Recently watched movies!

[klen7]

[gojiedge]

The most recent movie my wife and I watched was "Into The Sun". (steven seagal)

[jellydonut25]

The Ritual

The first hour is SO GOOD I was wondering how they were gonna manage to keep it going for another half hour.

And then they kinda didn’t. It’s not bad or anything but man, it’s like a 4.5/5 that winds up at a 3.5 because they couldn’t keep the tension going once they started revealing things. For a lot of US, that won’t be a huge problem because that reveal ties in with some good effects and a cool creature, but from a story and pacing and atmosphere perspective.... it was SO CLOSE.

[klen7]

I really enjoyed The Ritual a lot. I get what you're saying about the third act, but that may have been a bit exhausting for me, and while potentially technically superior it would have been less enjoyable.

Spiderman Homecoming - Overall I enjoyed this. I liked Parker's arc and I liked the parallel between Vulture and Iron Man.

Cloverfield Paradox - I watched this movie, I think the script is salvageable, for a movie that was intended to be science fiction, the complete disregard for logic and science is frustrating.

[Dr Kain]

Black Panther was freaing amazing. It had a very great Winter Soldier feel to it.

Aristocats - Not bad, not bad at all. I felt the scenes with the dogs went on for a little too long and the pacing was kind of all over the place, but overall, it wasn enjoyable. Nowhere near being my favorite Disney film though and the animation seemed to be a tad unfinished in areas. I give it a 7/10.

[lhb412]

Phenomena

Dario Argento directs another whodunit horror mystery, but this time the protagonist is a young American girl who can communicate with insects and is played by young Jennifer Connelly... oh, and the ever reliable Donald Pleasance is an insect expert with a chimpanzee assistant. There's some really cool moments, but it doesn't quite gel together for me. I wanted her to use her insect powers more, and while some of the music use is great (the music synthesizing with the visuals is a big deal in the best Argento movies) other times it's mismatched and distracting.

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

^I've read folks say that Opera is the last really good Argento movie. Is that so? Also: how's Tenebrae? It's not available to watch or even rent on Amazon Prime.

[eabaker]

[EricDent]

Rented a few movies via Redbox.

Geostorm was OK, lots of cool effects & action.
Though even with that sort of threat to the world, I bet there would be so much flak from having that sort of system up there.

Batman vs Two Face was campy yet kinda dark.
They should have done this sort of DC animated movie a long time ago.
William Shatner was good as my "cousin" Harvey "Two-Face" Dent.
Julie Newmar still has a really sexy sounding voice, and of course Adam West (RIP) and Burt award sound like they never got old.

Batman Gotham By Gaslight was also good.
Not sure if I remember the graphic novel ending like the movie does.

Will be seeing Black Panther tomorrow.

[lhb412]

[klen7]

Early Man - it's a soccer movie, but the best parts of the movie were the things that had little to do with the main soccer plot. There is a fantastic (and very short) stop motion dinosaur sequence that kicks off the movie, and it brings to mind Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen seeing these stop motion beasties fight it out. Not my favorite of the Aardman flicks, but the kid sure laughed more than she has at any of the pixar movies.

As a side note - According to the seating chart our showing was almost entirely sold out, but there were a lot of empty seats. I wonder if people were sneaking into one of the 4 sold out Black Panther screenings that were going on at the same time. I couldn't believe the lines for an early Sunday matinee, it's usually pretty quiet around then and the lobby was absolutely packed. it'll be interesting to hear the final numbers for well Black Panther did this weekend because anecdotally this seemed to be a bigger crowd than the Star Wars films have been pulling.

[jellydonut25]

[EricDent]

Well I was going to see Black Panther, but the only seats left were in the first row.
Even with the new upgrade to luxury liners (recliners) in that theater, still way too close.

So instead I opted for Maze Runner The Death Cure.
Way better than the 2nd one, though not as cool as the first.

Main guy finally grew up and stopped being annoying.

Hopefully I can see Black Panther either Friday (get off work early) or Sunday (which might be the best choice since there's an open house from 1-3, yes my parents are selling their house).

[lhb412]

Black Panther

Hey, you know that huge hit movie that everyone's saying is pretty great? Yeah, it's pretty great. There are so many great actors in this movie that ...



I know everyone's fav seems to be Shuri (and she's great), but I really liked M'Baku.

