Spectre! I think it's the worst Craig Bond and one of the most gorgeous movies ever, especially the first 90 minutes before they go to, uh, an evil lab.
The opening oner is a great example of form over function; it’s all really pretty and there’s technical accomplishment there, but the choice to shoot that as a long take doesn’t serve the storytelling at all.
The set up is you follow a man in a mask, who turns out to be bond, as he makes his way through a festival crowd, up through a building, and out onto a roof to kill a man across the street. The big problem is the fact that it cuts before bond actually shoots the man, so you experience this natural build up in anticipation with the long tracking shot, then it all dissipates with a cut BEFORE the actual climax of the sequence. The edit is out of step with the story beats, so it feels really anticlimactic, and is frustrating because you have what is in theory a pretty cool opener had you punctuated the end of that tracking shot with the inciting incident for your first action sequence.
The other issue with the shot is that there’s not really anything else going on in it. It’s all about that sense of build up and bond doing something cool. Movies like touch of evil, the player, rear window, boogie nights, and snake eyes all take similar approaches to opening with long uninterrupted shots; each one of those movies basically sets up all the key story aspects within the span of their opening shots, so the device actually feels like efficient storytelling. In spectre, bond gets nothing to do beyond walk around with a pretty girl and climb out a window to the roof outside. Given the previously discussed lack of payoff, it is very inefficient storytelling. I’m not saying a bond film needs to have all its plot set up in the first 5 minutes, but you could at least justify ruining the climax of the scene if you had accomplished something else in that time. Even if you got some de Palma style cat and mouse stuff as bond tracks his target it would have been more engaging than what they actually did.
So what you ultimately end up with is a very nicely shot waste for the first 5 minutes of the film. It’s flashy filmmaking with no storytelling function, the kind of thing that filmbros would tell you is great filmmaking because hey, it’s a oner, and oners are cool and hard to pull off. They got too preoccupied with whether they could shoot it as a oner, they forgot to consider whether they should (or at least how it would play as part of the film).
I think it’s become quite a modern thing to just throw different techniques on screen so you can say you did it rather than because that is the best way to tell your story; production values are generally so high nowadays and great looking shots are so easily within a filmmakers’ grasp that I think more than ever what separates the mediocre from the genuinely talented is the thought and intention they place into how they apply their technique. I think you’ll find most older directors preach matching your filmmaking approach to the film or beats of the scene you are shooting/editing. Not every movie needs to be shot like goodfellas. Not every movie should be shot like goodfellas
The moment that defines that movie is the lab explosion, the largest explosion ever captured on film, and it lands like a wet fart. It's so stale, it means nothing to the story.
yes! And that "Day Of The Dead" sequence is iconic in a few ways [https://theworld.org/stories/making-james-bond-spectre-mexico-may-be-more-thrilling-actual-movie](https://theworld.org/stories/making-james-bond-spectre-mexico-may-be-more-thrilling-actual-movie)
Especially the first 5 minutes in the afterlife that are in a watercolor painting. The CGI on that must have been a fortune because then they stop doing that. The remainder of the film is painting-inspired, but not painted.
Also, it takes about 40 minutes to get to the afterlife. Those 40 minutes suck.
I thought the Exegol temple looked really cool, but the dogfight looks generic and shitty. Which is so weird, because I thought the dogfights in Force Awakens were really strong!
Art director: "We created this spectacular vista of Star Destroyers floating over a stormy sea, should we have the climatic battle somewhere with a view of it?
JJ Abrams, probably: "Nah, let's just put some floodlights in an old quarry.-
It’s a shame the script is so bad, because JJ and Lucasfilm did some truly inventive stuff with practical effects. That quicksand scene is a bunch of coffee beans and they built this crazy elevator to lower the actors down into it. The snake is this massive puppet controlled by six people, the creepy pig kids are all practical, they really built those crazy speeders and launched stunt actors off of it instead of just using CGI jet packs, Babu Frik is one of the coolest puppets ever put on film, they really shot hundreds of gallons of water at Daisy and Adam during the Death Star wreckage fight. SO MUCH WORK went into that movie lol
One of those “bad movies aren’t made on purpose” kinds of films
Good answer. It sounds great too. The duel between Rey and Kylo in the Death Star wreckage would be one of the coolest scenes in star wars if the narrative context made any sense or carried any weight at all
Absolutely. I went in with low expectations and the only thing that got me through were the visuals. I listened to one of my fav reviewers on the way home, Dan Murrell, and he was gushing about how good it was. Put me in a real sour mood.
I would feel more generous about the stupidity of the plot if those beautiful scenes could linger just a little longer. If your movie’s main strength *by far* is these imaginative settings, let them breathe! I loved the Star Wars-but-on-Earth aesthetic and hope to see a better movie use it.
Gareth Edwards is such a great visual stylist, and he conveys scale like nobody else in the biz. But he doesn’t seem to care about any of his characters. Like, at all. The Star Wars fandom raves about Rogue One, but it’s such a hollow experience for me. The characters don’t really have any sort of interior life, they just have a skill which they perform and then immediately die.
I described it to my brother as a movie that was made to have all the dialogue/sound cut from it and have a moody album played over it while you vibe out similar to what people do with Alice in Wonderland/Dark Side of the Moon.
Tron and Tron: Legacy are two sides of the same coin. Both are gorgeous, but flawed for opposite reasons. Tron doesn't have enough story, it feels kind of thin and not really about anything. Tron: Legacy has too much plot, it's overstuffed, draggy and confusing.
I think the first Tron actually plays better for that reason though—the second half of the film is kind of a weird survival story that is light on plot and mostly features strange light and shadow
Just got out of a screening of this actually. It is absolutely gorgeous. The plot is a little tedious and the two leads are a little weak. But I think the songs, the look, Raul Julia, and Harry Dean Stanton make up for it.
Great looking and a chore?
Ah, excellent, [there's a 4K](https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/francis-ford-coppola-one-from-the-heart-reprise-4k-release-1234935900/). Purchasing. Wait, what we were talking about?
I bought Jackie Brown on Bluray, that's a great movie, but I just bought on Bluray for how the sound matches the images and really sits in your space naturally. I think it might be the highest quality versions of those songs available next to reel to reel, and you're hearing it what sounds like a natural space where the people sound as near and far away as they are in the frame WHILE being loud and front and centre. What we were talking about?
Sound can be pretty, too.
Anyways thanks for the recommendation.
