Yeah, it's almost totally out of theaters here already, last weekend for it, so definitely not gonna be in 3D anywhere. Korean kids are never noisy in the movie theater. It would bring great shame to their ancestors probably.

Speaking of Korea, I thought Train to Busan was pretty good. I almost didn't watch it because I'm even more burned out on zombies than usual lately, with another lackluster season of Walking Dead winding down, and being unimpressed by the Day of the Dead remake a couple weeks ago.

Train to Busan was solid though. Maybe a bit too long with a few too many scenes of people trying to hold doors shut, but the main characters were cool and the script had a couple "set up ---> pay off" moments I thought worked well.

Really burnt out on zombies and I still stand by quitting TWD after this season is over. Can only get worse from here with the inevitable death of Rick and "Oh now, look, at YOU" moments from tipsy McGee.

I dunno about Train to Busan, all I've seen so far is people running like a shocked nest of ants and holding doors shut (as you said) and I got plenty of that in World War Z. It's sad imo Shaun of the Dead is one of the best zombie movies when it's a damn parody.

I've seen Train to Busan some weeks ago and I still get angry when I think about it. I've seen so much praise and "best zombie movie ever" or something like that on 9gag, so I thought it should be good. I like South Korean cinema and thought maybe they would do something special with a zombie movie.
I was so wrong. It was so full of useless clichés and exaggerated melodrama. I hate it when Koreans put so much drama it ruins the movie, just like with Daeho. I really can't think of anything positive after the first 15 minutes or so. The set-up was quite nice with the zombies growing in the background, but when the confrontations start it all goes downhill from there.

Justice League trailer looks bad. Throw everything at the screen and hope is pleases, clearly.

I wonder how many comics they'll brush over in 5 minutes this time, but I did enjoy the 3 real sets in the trailer, perhaps we can expect 5 in total.

No matter what our differences in movie taste is, everyone has to admit that the original King Kong from 1933 is fucking awesome.

If you disagree I'll tear you a new one.

It's better than Con Air at least.

Beauty and the Beast was fucking TERRIBLE in every respect. Worst movie I've seen in theatres in quite some time.

Come on dude, you had to had known what it would be. If you're not into romance, dancing and singing and general kid stuff then just avoid Disney movies like I do.

Saw Power Rangers last night. It's bad in a way that kid's movies usually are, where plot points and character development are just "there" and never really feels earned, but it wasn't offensively bad. That second act where the team learns their powers and has to grow is fucking abysmal, things don't really happen in any order that they really should, but the first act (all pre-powers) is surprisingly good and the finale felt like what a MMPR big budget movie would feel like.

Standout performances are Billy and Jason's dad, everybody else just kinda does their thing. There's moments that can make you stop and think this could've been better but, again, kids movie.

5/10

Kong was cool. Some super intentionally cheesy parts, some homages to Jurassic Park and Predator, really neat action scenes all around with some really cool shots, kids hilariously crying in the theater as dudes got ripped apart by monsters, etc. Good times.

Yeah Power Rangers wasn't overly good but it wasn't offensively bad either. Just kind of a meh movie. I see it being on party with the quality of Transformers, which unfortunately would make this the peak for the franchise. Kinda shitty when your peak is borderline crap.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - This is a real piece of shit. Just bad all around - bad story, bad characters, bad suspense. Not as bad as the 2003 remake, but that's only because it isn't as long. This is billed as an origin story, but really it is just more of the same garbage we get with all the sequels in this franchise - bad gore and no suspense because it's all just killing people who are held captive. Everything about this is flimsy and fake and weak as fuck.

Let Me In - Basically shot for shot from the original film. This was well done and all the actors did a fine job. The scenery was very atmospheric and the story of a dark not-quite romance and coming of age, laced with horror, is done well. But honestly it's a bit pointless since we have the original - but eh, even so, it was a pleasant watch.

Lots of people don't wanna read subtitles, so there is a point to be had in the remake being subtitle-free.

I expected it to be much worse honestly - like really dumbed down in some way. Luckily it wasn't.