[canofhumdingers]

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - I had high hopes for this when I first learned about it. I was vaguely familiar with the French sci-fi comics and Moebius and the like and was eager to see it brought to life. Plus it was by the guy who did Fifth Element. Then it got absolutely panned everywhere by everybody and my enthusiasm was immensely deflated. Plus life was just too busy to make it out to the theater despite my attempts.

So we finally watched it last night and... it wasn’t that bad. I think it’s biggest flaws were the main two actors just weren’t particularly good and the pacing wasn’t great. Also, the story itself was a little cliche/generic but that didn’t bother me so much. Oh, and the design of the beach planet (while quite accurate to the source material) just felt so intensely hyper-cliched in trying WAY too hard to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, if that makes sense...

The film’s strengths were its world building, some really neat sci-fi ideas, and amazing visuals. I absolutely loved the market-in-another-dimension. That was incredible. I also thoroughly enjoyed the caveman-like aliens that used butterflies as fishing lures and the ensuing subplot.

Overall it was a mixed bag, but I’d be down for a sequel (as unlikely as that may be). If you enjoy crazy sci-fi adventure, it’s at least worth giving a chance.

[jellydonut25]

I didn't think it was BAD...but it wasn't good. It was just there, and sometimes for me, that's even worse than being BAD. At least bad can (sometimes) be entertaining (if ironically so). Bland and just existent, is just....bland...and...existent.

[O.Supreme]

^ I have not seen Valerian yet, but when it was coming out, I thought to myself...I wonder if this cold be the next *Avatar* (Extreme world building, amazing SPFX etc...) , but it pretty much petered into nothing, which makes me still wonder why in the world was Avatar this 2.7 billion dollar phenomenon nearly a decade ago? I mean other than amazing SPFX, there is really nothing special about it. I saw it once ONLY once, and I wish now that I had not, because I bought into the hype, and whenever James Cameron finally decides to release any of his 12 sequels that he'll shoot back-to-back for the next 20 years, I definitely wont be seeing them. I just have this odd thought, that if these two films could be presented exactly as they are, but switch places in time, we might live in a world where Valerian made 2.7 Billion in 2009, and Avatar was just a *meh* movie that came out this year.

[Dr Kain]

I thought it was a dreadful film. It can cure insomnia. It didn't help having the wooden plank from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 team up with the drift wood from Suicide Squad either. They had absolutely no chemistry together whatsoever and the movie was full of random scenes that made no sense. Like the one where Valerian walks into a strip club after his girlfriend has been kidnapped and watches some shape shifter lady dance around a pole for 10 minutes. Yeah, that was totally important to the film.

[canofhumdingers]

It was important because he went into the pleasure district specifically looking for a shapeshifter so that he could infiltrate the aliens who had taken Laureline.

The film is far from perfect, but it’s not nearly as bad as you’re making it out to be. Though I will agree with you that the casting choices for the two main characters are weak at best.

It’s funny, I enjoyed it for what it was, but didn’t think a whole lot of it. But the more we keep talking about it, it’s making me kinda sorta want to watch it again.

[jellydonut25]

The opera scene in Fifth Element (the singing of the opera) isn't integral to the plot either. Extraneous stuff is in movies all the time to add depth and character and world-building.


That said, I don't wanna defend the movie too much. For something as interesting visually, it's very generic plot-wise and pacing and absolutely the chemistry between the leads is non-existent. Dane Dehaan is particularly awful, as he is in most things (he was good in Chronicle, because he was supposed to be irritating).

[Dr Kain]

True, but the opera scene in Fifth Element was a moment of down time in a movie that was exciting and fun. The pole dancing scene was just another long and drawn out scene of boredom and only exists to get the male audience excited.

[canofhumdingers]

Black Panther - I thought it was good, but not great. A solid middle-of-the-pack Marvel movie. As a 30-something middle-class white guy from the suburbs, I’m very obviously not the target audience. And I admittedly felt no strong connection with any of the characters, which is a big reason why found it only average.

That being said, I totally get why this is being so successful and being made such a big deal of. There IS a huge target audience for this film that has been starved for such a big, well written and acted, high budget, and truly heroic hero who is black. And they really did a great job delivering on that. And (as far as I can tell as a white guy from the burbs) they really tried to embrace and address many of the issues, problems, dreams, and aspirations of the black community in a positive way.

So, while personally grading it just as a superhero film, I’d give it maybe a 2.5 or 3 stars out of 4 (fwiw, anything 2 or above I would consider worth seeing). But as a landmark or groundbreaking cultural event, I think it accomplishes much more.

[DannyBeane]

[lhb412]

Everyone loves M'Baku.