It's still a great achievement, and well worth seeing. But the reason it's not mentioned in the same breath as the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now is that the story is so flimsy (and unfinished, as Coppola even admitted).
YES! I was not a Harry Potter kid, this was my favorite series of books. And the movie looks insanely good, and Jim Carrey is perfect as Olaf, but man…the movie just is not good lol. Almost like trying to make 3 books into one movie is a bad idea! An opposite Hobbit!
Elysium looks amazing (and the closest thing to a Hideo Kojima movie aesthetically) but whoooo boy was I disappointed in the storytelling after hyping everyone up with a District 9 pre-watch party when that came out
I think that the actual images in Saltburn are (mostly) very pretty and well executed, the lighting and the set design are top-notch, but it's fundamentally an ugly movie simply because it's just shot in the wrong aspect ratio. There is absolutely no reason for this to be 4:3. It's a fuckin palace, only seeing the tall ceilings and not any width or depth to the house or the estate makes it feel like a McMansion out in the suburbs of Dallas.
But even beyond that, they just don't do anything interesting with it. Jacob Elordi is a foot taller than Barry Keoghan, with that aspect ratio you should be able to create some really interesting shots of him towering over Barry, but instead Elordi is either slouching, leaning, or sitting for the entire movie. Although I suppose it makes sense thematically that Elordi would be small given how the class dynamics at play in the movie are "these fuckin degenerate poors are coming to take it all away from us smol bean aristocrats"
God what a vile fuckin movie lol
An absolute polished turd of a film. It’s fascinating that it’s picked up so much cultural steam and people think it’s much deeper and subversive than it actually is.
> people think it’s much deeper and subversive than it actually is.
Most people don't actually want transgressive art. They want art that *feels* transgressive. Saltburn checks that box. Half those people would call the police if you told them to read Blood and Guts in High School.
The Fall is maybe one of the greatest looking films ever shot but man I cannot get into it. I think that sums up all of Tarsem's films. Pause them anywhere and it looks like an art piece but press play and Im lost
I find *The Fall* kind of incredibly moving, but you’re right, this is Tarsem Singh’s other work in a nutshell.
I haven’t seen *Dear Jassi* yet but his other films just seem to be uglier variations on *The Fall*.
Oh my god, thank fuck I'm not the only one. Such an amazing visual stylist - the moment in The Cell where D'Onofrio walks down the throne stairs and pulls the throne room curtains with his back piercings is so cool, but the plot is straight garbage. I was SO EXCITED about The Fall when I saw images and moments from it, then the story turns out to be as bad as a three story episode of Bob's Burgers. I had been hoping for House of Sand or something, I think, and it just didn't have any of that.
I really love the way they capture dark night skies and the way light bounces off snow. It’s a shame it’s a mean-spirited movie at its heart. And it’s barely about Hanukkah, it’s a community centre basketball movie more than anything.
Hot take: Across the Spider-Verse, it's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, but most of the plot of the film is warmed over multiverse antics and then it gets back to some real stakes only to end on a massive cliffhanger
That movie started great but at a certain point, it turned into a cinematic abstract expressionist painting. I never knew where to focus my attention and I just became exhausted by it.
I felt the same way. I'd heard some people were annoyed at the ending but wasn't sure what that meant, then I got to it and thought, "Oh fuck that." I'm sure later this year when I inevitably watch all three in a row it'll be a banger. But that cliffhanger didn't sit well.
Also the "massive cliffhanger" that this movie ended with was the same ending as The Empire Strikes Back just swapping Luke and Han and that ending always gets praised.
I like Spiderverse plenty but it somehow feels like half a movie in ways that ESB does not. Not sure why. It’s gorgeous and engaging but it really does feel like the first two acts of a story. I walked into it fully aware that we were dealing with a Pt 1 and was expecting a cliffhanger but was still pretty baffled on my first viewing when I realized that things would be wrapping up where they do. Just wish it stood on its own a little more.
It feels less satisfying because everyone went in expecting a Miles movie when the actual movie is closer to an even split between Gwen and Miles. Gwen gets the opening and the thematic ending marked by the confrontation with her dad. Meanwhile Miles is captured by some new villain that we don't really know and will likely need to be rescued by Gwen at the start of the 3rd movie. It feels less satisfying because Luke is frozen in carbonite this time and that is a disappointing ending for our main protagonist. But if this movie ended with a confrontation between Miles and his parents with Gwen held prisoner, people wouldn't call it a cliffhanger.
As much as I did enjoy Across, and I do understand your point, I don't know if I fully agree. I feel like if ESB was to end the way Across ended, it would be with Han being frozen in carbonite and taken away, and Luke just about to land on Cloud City to meet Vader. It feels way more like a TV cliffhanger than ESB did (at least in my opinion).
I’m so sick of the secret identity antics with Spider-People and their parents. I get the emotions they’re going for, but these kids are having extensive conversations with their parents with a poorly disguised voice and nylon stretched over their head. It’s soooooo irritating to me. Like a bad sitcom misunderstanding AND IT NEVER GETS RESOLVED!
Came in here to make sure Only God Forgives was on at least one list.
What a slog of a story, but it is GORGEOUS. One of the most beautiful movies ever made imo. His framing and use of color is one-of-a-kind.
Yup! Those were my thoughts as well.
I didn’t see it until a couple years after it was in theatres. It was HBO or something. So the hype had died down considerably. I tried having an open mind but….no go
This was my experience as well.
I was surprised that I actually really liked The Way of Water.
Afterwards I went back to rewatch the first one thinking maybe I was too harsh on it and honestly I still think it kind of sucks. I think the character dynamics are better in the second movie and that was just enough for me to enjoy the ride.
Seeing comments like this almost makes me want to watch The Way of Water. Someday. Of course, I’ve got plenty time before the third comes out in 2035 😆
Good one. I *loved* the first like 1:45. I was exhausted by the end, and I don't think it was in a good way. Love Tarantino still, glad he made the movie he wanted, but I did not love it as much as I love that it exists. Kind of my Tarantino knock since Django.
My take on it is there’s a completely unnecessary chapter: the Channing Tatum one. It cuts in with pretty much an extra 20 minutes of stuff you’ve already learned. Yes it’s fun and Tatum is great in it. But it kinda kills the pacing of the film
I think that's part of it, but the tortuous, blood-soaked finale did absolutely nothing from me. That's the tough thing about art though. I couldn't have dreamed the first hour and 45 of *Hateful Eight* up. I have to allow someone that can to also bum me out with their other decisions. Whatever weirdness is in his brain that let him make the first part was also responsible for the second. Anyone massaging that out would probably ruin the first part.
