Most recent movie you saw

[seed]

Just finished watching Alien Covenant.

 

What can I say, it was good, definitely better than how some people wanted to make it look like (personally I found it better than Prometheus, but not by much, which was already a good movie in my book) but it was just far, far too predictable. It's... I don't know, Alien 1979 getting recycled ad infinitum but with much better CGI and going back before its events, literally. Once again going back to the planet, finding more pieces of the puzzle on the xenomorph's origin (so David actually engineered the eggs and Facehuggers), some of them infect and kill a few people in the process, more bloodshed, then they're killed, and once again the synthetic is the traitorous bitch who's not to be trusted and betrays the crew after everyone else is put into stasis.

 

Yeah, not surprising, synthetics have never been trusworthy, not even in the original (remember Ash?), and oddly almost all the ones presented in the movies admire the xenomorph, loathe humans and want them extinct. In fact the only exception to this rule would be Bishop ("Not bad for a human" eh?), and that girl from Resurrection.

 

By now, all that's left is to be revealed in the final installment of the trilogy I guess, which isn't a lot since all important questions have been answered. And frankly, after this movie I hope the franchise will be finally laid to rest. No, frankly I don't want this to happen, but realistically speaking there just doesn't seem to be much left to do with it, there's no new fresh ideas to be tried.

 

The sequels Alien 3 and Resurrection were underwhelming yet ok, the AvP crossovers are, well, the first one was ok but Requiem was terribad, plus they're not tied to the canon so they don't count, and the games based on the franchise don't explore any new territory. At this point I just don't see what else could be done, so after the final chapter is out it's probably best to just leave it in peace and move on.

[Chewyninja69]

Not a movie, but do shows count? I'm currently watching Deadwood on Amazon Prime. Amazing show. Highly recommend it.

[Taw Tu'lki]

Downsizing

Very boring and protracted film about global problems. Feels like I watch a documentary TV-programm.

[ReX]

I recently watched Central Intelligence, which definitely has funny moments.

 

And, of course, Jason Bateman has to make his obligatory appearance as the asshole whom the audience loves to hate.

[Poncho]

Finally watched The Shining (Kubrick version, that is). From a retrospective point of view, it isn't really scary (most of the modern generation would probably laugh at certain parts), but it's still a great film with many hidden details (impossible design for the hotel) and some really disturbing points of analyses (Native American genocide, etc).

[seed]

39 minutes ago, Poncho said:

(most of the modern generation would probably laugh at certain parts)

 

Young generations usually have difficulty in understanding old stuff though, so...

[Poncho]

52 minutes ago, Agent6 said:

 

Young generations usually have difficulty in understanding old stuff though, so...

I AM of the younger generation! 17 years old, in fact. Sadly, I'm that of a dying breed... a breed of... young lads who like old stuff... yeah...

 

Also, movies like Kubrick's are ones that make me want to be a filmmaker.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Poncho

[[McD] James]

Back from Pacific Rim Uprising. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and roughly about as much as the first one. It's loud, stupid, juvenile, and flashy. It's everything the Transformers movies wish they could be. I probably won't remember anything about it in a few days, though. 

[seed]

Watched The Name of the Rose this morning after getting tired of hearing various sequences from the movie in certain albums I like.

 

That being said, I very much enjoyed the movie, the voice of the actors and their characters and personality, William was pretty awesome and easily my favorite of all. It also managed to remain interesting until the very end, by the time Berengar died I thought there was nothing new or interesting to happen and just struggle until the very end. Well I'm glad I was wrong.

 

It also reflects a part my negative views on christianity, but that's another story unrelated to the movie. In short, it was great from my POV and I recommend it for storytelling and acting even if the story isn't anything particularly brilliant (though reflects the darkest times of the faith), loved every moment of it, from the very beginning up to the very end.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Agent6

[geo]

Meeting Evil with Samuel L Jackson and Luke Wilson. Wow... what a weird suspense thriller. Anyone into weird or suspense thrillers should watch it. Go in blind.Anyway.... I knew the movie wouldn't do commercially well, because it seems like a budget movie even if they have Sam Jackson + Luke Wilson. Sure enough I was right, but you'll never guess how bad it did. $525... not million, not thousand, $525. It debut at #137 and stayed in a theater for a week. I think the only thing worse was Knucklehead that did $23. Clearly, Netflix has pegged me as a Sam Jackson fan, so they're like here's a movie no one saw in theaters, let's see how much this person likes Sam Jackson.

