Most recent movie you saw

[[McD] James]

I watched the two first Harry Potter movies not long after they each came out but generally felt ambivalent towards them at the time for whatever the reason. I decided to give the series another shot and rewatched the first two movies.

 

Well, there's definitely a lot of things to nitpick, but overall, I surprisingly quite enjoyed them and found them to be both imaginative and fun. There's some very effective worldbuilding here, and I found myself absorbed by this universe and its lore. I guess my biggest complaint is that a lot of the story seems to move forward on account of the characters either not realizing the obvious, or the three protagonists being sneaky and dishonest (sometimes without reason). As a series of films aimed at children, I'm mildly irked that Harry and his friends will often lie to their teachers, and then sneak around Hogwarts and do things they're strictly forbidden from doing, resulting in convenient circumstances befalling them which allow them to rise above danger and save the day. So many of the obstacles Harry encounters could have been easily avoided by simply confiding to Dumbledor as to what was going on, rather than always sneaking around and breaking the rules, only to later get praised for doing things which frankly should have resulted in his expulsion. 

 

A lot of the characters are also really annoying, though I realize that's kind of the point with some of them. Most of the antagonists also seem to be a bit too cartoonishly evil to be taken seriously. I kind of wish the tone was a bit less silly, but as I understand, the movies become darker as they move along. There are also many tiny plot holes that kind of add up. But in the end, they were both solidly entertaining films, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series.  

 

tldr; The first two Harry Potter movies are quite a bit better than I remember them, even though there's a lot of niggling annoyances and room for improvement. 

 

Uh, Harry should probably say something to Dumbledor about how Lucius Malfoy is an agent of Voldemort, and attacked Harry, and is working towards helping Voldemort overthrow Dumbledor. My guess is that he won't, and numerous problems are going to add up over the upcoming movies that could have been avoided if Harry wasn't always so secretive for no reason.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Ajora

[Mister Xiado]

John Wick, and I should not have watched it. I have grudges going back 30 years.

[Poncho1]

Just watched The Killing Fields (1984) - directed by Roland Joffé - for the first time. It's about the build-up and the events of the Khmer Rouge regime (and the atrocities it committed) in Cambodia. After one single viewing, this already ranks as one of my favourite films of all time. The acting by the entire cast is fantastic, especially by Hiang S. Ngor as the Cambodian national. The realist depictions of war-torn Cambodia and the brutality of the violence still shocks today. I think, however, that the quieter moments - especially in the second half - are the most powerful, capturing Pol Pot (and his army)'s desire for a silent, efficient, obeying people.

 

Certainly recommended, in my opinion.

[Capellan]

Last weekend, I watched all four hours of Cleopatra (1963).  What a visually sumptuous film.

[DadHoc]

Watched the Lego Movie 2 yesterday, and it was just as good as the first one. I was really surprised to see Jon "M.C. Vagina" LaJoie's name in the final credits - but then, TLI were involved in the first one and their work is hardly kid friendly, either.

Last one before that was Arrival, and... my brain is still processing that ending, a week after seeing it. What the actual. (fantastic film tho solid 8/10)

[BrassKnight]

Watched Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic last week for the first time. If I'm correct, the movie was based on the game with the same name (I've never played it before but it looks dope.) It's about a Crusader named Dante who has traverse the 9 circles of Hell with the assistance of a poet named Virgil to save his lover Beatrice from Lucifer himself. 

 

While watching the movie, I noticed that every 2-3 chapters, the art style of the animation changes for some reason. I don't know why they made the decision of doing that but at least it was pretty good for the most part. One thing I don't like about this is that there so many interesting things in this movie yet most of them were never explained properly or explained at all. This could have been a good movie if that problem wasn't there even though it's not that close to the game and the book. Nonetheless, I recommend you give it a watch.

[geo]

Whoa back up everybody!

 

DEATH WISH with Bruce Willis was thrilling. Surgeon's family gets murdered and comatose during a break in. Cops are useless, in time he gets a gun and becomes a vigilante on the way to finding his wife's killer. Good climax, great cast. Surprising for what I remember as being a bad movie they kept stringing out. Oh and it was made by Eli Roth... which became obvious when I saw his cameo. That explained the gore. Oh and there's also some misplaced comedy. Like a bowling ball saves Bruce. That sort of stuff will take people out of the experience.

