Filmento

## Why Knives Out Worked where The Last Jedi Failed

narrative elements are similar to last jedi, linking the two works. most of the problems were that it was bad starwars movie and not a bad movie, so they work better here. force flight by leia is just "exploring the lore" and inconsistent luke is just "character development" and would have worked if the movie didn't have any backstory form the 6 other movies

three things that the movie did right compared to TLJ: Subversion, multiple points of views and payoff. this is the reason hy the movie deserves the oscar, by being exhilarating

#### **Elevating Subversion**

In TLJ subversion didn't work since things happened anyway, with or without the subversion, making the subversion pointless and sometimes it lowers stakes, like killing Snoke removes powerful villain from the movie.

Knives out subversion elevates and escalates the story, like knowing hat Martha is the killer from early on, making it her trying to escape the consequences and out smart the detective

second subversion is that marhta gets the in heritage, which raises the stakes by gving her motive for murder

subversion are not juster for the sake of tit, but escalate the stakes

#### **multiple POV**

Poe and Fin are just side shows and don't matter to the plot, like canto bight has no consequences nor does it further the plot. Knives out characters all matter and they build up the plot

every scene and action serves a purpose in grand scene of things

things work because event happen and if they didn't, the story wouldn't work

story works and is rewarding because the story is dozen puzzle pieces that will be put together at the end of the movie

#### **payoff**

payoffs don't work in last jedi because they don't conclude, like codebreaker that sells fin and rose off isn't dealt with in any way and reys parents are said to be nobodies without any verification from anyone but kylo and luke sacrifice doesn't change or solve anything in the battle, just lets the resistance to escape and do it themselves.

the murder mystery solves all the plot threats and its dopamine rush

matha struggles with her kindness, but in the end her kindness led her to solve the case

Maybe its time to forgive rayan Johnson and say that he is talented writer?

## Underwater — How to Fail at Alien

Movie should have been more like Alien and it tried to be like alien, since it has lot of common with the movie and homage's it, and failed to be underwater version of the Alien.

He knows next to nobody knew of this movie but he did and wanted this movie to be good and to do good, since "high concept movies" had been "hurting" since Iron Man.

he still thinks there is lot of good in the film: intros exposition was effective tone setter and was similar to Godzilla. Music was also perfect (he edit musical note to the screen), suits look amazing and underwater cinematography is striking and he enjoyed how they organically played with the light in the dark ocean floor. Also Kristen Stewart looks good in her underwear, if one likes that stuff.

But not even women in their underwear can save or "salvage" the movie form being "bland, mediocre overall very forgettably unimpressive horror flick that never stood a chance at the theaters", as the the movie fails and being what its supposed to be: "a horror survival monster film".

He comperes the movie to Alien because he thinks Underwater is just Alien but in underwater instead of in space. Similarities include shots that are similar to other shots, like shots where they show the ships first time, both movies have characters getting distress signal, shots where they meet the aliens are similar and both put the creatures on table so they can study the dead creature.

Movie does not understand the Alien movie neither does it understand what makes other movies be like Alien "be like Alien".

Movie has character problems with horror, plot problem with survival and "Monster problem with the monster", so it fails at being "horror survival monster movie"

#### Day in the Life

Alien understood that in order to horror to work is that audience cares about characters so we can fear for their lives, like how Alien ha 10 minutes of characters just having a normal day. This established a "basic baseline" for who the characters in Alien are, so we know how they act differently when out of their everyday life (thinks Parker is selfish for talking about his paycheck and is more selfless in the Alien attack).

"This makes them 3 dimensional and worth caring for"

Underwater is different and more streamlined with the character introductions, as instead of opening with their everyday life and giving us basic understanding of their character, the movie opens with crisis and doesn't give us characterization. He is all for going straight to action, but he thinks that the movie skips the characterization, which makes "massive" issues, like reducing the actions the characters make based on their personality, like the big decisions Kristen Stewards makes at the beginning when she decides whenever or not to save her coworkers, but its has less meaning since we don't know anything about her or her relationship to her coworkers, whenever or not she actually liked them, the weight behind the choice is weightless and doesn't bring her closer to us as a person.

