Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

The Resident Evil movies turned to "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" the moment they had the entire world get infected. The final installment is just a train wreck that was not helped by having the most inexperienced dumbass cameraman in the history of cinema. Did they really need to change camera angles every second? There was one minute where I counted how many time the camera angled changed and it was 67 times. That's less than a second per change. God damn did they suck ass.

If I were to rank the six movies, it would g:

1
Apocalypse
Afterlife
Retribution
Extinction
The Final Chapter

I also hated how they kept changing Alice's abilities. Like Wesker removes her super powers but she can still do super abilities, which makes no sense. Not to mention Alice had to always make the kills, no one else was allowed to.

God damn those movies make me angry.

[jellydonut25]

They're great. The fourth is one of the treasures of humanity and deserves entry to the Film Library of Congress.

[Dr Kain]

Spirited Away - I haven't watched this one since it was initially in theaters and I had some mixed feelings on it then. Having finally watched it tonight I gotta say that my god it is definitely an outstanding film. There is so much depth hidden between the layers I'm not seeing what most saw 15 years ago. No Face is pretty cool but the best animated scene has to go to the "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" spirit thing. It's disgusting yet beautifully animated. 10/10.

[O.Supreme]

Lego Batman - Basically this was a last second impulse buy at my closing TRU (was like $6 for the Blu ray and came with a small bat mobile lego toy). It's still just as hilarious as when I saw it in theaters. I've had long discussions with my kids about the "shipping" messages, so we can ignore all that, and enjoy it for the comedy it is. It's nice to be able to pause the movie and catch all the little bonuses on the signage in the films, and deep DC film and comic book references (Looking up who Phyllis' "Boss" was, -that was pretty fun). I really hope someday Lego produces an official Hall of Justice set with all the JL/Super Friends members. That would be an instant purchase. I've seen a couple neat fan-created ones, so I definitely know its possible.

Pacific Rim Uprising yeah, it wasn't as fun the 2nd time around, it will definitely be a long time before I need to watch this again. It has some excellent ideas, but a "new" generation of heroes, doesn't automatically always have to be younger generation. I think this was where the film really missed. GDT didn't make the first film for kids/teens, though if they liked it, that was a bonus. They should have stuck with the same style. The lack of Box Office returns pretty much guarantees we wont get a 3rd film, and I'd rather honestly have nothing than a cut-rate straight to home video 3rd film. Although this film would definitely make a great animated series, especially if DreamWorks picked it up for distribution on Netflix .

Thor:Ragnarok I've watched this a couple times since it's been on Netflix. It's definitely grown on me. The tone was fine, but the comedy could have been dialed back just a little, maybe a 8 instead of an 11, it would have been a near perfect film IMHO.

[eabaker]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Another wasted opportunity.

[klen7]

Kingsmen 2: Golden Circle - Man this went off the rails, as over the top as the first film was, it feels completely grounded and restrained in comparison. They could have reigned in some of the bigger effects scenes or even some of the cg butterflies and ended up with tighter film and a smaller budget. Also some of the standard sequel issues of redoing the same scenes over again

[Dr Kain]

Ant-Man and the Wasp - Not as good as the first one, but still good. It suffers from having way too many villains though, taking away the development from the one that mattered.

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

The Monster Squad

A lot of fun... Well, aside from some glaring bits of 'it was another time' in the kids' frequent no-homos and their blackmailing of a teenage girl by taking nude photos of her. Made me kinda want Dracula to pick off a couple of 'em before the end of the movie (preferably one of the older ones. I'm not a monster!). Great monster effects, a nice score that's very evocative of the time it was made (made me nostalgic), and the movie mostly works even though I feel it could be a bit longer to develop such a big cast of kids and monsters. As it is, an hour and twenty barely accommodates it.

Did they have any agreement with Universal? I mean, the monster designs are good at staying just similar enough to be immediately recognizable but just different enough to not be outright copies - but still; you think Universal would have qualms about using this exact lineup, especially with a Gill Man analog (their original creation with not folkloric or literary basis).

[jellydonut25]

There's a doc on film festival circuits right now about Monster Squad. The previews make it look like it's more "How did this awesome thing go unrecognized then finally become recognized?" and less the nuts-and-bolts of the movie, but they might get into it a little bit.

EDIT: I also found this tidbit - "Dracula has no Lugosi-esque widow’s peak, Frankenstein monster’s neck bolts have migrated to his temples, and Wolfman has pointy ears and a face that Dekker describes as “more lupine” than what Universal had come up with." in order to avoid legal issues.

[Dr Kain]

According to the documentary (which is awesome btw), initially Universal was going to allow them to use the characters and then just as the film got into production Universal changed their minds as they were planning to revive the characters themselves.

[O.Supreme]

ok, so I have a rare opportunity today. My family has gone off to an amusement park without me while I have to work (yay!)...No worries, we have a season pass, so I still get to go on occasion. But after work I was going to try to see a movie, because I am way behind. Now I know the summer has had a few letdowns, but if YOU had to make a choice between:

Solo & JW: Fallen Kingdom...which would you choose.... Honestly, yeah I'd rather see Incredibles 2 or Ant Man & Wasp, but the family wants to see those also, so I have to wait. I'd also accept the 3rd option to save my money and just go home, but I'd expect the other movies to be really, really bad for me to make such a decision, any response is appreciated. Thank You.

