Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

The Vampire Doll

Huh, always heard these films were Toho's take on Hammer-style Dracula, but (as Kim Newman mentions in his retrospective featurette placing these movies in the context of Japanese horror history) this first one feels more like a Roger Corman Poe riff, and the vampire isn't exactly a traditional vampire. Love the look of the vampire: icy complexion and golden eyes. That looks so good!

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

Solo - It didn't knock my socks off but I had a great time watching the movie. I only wish that we got to see Han in the Imperial Air Force (Space Force?) and I do hope that... well I'm not sure if this is a spoiler or not but I'll err on the side of caution

The music is great! Williams' new Han theme is fantastic and Powell brings some gems as well, I love Nephry Nest's theme.

[Dr Kain]

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - A near perfect masterpiece! I say near perfect because there were a few narrative issues that occured in the last 20 minutes of the movie that kind of pulled me out of the immersion (such as Nausicaa's pink outfit becoming blue between frames), the bugs having the powers of resurrection, and I really don't understand what the Giant Warrior was supposed to be. Was it a man-made thing? Why was it important when it did very little? Other than those minor nitpicks, I enjoyed every other second of this film with its rich animation and an interesting setting. Oh, and the old dude with the beard is a badass! I'm torn as to whether I want to give it a straight up 10 or a 9 due to the minor nitpicks. Well either way, it's a phenomenal movie all around!

[lhb412]

^ The giant warriors are man-made. They were the weapons that totally destroyed civilization, so naturally they hold a mythic reputation to the folks in the world of Nausica
ä.

Miyazaki's manga actually goes into greater detail on this stuff. It was originally published in seven volumes and the movie only covers the first two with the ending of that second volume rejiggered to feel more like a finale. The revived giant warrior has a much bigger part in the manga, but later on.

[Dr Kain]

So are they supposed to be Golems?

Wow though, the movie only covers 2 out of 7 manga chapters? What more to the story is there to tell? Although, I guess the explanations why the last little bit didn't jive for me as the rest of the movie.

[lhb412]

^ Much like with Akira (manga created by Otomo and adapted into a movie by Otomo) Miyazaki created both the manga and the movie adaptation, and since both were still being published at the time they both had to get creative. Otomo kinda sorta had an idea about how Akira would end, so he was able to take the story to conclusion in the movie even though he hadn't gotten to that part in the manga yet, but Miyazaki had no idea how Nausicaä would end, so he just amped up the finale of the second volume, making it more epic and giving it a feeling of finality. In the manga it doesn't feel like much of a finale, and the action continues right after those events.

Miyazaki continued to return to the manga in-between working on movies, and didn't finish it until 1994. By the end the story was greatly expanded from the events of the movie: more characters (and characters who only have a scene in the movie expanded to leading roles), more different factions of men, more backstory - all sorts of stuff!

[Dr Kain]

Interesting, but damn, that took forever if the movie came out in 84 and the manga didn't finish until 94.

Castle in the Sky - Not sure how I feel about this one as it was quite slow moving. I also didn't find myself immersed in the film's world as I was with Lupin and Nausicaa, which didn't help matters. I did get a laugh at the one robot that looked like a Mega Man boss and the movie picks up quite a bit after Pazu and the pirates rescue Sheeta from the military, but that first hour or so was a really hard to sit through and I really didn't think the villain was all that great. The animation was beautiful though. Overall, I think I'm giving this one a 6/10.

[lhb412]

Solo: A Star Wars Story

I loved the tone, the general vibe of this movie. It's a space western and a space swashbuckler, so it hit my Cowboy Bebop and Captain Harlock sweet spots. Cast were all good to great, and I accepted Han and Lando as the characters, which is a tricky prospect... but I just don't like this thing of giving existing characters backstory movies. I don't think it's sustainable, and I don't think it's healthy for the stories to be tethered to the other movies in this way.

Special note: I've seen on social media that this film's dark cinematography requires the projection to be on point. I've seen images how they're supposed to look and this movie is gorgeous, unfortunately mine and many other (apparently) theaters are projecting the movie too bright which makes the image gray and muddy. This movie was shot needing those true black values for the image to pop.

[canofhumdingers]

^I agree. Although I’d hesitate to call any of them great (except Chewie, he was GREAT!), most of them were definitely good. I thought Q’ira was kinda bland and Lando’s droid was just obnoxious (though she looked awesome). But the fact that they were able to pretty darn successfully recast Han and Lando? That’s a pretty big feat. But yeah, the back stories just aren’t the best direction for the franchise I think. (And this is coming from someone who LOVES Rogue One!)

[jellydonut25]

Game Night - I laughed a lot. Mission accomplished for a comedy. 3.5/5. Nothing SPECIAL, but it was good...and I haven't seen a broad, general audience comedy that I thought was good in a while, so that was nice.

[klen7]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

[The Shadow]

I watched SOLO last Friday and something like half the movie looked like it was underexposed -- far too many scenes looked washed out and lost a lot of detail in the darker areas. I didn't know whether it was the projector or something to do with film itself. The few T.V. spots I've seen looked fine -- really strange.

