The new Idris Elba/Kate Winslet movie The Mountain Between Us, which is marketed as a gritty survival drama after an airplane crash (trailer), has a hilarious secondary ad re. the fate of the dog briefly seen in the first trailer. Because the marketing fokks are canny about what upsets people in movies: [link]

I saw the movie in TIFF. It's preposterous (especially the ending) and is basically a Hallmark Channel movie with A list actors and decent production values rather than a gritty survivalist drama, but hey, I sometimes enjoy cornball Hallmark romances. Idris takes his shirt off at some point during the movie in case that's relevant.

Yeah, I'd rather see a Hallmark movie with Winslet and Elba than, say, The Grey.

Blade Runner:

I LOVED the script. Damn, that was one tightly-plotted 2½-hour-long movie. Just about every scene was essential. And overall probably a deeper, more complex movie than Arrival.

I thought the visuals were HIT OR MISS. There were moments of great beauty, but overall the dankness started to wear on me. At least in the original, Ridley Scott would cut through the dankness with flashes bright neon, especially for the street-level scenes. Here, not nearly as much.

I though the soundtrack was MEH. Of course it's impossible to live up to the Vangelis original, but they could have tried a lot harder.

I got really tired of the single tear rolling down an actor's cheek as a shorthand for: THIS CHARACTER IS EMOTING NOW. The seventh or eight time that it happened it got really old.

Idris takes his shirt off at some point during the movie in case that's relevant.

I feel that is highly relevant.

The latest Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer: [link]

!!!

Re. TLJ trailer:

My guess is that the last shocking bit is not real life, but rather Rey's version of Dagobah cave vision - a manifestation of her deep-seated fear of temptation to the dark side.

Seeing Carrie Fisher's face in the trailer is gut wrenching. Looks like there are gonna be some major emotional scenes for her in this movie.

IS IT DECEMBER YET

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Blade Runner:

I LOVED the script. Damn, that was one tightly-plotted 2½-hour-long movie. Just about every scene was essential. And overall probably a deeper, more complex movie than Arrival.

Yes, I hate long movies but I have no idea where you would cut this one and not makes a mess. It is odd because I think the overall themes are very basic, but on an information level there is a lot to unpack. That said, Arrival just hit me like a gut punch where this one did not.

I though the soundtrack was MEH. Of course it's impossible to live up to the Vangelis original, but they could have tried a lot harder.

If I could change one thing about the movie it would be the score. Hated it. Plus, it also served to remind me how much I disliked the sound and score of Dunkirk.

I'll also add that I've seen a lot of negativity on Film Twitter about the role of women in the movie, and, while I get where that is coming from, it wasn't my experience at all watching the film.

I'll also add that I've seen a lot of negativity on Film Twitter about the role of women in the movie, and, while I get where that is coming from, it wasn't my experience at all watching the film.

I don't do Twitter, but I've seen the same from a couple of friends on FB, though the (female) friend I saw it with on Friday and I both felt very different. We did agree that there was a whole lot of nudity, but it was all either weirdly sterile and animatronic or framed to make the viewer identify with rather than objectify the nude person -- there was a lot of giant advertising figure nudity, and a lot of painfully close-up, helpless, fragile nudity, and between them all they almost totally de-eroticized everything. And, damn, on a meta level we both loved that in the end the main guy was literally just some random guy (albeit a random guy who showed great grace and courage even after he realized that he was really only a secondary character in someone else's story) and the miracle baby was a woman.

I also really liked that the main guy chose to have the "boring" how-was-your-day chatter when he got home, you know, the stuff women are told men want to avoid at all costs.

Given the little I read beforehand, I went in expecting full-on sex bot objectification which I don't think is what was happening at all.