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Joined: Tue September 24, 2013 5:56 pm Posts: 46411 Location: In the oatmeal aisle wearing a Shellac shirt
Instant Family.
Holy shit. At first blush, it's just another formulaic Hollywood feel-good movie. But it constantly skirts the conventions, challenges the viewers' perceptions, and offers an honest look at the adoption process.
My wife and I have been seriously discussing adoption for several months, and will likely go this route in another year or two. I spent the entirety of the movie just on the verge of tears. Totally worth seeing if you're into the idea of adoption, or just looking for something that smells like a rom-com but has sooooo much more depth of thought and heart to it. Also the script is a monster, constantly turning on the waterworks then piercing it with a perfectly executed joke.
My favorite bit was when Mark Wahlberg, in contemplating the ramifications of he and his wife adopting three Latino children, says to the adoption counselors (paraphrasing):
Wahlberg: Well what about the whole white savior thing? Is it gonna be like in Avatar where the blue people can't save themselves, and they need the white people to dress up in the blue costumes to save the day? Is everyone gonna hate us like they hate Avatar?
Octavia Spencer: We appreciate your cultural sensitivity, but what we really need are parents to adopt kids into loving families.
Not the saccharine garbage of something like Blindside or Dangerous Minds, nor the hollow dreck of a Judd Apatow movie. Way better than any of that crap. I know it's been a rough year for movies, but this was pretty great.
Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 6:03 pm Posts: 9359 Location: Washington State
Just came back from Fantastic Beasts. What a complicated movie. There were multiple parts where I was thinking "I can't wait to read the synopsis on Wikipedia because WTF was that about." Needlessly complicated and then the twist at the end with Albus...just dumb.
Though I fear my son is turning into LV. We asked him what he thought of the story and the changes to the lore and this was his review "I don't care about those things, I just care about the movie. It was a good movie. My yelp review is 5/5, would Dumbledore again."
durdencommatyler wrote:
VinylGuy wrote:
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Yeah, so i havent seen any of the HP movies, i havent seen the previous one from this series...yeah, i was a little bit bored and confused with the storytelling.
But i enjoyed Depp a lot. It was a long time since i liked him this much.
Jude Law looks old as fuck.
Yeah, in tone, in lore, in world-building and expansion, it's as much a sequel to Deathly Hallows as it is to Fantastic Beasts. You absolutely HAVE to see Fantastic Beasts to have any idea what's going on in this (it wisely forgoes unnecessary recapping and exposition and just picks up and runs with the ball). But if you don't Potter, you're gonna be lost af.
I really liked the film. It's dense. There is A LOT going on. I wish this was a book, so badly. JK is packing this full of lore and references and world expansion.
Going back to Hogwarts felt legit like I was going back to my actual high school. It was so effective and emotional. The performers are outstanding. The visuals are stunning. The action is tense and extreme. This movie is DARK AS FUCK.
But... it's also a bit tangled. JK has almost put too much into the film. Characters that are expected to drive the narrative take a backseat. This is as much Dumbledore and Grindelwald's movie as it is Newt's. And I did not expect that. Eddie does a WONDERFUL job but he's practically a secondary character.
End of the day... I loved the movie but it's definitely flawed. Certainly not the dumpster fire I was lead to believe it was. Infinitely interesting and compelling and upping the ante for Potter fans. I could drown in JK Rowling's storytelling. Her imagination is off the chart.
Tend to agree with most of this, kinda. Not a fan of Zoe Kravitz so she dragged some scenes down. And yes, if she ever decides to release the book versions of the movies I'd be much happier.
WTF was up with the polyjuice dude from the beginning? He never talks and is given a snake tongue, much like Wormtail was given a new hand. OH PARALLELS.
And what was up with the direction? The beginning few scenes had the camera tight on ther faces and they were talking into it and this just kept going. And some of the camera movement was way wonky with odd angles as well.