 

Speaking of suspense dramas...

 

Wind River starring Hawkeye is a suspense thriller, murder mystery movie in the cold north. One of those sorts of movies where the law and police don't apply because the scummy people outnumber the lawmen. There is no backup and people can do as they please, because they'll get away with it. I enjoyed it, even if it had a bit of a jarring lead in to the finish. Rather than explain "who done it" at 95% of the way in, they just smash cut to a flash back at 75% of the way through to explain everything. Its a good movie to observe subtleties before anyone draws attention to them. Its a good ride.

 

And now for the comedies:

 

Boone: The Bounty Hunter is so bad its good or good because its designed to be bad? Its a comedy about a bounty hunter and his reality show squad that needs to get back to basics and make a dangerous bounty before their show goes off the air. While its indeed a cheesy movie, it has a lot of heart and utter stupidity. Bounty hunter that doesn't use guns, so he pretty much chases down has been actors. Its a cascade of early 90s action TV stars like Kevin Sorbo, Lorenzo Lamas and others. Well worth it for anyone who can stomach the cheese.

 

Game Over Man! is like a lot of in your face comedies or in your face action movies. Intolerable for the first 15 minutes, then I just kind of get over how terrible the first impression is and just watch it. Thankfully Marv from Home Alone showed up when he did, otherwise I would have shut it off. Even as a supporting cast member he has a presence. For the movie... at its best, its a good, horrifyingly gory Die Hard parody. At its worst, its utter cringe worthy what with all the crude, sexual humor. Its one of those things that would make Ron Jeremy cringe. The cameos from Mark Cuban, Steve-O, one hit wonder Shaggy, and Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files watching porn help ease how utterly terrible the crudeness is.

 

Its a terrible... terrible movie that excels at being terrible. Yet bizarrely good when it puts away its literal exposed penis and literal on screen salad tossing of a fat man. It made me think "its not comedy if we're not shocking people!" Then I pondered wait... so its comedy because its so gross and over the top gory... or is it horror because its so gross and the horrifying gore? This is the sort of movie that if you show a friend they will either never speak to you again or be your best friend for life.

 

Beyond the Mat is a wrestling documentary at the height of late 90s wrestling. It follows Mick Foley to his rise, Jake Roberts into obscurity and Terry Funk into retirement. Its the first time I've seen it in almost 20 years and I remember the bombshell that Jake Robert's mom was 13 when she had him. Its a good documentary with a lot of heart and drudges up the horrific realities. One guy starting out that they follow ends up a quadriplegic by the movie's release. You get to see a trainer with a tiny promotion take 20% of a guy's income if he gets signed with a big company. Its also filmed around ECW's first pay-per-view. Its a hell of a late 90s time capsule.

 

Suicide Squad or as I like to call it "Shitty X-Men" is something legendarily bad and usually going into things like that, I decide for myself. Nothing gets in the way of my opinion. Wow this was bad for the first 90 minutes. The first 20 minutes was literally introduction after introduction. Another problem with the movie is that an hour of it takes place on a street. There are no sets, just street. I think after the first 30 minutes the only sets were 5 minutes of bar, 60 minutes of streets, 20 minutes of fight scenes in buildings. Spliced between it were Harley Quinn origin stories where Marilyn Manson played Jim Carry's Riddler. I say Marilyn Manson, but Jared Leto as himself has a cameo toward the end. Batman has 2 or 2.1 cameos as well.

 

Since the movie takes place on the street, its reminiscent of the Warriors. To prove it takes place on the street, that's where most accidents happen.

