Recently watched movies!

[eabaker]

Saw Ant Man and the Wasp over the weekend. Timed my edibles perfectly. I could tell they were kicking in by about the 30-45 minute mark, and they definitely peaked for the big third act action sequences.

[Benjamin Haines]

[Dr Kain]

Infinity War is not top tier? Ant-Man and the Wasp better than the original and Civil War? WTF? You curaaaazeeee!

[Benjamin Haines]

^
Top tier: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther

Upper tier: Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Iron Man 3, Thor, The Avengers, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The First Avenger

Middle tier: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 2, Doctor Strange, The Incredible Hulk, Ant-Man

Lower tier: Thor: The Dark World

[eabaker]

For sure thought that this was better than the first Ant-Man, which did a great job on its action scenes, but often had dialogue scenes marred by totally perfunctory direction/shot design/editing. Everything in and the Wasp felt lively.

[lhb412]

Seeing Princess Mononoke on the big screen was incredible! You really get to appreciate all the detail and get swept up in it... I mean, even more than usual.

Glad I got to see it! Tried to go yesterday but they'd sold out. Preordered today, and indeed it was another full house. I feel the Ghibli film's are just becoming more and more popular.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

^ Man, I remember reading about Princess Mononoke on forums after it came and went from theaters (I don't think it even played here). It was the first time I'd ever heard about Miyazaki or Ghibli.

[O.Supreme]

[lhb412]

^ They retain their Disney dubs. GKIDS seems to be made of people with ties to Disney - many of the same folks who oversaw the Ghibli films at Disney are doing the same at GKIDS, so the transition was incredibly smooth, down to the GKIDS blu-rays hitting the shelves just as the Disneys went OOP.

There were some changes made to the original Disney dubs of Kiki and Castle in the Sky: they had moments of added dialog where there was none in the origibal and some music changes. I'm not sure why, but Disney themselves seem to have edited those to better match the Japanese originals several years ago (before the rights changed hands).

[Dr Kain]

I don't care for the dubs all that much. They should have used actual voice actors rather than big name ones for the characters. Billy Bob Thornton is just down right atrocious as Jiko as he sounds so bored. In fact, he's more wooden than the Deer God's forest.

I also thought Christian Bale kind of seemed disinterested in his role as Howl as well as did Liam Neeson in Ponyo. Never watched the dub to The Wind Rises and I have no intention to ever doing so. Same goes for all of the dubs for the movies before Mononoke, though I may check out the French track for Porco Rosso at some point. I'm not sure if it was someone here or on TFW2005 that pointed me to an article where Miyazaki says he actually prefers the French track to that film the best.

Anyway,

The Philadelphia Story - Not exactly my type of movie, and I felt like it was 20 minutes too long, but it was still enjoyable nevertheless. There was a fantastic amont of chemistry going on between Hepburn, Grant, and Stewart, and it was great seeing the later two in a movie together. Overall, I give it a nice 8/10.

[jellydonut25]

The Endless - I really liked this one. Two guys escape from a cult and then return several years later after receiving a cryptic message and find out there might be more to the cult's ideas than they once realized. 4/5.

You Were Never Really Here - Eh. Phoenix is good. The movie is just kinda there. 2/5

Winchester - BORING. The house itself is the most interesting thing and I don't really feel like there was quite enough of it. This put me to sleep. 1/5

Revenge - With Craig Zahler's films (Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99) I feel like I'm watching an exploitation movie that is somehow more; something that takes off from an exploitation starting point and elevates it to another level, borderline legitimizing exploitation cinema. With the Grindhouse 'franchise' movies, I feel like I'm watching something...maybe not LESS, but certainly less earnest. It's all wink wink and nudge nudge and 'missing reel' and gimmicky stuff...it's still kinda fun, but it actually doesn't feel anything like legitimate exploitation cinema. Revenge is. It's not elevated, it's not winky, it's just exploitation. The good news being that unlike a sadly large number of trashy grindhouse movies, it's entertaining pretty much wall to wall. I don't think it's quite as amazing as reviews are making it sound, but if you can roll with a few of its punches, you should have a good time with it (assuming you're interested in the first place). 3.5/5

Isle of Dogs - This didn't do it for me. It felt too...simple. None of the arcs really felt earned, it just felt like things happened because 'that's what happens next.' Plus, it's witty but not funny, and that's just not always my jam. It was fine, but not amazing. 2.5/5

Another Wolfcop - I don't want to be TOO harsh, because you head into WolfCop and Another WolfCop knowing they're trashy, winky, crap. But at the same time, it wouldn't kill them to have an actual ending and aim higher in humor than "Here's a werewolf penis." It ends up feeling like, when stuff DOES land, it's by accident. Not as novel or enjoyable as the first one, but it also moves at a pretty breezy pace and I basically had enough fun with it. I liked the practical effects work on display and the buckets of blood. 3/5.