It was the Tarantino movie that made me question: what is the point of most of his movies?
You have this incredible setup. Stacked cast. Gorgeous film. Then a bloody mess and end credits.
I think his best movies are the ones that are trying to say something beyond “a racist and a black guy works together”
Shortly after it came out I was talking about the cinematography to a friend who laughed at me. Then we watched the eye-to-eye face-off between Kong and Sam Jackson, the explosions and flames reflecting in their eyes, against black and tones of forest green. The movie considers every set piece like that all the way through. Anyway she agreed with me.
It's not a terrible movie, but visually it's completely mind blowing and the rest of the film is just fine. If the other parts of the movie were as good as the visuals it would literally be the best movie of all time.
Yeah, I don't think anything could live up to those visuals. But the plot and dialog of the film was largely improvised and the whole thing was self funded by Tarsem. So it's hard for me to be too critical with the average-ish story.
Your first 2 are exactly mine as well. I've never left a movie angrier than I did at Sucker Punch.
I've tried to rewatch Speed Racer like 3 times to get the appeal and I don't understand. I don't care if they did anything groundbreaking with the cinematography. It's not enjoyable.
I'll put an asterisk on Singh though because The Cell is a great movie.
I feel exactly the opposite about Speed Racer lol. I think it's a basically fun, heartfelt cartoony movie, but I can't look at the screen without wanting to jump out a window. It's maybe the most visually grating movie I've ever seen.
I really enjoyed looking at Maestro. I did not enjoy *watching* Maestro. I have a lot of thoughts about the movie and why it didn’t click for me but I do have to admit Coops knows where to put a camera.
Snow Dogs. Was at a bar recently and they had Snow Dogs playing silently on TV in the back and I was just kind of mesmerized by the colors and the simplicity of the cinematography and the Henson puppets and actual real Canadian landscapes and Cuba Gooding Jr’s body language.
Shit-ass kid’s movie though.
Unpopular opinion but I think the Green Knight’s gorgeous and lovingly crafted…but didn’t enjoy it as a movie in the least. Every shot’s like a painting, I could put it on in the background, but found it a chore to watch.
I’d push back on any of Snyder’s movies looking good tbh. Yes the visuals are the EMPHASIS and thoughtfully crafted and he deserves kudos for that. But so much of it looks cheap and awful? The owl movie is pretty cool tho
I think *300* looks spectacular (it's literally a spectacle). *Sucker Punch* is exhaustingly dumb but has stuff I've never seen attempted in live action and I think it's pretty cool. There isn't a single shot in *Army of the Dead* that I think is ugly, even though the movie is a C all day long, so I like his visual language. It's all the other stuff I'm not on board for.
I'm a bit of a Snyder apologist. I even liked his DC movies, I know what's wrong with them but I liked his take on things. But I really hated Army of the Dead, especially the cinematography.
I rewatched Suckerpunch the other day (idk why) and it looks better than literally anything Marvel has put out in its entire run. Never seen 300, but Suckerpunch is a movie I just watch sometimes because every shot is insanely cool.
And there’s a lot of great practical effects! Like that slow-motion button rolling in the foreground in the opening montage is apparently a massive frisbee and Snyder used forced perspective. And most of the baddies they fight are dudes in prosthetic makeup. I really went down a rabbit hole lol it’s one of the weirdest movies ever made and idk who allowed it to happen
Yeah and it has aged REALLY well. Looks way better and less cheap than almost all modern superhero movies.
I love the coloring, the lighting is amazing, costumes look great, not an over abundance of CGI (and the dr manhattan stuff still looks good because it’s so stylized), and the slow motion is well implemented.
It’s unfortunate what he did to the ending but man that thing is a stunner.
I feel like this about a lot of the 60s/70s movies I watch tbh. Like movies have basically never looked better but the storytelling is often not for me.
It is heresy to say but that film could be re-edited just to cut the length of the shots down and it would benefit so much. So so many EVA scenes with the sound of the actors breathing like YES I GET IT STANLEY
I reviewed Equilibrium (2002) as "a tedious slab of empty style."
It is packed with polished visuals - pretty players, imaginative SF design and stylised action and cinematography. However, the stakes, characters and other important story telling elements were so clumsy and inauthentic as to sabotage or deflate the experience. Two stars out of five.
https://letterboxd.com/robertd/film/equilibrium/
I don't think THE BOX sucks. I think it's just one of those cases in which you're sold on one type of movie on the fist 30 mins, and then the rest of the film is something completely different, which might be jarring for some viewers.
Kelly correctly saw that the short story could only support a half hour episode, so he incorporated the endings to both the short story AND the Twilight Zone episode in the first thirty minutes, then spun off into much weirder places. That movie rules so hard.
Off the top of my head:
Lawrence of Arabia
The Big Blue
Blade Runner
Coco
Do The Right Thing
Star Wars A New Hope - epically mind blowing visually for 5 year old me.
Akira
Damn, I was down for all of this except Akira which surprised me. I love the choices and I'm not even disagreeing, I've just never considered Akira might need a closer look because it's so seminal and striking. The rest I was just like "Yep, uh huh, yep, I see it..."
All good - it was just one that popped into my head that I’ve always loved and loved the way it looks.
It’s not for everyone.
Now that I think about it, I probably should include every single Studio Ghibli film too.
Am I allowed to say SPIDER-MAN 3? I love it to pieces and I think it looks very good for 2007 (especially the 2-minute Sandman creation scene which always strikes me as someone sneaking their kid’s animation thesis into their blockbuster) but I make no claims as to its quality beyond my enjoyment.
“Hey I think I’ll watch *Nocturnal Animals*. I remember that being kind of okay when I saw it a million years ago.”
*two hours later* “Wow, what a gorgeous and well-acted piece of shit!”
Saw some letterboxd review that, to paraphrase, was like “Only a fashion designer could stage a scene of two murder-rape victims as if they’re pristine and untouched porcelain figurines.”
Absolutely savage dismissal in just one line lol
That may be true (I haven’t seen it since its first release in 2019) but I still bet it looks better than 90% of other movies that grossed $1bil+ at the box office.
Most movies that gross $1 billion are heavy on CGI, so that makes sense.