 

The movie has big problems. The premise of "what if we get a Bad Superman?" Well let's have villains fight him! Its okay though... explosive devices in their neck. The other big problem is that it plays some of the greatest hits of the past 40 years for the soundtrack as if this was Forest Gump or Guardians of the Galaxy. Wow did these songs feel completely out of place when movies like Gump of the Galaxy made for a better experience to take you back with nostalgia. These songs were Eminem to the Rolling Stones.

 

Another problem is its a bunch of unlikable characters with Harley as the comedy / eye candy. People have always said Batman is nothing without his villains. No his villains are nothing... at all.

 

As terrible as people might feel the movie is... it still made like $750 million. The Emoji Movie made $250.

Edited March 29, 2018 by geo

[seed]

16 hours ago, geo said:

Suicide Squad or as I like to call it "Shitty X-Men" is something legendarily bad and usually going into things like that, I decide for myself. Nothing gets in the way of my opinion. Wow this was bad for the first 90 minutes. The first 20 minutes was literally introduction after introduction. Another problem with the movie is that an hour of it takes place on a street. There are no sets, just street. I think after the first 30 minutes the only sets were 5 minutes of bar, 60 minutes of streets, 20 minutes of fight scenes in buildings. Spliced between it were Harley Quinn origin stories where Marilyn Manson played Jim Carry's Riddler. I say Marilyn Manson, but Jared Leto as himself has a cameo toward the end. Batman has 2 or 2.1 cameos as well.

 

Since the movie takes place on the street, its reminiscent of the Warriors. To prove it takes place on the street, that's where most accidents happen.

 

The movie has big problems. The premise of "what if we get a Bad Superman?" Well let's have villains fight him! Its okay though... explosive devices in their neck. The other big problem is that it plays some of the greatest hits of the past 40 years for the soundtrack as if this was Forest Gump or Guardians of the Galaxy. Wow did these songs feel completely out of place when movies like Gump of the Galaxy made for a better experience to take you back with nostalgia. These songs were Eminem to the Rolling Stones.

 

Another problem is its a bunch of unlikable characters with Harley as the comedy / eye candy. People have always said Batman is nothing without his villains. No his villains are nothing... at all.

 

As terrible as people might feel the movie is... it still made like $750 million. The Emoji Movie made $250.

 

Hm, I actually enjoyed SS. It's by no means perfect but I found it underrated, especially when looking at how many critics bashed it. This one and BvS made Rotten Tomatoes notorious by the way, however I have to agree that BvS kinda deserved it, went to watch it the first day it was into cinemas here with a few friends and oh boy, how terribly boring it was, I could hardly focus on it because nothing interesting was going on... not even the battles raised my excitement... And please just stop endlessly recycling Bruce's parents murder scene ad infinitum ffs, it's tiring, annoying, and absolutely pointless, it adds literally nothing and everyone knows what happened that night, stop featuring it already...

 

"As terrible as people might feel the movie is... it still made like $750 million" - Um? But what people are you talking about here? It wasn't received very warmly by critics for sure, but from what I've seen fans really liked it, so it's no wonder it did well at the box office at all. And frankly, when it comes to such movies I'd much rather take a fan's word over anything someone else says, be them critics or whatever (especially critics... ). They usually know the source material well and understand the vision behind it just as well, but ultimately I'll see things for myself and make my own mind. I didn't like Jared's Joker, even though it barely received any attention in the movie, but the overall design of the characters is... I don't know how to best describe it, but I enjoyed Ledger's and Nicholson's interpretation much, much more.

 

Now coming back to BvS, there aren't many redeeming qualities, not from my POV at least. If it wasn't the faithful adaption of various scenes from the comic, the acting and whatnot it would've just been plain terrible for me. I wouldn't rank it higher than average or slightly above average. I just wish DC fanboys would stop bashing Marvel movies when someone criticized their stuff... I remember some fanboys were out to bring Black Panther's rating down, how childish and triggered can you be, seriously now...