 

LEGO MOVIE 2 was a lot of fun. I super enjoyed the first, and while I feel like the first was better, this still had a lot of laughs... and a Twilight Zone ending like the first.

 

THE PRODIGY is literally Child's Play, but with a murderous kid possessed by a serial killer instead of a doll. It's creepy with a lot of shocking moments, mostly because it's a kid doing the creepiness. It borders on comedy. If you can get into it, then it's horror, but I'm sure 90% would see it as comedy.

 

KICKASS is literally another movie about a child killing people... because it's a comedy I guess? Shock value can be seen as comedy. Nicholas Cage trains his daughter to be a vigilante that flat out kills people. Oh and there's a story about a teenage failure of a super hero. Sure he's the protagonist, but he feels more like garnish.

 

ISN'T IT ROMANTIC was actually hilarious with an overused censorship beep for like 10x throughout the movie. Rebel Wilson is in a romantic comedy. But it's a parody of romantic comedies.

 

EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS is still an awesome giant spider movie. It's either a modern day Gremlins or if Loony Toons made a horror movie.

 

MIAMI VICE is something I gave it 20 minutes and after 20 minutes I had no idea what was going on. They really just drop you in. It's dark as in hard to see. It was tough to watch... so fuck it.

 

DOWNSIZING is a comedy that turns into a drama - ish? Matt Daemon is in a world where shrinking people is a reality and the world is perfect, because reverse inflation. So a thousand dollars turns into a million or so. Anyway, awkward hilarity happens, before the feels happen. Somehow Matt gets sucked into the drama and finds love along the way. All while struggling with issues about fearing the future.

 

ABDUCTED IN PLAIN SIGHT is a documentary about idiots... idiots everywhere. A dude kidnapped his neighbor's kid while his idiot wife told the parents not to call the cops. They called the cops a week later. Well the guy brainwashed the girl into thinking they were abducted by aliens and had to have a kid together. Anyway, they got fake married. The idiot parents got their daughter back and moronically signed something that said she wasn't kidnapped. Oh but wait... there's more. See it's not bad enough to kidnap the girl once, he did it a second time. He did it a second time and stashed her at an all girl's school claiming he works for the CIA and there are people after her. So everyone knew she was kidnapped, only he didn't have her... because he put her in plain sight.

 

Oh better yet... both the idiot parents had sex with the girl's kidnapper. What? I hate to blame the victims, but wow either their dumb or they're in on it. The guy blackmailed the parents and preyed on their good will. If anything this is a tutorial on what not to do. It was great seeing the lead investigator on this interviewed because he's like "you cannot speak to him ever again... and that's just what they did NOT do."

Edited February 25, 2019 by geo

[[McD] James]

The Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm glad the Harry Potter series has taken an appropriately darker and more violent tone, but the problem is that doing so makes all of the slapstick humor and kooky characters seem all the more jarring. And at this point, I'm completely sick of Harry's relatives. Gah, they're annoying. It's the best in the series thus far, but I'm still waiting for these movies to completely drop the silly bits altogether. Here's hoping.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Ajora

[Capellan]

Disney's Z-O-M-B-I-E-S.  And you know what?  It was cheery, cheesy, candy-floss movie fun, with all-singing, all-dancing zombies struggling to find acceptance among humans who are still prejudiced over that little "brain eating incident" from 50 years ago.

.

 

[cannonball]

Saw the Lego movie 2 at the cinema recently. It was pretty darn good fun with some similar themes related between the Lego and real world. Probably not quite as good as the first but still very good.

Aquaman was a bit meh for me especially towards the end when I got rather bored with the film. I actually decided to watch a few other DC hero films. I really enjoyed wonder woman and despite the general bad press I actually didn’t hate the Green lantern.

Edited March 5, 2019 by cannonball

[[McD] James]

The 2004 live-action Cutie Honey movie was amazing. I loved every moment of it.

[Poncho1]

Saw Scum (1979) by Alan Clarke. Wow, what a film… brutal, grim, bleak… great look at the borstal / prison system in the mid '70s.

