Nope. This was most likely down to the impact of the actors strike and lack of subsequent promotional activity.
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That does rather indicate how much these films rely on hype over content.
That’s not to say that they are necessarily bad films, just that it accounts for why the studios spend so much on marketing.
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I’d seen the posters for it, but not twigged that it was out this month. For some reason I thought it was coming out in December.
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I think my kids have rather moved on from them now. I’m not sure whether that’s a lack of quality or just that their interests have changed (I suspect the latter).
I think the problem with some of the later ones is that they need some knowledge of all the previous films to work out what on earth is going on (other than explosions and fist fights). It’s possible why I always think the foundation films are the best ones even if, as that article suggests, it’s the sequel that brings in the cash.
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There are a lot of issues marvel’s films have to deal with right now with respect to the industry as a whole and the impact of their decisions specifically. But the bigger thing is everything has a lifespan. And for superhero movies specifically, you have a challenge where you have to find ways to increase the stakes/challenge with each film to make it worth tuning in, but do it in a way where you arent escalating things to absurd lengths that make it all seem impossible to take seriously, even in the context of an alien wearing his pants over his trousers. Most superhero franchises that work hit that after 3 films. Marvel squeezed out 40 or so films before it happened. Given that it seems weird to me that so much coverage is given to the “what has gone wrong with Marvel” angle rather than celebrating what is probably the most unprecedent run of success in cinema history.
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Close one eye?
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I’ve done that a few times 
Well I just got back from watching Napolean and holy fuck is it bad. Its actually a remarkable achievement to make that man’s life so incessently boring. A tedious trawl in every sense.
If you are desperately interested in his relationship woth Josephine then you’ll find some value. A good two hours if this 2 hour 38 minute monstrosity is spent on Napolean and Josephine writing letters to each other - and yet we get no sense for their actual feelings towards one another.
Battles? Well they bless us with a cursory nod to the battles of Toulon, Austerlitz and Waterloo. All of the battles are simplified to the nth degree - the battles of Waterloo bears practically no resemblence to the real battle at all. We get no sense of scale, no sense of the stakes, no sense of any characters motivations for being at the battle. Napolean’s invasion of Europe is literally mentioned in a single sentence. One minite he’s in Russia with 400,000 men, the next scene he’s back in Paris being exiled (don’t worry the disasterous Russia campaign is summised in a single sentence during his exile sentencing - we don’t actually see it on camera).
Indeed the film treats Napolean the General as an inconvenient side story to the true story of his relationship to Josephine and his search for an heir. After spending a good hour of the film focusing on his increasing desire for a son, when he finally does have a son they show the baby and then never mention it again. Literally never mention his son again. An hour’s agonising build up to this most boring of payoffs and still it doesn’t arrive.
We are continually told that Napolean is loved by his men and by the public, although we are never shown why. He portrays no warmth, no love for his soldiers (he barely even acknowledges them) and no charisma to attract anyone to his cause. The battle scenes, as mentioned above, are so simplistic that there is no reason to think of him as strategic either - Toulon they scale a wall while the English guards sleep. Ok. Austerlitz a simple flank manouver that the enemy walks into. Waterloo a head on attack with no attempt to do anything other than get slaughtered.
Joaquin Phoenix, an actor I generally like, is wooden and disinterested throughout. From top to bottom this film is an abject failure that left me physically irritated. Do yourself a favour and skip it entirely.
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That’s disappointing. Ridley usually at least gets the heart pumping during battle scenes.
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I know there was a lot of talk about the length of the film and so am surprised to see this come in at only 2 and half hours. I expect a lot of die hard Scott fans will place the faults of the released version at the feet of the studio for cutting too aggressively and continually point to a directors version that no one has seen as the real version.
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I do get the feeling there was a lot left on the cutting room floor - things just “happen”. Now he’s at Toulon, Now he’s met a woman, now he’s married, now he’s king, now he’s in Russia, now he’s exiled, now he’s back, now he’s at Waterloo, now he’s exiled again. Nothing has any build up and nothing has any weight. It’s just a series of things happening but we don’t know when or why or how any of it happens. Most of the “plot”, such as there is, is given in the form of text at the bottom of the screen.
As I said before the fact he was a general and conquered Europe was very inconvenient to the writers who for some reason wanted to focus on the passionless and uninteresting love story between Napoleon and Josephine.
The film ends on a series of text stating the number of battles Napoleon fought in and how many people died in those battles. I walked out thinking “that would be a good film to watch, shame we barely fucking showed any of that”.
Noticeably, when the film ends Scott is not listed as the director - instead two no-names are listed as “Assistant Director”.
It’s in the running for worst film I’ve ever seen. There are simply no redeeming qualities to the film.
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Yeah just checked, there is a 3 and half version coming to Apple +, but Scott’s preferred cut is 4 and half hours.
You simply cannot cut that much out of a film and expect it to be coherent, but that is where Scott has reached at this point in his career 
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Even if the longer versions add more of the context the movie is still going to be shit to be honest.
Oh well, Scott had a good run.
Directed by Alan Smithee?
am halfway through Aftershock, about the Nepal earthquake in 2015.
this is bloody sad.
** edit ** looks like this is a 3-part series. the footage is unreal though. scares me that I’ve lived in a huge earthquake zone and haven’t felt one in 20years.
This is why we have multiple emergency packs available to us.
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Thanks for the warning. I actually looked forward to seeing it as the Duellists is one of my all-time favourite movies. Now I will wait till its somewhere to be seen for free.
One film I watched the other day was ‘Paris, Texas’.
Now this caught my attention because despite existing for 39 years, and for a good chunk of that time I’ve really been paying attention to people talking about, writing about, listing, rating, and reviewing films, and yet I’d never heard of it until about 3 weeks ago.
And suddenly, there was a whole Baader-Meinhof thing going on and it was being mentioned all over the place.
So I bought a copy and watched it.
It was definitely a good film, and there were things I really loved about it. I don’t think I connected with it in the way that other people seem to have and it certainly didn’t warrant the way the universe seemed to be pushing me to watch it is asap. But overall, pretty good.
With all due respect, I can’t imagine how you’d never heard of it. It’s often referred to. The title alone is iconic.
Not sure if I’ve ever heard of it either, although I appreciate I’m not the film buff Deneb is…
I prefer it to Wings of Desire, although that’s not a universal opinion.
I might be more aware of Wim Wenders due to living in Berlin, but I thought both those films were well known internationally.
Maybe it’s just an age thing. I met a young man recently who’d never heard of Prince.
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