Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

Saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in theaters a second time. Guys, if you haven't already seen it please do. This thing is a visual feast and you've got to see it on the big screen! You know, despite the billions of dollars made with superhero movies this past decade, this film can't help but make you think that it's a shame - because even though it was amazing to see all those characters in live action, this movie shows just how perfectly suited comic book superheroes are to animation. You could have done this movie as a live-action thing, but it would be nowhere near the revelation it is.

[O.Supreme]

Since Spiderverse won an award, it has generated quite a bit of buzz, and even had an uptick in Box Office attendance. I am quite glad actually. I do agree that anyone that doesn't see this in the theaters (who is a fan), is really doing themselves a disservice. I know we cant turn back the clocks and get this attention back for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, however, 25 years later, seeing an animated film of this caliber get its just treatment, IS truly a case of-better late than never.

[Dr Kain]

Anyone that turns down something because it's animated is not a true fan of anything. Like we were at the theater for Aquaman and this one kid says to his mom, "I want to see Spider-Verse." His mom replies, "I'm not going to watch a cartoon!" God damn the ignorance of people is staggering. Hell, when the first Sin City came out in theaters someone shouted during the opening credit sequence, "THE WHOLE MOVIE BETTER NOT BE BLACK AND WHITE!!" What an utter "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" she was. Some people just need an ass whooping in what actually matters.

[O.Supreme]

I love animation, I actually prefer it to live action films. It can be beautiful, rousing, action packed, amazing and funny etc... Admittedly it can be really stupid and pointless at times as well. I think overturning peoples opinions about the fact that not everything animated is a *silly kid cartoon* is still an uphill battle, but hopefully Spiderverse does some good for the cause.

[Dr Kain]

I just watched my BD of the new Halloween. I was kind of worried that with the hype and mood of Halloween gone that I was going to suddenly see why people hate this movie, but nope, it was even better than the two times I saw it in theaters, so I have no idea what those crazies are talking about (especially those that think Zombie's dogshit is better).

The bonus features are all right. Pretty much every deleted scene was clearly deleted for a reason. I do wish some of the other features were a lot longer though, especially the one on Carpenter and gang making the soundtrack. I feel like they were all just pieces taken from a good hour long documentary they intentionally held back for one assnine decision or another.

Well whatever. So glad I get to own this movie now. It may end up becoming a newer movie that gets viewed the most in my collection.

[O.Supreme]

Aquaman finally took the time to see this. It was pretty good. I do enjoy the depth of mythology, though it seemed to go by quickly. I did have some little nitpicks. Sometimes its it's easy to say "this is just a movie" (especially with large scale CG war underwater), but sometimes you need a little sense of being grounded (why didn't all those on the sub in the beginning get the bends when Aquaman surfaced it so quickly?) Also the monster from the trench look like it stepped straight out of Pacific Rim, which isn't necessarily bad in its own right, its just that when we've seen patters of similar things in the past so close together (movies with large tentacled ships, or skybeams...) the dramatic effect is lessened substantially. Also the comedy felt a bit forced. I think this may be more the fault of the audience I was with than the film though. There were a couple of those dopes that laugh loudly at every little thing, which of course, immediately made everything less funny. As I said, these were nitpicks. Black Manta was cool, also nice to see Temuera Morrison on screen again, since I haven't seen him since Attack of the Clones. Of course I play that silly game where everyone I've seen in a comic/superhero film previously WAS their other role. 7/10

Jango Fett and Chase Meridian gave birth to Aquaman. Green Goblin Trained him, and he fell in love with He-Man's daughter . I would say something about Djimon Hounsou, but that guy has been everywhere lately, even though its often just his voice

Reign of the SupermenDC's latest animated film gets closer than their original attempt back in 2007, but still misses the mark. The first part Death of Superman, was really well done,and faithful to the source material, despite being set in the new 52. Unfortunately this second part is where the new 52 hinders it. I understand sometimes the need to modernize and change things up, but the original story was perfectly fine, and frankly something I really wanted to see. I mean Henshaw was truly a villain, but didn't need to be a puppet of Darkseid. Also I missed the whole Mongul/Warworld subplot, along with Green Lantern's larger role all being sacrificed for something different and ultimately lack luster. The number of events that culminated in Superman returning from the dead, and to full power in the original comic was pretty spectacular, and this film just made quite *meh*. Oh well. It was ok, but still, In animation you rarely get a second chance to make something right, I guess this is as close as we'll ever get. It's not terrible, but could have been much better. 5/10

[EricDent]

Random movie night turned out to be 2 movies featuring "visitors from out of town".

First up was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I opted for the directors cut (this was the Ultimate Edition Blu-Ray with 3 versions of the movie).
Still a fun movie, and when I moved from Washington State to Texas we drove past Devil's Tower (and it was cool as heck looking).

Then was the anime movie Sword of the Stranger which looked great on Blu-Ray.
This features visitors from China to Japan during the Feudal Age.

Later on I watched Pokemon: Pikachu I Choose You. It was very cute.

[Dr Kain]

Redline - It's been a while since I've watched this one, but it is still hands down one of my favorite anime movies of all time. The animation is absolutely stunning (and hand drawn) and it has a fantastic soundtrack to it. The story may not be as deep and sophisticated as other anime films out there, especially those from Miyazaki, however, it is quite unique among its brethren. A total fun time. 10/10.

[klen7]

47 Meters Down - Nice setup, 3rd act loses a lot of the good will the movie set up leading up to it.

Punisher S2 - This seemed like an improvement over S1, but with the Marvel Netflix U getting the axe from Disney, it's a shame that it ends right where most people were hoping it would start.

[Dr Kain]

[klen7]

^ He's not really Jigsaw in any real sense of the character, just consider it a continuation of Billy Russo from S1 because thats all he is (with a clumsy Jigsaw reference in his introduction.) There's a better villain in s2 anyway.