[geo]

2 hours ago, Agent6 said:

 

Hm, I actually enjoyed SS. It's by no means perfect but I found it underrated, especially when looking at how many critics bashed it. This one and BvS made Rotten Tomatoes notorious by the way, however I have to agree that BvS kinda deserved it, went to watch it the first day it was into cinemas here with a few friends and oh boy, how terribly boring it was, I could hardly focus on it because nothing interesting was going on... not even the battles raised my excitement... And please just stop endlessly recycling Bruce's parents murder scene ad infinitum ffs, it's tiring, annoying, and absolutely pointless, it adds literally nothing and everyone knows what happened that night, stop featuring it already...

 

"As terrible as people might feel the movie is... it still made like $750 million" - Um? But what people are you talking about here? It wasn't received very warmly by critics for sure, but from what I've seen fans really liked it, so it's no wonder it did well at the box office at all. And frankly, when it comes to such movies I'd much rather take a fan's word over anything someone else says, be them critics or whatever (especially critics... ). They usually know the source material well and understand the vision behind it just as well, but ultimately I'll see things for myself and make my own mind. I didn't like Jared's Joker, even though it barely received any attention in the movie, but the overall design of the characters is... I don't know how to best describe it, but I enjoyed Ledger's and Nicholson's interpretation much, much more.

 

Now coming back to BvS, there aren't many redeeming qualities, not from my POV at least. If it wasn't the faithful adaption of various scenes from the comic, the acting and whatnot it would've just been plain terrible for me. I wouldn't rank it higher than average or slightly above average. I just wish DC fanboys would stop bashing Marvel movies when someone criticized their stuff... I remember some fanboys were out to bring Black Panther's rating down, how childish and triggered can you be, seriously now...

From what I have seen from fans, they disliked it as much as the critics. Then again, its all circumstantial, because people must have loved it to get $750 million. I liked the last half hour, but it was a long 90 minutes to get there. I was happy with Batman vs Superman... but I could still shred it apart for a lot of things. The kicker is because WB doesn't allow its movies to be rented, I've had to purchase both Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad. I have zero interest to watch / buy Wonder Woman or Justice League. I don't think my enjoyment of Batman or Superman would carry over to either one.

 

Jared's Joker was notably bad, but he probably wasn't there to steal the show from Will Smith. After all, Joker is a side character. On the plus side, his style was a spectacle with his tin foil teeth, smile tattoo and tattoos in general. A Harley Quinn origin story would have been a fun idea for a movie if it wasn't just slotted into Suicide Squad.

 

I've never read any of the comics even if I know far too much of the lore. I enjoy the sterilized good guys of Batman and Superman rather than the "real people" of Marvel's universe. Maybe its because there are so many people in the Marvel universe with powers, so they don't feel as special.  I still enjoy both the DC and Marvel movies. Some of the sequels to Marvel movies weren't as good as the originals. The first Iron Man, the first Spider Man, the first Avengers, the first Captain America all felt better than their sequels. So I wonder if its just once they lose their freshness or origin stories their appeal starts to diminish.

 

While we're talking about Marvel vs DC... I'm no fan of animated movies, but I feel 80% of the DC animated movies are super enjoyable to watch while the Marvel animated movies aren't.

[Summer Deep]

Just watched Inseminoid (1980), aka Horror Planet. It's directed by Norman Warren, who is sometimes regarded as belonging to the Ed Wood school of film making. It's certainly not much good other than for laughs, and one has to wonder what fairly classy actresses like Stephanie Beacham and Judy Geeson were doing in a production like this. Still, I suppose even they must have had bills to pay, mortgages to service, etc.....

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Summer Deep

[seed]

45 minutes ago, geo said:

From what I have seen from fans, they disliked it as much as the critics. Then again, its all circumstantial, because people must have loved it to get $750 million. I liked the last half hour, but it was a long 90 minutes to get there. I was happy with Batman vs Superman... but I could still shred it apart for a lot of things. The kicker is because WB doesn't allow its movies to be rented, I've had to purchase both Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad. I have zero interest to watch / buy Wonder Woman or Justice League. I don't think my enjoyment of Batman or Superman would carry over to either one.