Oh I forgot to mention that during the trailers at Kong I saw one for this sci-fi/horror movie called Life that looks like it's also in the general vein of The Thing worship. Hard to tell much from the trailer because it had super loud Korean voiceover dubbed all over it, and the director's previous efforts were all things I've never heard of that also apparently sucked, so who knows.

Empyreal, have you seen Hannibal Rising? I think that was actually, somehow, worse. Haven't seen it since 2007 and my brain has blanked most of it out thankfully.

I did but it's been over a decade since I saw that. I probably would hate it a lot more now than I did then.

As kittensofdoom pointed out, it's your own damn fault for actually going, no? I mean, did you actually expect to find something enjoyable in it? I only know you from this thread and I could've told you beforehand that you would react like this.



These people should probably go back to watching blinking LED lights. Probably.

Also, the original Kong is rather dull.

Yeah, I as a guy from a smaller European country that doesn't dub movies and so grew up with subtitles, I really don't understand the (mainly) American argument against subtitles. "Herp derp I prefer WATCHING, not reading, when I'm watching a movie". Seriously, it takes one second to read subtitles for a given shot, it's not a big deal, and should definitely not be a deal breaker when looking for good movies.

I use subtitles whenever they're available as I am hard of hearing, so it's really never a debate for me at all. I agree though, really dumb point of view to have. If you can't watch and read at the same time, maybe your brain needs to improve.

It really depends on the movie and I can certainly understand not wanting to take your eyes off the imagery to read some text at the bottom of the screen, especially under certain circumstances. My go-to example for this is Amelie. I remember watching that and being really irritated because it had a lot of quick-cut short little scenes with fast editing in a really visually arresting style and also an extremely fast-talking narrator and therefore subtitles that just flew across the screen. I also remember being glad my knowledge of French was just strong enough to sorta help me get by without 100% having to read every word in the subtitles because otherwise big chunks of that movie would've been kind of a choice between reading the narration and watching what's actually happening.

That said, dubbing for live-action movies is extremely immersion-breaking for me and I try to avoid it whenever possible. I don't mind it at all for animated stuff though.

It was decent actually. If you like second grade survival/horror/sci-fi movies and you can avoid several bad decisions from the characters, then you might be able to tolerate it. I believe it were to open on a different weekend, the movie would've received bigger exposure. There were rumors that this movie was a result of a canned Venom origins movie and I can see why.

I actually think the quick-cut, fast-talk style is a French (but not limited to) cinematic trend. I saw a recent French movie, Victoria, and it was ridiculous how fast they talked. I couldn't keep up and it was constant reading like a novel. And I'm used to subtitles and even use them with English movies. But I also have to say that it approximates life. People now talk a lot faster than they used to.

Apparently it was written by the two guys who wrote Deadpool, so that's definitely got my interest piqued. Also Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds are usually good.

Bleed for This - Like The Fighter, this is enjoyable, but also like that movie it creates the false impression that Event A in the boxer's life led directly to Event B, when a quick look at the guy's official record shows otherwise. I was sort of aware who Vinny Paz is, and returning to the ring after a neck injury that almost confined him to a wheelchair certainly makes for an inspirational story. So why does the movie lead us to believe he faced Roberto Duran in the first fight of his comeback, when he was actually his seventh post-injury opponent?

Maybe I'm nitpicking. Still a good movie, even though boxing flicks are almost as common as zombie movies these days.

Recently watched 10 Cloverfield Lane, I think it was called. Anyway, after reading the description on Netflix it wasn't at all what I thought it would be. And in a good way for sure! Really liked how that movie played out and the cool genre mash-up too.



Ugh, I'm a huge John Ajvide Lindqvist fan and have read most everything's published, but basically refuse to watch the American remake of Let the Right One In. I dunno, just this whole American need to remake everything for an American audience (even British tv shows/movies ffs) just bugs the shit out of me to the point I don't even care if it's "good" or not, the arrogance of it just bothers me. Just seems like pure laziness and self-centredness. Not to mention is reading subtitles really so damned difficult? Everyone else does it, I'm sure Americans can survive it too. Anyways there's my little rant about that The Swedish movie was great but I thought it was missing some elements that really made the book for me. Then again that's usually the case with movies inspired by books.

