat%3Dmp4%26s%3D861b8d95317986c1b8051ad975e76fe9b5734063
It honestly isn't as crass as it sounds. What it really is just another "hottest actress of the year" award, hence why Scarlett Johansson could win for The Avengers despite not showing any skin in that movie.
Holy Smoke (1999)
Paranoid Park (2007)
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Heaven Knows What (2014)
Quills (2000)
Queen of Hearts (2019)
Katie Tippel (1975)
Body Double (1984)
Robin and Marian (1976)
Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
I think she's a reasonably attractive actress who's hotness has been blown way out of proportion by the media. She's good for guys who like girls that look young and barely developed, but with a nice, fat pair of tits they can slide their dick between.
She's okay, definitely bangable but not the perfect 10 so many guys hype her up to be.