 

Jared's Joker was notably bad, but he probably wasn't there to steal the show from Will Smith. After all, Joker is a side character. On the plus side, his style was a spectacle with his tin foil teeth, smile tattoo and tattoos in general. A Harley Quinn origin story would have been a fun idea for a movie if it wasn't just slotted into Suicide Squad.

 

I've never read any of the comics even if I know far too much of the lore. I enjoy the sterilized good guys of Batman and Superman rather than the "real people" of Marvel's universe. Maybe its because there are so many people in the Marvel universe with powers, so they don't feel as special.  I still enjoy both the DC and Marvel movies. Some of the sequels to Marvel movies weren't as good as the originals. The first Iron Man, the first Spider Man, the first Avengers, the first Captain America all felt better than their sequels. So I wonder if its just once they lose their freshness or origin stories their appeal starts to diminish.

 

While we're talking about Marvel vs DC... I'm no fan of animated movies, but I feel 80% of the DC animated movies are super enjoyable to watch while the Marvel animated movies aren't.

 

DC is a mixed bag in the movies department. Most cartoon adaptions (be they shows or movies) are still solid but they're surely lagging behind in the cinematic universe, and a cause for this is pretty difficult to identify, but changing directors for some movies and then extensively re-shooting them is certainly not going to do justice to the final product, especially if the new director has much less experience with superheroes, as it happened with JL. I'm yet to see WW so I've got nothing to say about it.

 

I just wish people would leave fanboy-ism at the door step and enjoy what both Marvel and DC have to offer, but sadly that's not exactly possible these days. I was attacked by a fanboy once when I criticized BvS and he literally started "correcting" my opinion for how "uneducated it was, and the movie was perfect and very faithfully adapted from the source material" lol. If you can't deal with opinions please just fuck off and die, sensitive little bitch. I could not care less about the technicalities if the movie itself is just not enjoyable for me, so either get your shit together or keep your mouth shut, keyboard warrior. How pathetic...

 

I must say that I'm a bit surprised you actually liked BvS, literally the first person to like it and dislike SS I run into. I'm yet to see WW so I've got nothing to say about it.

 

I agree, some series suffered either from worse sequels or reboots, and for me Spider-Man is one such case. First of all, for me personally Tobey's trilogy is the best in the series, followed by what was seen thus far from Tom. Yes, it did have its flaws, most notably in Spider-Man 3, the scenes where he tried to be edgy or cool being the worst offenders. He could also be quite a crybaby, but despite all this he's still my favorite. Garfield's version was the worst, I didn't like the cast, what the hell happened with Lizard (frankly the cartoons didn't do him much justice, except for a certain series), and he just wasn't an interesting character to see in action. I haven't seen his last movie and probably never will, it was an effort to watch what came before so it's just not worth my time. Sorry Andrew, but your series didn't work for me. They managed to get most things sorted out for Tom so I'm cool with it. I've never really been a fan of Downey's Iron Man so I can't even say which movie is better. The only Iron Man that clicked the right buttons for me was the '94 cartoon. As about Avengers and Captain America, I have to disagree, both have only become better with each new release from my POV.

 