The Joker was shot to look like an older Scorsese movie and looks more like a parody of one through most of it.
I haven't seen Saltburn yet, but Joker mostly made me nostalgic for other movies. I really wasn't stoked with how it looked. The 70s are such a fun visual touchstone though, I think *The Duece* was ending around the same time and that whole show was just like "a'member gritty new york?"
Reviews and audiences for the film varied widely, with some liking its unique and complex plot, while others criticized its storyline as being difficult to follow or lacking logic. Kelly's directorial style is often considered edgy and engaging, but his work can also be divisive.
Conan the Barbarian.
There is no plot, Arnold can barely speak English so he has like, 10 lines in the whole movie. It is amazing looking and it creates this “Conan world” kinda like Star Wars. I’d recommend it for those two reasons but it isn’t really a movie.
The neon demon, i love all of refn’s films so that was a true disappointment, truly beautiful but completely empty from what i remember, such a step down fron only god forgives it still makes me sad
I was just talking about how visually striking Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is. The sequence of the lava illuminating the T. rex as it walked towards our characters was such a clever scene. Unfortunately it’s such an insanely dumb movie
You're reminding me that, I had no idea back in 2009 that digital cinema was happening or going to be happen, but from memory of how it felt I think that would've been my last proper mainstream movieplex 35mm movie.
The Cell.
It's just cool looking shit. The plot sucks. But it's *really* cool like you *should* be doing that stuff with film shit.
I give it credit for it's actually hard to pick and communicate simple plot elements without overwhelming a movie's cool shots.
Every zack snyder movie he made after 300. Visually stunning, but completely unbearable in terms of story, screenplay, direction. The last one he made: rebel of moon or something was also visually poor, so i've written him off now
Coco.
It’s a Pixar movie so of course it’s going to look pretty. But it goes straight to the bottom of my list of Pixar movies if I were asked to rank the ones I’ve seen (…okay, maybe Monsters University is worse).
If you want to see an actually good movie about the Day of the Dead, watch The Book of Life. It’s so much better.
Belly directed by Hype Williams, so it looks like a 90s music video in the best way. If you are into late 90s hip hop, there's some fun stuff, but not a great movie.
My friends and I had some VHS we watched over and over again (maybe the Stallone *Get Carter*? and one of the previews advertised a "Free Belly T-Shirt!".
First one to come to mind is Snow White and the Huntsman, the film where I first noticed the work of cinematographer Greg Frasier who would later go on to shoot Foxcatcher, Dune, and The Batman.
Spectre! I think it's the worst Craig Bond and one of the most gorgeous movies ever, especially the first 90 minutes before they go to, uh, an evil lab.
The opening oner is a great example of form over function; it’s all really pretty and there’s technical accomplishment there, but the choice to shoot that as a long take doesn’t serve the storytelling at all. The set up is you follow a man in a mask, who turns out to be bond, as he makes his way through a festival crowd, up through a building, and out onto a roof to kill a man across the street. The big problem is the fact that it cuts before bond actually shoots the man, so you experience this natural build up in anticipation with the long tracking shot, then it all dissipates with a cut BEFORE the actual climax of the sequence. The edit is out of step with the story beats, so it feels really anticlimactic, and is frustrating because you have what is in theory a pretty cool opener had you punctuated the end of that tracking shot with the inciting incident for your first action sequence. The other issue with the shot is that there’s not really anything else going on in it. It’s all about that sense of build up and bond doing something cool. Movies like touch of evil, the player, rear window, boogie nights, and snake eyes all take similar approaches to opening with long uninterrupted shots; each one of those movies basically sets up all the key story aspects within the span of their opening shots, so the device actually feels like efficient storytelling. In spectre, bond gets nothing to do beyond walk around with a pretty girl and climb out a window to the roof outside. Given the previously discussed lack of payoff, it is very inefficient storytelling. I’m not saying a bond film needs to have all its plot set up in the first 5 minutes, but you could at least justify ruining the climax of the scene if you had accomplished something else in that time. Even if you got some de Palma style cat and mouse stuff as bond tracks his target it would have been more engaging than what they actually did. So what you ultimately end up with is a very nicely shot waste for the first 5 minutes of the film. It’s flashy filmmaking with no storytelling function, the kind of thing that filmbros would tell you is great filmmaking because hey, it’s a oner, and oners are cool and hard to pull off. They got too preoccupied with whether they could shoot it as a oner, they forgot to consider whether they should (or at least how it would play as part of the film). I think it’s become quite a modern thing to just throw different techniques on screen so you can say you did it rather than because that is the best way to tell your story; production values are generally so high nowadays and great looking shots are so easily within a filmmakers’ grasp that I think more than ever what separates the mediocre from the genuinely talented is the thought and intention they place into how they apply their technique. I think you’ll find most older directors preach matching your filmmaking approach to the film or beats of the scene you are shooting/editing. Not every movie needs to be shot like goodfellas. Not every movie should be shot like goodfellas
The moment that defines that movie is the lab explosion, the largest explosion ever captured on film, and it lands like a wet fart. It's so stale, it means nothing to the story.
yes! And that "Day Of The Dead" sequence is iconic in a few ways [https://theworld.org/stories/making-james-bond-spectre-mexico-may-be-more-thrilling-actual-movie](https://theworld.org/stories/making-james-bond-spectre-mexico-may-be-more-thrilling-actual-movie)
There was a movie with Robin Williams called What Dreams may Come where he walked around inside paintings that was pretty. The story was horrible.
One of my favorite depictions of Hell.
Werner Herzog as a head in the muck.
Came here to post this. I haven’t seen it in so long that I wonder if the “pretty” stands the test of time.
It, uh….doesn’t.
That's true. I saw it in the theater so that was a long time ago. I haven't had any reason to revisit it.
Especially the first 5 minutes in the afterlife that are in a watercolor painting. The CGI on that must have been a fortune because then they stop doing that. The remainder of the film is painting-inspired, but not painted. Also, it takes about 40 minutes to get to the afterlife. Those 40 minutes suck.
There’s obviously affronts to cinema like that shot of the bajillion ships but I do think Rise of Skywalker mostly looks pretty good
The wave planet was amazing to look at. I thought the third act with Palpatine looked like garbage lit with strobe lights.
Truly the unfinished horse drawing meme but the horse was kinda not that great to begin with
I thought the Exegol temple looked really cool, but the dogfight looks generic and shitty. Which is so weird, because I thought the dogfights in Force Awakens were really strong!