[canofhumdingers]

Hmm, do you like dinosaurs or Chewbacca more? Chewbacca was the standout highlight of Solo to me in an otherwise average action movie. I want to see Solo again just for Chewie (well, and the rival gang, they were pretty cool).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was easily the better movie to me. I’d probably say pick it.

[O.Supreme]

Thanks. I just looked at showings in my area, and my decision was kind of made for me. Of 10 theaters I could drive to, only ONE of them has ONE showing of Solo, at 9pm (too late ). this must be that odd period where its out of the main theaters, but hasn't made it to the discount theaters yet, probably next week. I'll be seeing JP, its all over the place, and has a showing near my work right after my work day ends. Man I cant believe this (Solo) comes out on DVD August 28th. It appears the *norm* of 4-6 months before coming to home media has pretty much truncated down to 3-4 months standard, with the exception of some Indi films. Man...If all these go on sale super-cheap on Black Friday, I'm going to have quite a haul this year .

[eabaker]

[canofhumdingers]

Well, I said it was better to me. As in, I enjoyed it more. I wouldn’t call either high cinema, but so what? Jurassic World 2 was a fun ride with awesome dinosaurs and a likeable cast. I was smiling and laughing and having a good time for the duration of the film.

Solo was far more uneven. The beginning was slow and kinda lame. The middle was pretty good. And then the end had THE cameo that just ripped me out of the film and they just had to tie a really cool new character into the Rebellion rather than letting her stand on her own. To be fair, I’m a much bigger Star Wars nerd and therefore far more critical of things that bug me. With the JP franchise, I just wanna have a fun time with awesome dinosaurs.

[Dr Kain]

I didn't feel like working on any videos today, so I spent the day watching a few movies.

Double Indemnity - 10/10

The Killing - 9/10

And then I finally watched Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions. The movie was quite good. Not Battle of Gods revival amazing, but it was nice to see the characters again. Not just that, but the redone score from the show was utterly outstanding.

Initially I forgot this was a direct continuation to the manga and not the anime, so when Kaiba made the comment, "So this is where Yugi had his final battle with Atem" I got confused for a second and at first thought Kaiba was a tad out of character. It's been a few years since I read the manga, so I didn't have a fresh memory on what happened until I thought about it. Him digging up the puzzle just to duel Atem is so like him.

Anyway, the story itself was good, I liked getting to see a bit of the origins behind why Shadi kept showing up like a ghost in the series and I loved the stuff with Bakura, but the dimension duel stuff was quite convoluted. I got a laugh at the ending when Beyond that dues ex moment, I highly enjoyed the movie, especially the ending which felt like a better conclusion than the manga had. I give it an 8/10.

With that said, the Blu-Ray is a mess. I got what is supposed to be the corrected version and the subtitles were still partially dubtitles or something. The monsters still had the incorrect names (Yugi straight up says Black Magician but the subtitles say Dark Magician, Celtic Guardian instead of Elven Swordsman), there are times when dialog is spoken but no subtitles show up, all kinds of grammatical errors and misspellings, the music during the end credits was the horrible 4Kids opening song (I'm going to guess it was supposed to be one of the opening themes to the show), and the box has the wrong run time. It says the movie is 89 minutes when it was as long as a Marvel movie (130 minutes). Now I have nothing against the movie being over two hours, as it needed it to tell its story, but unless the English dubbed version was cut down to 89 minutes (which now that I think about it, wouldn't surprise me), I have no idea how they managed to miss a third digit in the running time.

[eabaker]

[klen7]

^^ I really dig The Killing (aside from one of the actresses' acting feeling really dated) its pretty great

[canofhumdingers]

[lhb412]

His Girl Friday

Okay, yes: Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant are great, masterpiece of fast overlapping dialog and all that - but what really struck me was how clearly the movie articulates Hawk's belief that the highest reason of being alive is to be great at something, of doing your job well and being professional, and as the movie goes on it began to dawn on me how scary that philosophy is untied from any moral dimension. The guilt or innocence of the condemned man or the attempted suicide of the girl are just means towards good stories for the newspapermen. In that sense it reminded me a bit of Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, only not at all condemning.

[Dr Kain]

The Birds - So damn good, but when you get down to it, it's about a bored white woman who decides to stalk a dude until stockholm syndrome sets in. Seriously though, 10/10.

[lhb412]

Saw the original The Hills Have Eyes, which is like a zipper but less visceral take on Texas Chainsaw. Hard to imagine how shocking this was to audiences back in the day when your consider the average CBS cop show today.

Ended up watching Justice League, which is my first DC universe movie that isn't Wonder Woman. Despite obvious reshoots, a dull CGI villain, an iffy CGI upper lip, and an otherwise simplistic plot it's a reasonably entertaining thing. It's biggest sin is just that it feels a decade (or more) too late. After three Avengers films and numerous other superhero team films released in the '00s such a rudimentary film introducing what should be the ultimate superhero team seems a bit pointless.

I did notice how the post-production tinkering with the brightness and color grading made some of the costumes and makeup look weird. Those things should be tailored to how they'll be shot, and when you change it after the fact you get some funky stuff.