[HarryGrey]

Overlord 
Started off okay with a visceral Normandy paratrooper landing behind enemy lines. However it then descended into an attempt to fuse Inglorious  with zombie movie. Would have been better sticking to a Boys Own straightforward war story. Nazi zombies done better in the Outpost movies or Dead Snow, especially the second one. 

[Billy Baron]

I watched "The House of Domovoy". It was only about an hour long. The audio was Terrible© in parts, and its vision seemed a little muddy(real mud!) due to it being a Culture Shocked foreign film. You might ask why you would stop and watch such an Independent(TM) looking movie. It had amazing style, and was a really cool trip out, kind of like Russian Pink Floyd. If you like Horror movies, the horror part, it was a real Trip. Spooky atmosphere and good use of insanity with a nice touch of religious effect. Jesus!

  If you like Really Bad(TM) movies, like Tromaville, you would probably like this one. I think it went over better than, say "Dumpster Baby", but that might just be because I like Russian movies. And movies like "Toxic Avenger" one time became Saturday Morning Cartoons, and how "low budget" a production looks.

 

I liked it, I really did. It was not The Complete $hi7 I've been dreaming of. Where is this Total $hi7 ? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hellbent]

Blackfish. And then I googled orca brain imaging and found this article: http://greymattersjournal.com/killer-whales-are-non-human-persons/

and then I stumbled upon this video: 

 

And now my whole world is changed. Save the whales indeed....

[nrofl]

I watched the aliens movies for the first time. There pretty damn good!

[PureSlime]

Oh wow my thread from almost three years ago is still going.

 

Most recent movie I saw was Captain Marvel. Liked it quite a bit. Think it's one of the stronger entries in the MCU. I'm not sure if that's a high bar though, since most of the films in the series are "good enough" imo.

[SOSU]

^ Wait that movie is out :O?

Also the last movie i saw was Bird Box :X

[DoomKid423]

On 3/17/2019 at 1:59 AM, Hellbent said:

Blackfish. And then I googled orca brain imaging and found this article: http://greymattersjournal.com/killer-whales-are-non-human-persons/

and then I stumbled upon this video: 

 

And now my whole world is changed. Save the whales indeed....

That rises a question to me. Were they merely just playing with him/her or actually playing with their prey before eating them?

[seed]

Venom, after missing it in theaters back when it first came out.

 

So, I think it's alright, and Bane does a great job playing Venom (if you know what I mean). But it does have its problems, the most obvious being the fact that the whole movie looks like it's rushing somewhere, which is why it doesn't make any in-depth analysis of any character, there's nothing you can say about anyone, not even Eddie. It's very straight-to-the-point. Origins story? Done, moving on. Main villain? Done, defeated, moving on.

 

The origins are fucked up, yes, but there's nothing Sony could possibly do since they don't own the rights to Spider-Man (and vice versa). Disney should get the rights back to Venom... The sequel will likely have screwed up origins for Carnage as well, if they would go for comic book accuracy a part of the movie will have to spend time putting Eddie into a jail, him meeting Cletus there, then escape, and for one movie, it would probably look like it just wants to get stuff out of the way for a second time. Or they could just have it longer, but, I dunno... I'm glad those idiots screaming "you can't have a Venom movie without Spider-Man" at the wall have vanished in the meantime. A correct approach would be "not being able to have a good origin story without the other" (wouldn't be surprised if those people never opened a comic book).

 

Otherwise, it was decent, and the symbiote's CGI was great. Now let's see what they do with the sequel.

Edited March 24, 2019 by seed

[geo]

US wow such a bat shit crazy horror movie that feels like a Twilight Zone episode I don't even want to ruin it by telling you the plot. It walks the line between enjoyable comedy, horror, and cringe worthy comedy and cringe worthy horror all at the same time.

 

ACE VENTURA is the first time I've seen it in like a decade. I loved the movie and I've seen it countless times, but wow it's so painful to watch now. The character is just so out of place in the real world.

 

KINGPIN is still awesome.

[Capellan]

Captain Marvel, which I enjoyed a lot.  Off to see Fighting with my Family tonight.