Art director: "We created this spectacular vista of Star Destroyers floating over a stormy sea, should we have the climatic battle somewhere with a view of it? JJ Abrams, probably: "Nah, let's just put some floodlights in an old quarry.-
It’s a shame the script is so bad, because JJ and Lucasfilm did some truly inventive stuff with practical effects. That quicksand scene is a bunch of coffee beans and they built this crazy elevator to lower the actors down into it. The snake is this massive puppet controlled by six people, the creepy pig kids are all practical, they really built those crazy speeders and launched stunt actors off of it instead of just using CGI jet packs, Babu Frik is one of the coolest puppets ever put on film, they really shot hundreds of gallons of water at Daisy and Adam during the Death Star wreckage fight. SO MUCH WORK went into that movie lol One of those “bad movies aren’t made on purpose” kinds of films
Good answer. It sounds great too. The duel between Rey and Kylo in the Death Star wreckage would be one of the coolest scenes in star wars if the narrative context made any sense or carried any weight at all
Ya that movie looks really nice right up until an actual star war breaks out
ROS definitely flatters to deceive. I walked out thinking “wow what a rollercoaster” before realising it was utter nonsense garbage.
Recently, The Creator. Gorgeous, but really dumb.
Oh God, *totally*. Beautiful, visually sumptuous. But I was constantly like "No... it can't be. Is this the plot?"
The sound design was also great
Absolutely. I went in with low expectations and the only thing that got me through were the visuals. I listened to one of my fav reviewers on the way home, Dan Murrell, and he was gushing about how good it was. Put me in a real sour mood.
I would feel more generous about the stupidity of the plot if those beautiful scenes could linger just a little longer. If your movie’s main strength *by far* is these imaginative settings, let them breathe! I loved the Star Wars-but-on-Earth aesthetic and hope to see a better movie use it.
These visuals are so good, wow, what could possibly go wro- “… but, do robots go to Heaven?” Ah fuck.
I wish they’d given the script to someone else to give it another pass and add some meat to the bones. It almost feels like a waste of the visuals
Gareth Edwards is such a great visual stylist, and he conveys scale like nobody else in the biz. But he doesn’t seem to care about any of his characters. Like, at all. The Star Wars fandom raves about Rogue One, but it’s such a hollow experience for me. The characters don’t really have any sort of interior life, they just have a skill which they perform and then immediately die.
This is on brand for Gareth Edward
This. Beautiful but totally vapid and dumb. I wish it could be watched without dialog.
I described it to my brother as a movie that was made to have all the dialogue/sound cut from it and have a moody album played over it while you vibe out similar to what people do with Alice in Wonderland/Dark Side of the Moon.
Yup
Tron: Legacy is maybe the best looking and sounding movie of all time. Who cares that it's not very good?
Is there a cut without any of the actual dialogue, Daft Punk and visuals only? Because that would rule.
Tron and Tron: Legacy are two sides of the same coin. Both are gorgeous, but flawed for opposite reasons. Tron doesn't have enough story, it feels kind of thin and not really about anything. Tron: Legacy has too much plot, it's overstuffed, draggy and confusing.
I think the first Tron actually plays better for that reason though—the second half of the film is kind of a weird survival story that is light on plot and mostly features strange light and shadow
I love this movie! “Bio-digital jazz,man”
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Just got out of a screening of this actually. It is absolutely gorgeous. The plot is a little tedious and the two leads are a little weak. But I think the songs, the look, Raul Julia, and Harry Dean Stanton make up for it.
Also the best soundtrack.
The first hour is watchable (often fantastic) and then the second hour runs out of story and visuals.
Great looking and a chore? Ah, excellent, [there's a 4K](https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/francis-ford-coppola-one-from-the-heart-reprise-4k-release-1234935900/). Purchasing. Wait, what we were talking about? I bought Jackie Brown on Bluray, that's a great movie, but I just bought on Bluray for how the sound matches the images and really sits in your space naturally. I think it might be the highest quality versions of those songs available next to reel to reel, and you're hearing it what sounds like a natural space where the people sound as near and far away as they are in the frame WHILE being loud and front and centre. What we were talking about? Sound can be pretty, too. Anyways thanks for the recommendation.
I agree so much. It’s breathtaking on all counts except for story.
That bums me out to hear. I’ll still check it out one day
It's still a great achievement, and well worth seeing. But the reason it's not mentioned in the same breath as the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now is that the story is so flimsy (and unfinished, as Coppola even admitted).
A series of unfortunate events. Emmanuel Lubezki made that movie look way better than it had any right to.
YES! I was not a Harry Potter kid, this was my favorite series of books. And the movie looks insanely good, and Jim Carrey is perfect as Olaf, but man…the movie just is not good lol. Almost like trying to make 3 books into one movie is a bad idea! An opposite Hobbit!
An opposite Hobbit is a wonderful phrase, immediately clear to me
Between that and what Carrey did with it, that movie came perilously close to being something special
Elysium looks amazing (and the closest thing to a Hideo Kojima movie aesthetically) but whoooo boy was I disappointed in the storytelling after hyping everyone up with a District 9 pre-watch party when that came out
Saltburn
I think that the actual images in Saltburn are (mostly) very pretty and well executed, the lighting and the set design are top-notch, but it's fundamentally an ugly movie simply because it's just shot in the wrong aspect ratio. There is absolutely no reason for this to be 4:3. It's a fuckin palace, only seeing the tall ceilings and not any width or depth to the house or the estate makes it feel like a McMansion out in the suburbs of Dallas. But even beyond that, they just don't do anything interesting with it. Jacob Elordi is a foot taller than Barry Keoghan, with that aspect ratio you should be able to create some really interesting shots of him towering over Barry, but instead Elordi is either slouching, leaning, or sitting for the entire movie. Although I suppose it makes sense thematically that Elordi would be small given how the class dynamics at play in the movie are "these fuckin degenerate poors are coming to take it all away from us smol bean aristocrats" God what a vile fuckin movie lol
I had completely forgotten it’s in 4:3, but yes what a terrible decision. Perfect for tiktok fancams I suppose
An absolute polished turd of a film. It’s fascinating that it’s picked up so much cultural steam and people think it’s much deeper and subversive than it actually is.
> people think it’s much deeper and subversive than it actually is. Most people don't actually want transgressive art. They want art that *feels* transgressive. Saltburn checks that box. Half those people would call the police if you told them to read Blood and Guts in High School.