Abernathy (?) is a Grendalwald disciple. We don't know exactly how he became a follower or why, but he traded places with Grendelwald for the escape. They cut his tongue out, thinking it was Grendelwald's tongue. He can't talk. Grendelwald gave him the forked replacement tongue. I thought it was more aesthetic than practical, meaning it looks cool but he still can't talk. I didn't really see it as a fan service parallel for the sake of parallel. It tied into the larger themes/character of Grendelwald, his ability to manipulate (there's so much about his "silver tongue" and his ability to talk anyone into doing anything he wanted and we see that big time in the climax) and how you really can't trust Grendelwald. He's only in it for power and himself regardless of what his seductive speech says.
And I'm a big Zoe fan. But if you're not, I can see how such a big focus on her would be annoying.
As far as the twist... It's Rowling. I'm going to trust it. She's not an idiot, this is her world. Something's coming. She hasn't let me down yet.
I like Zoe Kravitz but she was awful in the movie...But at the same time, the whole cast looked so bored and stiff. Katherine Waterston had just one face...no matter what was happening she had that one face.
Abernathy (?) is a Grendalwald disciple. We don't know exactly how he became a follower or why, but he traded places with Grendelwald for the escape. They cut his tongue out, thinking it was Grendelwald's tongue. He can't talk. Grendelwald gave him the forked replacement tongue. I thought it was more aesthetic than practical, meaning it looks cool but he still can't talk. I didn't really see it as a fan service parallel for the sake of parallel. It tied into the larger themes/character of Grendelwald, his ability to manipulate (there's so much about his "silver tongue" and his ability to talk anyone into doing anything he wanted and we see that big time in the climax) and how you really can't trust Grendelwald. He's only in it for power and himself regardless of what his seductive speech says.
And I'm a big Zoe fan. But if you're not, I can see how such a big focus on her would be annoying.
As far as the twist... It's Rowling. I'm going to trust it. She's not an idiot, this is her world. Something's coming. She hasn't let me down yet.
Yes, I did figure out they used polyjuice potion to swap places, thanks for that. I thought it was weird when "he" came over and was giving them the box and pendant and his eyes weren't working right. So you don't think he can use the tongue? I'm sure it drives the ladies mild.
The scene at the end definitely showed how point-of-view can affect things. I mean, it was pretty clearly self-defense but dude had his phaser on kill instead of stun so it was a bad move.
What was up with Nagini? Every time they showed her she looked like she just ran a mile with her heaving breaths/breasts all over the place.
Finally, I should have seen it coming sooner with my son. Every time we see a movie and we talk about it afterwards we try to get him involved and he's always said that his best part was "the whole thing". Usually you can tell when he doesn't like it because he gets all MST3k on them while we're watching it. Heck, if it's bad enough we all do.
As soon as I saw the baby bird with CCR I knew it was a Phoenix but my dumb ass didn't put the two and two together as to the Dumbledore thing. They spelled it out even. Geez.
Dude with the calamari in his eye was obviously taking some kind of drug for it and when they took it out I expected something to be done with it but no, it was just a scene with no point. Nothing prior or past it to be like "oh, that's why.
So what happened to Leta's fake brother? Did he die too?
Quote:
Jude Law was cast as Albus Dumbledore after director David Yates decided that the role should be played by a younger actor, not Michael Gambon (who played the role in six of the Harry Potter films).[18][21] A number of other actors were considered, including Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, and Jared Harris (son of Richard Harris, who played Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films).[17]
Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 6:03 pm Posts: 9359 Location: Washington State
Jared Harris in Fringe was great, and seeing him in other shows/movies I could totally see him as Dumbledore. Hell, years ago I said if they remake the movies he should be Dumbledore because he could totally do it.
PS: I don't see how they can do five films out of this.
And why was the whole idea of "the wand chooses the wizard" thrown out the window (or blasted out, if you prefer) at the end? Did they just Mary Sue/Rey CCR?
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