I mentioned a Spider-Man cartoon, well that's obviously none other than the '94-'98 series. Many refer to it as Batman TAS' equivalent, and I absolutely agree with this statement. If there is one series that defined what Spider-Man is and how a show based on the character should be done, it's this. It was fun, serious, and certainly not afraid of going dark just like all too many other old cartoons from the old days, and for a series that was also heavily censored well, being merely a feat would be a massive understatement. The shows nowadays miss most of the elements which made this one great, and no longer take themselves serious (but it's not like the movies really do either). The censorship did make me confused a few times back when I was a kid, more precisely when Jane dies. She was supposed to die from a fall but instead falls into a portal as far as I remember. This death originally belonged to Gwen from what I've read but since the series didn't include her at all Jane took her place. This created a mess in my mind later on when the clone showed up, and even after she dies Parker still continues looking for her in some episodes from what I remember. Apparently she was to return in a final season, but the series got canned before it could happen. It's so painful when amazing series get cancelled which was all too often back then, and still is nowadays... remember Batman Beyond? It was cancelled as well in favor of JL. Since JL was mind-blowing it's impossible to complain much about the decision, it was worth it, but I still wish it had a proper ending and not an epilogue in JL that acts as a finale to the series... Wayne's relation with Terry was never fully explored either, it never managed to reach a more personal level, and judging after what was revealed in the finale, is something that was inevitable to happen. And I'd be a bad liar if I said I don't want a movie or a trilogy, it has the potential of being the best thing since Nolan's days. Many fans seem to want this to happen but for now, it's not very likely so I'm not getting my hopes up it ever gets made.

 

But at least they didn't cancel all shows for good. Obviously I refer to Young Justice here. It was a success just like all the other great series, and then got cancelled for a very stupid reason... Luckily it's coming back this year, it's been a long time since we last had such a great show, not since the days of JL at least.

[geo]

1922 with Thomas Jane tells you nothing about the movie from the name, since its the year that it takes place. Its a simple Steven King movie about a man murdering his life to keep land she inherited and the fallout that happens. Oddly enough its the second two person and a child in a farmhouse movie starring Thomas Jane. If I tell you details, it sounds amazing, a man gets haunted or even cursed, a son goes on a rampage and two cows get killed. Watching it, this is a simple, borderline dull movie that can cure anyone's insomnia. Perhaps the mundane tone was established so later on things can be extra spooky. Normally Steven King has movies where the characters all go crazy by the end, but in this one the tight mouthed farmer maintains his cool, his son moves out and his wife stays dead. This would probably be a low point of the Steven King franchise since the movie went directly to Netflix rather than ABC, Sy-Fy or even theaters.

 

From the past era of 1922 to... THE FUTURE!!!!

 

The Titan is a Lifetime movie disguised as a science fiction movie. How can you tell its science fiction? Its drenched in blue hues. There's always a glow or tint of blue everywhere. Its a "paramilitary turns a man into a monster movie" but the twist is that the wife of the man has 95% of the screen time even if the man has 85% of the screen time. So its her finding clues, her reactions, her being a good wife, her arguing for his well being against the face of the paramilitary organization. Someone had to keep the movie going. This was a juicy female lead for the lead from Orange is the New Black, but I feel she failed miserably. Meanwhile Sam Worthington could have been a placeholder, which I've heard that as a joke before, Sam Worthington is the ultimate male placeholder for an action movie. By the end there gets to be more sci-fi, but I can't say the payoff was worth the 100 minutes. Maybe I got sick of the female lead or the blue hues, but I hated this movie. I never watch trailers and even at the beginning I knew the movie wouldn't actually be about space or life on Titan, strictly from the run time. This could have been a long episode of Black Mirror.

 

* edit * My friend saw the Titan and told me its a train wreck where nothing happens the first hour. "She supposedly could do science, but I couldn't imagine her being able to pass grade 11 science."

Edited April 1, 2018 by geo

[Deleted_Account]

Just finished watching High Plains Drifter.

 

 

[Chewyninja69]

13 hours ago, geo said:

1922 with Thomas Jane tells you nothing about the movie from the name, since its the year that it takes place. Its a simple Steven King movie about a man murdering his life to keep land she inherited and the fallout that happens. Oddly enough its the second two person and a child in a farmhouse movie starring Thomas Jane.

The second movie you're talking about, Standoff, was really goddamn good. And it was awesome to see Laurence Fishburne as a bad guy. All in all, a great movie. I highly recommend it.

[geo]

26 minutes ago, Chewyninja69 said:

The second movie you're talking about, Standoff, was really goddamn good. And it was awesome to see Laurence Fishburne as a bad guy. All in all, a great movie. I highly recommend it.