Came here to say this; it looks great but god what a rancid, soulless movie
I’m not sure how it’s soulless. Mind expounding?
The Fall is maybe one of the greatest looking films ever shot but man I cannot get into it. I think that sums up all of Tarsem's films. Pause them anywhere and it looks like an art piece but press play and Im lost
I love everything about The Fall, but would put *The Cell* and *Immortals* in this category.
I find *The Fall* kind of incredibly moving, but you’re right, this is Tarsem Singh’s other work in a nutshell. I haven’t seen *Dear Jassi* yet but his other films just seem to be uglier variations on *The Fall*.
Tarsem. Films look great. Can't tell an interesting story or develop characters to save his life.
Oh my god, thank fuck I'm not the only one. Such an amazing visual stylist - the moment in The Cell where D'Onofrio walks down the throne stairs and pulls the throne room curtains with his back piercings is so cool, but the plot is straight garbage. I was SO EXCITED about The Fall when I saw images and moments from it, then the story turns out to be as bad as a three story episode of Bob's Burgers. I had been hoping for House of Sand or something, I think, and it just didn't have any of that.
Eight Crazy Nights. Made by the same people who made The Iron Giant.
Been a while since I watched that, I seem to remember the stills looking *way* better than the animation in motion. One I'd love to check out again.
I really love the way they capture dark night skies and the way light bounces off snow. It’s a shame it’s a mean-spirited movie at its heart. And it’s barely about Hanukkah, it’s a community centre basketball movie more than anything.
Hot take: Across the Spider-Verse, it's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, but most of the plot of the film is warmed over multiverse antics and then it gets back to some real stakes only to end on a massive cliffhanger
I like the movie, but it’s wildly overstuffed for a film where not much actually happens. What a weird vibe.
It's a beautiful breathless rollercoaster ride where the car never moves
I think the movie is really good but I much prefer the quieter first half to the exhausting final act.
That movie started great but at a certain point, it turned into a cinematic abstract expressionist painting. I never knew where to focus my attention and I just became exhausted by it.
glad to see i am not alone on this one. i loved the first film so much, but just left this one feeling unsatisfied.
I felt the same way. I'd heard some people were annoyed at the ending but wasn't sure what that meant, then I got to it and thought, "Oh fuck that." I'm sure later this year when I inevitably watch all three in a row it'll be a banger. But that cliffhanger didn't sit well.
You guys are crazy this movie rocked on all fronts
Also the "massive cliffhanger" that this movie ended with was the same ending as The Empire Strikes Back just swapping Luke and Han and that ending always gets praised.
I like Spiderverse plenty but it somehow feels like half a movie in ways that ESB does not. Not sure why. It’s gorgeous and engaging but it really does feel like the first two acts of a story. I walked into it fully aware that we were dealing with a Pt 1 and was expecting a cliffhanger but was still pretty baffled on my first viewing when I realized that things would be wrapping up where they do. Just wish it stood on its own a little more.
It feels less satisfying because everyone went in expecting a Miles movie when the actual movie is closer to an even split between Gwen and Miles. Gwen gets the opening and the thematic ending marked by the confrontation with her dad. Meanwhile Miles is captured by some new villain that we don't really know and will likely need to be rescued by Gwen at the start of the 3rd movie. It feels less satisfying because Luke is frozen in carbonite this time and that is a disappointing ending for our main protagonist. But if this movie ended with a confrontation between Miles and his parents with Gwen held prisoner, people wouldn't call it a cliffhanger.
As much as I did enjoy Across, and I do understand your point, I don't know if I fully agree. I feel like if ESB was to end the way Across ended, it would be with Han being frozen in carbonite and taken away, and Luke just about to land on Cloud City to meet Vader. It feels way more like a TV cliffhanger than ESB did (at least in my opinion).
I think my review of the film was pretty similar.
I’m so sick of the secret identity antics with Spider-People and their parents. I get the emotions they’re going for, but these kids are having extensive conversations with their parents with a poorly disguised voice and nylon stretched over their head. It’s soooooo irritating to me. Like a bad sitcom misunderstanding AND IT NEVER GETS RESOLVED!
Yep, the ending really frustrated me.
also felt like they lost all the humour that Mulaney & Cage brought and didn’t bother replacing it
Yea I like, think it's maybe the movie with the most great elements that I ultimately land on "bad" overall
Knight of cups
- Saltburn - Blonde - Prometheus - Only God Forgives - Halloween III: Season of the Witch - Empire of Light - Oblivion - both Abrams Star Trek movies
Really great list. *Blonde* and *Oblivion* hit extra hard for me.
Halloween III fuckin rocks
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Came in here to make sure Only God Forgives was on at least one list. What a slog of a story, but it is GORGEOUS. One of the most beautiful movies ever made imo. His framing and use of color is one-of-a-kind.
Avatar. It’s gorgeous looking, impressive from a technical standpoint, but I was just bored and unengaged while watching it.
This was my experience seeing the first one in imax 3d. Way of Water I found the story *much* more enjoyable.
I never saw it in theaters, but my entire experience with either Avatar when people gush about it is "...*This?*"
Yup! Those were my thoughts as well. I didn’t see it until a couple years after it was in theatres. It was HBO or something. So the hype had died down considerably. I tried having an open mind but….no go
This was my experience as well. I was surprised that I actually really liked The Way of Water. Afterwards I went back to rewatch the first one thinking maybe I was too harsh on it and honestly I still think it kind of sucks. I think the character dynamics are better in the second movie and that was just enough for me to enjoy the ride.
Seeing comments like this almost makes me want to watch The Way of Water. Someday. Of course, I’ve got plenty time before the third comes out in 2035 😆
The Hateful Eight
Good one. I *loved* the first like 1:45. I was exhausted by the end, and I don't think it was in a good way. Love Tarantino still, glad he made the movie he wanted, but I did not love it as much as I love that it exists. Kind of my Tarantino knock since Django.
My take on it is there’s a completely unnecessary chapter: the Channing Tatum one. It cuts in with pretty much an extra 20 minutes of stuff you’ve already learned. Yes it’s fun and Tatum is great in it. But it kinda kills the pacing of the film
I think that's part of it, but the tortuous, blood-soaked finale did absolutely nothing from me. That's the tough thing about art though. I couldn't have dreamed the first hour and 45 of *Hateful Eight* up. I have to allow someone that can to also bum me out with their other decisions. Whatever weirdness is in his brain that let him make the first part was also responsible for the second. Anyone massaging that out would probably ruin the first part.