[canofhumdingers]

There’s been discussion about that in another thread. Apparently a lot of theaters aren’t calibrated properly or something and aren’t producing the necessary contrast levels to make it look right.

Lhb had a link to a side by side showing the difference.

[Dr Kain]

My Neighbor Totoro - Cute, very cute. Perhaps the most adorable movie I have ever seen before. It was good and a lot different from what I was expecting. I was also expecting a big tragedy to occur halfway through, but it didn't, which seems very un-Japanese (if that makes any sense). If you've seen a lot of anime and know how parents work, you probably know what I'm referring to. Overall, I give it a solid 9/10.

[lhb412]

[Benjamin Haines]

Deadpool 2 (2018) - Really funny, clever for the most part, not as good as the first but still a good movie in its own right.

Skiptrace (2016) - A Hong Kong-Chinese-American film from Finnish director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea). Jackie Chan plays a detective who must escort an American con artist played by Johnny Knoxville from Russia to Hong Kong to testify against a crime lord as various goons pursue them from all sides. This buddy action-comedy is corny, cliched, and barely coherent, but it's a lot of fun thanks to the lead performances and the stylish action sequences. It's under two hours and very fast-paced but a lot of the scenes are under a minute long and they just fall into each other, one after another. The editing is so choppy and the movie is almost completely devoid of establishing shots. Within the first hour there are two different and totally unnecessary flashbacks to scenes from earlier in the film with a superficial amount of additional shots that add nothing of substance to those earlier scenes. The movie is actually really bizarre just to watch and that adds to the entertainment value. Check it out on Netflix.

[lhb412]

Lake of Dracula

Honestly, aside from the dashing figure Shin Kishida cuts as the Dracula analogue the most diverting thing for me was constantly recognizing the '70s Toho sound affects I'm so familiar with. I don't think this movie really gets going until the very very very end when it does actually feel like a Hammer vampire film.

[lhb412]

Upgrade

Now this is a cool flick. A brutal little sci-fi action romp in the vein of Cameron's original Terminator and Carpenter's Escape From New York with a dash of Ghost in the Shell and Steve Jobs futurism to move it into the 21st century. It's the near future and Grey is a luddite auto-mechanic who refurbishes classic cars and he's attacked along with his wife. His wife is killed and he's paralyzed, but a client of Grey's, a tech-leader, offers to install a computer chip into his spine that will basically allow him to remote control his own body. Grey soon finds that, in addition to regaining use of his body, his internal computer has an operating system that can talk to him and, in times of duress, Grey can give command over to the computer to operate his body in highly efficient, almost superhuman ways. Naturally, Grey is out to hunt down his wife's murderers.

It's not a spectacular action revelation in the vein of John Wick, but it is a solid type of film the kind of which isn't being made that often these days. If you like these types of films, complain that Hollywood isn't turning 'em out like they used to, and don't go to the theater to see Upgrade? Well, I better not see you complain along those lines at a later date.

...

Oh, and the opening credits are neat.

[Dr Kain]

Upgrade sounds like Dues Ex to me with the douchebag from Prometheus.

The Producers - We went to see the TCM showing of this movie today and it was wonderful. So funny and Wilder was absolutely brilliant in it. This was one of the few Mel Brooks movies I had yet to see, so getting to see it for the first time on the big screen was a real treat. I give it a 9/10.

Kiki's Delivery Service - Another solid Miyazaki film even if I think Kiki got her powers back too quickly (which had to happen for obviouis reasons). Though, I feel like I got a cavity from watching the film. Another 9/10 adventure.

It will be interesting as the next film in the lineup is one even my g/f hasn't seen before (Porco Rosso). I'm a tad worried though as even being a MIyazaki I just can't bring myself to really want to watch it.

[Benjamin Haines]

[O.Supreme]

Had another movie night with friends. This time a couple classics that amazingly I've never seen before

The Final Countdown (1980)
This to me was kind of as lost treasure. I thought I had seen every science fiction based movie from the 1980's, I guess I was wrong. What makes this film amazing was that while it is simple, and not flashy by any means, it manages to tell a compelling story, much like a long episode of Twilight Zone. Admittedly, I might find it boring if watched often, but as it was completely new to me, I found it to be enjoyable, also it's nice to finally see the film I had linked to one of the coolest movie posters form the early 80's.

The Magnificent 7 (1960)
I know what you're thinking, how cold I have not seen this? Well, truthfully, I'm not a fan of westerns. My grandfather watched John Wayne constantly when I was little, and I always found his films to be *boring*. Even when I was a teenager, and All my friends sung the praises of Young Guns, Tombstone etc... It just wasn't my thing. Now of course, I've seen 7 Samurai, and many other westerns that have ripped off, parodied, and homage Magnificent, but never the film itself. I found it mostly enjoyable, probably because of the company I was with, wouldn't have any desire to watch it alone, but it was fun, and entertaining with the right crowd. I can see why this film is so highly praised by older generations, and probably glad I didn't try to watch it as a kid, because I certainly would not have appreciated it back them.

[lhb412]