Every nation remakes foreign language films. Turkey is notorious for having low-budget remakes of blockbusters (notably Star Wars, Superman, and Batman), Japan has a remake of Unforgiven that trades cowboy hats for samurai attire and one of Ghost, Korea regularly remakes Chinese/Japanese films, half of Bollywood may as well be musical remakes of American cinema, etc.

Movies get remade in foreign markets for many reasons, with the biggest being cultural differences. It's a one-way argument where Hollywood gets shat on for daring to Americanize Seven Samurai with cowboys in place of ronin but nobody bats an eye at a middle-aged Japanese man coming of age on a wine tour in Saidoweizu.

Yeah, in cases like Oldboy where it's notably worse in the Americanized version, I can agree. But Let Me In, in spite of my similar misgivings, was actually a well done film and I would've liked it a lot had I not already been so familiar with the story already. It's really no worse than the original one was, whatever your ideas about its intentions are aside. Sure, Americans could do well to be more cultured sometimes, but it's pretty one sided to assume the rest of the world is always better in every way.

acid_bukkake - props for the Sideways reference... that is a movie I've always enjoyed.

^I thought Let Me In was pretty decent as well. There were a few things the original did better and some the remake did better, but overall I still prefer the original. Both good flicks.

Yep, and at least American releases of foreign films are generally subtitled in their original language, with dubs only added as an option. A lot of DVD/BDs of English-language films in places like France, Russia and Germany will often only have dubbed soundtracks, or will use a higher bitrate for the local language dub and only include the original language in lower quality as an afterthought.

Not what a_b was talking about, but okay.

Many directors prefer dubbing their movies over subtitling them to keep the viewer's eyes and attention on the mise en scene and the actors' delivery rather than reading the dialog.

I personally can't fucking stand dubbing.

It even bothers me in movies that were dubbed by the original actors in the original releases, like a lot of those spaghetti westerns. But those at least are tolerable - when it's clearly some other person's voice saying different words than the mouths are making, it's way more fucking distracting from the visuals than subtitles.

Agreed, both versions have their strengths. Another point in favor of English language remakes is that English is the top global language by a significant margin. I mean take Let The Right One In/Let Me In as an example again; if I were to air one of these movies in Korea, which one do you think would be easier to localize?

It's even more prevalent than you might think, ADR is everywhere in film, it's just usually really well done. I think I read 98% of the dialog in the LotR series was actually dubbed (well, ADR'd) but it was extremely well done, unlike many Leone or Argento movies.

Sure, but obviously if I don't even notice, it's not gonna bother me!

Tangential yes, but sticking with the subject of the way foreign-language films are treated in different cultures. Subtitles to me are only a hassle when the dialogue comes so thick and fast that they have trouble keeping up. In the case of dubbing vs subbing, I'm pretty sure in most cases it's a decision made by the distributors, not the director. If directors always had the final say on the home releases of their own work, I'm sure there'd be less instances of shit like non-OAR transfers, extras and commentaries only being available on one or two countries' releases, or the aforementioned butchery of the original dialogue on foreign-language releases.

Alrighty, let's see what's going on in this thread since Sund--OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE

Finally saw Life today. I liked it! I guessed the ending before it happened but otherwise it was an enthralling movie. A little more gory than I expected, too. 8/10

re: dubbing
Stuff like the spaghetti westerns or Italian schlock gorefests abused ADR due to budgetary reasons. Leone put most of his money into location scouting and setting up elaborate scenes, Fulci and Bava did it on gore effects, etc. The blend was poor but it allowed the director to control the sound design almost entirely.

Going back to Amelie, I didn't have a problem keeping up with the subtitled dialogue. Maybe it's because the opening few scenes have the "she imagines everybody having sex right now" and I was 15 when I saw it, but I paid attention and kinda forced myself to go with it. Pan's Labyrinth was hated by my girlfriend at the time because of how fast so much of the dialogue is but it only made the visual stuff stand out even more to me.