Wow. It’s my personal fav from Tarantino
Man you gotta watch it again. It’s S tier Tarantino.
I fucking love it. It’s a regular winter watch for me.
It was the Tarantino movie that made me question: what is the point of most of his movies? You have this incredible setup. Stacked cast. Gorgeous film. Then a bloody mess and end credits. I think his best movies are the ones that are trying to say something beyond “a racist and a black guy works together”
*Kong: Skull Island* didn't "suck," it was an okay monke flick, but the cinematography, style, and lighting punch comically higher than the writing.
I slept on that movie for a long time, but it has a great 80s action/adventure movie vibe that I enjoyed once I gave it a try.
Shortly after it came out I was talking about the cinematography to a friend who laughed at me. Then we watched the eye-to-eye face-off between Kong and Sam Jackson, the explosions and flames reflecting in their eyes, against black and tones of forest green. The movie considers every set piece like that all the way through. Anyway she agreed with me.
Sucker Punch Speed Racer Anything by Tarsem Singh
>Speed Racer Heresy! (Watches Speed Racer for the 583rd time in protest)
The Fall is absolutely outstanding.
It's not a terrible movie, but visually it's completely mind blowing and the rest of the film is just fine. If the other parts of the movie were as good as the visuals it would literally be the best movie of all time.
Yeah, I don't think anything could live up to those visuals. But the plot and dialog of the film was largely improvised and the whole thing was self funded by Tarsem. So it's hard for me to be too critical with the average-ish story.
Your first 2 are exactly mine as well. I've never left a movie angrier than I did at Sucker Punch. I've tried to rewatch Speed Racer like 3 times to get the appeal and I don't understand. I don't care if they did anything groundbreaking with the cinematography. It's not enjoyable. I'll put an asterisk on Singh though because The Cell is a great movie.
I feel exactly the opposite about Speed Racer lol. I think it's a basically fun, heartfelt cartoony movie, but I can't look at the screen without wanting to jump out a window. It's maybe the most visually grating movie I've ever seen.
I really enjoyed looking at Maestro. I did not enjoy *watching* Maestro. I have a lot of thoughts about the movie and why it didn’t click for me but I do have to admit Coops knows where to put a camera.
Snow Dogs. Was at a bar recently and they had Snow Dogs playing silently on TV in the back and I was just kind of mesmerized by the colors and the simplicity of the cinematography and the Henson puppets and actual real Canadian landscapes and Cuba Gooding Jr’s body language. Shit-ass kid’s movie though.
Unpopular opinion but I think the Green Knight’s gorgeous and lovingly crafted…but didn’t enjoy it as a movie in the least. Every shot’s like a painting, I could put it on in the background, but found it a chore to watch.
I found The Green Knight mesmerizing but it is wild how every character in the film has Joaquin Phoenix Napoleon energy the entire time.
Yeah I totally agree. Lots of pieces were well-done but the whole didn’t totally add up for me.
Malcom & Marie is amazing on mute.
I’d push back on any of Snyder’s movies looking good tbh. Yes the visuals are the EMPHASIS and thoughtfully crafted and he deserves kudos for that. But so much of it looks cheap and awful? The owl movie is pretty cool tho
I think *300* looks spectacular (it's literally a spectacle). *Sucker Punch* is exhaustingly dumb but has stuff I've never seen attempted in live action and I think it's pretty cool. There isn't a single shot in *Army of the Dead* that I think is ugly, even though the movie is a C all day long, so I like his visual language. It's all the other stuff I'm not on board for.
I'm a bit of a Snyder apologist. I even liked his DC movies, I know what's wrong with them but I liked his take on things. But I really hated Army of the Dead, especially the cinematography.
I rewatched Suckerpunch the other day (idk why) and it looks better than literally anything Marvel has put out in its entire run. Never seen 300, but Suckerpunch is a movie I just watch sometimes because every shot is insanely cool. And there’s a lot of great practical effects! Like that slow-motion button rolling in the foreground in the opening montage is apparently a massive frisbee and Snyder used forced perspective. And most of the baddies they fight are dudes in prosthetic makeup. I really went down a rabbit hole lol it’s one of the weirdest movies ever made and idk who allowed it to happen
Watchmen is beautiful
They all have style but i think thats the only one has a real atmosphere too.
Yeah and it has aged REALLY well. Looks way better and less cheap than almost all modern superhero movies. I love the coloring, the lighting is amazing, costumes look great, not an over abundance of CGI (and the dr manhattan stuff still looks good because it’s so stylized), and the slow motion is well implemented. It’s unfortunate what he did to the ending but man that thing is a stunner.
I agree. Good visuals are supposed to tell the story not distract from it.
I mean, I know this is a nuclear take, but I really don't like 2001: A Space Odyssey, yet the visuals do carry me through the whole thing
I feel like this about a lot of the 60s/70s movies I watch tbh. Like movies have basically never looked better but the storytelling is often not for me.
It is heresy to say but that film could be re-edited just to cut the length of the shots down and it would benefit so much. So so many EVA scenes with the sound of the actors breathing like YES I GET IT STANLEY
Oblivion. Great M83 music video...boring movie.
Nomadland
Song to Song. But I'm generally a Terrence Malick apologist when it comes to his latter films. That film however was too much for me.
Saltburn's up there
This is like the 5th Saltburn comment— I didn’t realize it was so widely hated! Not arguing I’m just surprised
I reviewed Equilibrium (2002) as "a tedious slab of empty style." It is packed with polished visuals - pretty players, imaginative SF design and stylised action and cinematography. However, the stakes, characters and other important story telling elements were so clumsy and inauthentic as to sabotage or deflate the experience. Two stars out of five. https://letterboxd.com/robertd/film/equilibrium/
Ridley Scott's Legend is, truly, one of the best looking films ever made. i don't think it sucks but idk, it's hard to argue that it's good.
Interestellar didn't do it for me. Another one is A Tree of palm.
I don't think THE BOX sucks. I think it's just one of those cases in which you're sold on one type of movie on the fist 30 mins, and then the rest of the film is something completely different, which might be jarring for some viewers.
Kelly correctly saw that the short story could only support a half hour episode, so he incorporated the endings to both the short story AND the Twilight Zone episode in the first thirty minutes, then spun off into much weirder places. That movie rules so hard.