 

[Jello]

I watched The Coneheads two nights ago. It's been probably 20 years since I saw it last. And you know, I actually think it's still a funny movie. Dan Aykroyd knows comedy. Sure it's a little dated, but I laughed at it. The only reason I watched it was because I was listening to Golden Age of the Grotesque (which I still think is a solid album, it's not Antichrist Superstar, but I think Tim Sköld really helped create an interesting and unique sound on it), and Manson covered Tainted Love, which made me think of The Coneheads. 

 

There's quite a few shitty movies based off of SNL sketches, but I think Wayne's World, The Coneheads, and Macgruber are still pretty funny. 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Jello

[elcoldtown]

I watched Roman J. Israel, Esq., a legal drama starring Denzel Washington. A complex movie with an unusual plot and problems which makes most of Washington's acting skills. I am genuinely surprised it has “mixed reviews.”

[[McD] James]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Cheese and crackers, most of this movie kinda sucked. A lot of it felt less like a Harry Potter movie and more like a teen soap opera. So many subplots that went absolutely nowhere and often ended as soon as they started. What was the point of that whole ballroom dance subplot, and what the hell does Hermione see in Ron? Ron was kind of an asshole throughout most of this. Surprisingly, this movie became really good roughly 80% of the way through and kept its momentum going through to the very end. Less kooky characters, meandering subplots, and forced romance and more blood sacrifices, killer mermaids, dragons, black magic, and apocalyptic wizard battles to the death, please. 

 

 

I'm guessing Harry is going to continue to not tell anyone that Lucius Malfoy is a servant of "you know who" and doing so will inevitably bite him really hard in the ass.

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ajora

[elend]

Watching "Love, Death and Robots" right now. Highly recommended. A collection of 18 short stories (around 15 minutes in length each) with mostly gorgeous computer animation and very adult subject matter.

[wolfmcbeard]

Stargate, love that movie, kicked of Stargate SG1 that I watched a lot of as a kid, SG Atlantis was alright but SG Universe was total shit.
Either way, Stargate is an awesome movie and if you're looking for a good spin off show, SG1 is pretty good too.

[CyberDreams]

On 3/28/2019 at 4:01 PM, wolfmcbeard said:

Stargate, love that movie, kicked of Stargate SG1 that I watched a lot of as a kid, SG Atlantis was alright but SG Universe was total shit.
Either way, Stargate is an awesome movie and if you're looking for a good spin off show, SG1 is pretty good too.

 

I remember watching Stargate SG1 with my dad once in a while. It was a good show. I used to have the Stargate movie on VHS but i don't anymore. Great movie from what i remember.

 

Anyway's the last movie i watched was some more Star Trek stuff: Star Trek: Insurrection which i liked quite a bit. It seemed a tad slow in certain spots but i didn't mind that. I quite liked the story. It was definitely better then Generations (i don't mind that movie but i think it could have been a lot better) and to me it was probably on par with First Contact (from what i can remember ;) . I won't explain the story so i don't spoil anything (even though it is from 1998).

 

Next up is ST: Nemesis, the only one that i own on DVD. It even comes with some special shaped CD-Rom. Not sure if it works or not. I'll try it though. But yeah, i had to watch the others Star Trek movies online. Not download them, just stream them since Netflix doesn't have them. They have all of the show's yet they don't have the movies...i don't get it. I still plan on buying the movies at some point though, when i can start feeling better and get the hell out of the house (i don't see that being anytime soon though).

[StoneFrog]

I watched "The Player" from 1992. I'm not a film person but it's kind of funny in the way Coen Bros. films are. The opening shot is 8 minutes long or so, the film seems to have a lot going for it in the visuals department. The title transition honestly made me think it was older - like from the early 80's. It's such a pretty film.

[Billy Baron]

I watched Evil Dead (2013). I'm a newcomer to Evil Dead, and I found it to be a little bit different than what I expected it to be, but still cool. I had good visual style, and fresh acting, and a good amount of gore. The story also had several interesting elements, even if it seemed a little disconnected. Uhm, not exactly engrossing. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that.

  I recommend Evil Dead (2013) from a 'Evil Dead Newbie" point of view.