Recently watched movies!

[Psycho Soldier]

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - It's possible I've been desensitized to its poor quality over the decades, but while it is quite bad in most respects, it's not outright unwatchable. (Then again, my opinion of the first film has dropped over time, so the sequel doesn't seem as terrible in comparison.) MKA is overstuffed and undercooked - at least half the characters serve no real purpose and the script should have been rewritten extensively. There's much more wrong with it, but its problems are well known anyway.

Dunkirk - Technically impressive, but I found it insubstantial overall. If the characters had been half as interesting as everything else in the film, it would've been really good. I found it just serviceable.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope - Despecialized Edition - I hadn't watched Episode IV in any capacity since the '90s, so it was nice to find it still holds up. Obviously the later films would look more polished and feel more epic, but it's easy to see in ANH the seed of modern Hollywood blockbusters. The editing on this version looked pretty much seamless.

[klen7]

Princess Kaguya - Visually interesting, not sure about the ending, but i guess it's based on a traditional tale

The D-Train - I really didn't like this movie. characters were insufferable and disturbingly unlikable.

Grabbers - I got this on DVD for Christmas, still a lot of fun and an underrated monster flick

[eabaker]

[canofhumdingers]

[Psycho Soldier]

[canofhumdingers]

[Dr Kain]

I can agree with needing to see Batman Begins and The Prestige, but god no on INterstellar and Memento. Memento pretends to be some ingenius masterpiece by telling the movie backwards when it reality it's just a shoddy mess of a film if you were to actually put the scenes in their proper order. The characters suck ass. As for Interstellar, I liked it better when it was called 2001, which is already a borefest as it is. At least you can hear what the characters are saying and one of them isn't a deadbeat dad.

[jellydonut25]

Memento is Nolan’s best film.

[Dr Kain]

[Psycho Soldier]

[canofhumdingers]

Alright, I'm in.

Batman Begins and Interstellar are Nolan's best films.

And Kain, you continue to amaze me with how we often either completely agree OR completely disagree about any given movie. 2001 is one of the greatest movies ever made.

Psycho Soldier, if like Kain you somehow find one of the best cerebral space exploration movies ever made (I.e. 2001 A Space Oddyssey) to be a chore, then you probably won't enjoy Interstellar. However, if like me, you adore the genius that is 2001, then definitely seek out Interstellar as you'll probably thoroughly enjoy it and maybe (like me) even outright love the darn thing!

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

Rumble in the Bronx is... okay. I mean, it's nothing when you compare it to his best HK flicks, but you understand why it was his breakout film in America. Made for a foreign audience, but set in America (and filmed mostly in Canada) and based almost entirely on the stereotypes of America from movies - the result: it feels like Jackie Chan is running around in an off-brand version of an American movie of the time. It ends up feeling like a transition from HK Jackie to Hollywood Jackie. I think the film needs one big fight scene where Jackie fights one other really skilled baddie for a bit, but hell: who am I to say this film doesn't fully show off his talents when this movie apparently did the trick?

Jackie's big fashion for this movie: 1) a tight onesie where you can see his balls, and 2) jeans and a sleeveless black t-shirt with a high neck.

Saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi with my family and it just further convinced me that it's really good, the best SW movie Disney has made, and quite possibly the best SW movie since Empire. I feel a lot better about this franchise's future after this one.

[jellydonut25]

If you haven’t seen BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 (which I watched for a second time tonight with some people), you’re missing out on one of 2017’s BEST. From the director of Bone Tomahawk. He got a good performance outta Matthew Fox somehow and he does it again with Vince Vaughn in an overall tighter, tenser, more driven film (though still deliberate in its pacing).

[klen7]

^ oh snap! its available for Prime subscribers. I will probably watch it this week

[lhb412]

^Oooh, I'll try to watch that and The Big Sick (Amazon co-prouduces a ton of great movies so that they'll get the streaming rights!) this week.

[O.Supreme]

Despicable Me 3 What Can I say?....I guess it was worth $1.50 to rent at Red Box. It was not as awful as Minions, but still didn't recapture the wit and charm of the first film. It tried in a couple of parts, but ultimately failed. Several plot points were set up that had no payoff, or were poorly executed. Yeah I know its a kids film, but it seemed more a lazy cash grab than anything else. I've seen many franchises go that way, which is sad. There were a couple of laughs to be sure, and my kids seemed to enjoy it, but nothing spectacular. Also where did this new Minion "Mel" come from? I don't know why, but the Minions basically being pointless in this film made me have this visceral reaction every time he was on screen. I was like "who the heck are you?"..... He was the leader of a minion Rebellion, and I kept expecting him to be some villain in disguise, and the others would get rid of him or something, but none of that happened...

[klen7]

I saw that one in the theater with my kid, and all i really remember about it was the Gru had a brother and the 80s dance fighting. I completely forgot about whatever subplot the minions had.

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Logan Lucky - Even better than it was the first time. Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee/10.

[The Shadow]

I just recently saw Logan Lucky myself; it's an excellent caper movie. Nice to see West Virginians not portrayed as the usual "dumb hillbillies", the movie does a fantastic job of taking that expected portrayal and turning it on its head.

[jellydonut25]

Dunkirk - A resounding MEH. It’s obviously very technically well done but, it’s honestly just mostly boring. No characters to care about, no real tension, no story. It’s just a bunch of scenes. If this weren’t a Christopher Nolan movie, I’d swear off the director of this movie in the future.

[eabaker]

Recently watch the BBC production To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters. It was damned well acted and directed. Unfortunately, for the amount of story it had to tell, 2 hours (I believe it was aired as a TV movie in the UK, while here in the States it was broadcast as two 1-hour episodes) simply wasn't nearly enough time. The second half, in particular, once they were actually publishing their novels, felt very rushed, and the ending came almost out of the blue.

Still, "left me wanting more" is hardly the harshest of criticisms, and I'd highly recommend it.

[lhb412]

I've been sick as a dog the last few days. Any hope that I'd be able to catch up on some of the movies and books I'd have liked to scuttled by a lack of concentration caused by my fatigue. In and out of consciousness I've watched some Anthony Bourdain episodes on Netflix, a couple of PBS documentaries that aired in the middle of the night, and, uh, I watched Grizzly. Yeah, I saw this killer animal movie on Amazon Prime and figured it would be perfect for me in my condition. It is as transparent a Jaws ripoff as you can get. The entire structure of the movie is stolen. It's Jaws in the woods. The trained bear playing the grizzly is too cute, which is a bit of a problem (Neal Adams did the poster - painting a memorably vicious looking bear).

[Dr Kain]

Kong Skull Island - Eh, still about as decent as it was the two times I saw it in theaters. The characters are so forgettable though as I just finished the movie 10 minutes ago and I've already forgotten everyone's name. THe visuals are superb though. Still sticking with my original 7/10.