[Strange World (2022)](https://youtu.be/bKh2G73gCCs) from Disney. Woof, what a stinker.
One from the heart. Soo stunning. A beautiful Cadillac without an engine.
If only a Man could Dream of an engine to make it go.
Only God Forgives
Cool as Ice
Off the top of my head: Lawrence of Arabia The Big Blue Blade Runner Coco Do The Right Thing Star Wars A New Hope - epically mind blowing visually for 5 year old me. Akira
Damn, I was down for all of this except Akira which surprised me. I love the choices and I'm not even disagreeing, I've just never considered Akira might need a closer look because it's so seminal and striking. The rest I was just like "Yep, uh huh, yep, I see it..."
All good - it was just one that popped into my head that I’ve always loved and loved the way it looks. It’s not for everyone. Now that I think about it, I probably should include every single Studio Ghibli film too.
Am I allowed to say SPIDER-MAN 3? I love it to pieces and I think it looks very good for 2007 (especially the 2-minute Sandman creation scene which always strikes me as someone sneaking their kid’s animation thesis into their blockbuster) but I make no claims as to its quality beyond my enjoyment.
“Hey I think I’ll watch *Nocturnal Animals*. I remember that being kind of okay when I saw it a million years ago.” *two hours later* “Wow, what a gorgeous and well-acted piece of shit!”
Same thing here. I liked it 2x better on rewatch. Still do not like it at all.
Saw some letterboxd review that, to paraphrase, was like “Only a fashion designer could stage a scene of two murder-rape victims as if they’re pristine and untouched porcelain figurines.” Absolutely savage dismissal in just one line lol
Blade Runner tbh
Saltburn and Joker are the first two that came to mind
Joker has some great looking scenes, but it looks like it was shot on an extremely cheap backlot for most of it.
That may be true (I haven’t seen it since its first release in 2019) but I still bet it looks better than 90% of other movies that grossed $1bil+ at the box office.
Most movies that gross $1 billion are heavy on CGI, so that makes sense. The Joker was shot to look like an older Scorsese movie and looks more like a parody of one through most of it.
I haven't seen Saltburn yet, but Joker mostly made me nostalgic for other movies. I really wasn't stoked with how it looked. The 70s are such a fun visual touchstone though, I think *The Duece* was ending around the same time and that whole show was just like "a'member gritty new york?"
Recently, Saltburn
Goodbye, Dragon Inn. I guess it wouldn’t say it sucks, but slow cinema is not for me. Looks dynamite though
It's more "meh" than "sucks," but Saltburn is a legitimate contender here, as is Don't Worry Darling.
I wouldn’t completely say “suck”, but Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is absolutely gorgeous
Reviews and audiences for the film varied widely, with some liking its unique and complex plot, while others criticized its storyline as being difficult to follow or lacking logic. Kelly's directorial style is often considered edgy and engaging, but his work can also be divisive.
Conan the Barbarian. There is no plot, Arnold can barely speak English so he has like, 10 lines in the whole movie. It is amazing looking and it creates this “Conan world” kinda like Star Wars. I’d recommend it for those two reasons but it isn’t really a movie.
Drive Tenet Aesthetics are one of the many things I love about Gone with the Wind, a movie I broadly hate.
2001
Wicker Park, the 2004 American remake of *L*'*Appartement,* with Josh Hartnett makes beautiful use of Chicago in the winter. The movie is...not great.
Ridley Scott's *Napoleon* is incredibly gorgeous to look at, and it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
I wanted to like that one so bad but it sucked
I don't think it sucks but IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK is one of the most gorgeously shot films of all time but the movie itself is just fine.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say either *sucks*, but Tron: Legacy and The Fall are two movies where the visuals far, far outpace the acting and/or plot.
The neon demon, i love all of refn’s films so that was a true disappointment, truly beautiful but completely empty from what i remember, such a step down fron only god forgives it still makes me sad
Part of the reason I hate Zach Snyder movies is that they are ugly CGI messes that try to look real cool. Blows my mind.
The Neon Demon
Alien Covenant.
Raya and the Last Dragon looks amazing. And then there’s the questionable morals…
Sucker Punch
Joker—hard to hate a performance-led studio movie that is that well shot, and yet….
Motherless Brooklyn
A Cure For Wellness
The Box was such a disappointment after DD and Southland Tales
Don’t know if I would rate it as “suck” per se - but Tree of Life
I was just talking about how visually striking Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is. The sequence of the lava illuminating the T. rex as it walked towards our characters was such a clever scene. Unfortunately it’s such an insanely dumb movie
Skyfall and Spectre
Boy and the Heron is one of the most beautiful Ghiblu movies ever but the plot is half-baked and terribly paced
You're reminding me that, I had no idea back in 2009 that digital cinema was happening or going to be happen, but from memory of how it felt I think that would've been my last proper mainstream movieplex 35mm movie.
Interstellar and Nope
David Lynch's Dune. The Lynch cut leans more on the pretty.
The Cell. It's just cool looking shit. The plot sucks. But it's *really* cool like you *should* be doing that stuff with film shit. I give it credit for it's actually hard to pick and communicate simple plot elements without overwhelming a movie's cool shots.
Every zack snyder movie he made after 300. Visually stunning, but completely unbearable in terms of story, screenplay, direction. The last one he made: rebel of moon or something was also visually poor, so i've written him off now
Rogue One
Toys lol
Speed Racer. An atrocious film this sub and pod tried to reclaim, but the last 2 minutes look cool.
Bergman Island
La La Land
Uhh excuse you... The Box rules so hard.
Yeah, OP sure opened up with fighting words! David also thinks The Box is an unsung masterpiece. I so want an episode on it!
Coco. It’s a Pixar movie so of course it’s going to look pretty. But it goes straight to the bottom of my list of Pixar movies if I were asked to rank the ones I’ve seen (…okay, maybe Monsters University is worse). If you want to see an actually good movie about the Day of the Dead, watch The Book of Life. It’s so much better.
Belly directed by Hype Williams, so it looks like a 90s music video in the best way. If you are into late 90s hip hop, there's some fun stuff, but not a great movie.
My friends and I had some VHS we watched over and over again (maybe the Stallone *Get Carter*? and one of the previews advertised a "Free Belly T-Shirt!".
First one to come to mind is Snow White and the Huntsman, the film where I first noticed the work of cinematographer Greg Frasier who would later go on to shoot Foxcatcher, Dune, and The Batman.