The crisis also renders the characters into blank slate that has no agency and only want to escape the situation, giving us little to no character for their actions. We only know about TJ Millers character is that he is quirky and funny, but only because he is TJ Miller.

Crisis beginning ruins the relationships between characters and makes the movie about the crisis instead about the characters. We only know that they are friendly colleagues and don't get to know anything deeper, like do they have romances or secret jealousies or conflict between them. Characters are just 2 dimensional friends working happily together to solve their crisis, which is not interesting.

When Steward leaves he coworkers behind, we don't care about them because we don't have knowledge of them and when characters found a dead woman, we don't care as we again don't know who she is. Same goes with the "black guy" that dies, we don't care as we didn't spend time with him in his natural habitat

Movie would have been better if, fore example, Steward and "the black guy" had a secret romance and wanted to have life together after crisis,, which would give us reason to fear for the characters safety and care when "the black guy" dies.

#### Someone's Movie

Alien is memorable and intense survival horror movie because its told "at the epicenter of the plot event t revolves around", as the crew has to survive the alien they brought on board their ship, having to overcome the obstacle of their own making, which makes the survival "organic, but also deeply tense and personal".

Underwater also has people "sticking their nose into things" and having to deal with the consequences. But its not the characters we follow that "sticking their nose into things" . They didn't do anything to cause the situation, they were just there (not unlike how crew in aliens just happened to be around when they got the distress signal and got Alien in one of them, they didn't bring the alien to the planet, they are just following the distress signal).

In another words, people in Underwater are dealing with other peoples actions and its issue because it makes us feel we are watching inferior, second rate version of a better movie. People drilling is "inherently fascinating" and he would have preferred to see people drilling and causing the even, not watching people discovering what other people did. He wonders about what happened in the inciting incident and what the people drilling did and begins to wish he would have seen that movie.

Characters are not the epicenter but on the side, "which is a bummer".

When characters are not the center of the events, it can lead up to "randomness and confusion as to what is going on", as we don't know where things in the area are and what they are when they are mentioned by name as we have not seen things or have seen tech used in practice, so we don't know what they do. we don't know why walking underwater is dangerous in this crisis situation. He doesent get why there is a time-limit as we don't know what caused the combustion to happen as we were not there when it happened.

He equate this to if captain would have been spouting exposition of some other crew that was attacked by the alien and now they have to go and investigate the alien and kill it.

Characters in Underwater don't contribute anything to the plot in the beginning beyond lettings us know that there were monsters lurking around, which makes the whole thing feel like "pointless waste of time" as its "pointless detour", along with moments in elevators, as we are only "flow through the leftover scraps of what happened".

But hey, not every movie can be or should be about the very epicenter of the event, but if its survival movie, then it should do these things like Alien did: be the epicenter that deals with the event, as otherwise it turns your movie into "a boring walking-simulator".

#### Monster Problem

One thing that the Alien is remembered by is the "Super duper scary monster", its design and fact that if it gets to populated are it will spread.

Underwater builds up the fear of the Marianna trench, in the intro at least. But when the monsters existence is acknowledged, the buildup comes crumbling down. This is because they call the creatures "things", as that means one monster is not good enough to be threatening, we can only fear them as group and they are not scary when they are alone (unless its some kind of hive organism). Its not kickass or awesome when main character kills one monster since there are more of them, which ruins the moment and the monster.

Sure, Steward kills the one creatures, but so what? There are more of the creatures around, so the monsters by themselves are not so threatening anymore, as they are shown to be disposable. They are a threat, but not in a "scary monster movie kind of way" but more of a "action thriller movie kind of way".

Its like having 5 year of kids trying to kill you. Sure, they are dangerous as a large group, but 5 year old kids are not scary by themselves.

Movie also fails to build personal relation ship between characters and the monster, as the movie goes "J.J. Abram on us" and brings up bigger monsters, like the Cthulhu.