[klen7]

^ i have been looking out for The Endless, is it available for streaming somewhere?

[jellydonut25]

[jellydonut25]

Mute - Oh. Oh my, no. What happened to Duncan Jones? Moon was amazing. Source Code was good if a bit...convenient in its script. Warcraft stunk but I hardly put that on him. This though? This was HIS movie.

And it's a MESS. It's a shame too because it's got good atmosphere and a great score and good visuals...but the story is a meandering, muddy affair that's both simple in terms of "It's about a guy looking for his girlfriend who has gone missing," and yet also SO CONVOLUTED it's hard to follow.

[lhb412]

Really interested in seeing Revenge. Several critics I follow have sung its praises.

[Dr Kain]

We saw Sailor Moon R and Sailor Moon S in theaters today, which was wonderful. Though, I hope they fix the cropping of the S movie when it hits BD since there were a couple scenes that should have been cropped better (no idea if that is how it was in Japan though). The dub continues to impress, though I was hoping the animation would have looked a tad better on the big screen. That CGI asteroid in the R movie is even uglier on a giant screen.

[klen7]

[XvGojira]

Unfriended Dark Web - If I was expecting a continuation of the ghost element of the first movie, I'd be really disappointed but the "dark web" element was neat. Although there wasn't a lot of facebook, to go with the unfriend titling, but a lot of skyping. I'm not sure I'd say this is a good movie, but for being kind of a new-age "found-footage" slasher (maybe meta could be tossed in there somewhere?) it's held my interest and felt like my money wasn't wasted. Although it took some time to get going/killing the cast. Again there's no ghosts but apparently there are magical hoodies that causes digital distortions on cameras.

[Dr Kain]

The first Unfriended was bad, but it had a good social commentary on the effects of kids misusing social media.

This new one, however, seems to throw all of that away for some stupid ass Cartel type plot. I can't believe they even bothered to make a second one. Filmmakers are just desperate to make something these days, so they'll make anything.

Hell, I bet they would just make a 90 minute movie of a man scratching his balls the entire time if they could get away with it.

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

Black Panther - Still a 10/10 and it may be the best movie of the year thus far. However, good god does the audio on the BD suck ass. I haven't heard the mixing be this bad since the first Iron Man BD. There was little to nothing coming out of my subwoover at all. In fact, I had to turn my volume up to the level I play movies recorded in mono due to the dialog being so low.

[Dr Kain]

Le Samourai - This was a damn good movie. It's amazing how little dialog there was in it, especially from the main character. 9/10.

[jellydonut25]

The Lazarus Effect - It's okay for a modern horror flick. A good cast helps make it just entertaining enough to not be boring. 2.5/5

Kill Me Three Times - I watched it because I'm going through my Netflix watch list and it's got Simon Pegg and he gets to play a crummy villain-type and go against his typical casting...and that's the only thing the movie has to offer. It's too derivative and just not very good. 2/5

The Call Up - Interesting premise. Saw it on a list of "Movies you didn't know are on Netflix that are worth watching." It wasn't. 1.5/5

The Survivalist - A SLOW burn...but good...but I dunno...good but I wasn't a HUGE fan or anything. One of those. Maybe more recommendable to people who really like SLOW burns with background tension throughout. It's something that CAN be my jam, but just wasn't so much in this case. 3/5.

The Voices - See above in terms of why I watched it...but this one WAS worth the watch. I had planned on just kinda starting it and calling it a night after like half an hour but it sucked me in and I watched the whole thing. I wish it had been a little MORE stylized (they do a thing where stuff seems pretty much normal and happy and clean from his POV but then it’s not), it brings up a pretty interesting idea kind of at the end so there’s not much time to play with it, and the general idea of Ryan Reynolds as a gawky outsider who has trouble fitting in and getting dates is not the easiest pill to swallow but at least that’s part of the central conceit so you have plenty of time to get over it and they wind up steering things more towards him just being...off that kinda turns people away, not that he’s like, a typical loser-type. More fun than I’ve had with a movie in a hot minute. 3.5/5...maybe as high as a 4.

[klen7]

^ The Voices is not a date movie... I had to come back later and finish it on my own

The Circle - I wanted to like this, but for every 2 or three intelligent thoughts, theres 1 really stupid one - then the movie jumps the rails and completely falls apart in the last 20 minutes of its 2 hour runtime. a missed opportunity with a good cast, and at times good writing.