DDs3 ends the series on a better note than either s2 or Defenders, so I'd say check it out for sure, Kingpin is at his absolute best here. I'm in a similar boat as you for JJs3, granted i wasn't sure what they could do for a S2, and i did enjoy that more than Iron Fist, so I'll probably end up watching it

[O.Supreme]

The Time Machine A Nice little gem from 2002. It's often forgotten in the realm of sci-fi remakes, which is understandable, it really didn't have a big splash, or anything significant that really stood out, but for what it's worth, it was a decent retelling of the HG Wells story, and even referenced the George Pal version from 1960. The ending is a bit anticlimactic, but the story overall is a positive one. Worth a watch every few years.

Short Circuit To me, this will always be a comedy classic, and is definitely in the scope of great 80's films such as The Goonies, Gremlins, Lost Boys etc...I really hope this film never gets remade, as I don't think in today's age, the story could be told the same way. I know there were some comparisons when Pixar released Wall-E back in 2009, but other than the actual design, I see very little similarities in their respective stories.

[klen7]

^ 'Chappie' moreso than 'Wall-E'

[lhb412]

BlackkKlansmen

I really enjoyed this. I know some have hemmed and hawed about historical accuracy here, but I think the movie shows its hand pretty early that this isn't meant to be an accurate historical document - rather a survey squeezing in a lot of history and concentrating it and connecting it to the modern day. Sure, you could have done that with a documentary, but this is more fun, right?

One thing I really loved was how lame the white supremacists were. We have this mythology about evil being enticing and sexy, but from what I've seen this movie holds true more to the reality of it where some of the most truly evil people remind you of that substitute teacher you really disliked.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Wow, this was a lot of fun! When I was a kid I was an avid fan of the Dragon Ball Z series, but I have to say I was never expose that much to the spinoff movies and their associated new characters. As such, I was unfamiliar with Broly, but this new rebooted version of the character is immediately pretty compelling! When you get to the halfway point of this movie it's pretty much all fighting from then on, and it's pretty damn spectacular! I especially liked all of the shots which put us in the POV of the fighters.

I like this so much I can't help but think that this may be the better way to go rather than becoming a weekly TV show again. We could get these new movies every year or two for as long as they see fit! Considering what an enormous success this movie was?

[Dr Kain]

[klen7]

Believe it or not that's a key story point

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

I hated the Universal Tournament in Super because there was no need for it to take 40+ episodes for what was supposed to be a 45 minute tournameet. It also doesn't help that Jiren was way overpowered to the point of redundancy and most of it was rather boring. Freeza and 17 are the only characters that make it tolerable.

[jellydonut25]

It also took like 20 episodes for "5 minutes" to pass for Namek to explode....who cares?

[Dr Kain]

[EricDent]

I sometimes make fun of the narrator of DBZ (on the English dub) saying "next time on DRAGON BALL Z...Goku stands there for 20 minutes going Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Anyhow (sorry for being silly):

Was gonna do a couple movies for random movie night, but only watched Batman vs Two-Face.
William Shatner as Two-Face/Harvey Dent is very good, and of course Adam West (RIP) as Batman/Bruce Wayne is always good.

[klen7]

The Iron Giant - probably the best animated film to come out of the US. I still tear up at the ending. It holds up so well after all these years

[lhb412]

I watched The Giant Claw on Svengoolie. You know, as 50s American giant monster movies go this one is, in regards to the acting and whatnot, slightly above bad and into decent territory (like, it's just below It! The Terror From Beyond Space and The Monster That Challenged the World in quality) but in the end it would be entirely unmemorable if not for the insanely strange special effects. And I do mean strange. It goes way past bad and into eyebrow-raising territory!

[jellydonut25]

Just started a journey of discovery into two of my bigger blind spots, especially for someone who's a fan of Japanese cinema: Miyazaki/Ghibli and Kurosawa.

I've just very recently watched:
Sanshiro Sugata - Meh.
The Most Beautiful - TRASH

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - Amazing.


I get the why of the early Kurosawa movies, but I can't give them a pass as movies because of it. Sanshiro Sugata was one of those that was kind of interesting to see the burgeoning talents of Kurosawa and some of his nifty visual storytelling tricks, but it was kinda dull. This one I give a little bit of a pass because apparently a significant chunk of it has been lost forever due to censorship. The Most Beautiful was not only problematic as it's a piece of propaganda and has a terrible portrayal of women, it just flat-out stinks as a story and a movie. It's only 86 minutes but I felt like I was watching it for a week.

Nausicaa was ASTOUNDING though. It really blew me away. The world-building, the mythology, the characters, the attention to detail, the use of animation as a visual medium...it's SPECTACULAR. And with all the similarities in terms of setting to the Godzilla anime, I couldn't help but sort of mentally compare them and how everything the anime does so terribly, tremendously wrong to deliver the most worthless movies in its franchise, Nausicaa absolutely nails and does 100% right. Everything is thought out, everything has a purpose, nothing is just because it looks cool and no big piece of mythology/philosophy/background is brought up without giving it its due and proper course. A slightly better coda, and a little bit more examination of the prophecy surrounding the person in blue in the sea of gold and what it MEANS would have driven this all the way home to a 5/5, but it's a SOLID 4.5/5 and I loved it.

[lhb412]

^ I'd certainly recommend Miyazaki's Nausicaä manga. The movie only covers what were originally the first two of what turned out to be seven volumes (he continued to work on the manga between films until the early '90s, you see). It really opens up the world and developed everything way beyond what you see in the film.

Of course, major props to Miyazaki for taking what was essentially the opening incidents of a longer story and tweaking it to stand on its own for the film!