Its never established why Steward wants to stop the giant monsters from raising to the surface, the Cthulhu just pops up out of nowhere. We have no idea of they could do any damage to the land or if they are going to try to do some damage, making the characters self sacrifice feel undeserving and meaningless, which the movie is overall, trying to be Alien but undeserving and meaningless.

## Man of Steel — How to Build the Greatest DCEU Movie

He created the video because he felt he was too negative with Wonder Woman 84 and wanted to make positive video, wanting to look how spectacularly Man of Steel do superhero movie and how its great aspects could be used to fix the weaknesses in the DCU by taking examples from Man of Steel. The movie would be blueprint to how to make more DC cinematic universe movies.

Whenever or not Man of Steel is greatest DCU movie is up to everyone's opinion, but it holds the key to how to make "greatest best-est new DCU movie"

Problem with the other movies is their purpose, where they either center too much on characters and not enough on plot (Shazaam) or too much on plot and not enough on character (Suicide Squad), or they do both but crumble in the 3rd act (Wonder Woman). But for whatever reason, (blames Christopher Nolan) Man of Steel is the "anomaly" and handles both character and plot in the way that "properly works from beginning to end", it might not be the only one that does it (Aquaman), but it does it. Even thought its fair to say that the same schism exist in Man of Steel, where first half is character and second one is plot, the movie manages to "blend" them together well enough to avoid "vanity" (\*futility) that the other movies are "plagued" with, as even thought the scenes may lack character or plot, they still have "purpose" and it creates "worthwhile experience" how it handles character and plot throughout the movie, something the other movies in the franchise should learn from.

There is third aspect beyond character and plot, but before it he has to read a philosophy book, or at least get the skimmed idea of it. To do this, he uses Blinkinst to get just barely a general idea and thinks its enough.

#### C The Drive

First thing is to give main character, Kal-El a drive that pushes him to do things throughout the movie.

Since he is from species where they were genetically created and had assigned jobs from birth, his drive is to discover who he is and his "place in the universe". This is not arbitrarily not plot as its internal and only include Kal-El and first half only centers around exploring Kal-Els otherness further, as after the Krypton bit its just Kal-El discovering his powers and show how he does not fit, pushing the bar of character exploration bit further,progress that Filmento treats like a video game energy bar filling up, adding "+1" to it when there is "character exploration", showing how he does not fit in the "Preassigned role of a normal kid"

Kal-Elk learning to fly does not serve any purpose for the plot, as there are no external challenges for him to overcome or any deep reason or dire need, so learning how to fly is there merely for his character journey to show who he could become and for visual spectacle

Everything in the first half is plotless and is there to explore Kal-Els character. After this, the story switches to the plot and the usual fighting in Superhero movies, but it also is there to solve the questions that Kal-El's been asking for instead of searching for answers to who he is and choosing who he is, a moping wet blanket that destroys things with little to no care and wishes he wouldn't have to help people.

The second act shows what sort of character Kal-El is, having him saving people. He doesent view himself as human even thought he grew up in earth and is Kryptonian that was born normally, he doesn't place himself in a assigned role but instead assigned role for himself, wanting both of his worlds to prosper (by wiping out his old world as it had its chance) and doesent one to survive by killing other, which is where the emotion comes from in the story, by him deciding the whole fate of a species.

This is what DCU should keep in mind when it comes to character, to makes sure that the plot always follows the characters inner journey of want and struggle and when you rap up the plot, don't forget the character journey but instead force them to overcome "the external plot obstacles" by choosing resolution for it.

#### P The Driver

movie succeeds with the plot by having what plot needs, by having "goals", "stakes" and "urgencies". Zod comes to earth and wants to destroy everyone in order to rebuild Krypton and by that, all the plot necessities are here: "goal" is to stop Zod, "stakes" is to save all lives and "Urgency" is the destruction happening. All these points drive the film. All these things make a "clear fictional purpose" driving the second half plot. Like any other film, explaining basic things every other action related movie has just by being a movie.

