I am watching the rain in the pool~
:flower:

Anticipating Denis Villeneuve's Dune film (Part 1) later this year (12/23/2020 10/22/2021 in the US) – perhaps setting myself up for disappointment, but still [ ... ] — 180 Proof

In the summer '77 I was probably the only 13 y.o. in the northern hemisphere, at least, who wasn't WOW'd by Star Wars and grew to dislike it, even hate it, for being a flashy noisy live-action cartoon which insulted my already well-honed scifi nerdy intelligence, as I saw it a few more times that summer with cousins & friends. A few years later in high school after I'd come across the space opera novel Dune and had read it (maybe twice immediately), my grade school antipathy for Star Wars was confirmed – it'd seemed back in '77 that Star Wars was only a corny mashup of 1930s' era Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Wizard of Oz & bad samurai flicks ... but, in fact, I found that George Lucas had filmed a highly derivative, dumbed-down, "adaptation" of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel.

Now, four-plus decades later, another attempt at adapting Dune to the big screen will be released next month in the US and I've linked a review of today's screening at the Venice Film Festival which gets it right that almost all cinematic (& video games) depictions of so-called "space opera" (swashbuckling blaster fights & frenetic planet-hopping at the speed of plot) since the 1970s owe very much visually and plot-wise to that weird, dark, epic meditation on *imperialism, religious fanaticism, transhumanism, ecology & resource-scarcity as the main driver of wars* ... So given I'm a Denis Villeneuve fanboy (I forgive him for the gorgeous failure of Blade Runner 2049), I'm really looking forward to seeing Dune in a (mostly empty) theatre soon. :nerd:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210903-four-stars-for-dune

Guardians of the Galaxy.
Just because...

(i forgive him for the gorgeous failure of Blade Runner 2049) — 180 Proof

:brow: :down:

........

:love:

I watched the trailer this morning. I'm still waiting (without holding my breath) for a proper thematic sequel to the 1999 movie, and not just another bankably shallow sfx spectacle.

Btw, so Blade Runner 2049 was your jam, huh? Another sequel which, IMO, doesn't add to and extend the 1982 film thematically. Like Aliens, etc.

It tackled the themes from the original from different perspectives and angles, not necessarily as successfully as Blade Runner did (and I prefer the original anyway), but thoughtful and stimulating all the same, IMO. As you said, gorgeous movie, and great acting (apart from Leto), and Ana de Armas could strangle me and I'd thank her for it.

Ana de Armas could strangle me and I'd thank her for it. — Maw

Hell yes!

Literary science fiction offers so much conceptual grist for the speculative mill but Hollyweird (usually) makes obscene bank on dumbing down its adaptations that no matter how visually stimulating, even sublime, I find more often than not that the films are, and especially their sequels, DOA (or mere cliched retreads). In the words of that late great Hollyweird Studio CEO & visionary:

Commerce is our goal, here. More human than human. — Dr. Elden Tyrell

Re: sell to the lowest common denominator.

A double helix of worldviews. :fire:

After listening to Sabaton:
SABATON - Great War (Official Lyric Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mt4B5Z8uLA

Watching this:
Interview With Pär Sundström from Sabaton I THE GREAT WAR Special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVnMgtC5N34

Has anyone else watched Satantango?

...Don't Look Back.

I watched the new Dune movie last night on HBO. I generally liked the casting, and the visual and soundtrack aesthetic was gorgeous and seamless. Despite that richness it somehow felt thin or lacking passion.