Absolutely. I loved it. An even more simple story than 1922. Killer wants a child, stranger protects child while holed up on the second floor of an old farmhouse. I highly recommend it as well. I can imagine the 1922 casting... get me Thomas Jane! But make him a tight mouthed farmer of the 1920s where he's tough to understand and no one else has the accent!

[Poncho]

Rewatched The Thing by John Carpenter. It is without a doubt my favourite horror film of all time, and one of my personal favourites ever.

[SGS Man]

Finally watched The Last Jedi and Black Panther.

 

The Last Jedi is straight up bad with the amount of filler it had. The narrative was messy and subversive with no payoff. The questionable lore implications are painful to acknowledge. The prequels, despite how terrible they were, at least provided information about the Force. The only positive The Last Jedi may have is that its interpretation of the Force and Luke seem accurate given the prior films. I don't even know if TLJ is as bad or worse than the prequels.

 

Black Panther was fun though. I wished for more Killmonger screentime since he was an interesting villain, but then again, Black Panther is a Marvel movie. The more recent solo entries in the MCU are moving away from the 'Iron Man' paradigm. They have adopted more interesting and varied premises, and tackle potentially deeper themes. However, due to their blockbuster / mass-appealing nature, they can't jump into the themes they briefly mention. Regardless, Black Panther was enjoyable. Can't wait for Infinity War!

[Lizardcommando]

I just saw Ready Player One. It was a fun movie.

 

Spoiler

The Gundam showing up and fighting Mecha Godzilla was pretty awesome. I had chills when it showed up.

 

[Taw Tu'lki]

I just saw a french film Jaguar with Jean Reno.

[ReX]

Not exactly a "movie", but I just watched Shine A Light, a quasi-documentary by Martin Scorcese on the Rolling Stones.

 

Lots of energy on stage, as you might expect. Otherwise, just a regular concert recording.

[Summer Deep]

The Secret Life Of Jeffrey Dahmer (1993)

 

One really ought to be shocked or at least dismayed by a film like this, but in fact I generally found it fairly entertaining and even amusing. This may be partly because it's a low budget production, and the quality of the acting and script writing gives rise to a 'so bad that it's good' effect. But it also seemed that many of the characters (including Dahmer himself) and the situations were portrayed as essentially absurd and ridiculous. But in a very real sense, they may well have been just that, perhaps.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bofwya97-CA

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Summer Deep

[Memfis]

Recent stuff...

 

Wonder Wheel - what can I say, Woody Allen is a man you can always rely on. Great colorful complex characters, really interesting lighting, lovely Justin Timberlake, another memorable final.

 

The Killing of a Sacred Deer - masterful psychological horror, made me so uneasy that I'm not sure if I can even recommend it. Just... Jesus! Colin Farrell is awesome.

 

Ready Player One - meh, the story and the characters are very underdeveloped. The film also tries to be a cool geek thing but it never really goes deep into the nerd culture, it just bombards you with references that don't have much depth to them. Looks good though. Btw any doomer will laugh at the first Easter egg path. What, you just need to turn around? Come on, checking whether you can open the door behind the start is always the first thing I do in custom maps.

 

Mary and the Witch's Flower - a Ghibli-like movie from the people that used to work at Ghibli. Not much to say about the plot (although it's fun to think about the intended message behind the idea of abandoning everything that's magic and going back to "normal boring life"), but the visuals are wonderfully inspiring. When I left the cinema the outside world seemed so bleak in comparison!

 

The Mercy - I didn't know anything about the events that inspired this, had no idea what will happen at any point, so I was kinda blown away. A very morally ambiguous story with an aftertaste that doesn't go away easily. Also Colin Firth is even more awesome than Colin Farrell.

[ShoDemo]

I watched Scarface for the first time, a couple of days ago and Midnight Express once again, last night.

 

Scarface is one of the most fun movies I have seen in a while.

Great soundtrack (Push it to the limit is only one example), fun action scenes and really good narration on how Tony Montana got to the top, with plenty of "bad" words and criminal language. I loved that character as he was depicted in the movie and in the end, I even felt pity to see him in his final moments, with the whole empire he built, falling apart overnight.