Could the plot have been better without end of the world scenario as the plot and using "a blue sky beam"? Yes, but he thinks it does its "job to ear its purpose of an existence".

He finds that the movie is good at "weave in plot into sections that the plot doesn't yet exist" like the 40 minutes of "character exploration", which he feels is "exhilarating" as action by having GSU in them as well. Like boating scene where Kal-El becomes "external manifestation of GSU", by saving people. He treat there being minor conflict before the main conflict comes as some kind of genius thing that Man of Steel did and other DCU movies don't.

He thinks movie would be boring if the conflict only happened at the end with nothing but "character exploration".

There needs to be both so that we feel sad when characters fail at their action. He wishes that all the future DCU movie would do this, as film need internal character journey and external thing happening.

#### Good Bad

> *"We don't necessarily agree with what he is doing but we understand why he is doing it and understanding is what makes him a person and not a caricature"*
>
>

Thinks Zod might be one of the best DCU villains, he is up there according to him. He thinks he is better than Steppenwolf, as he is not "Hulking mass of CGI acting like a little kid lost in a store", so there is not much of a competition when it comes to being "one of the best."

Zod fills the all the Filmentos qualifications to be a good villain.

He thinks every villain should be both formidable and understandable and Zod is both of them

His formidability tie to plot and how dangerous he is (yes, we can lose to him) and the movie does this by "taking the plot and inverting it for his P.O.V.", as Zod is wanting to save his race like superman wants to save humans and the prologue shows how motivated he is to save Kryptonians, which lets us know if he wont be stopped then he wont be stopped. This extends to his minions,making them more formidable as they are "relentlessly motivated"

Understanding comes from the fact that we gt why he want for his species to survive, even thought they killed themselves by being idiots, making him "real person" and not just evil monster. So he says. Once again its by inverting Kal-els character journey instead the plot. He is not just shooting planet with sky mean because its ascetic, but because he was born to shoot lasers, that's his purpose.

Thinks Zod is understandable person and not a caricature, unlike Maxwel Lord, who laughs maniacally.

The fight between Zod and Superman is not just to win a physical fight to him, its them proving which one of their "inner journey is correct", to be born with a purpose or to be born to hose your purpose.

The fight between the two is more intimately emotional, espcially when superman has to kill Zods body like he killed Zods soul.

Man of Steel is closes to DCU has come to Marvels CIvil War and Filmento hopes there will be even better movies.

## The Tomorrow War — How to Build a Cinematic Masterpiece

He takes page out of Cinema Wins and makes a video of how good the movie is, even thought people tell him that its bad. He just wants to talk about positive and good part in the Tomorrow War, since he has been too negative lately.

## Trivia

* He might be bit of a psycho as he can't care or feel for people if he doesn't understand their relationships or how they act in everyday life. If they had a secret romance, then he can care for their survival.
* Choice of Superman giving himself up to the Kryptonians is, according to Filmento "Give Humans A Chance" or "Hell Nah!!"
* he believes that when soldier has no purpose, they fight until they die
* Chills for Blinkist that turns 10 hour books into 15 minute "highlights", thinking that it would be helpful if you don't have time to read books. Most likely how he got his film understanding and understanding of philosophy.
* Likes the intro sequence of Underwater more than the actual movie
* Calls Cthulhu in Underwater"Rip-off Cloverfield"
* He didn't like the Wonder Woman 84, but thinks Man of Steel is great

## Quotes

"Oh yeah, Clark does not fit the preassigned role of a normal human school kid" +1 Oh Yeah

"give us things happening, give us real external obstacles to overcome"
"There is the massively crucial DC aspect of the main villain"

"one of the most essential key ways that Man of Steel makes Zod work is by organically tying him to both of its purposeful character as well as plot work in order to build him into something that every villain should be: Formidable and Understandable"

"His motivation manifests itself trough his own inverted plot"

"he is not shooting the earth with a giant blue sky beam just because it looks cool, but because its the only purpose which he exists"

"It sets up this very personal emotion based climax"