 

I wrote again about Midnight Express iirc and I can't say much, other that that it was the first movie to have touched me so much (still don't know if I ever encountered a similar feeling again).

It's ending is one of the best things I have seen on TV and without Moroder's soundtrack, it would have never worked so perfectly.

Also found out that Moroder did the Scarface OST and I have to say that the music he produces never disappoints me.

[[McD] James]

Loving Vincent is an incredible movie. You should watch it. Yes, you.

[Poncho]

Rewatched a few of those trashy Filipino-Namsploitation action films, like The Expendables (yes, that's the title) Battle Rats, Phantom Soldiers and Escape to Nowhere (the latter, I'm "proud" to announce I actually have a physical copy). Little run-down:

 

• Battle Rats: by far has the best action scenes (blood squibs, makes sense geographically, baddies typically shoot first, no quickcutting or shaky-cam), but has cringe-worthy dialogue and also has under AND simultaneous over-acting. I do like the tunnel setting and the use of suspense, though.
• The Expendables (1989): has some surprisingly decent acting, but has a bit too much action, with dull sound effects and not many squibs.
• Phantom Soldiers: has the most interesting story, but this has WAAAAAAAAAY too much action. When people say there are films where there's action every five minutes, this is one of those types of movies.
• Escape to Nowhere: by the same guy who did the last film, this has, believe it or not, even MORE action. I counted: it takes a whooping 16 SECONDS until the first action scene commences. It's an 85 minute movie, about 70 of which is action. It actually gets pretty exhausting after a while. The acting is atrocious, too.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Poncho

[ReX]

I watched Independence Day: Resurgence a few days ago. Although I really liked seeing the old cast (Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, and Brent Spiner, with a cameo by Robert Loggia) reunited, and the very cool special effects and action scenes, it fell short of my expectations. Especially when compared with the original movie, this one lacked an important element - the sense of the alien invasion being personal. The alien queen was adequate in its physical manifestation of the protagonist. But it seemed more like an abstract enemy, not one whose defeat gives the audience gets any profound sense of satisfaction.

[geo]

I saw some Hulk Hogan vs Gawker documentary. That's not the name of it, but that was the lie that made me watch. It was overshadowed with how Trump and billionaires are destroying independently owned news media outlets like Gawker. I hated this documentary so much that by the end I was rooting for Trump to crush journalists with his new liable law to hold journalists accountable for lies and incorrect information. Suddenly in my eyes, Trump went from a moron to OMG Trump is right, we need to stop Gawker and clickbait. Whatever this documentary was trying to do just backfired. Not only that, but the documentary had interviews with the Gawker high ups, where the irony is "I started Gawker to be the little guy that stands up to the bullies that do what they want. (paraphrasing)" Well, a single man and his law team told a national company of 200 employees to take down his illegally recorded sex tape, they didn't. Instead in a deposition the editor and chief made a joke how he would take it down if the sex tape was a minor... aged 4 years old and under. That's a paraphrase, he made a terrible joke.

 

Anyway, it took them 90 minutes to make the connection starting with Trump in the first few minutes of the opening package, to Hulk Hogan's case that was funded by a billionaire nice guy with an axe to grind for a grudge he held for 10 years and ending with Trump and the billionaire shook hands. The documentary worries about freedom of speech if a porn tape illegally filmed can be "news" since he's an American hero that would be torn down ... 10 - 30 years past his prime.

 

Maybe the documentarian wanted to get this discussion going by promising Hulk Hogan vs Gawker, when that's just a stepping stone to how Trump is evil. So then you feel so angry the movie mislead you that you need to vent on a forum for a 25 year old game to "spread the word!" Well if a billionaire really wanted to silence journalism, they would have bought the documentary to destroy it. Maybe sued them. Perhaps secretly murdered them. Although this movie would set prescience that a billionaire just waits 10 years to take revenge.

Edited May 5, 2018 by geo