Recently watched movies!

[eabaker]

[Dr Kain]

I don't think the disc had it in French, just English, Spanish, and Japanese.

With that said, it was good, though a bit simplistic. Now there's nothing wrong with that at all, but I was expecting some really deep emotional story underneath the covers as all of the previous stuff did. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it as it had some truly great laugh out loud moments, especially when dealing with the grand daughter. I'm going to give it an 8/10.

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

Princess Mononoke - Everything Miyazaki did previously was just him getting warmed up for this stellar masterpiece!! The film has so much depth, so many layers to its symbolism that every time I watch it I notice something I hadn't the last time. It's just an amazing film with stunning animation and music to boot. 10/10!

[klen7]

The House - The Will Farrell comedy, not any of the other films by the same name. I did not like this movie. There was some comic dismemberment that made me laugh, but overall this was a miss for me

Baywatch - This was alright. Some of the raunchy humor felt forced. Not really the fault of the cast, but overall forgettable

Logan Lucky - This is like a rural Ocean's Eleven flick. Pretty good, one of the better movies i've seen lately, but i enjoy a good heist flick

Nine Lives - Kevin Spacey as a talking cat. Christopher Walken had a pretty terrific line in the film.

Altered Carbon - This is a netflix series not a movie, but why not discuss it here. It was at its best when it was playing heavy on the Noir side. The scifi side was fine, and better than most scifi series currently airing. Some pretty heady topics that teeter between philosophical and tawdry. If you are a fan of mature sci-fi it certainly scratches the itch for something high production in the R-rated domain. It drags in a few spots that could have been tightened up, but that can be said of most series.

[Dr Kain]

Logan Lucky was 2017's The Nice Guys. A movie that I went in unsure as to what the outcome was going to be and ended up being one of the best movies of that year. I haven't seen Daniel Craig look like he was having that much fun in years. Not to mention someone managed to make Channing Tatum not suck.

[klen7]

A Wrinkle in Time - I take back my dismissive reaction of Nine Lives (the straight to video Kevin Spacey as a talking cat movie) that was a much more coherent and engaging film. I knew this movie bombed, but what a mess of a film. There seems to be a bunch of scenes that appear to exist for the purpose of "affirmation" for main the main character with no relevance to the plot or the characters. There are a bunch of big special effects that are completely superfluous. Maybe if this hadn't been targeted at kids (Disney -PG) they could have made a thought provoking film but even my kid was confused as to why and what was happening (and I couldn't explain it when she asked). This is a very loose adaptation that uses its special effects budget in all the wrong places. The child actors in this movie deserved a lot better than this, as aside from some odd casting choices the acting was overall the only redeemable thing on display. I feel like you can safely blame the director for everything wrong in the film. Anybody who is looking forward to DC's "New Gods" should watch this just to temper their expectations. (1/10)

[lhb412]

Evil of Dracula

Probably the most standard of the Toho vampire trilogy, but also the most immediately enjoyable. It comes the closest to approximating a Hammer film, and a big help is that, unlike in the previous films where it takes forever for the protagonists to figure out what's going on making a satisfying confrontation only possible at the very end of the movie, this time the heroes figure it out by the halfway point.

[The Shadow]

[lhb412]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

Deadpool 2

Not as tight or satisfying as the first film, but what does work the best (the team-up stuff) is the best stuff out of both films. I read that Ryan Reynolds thinks an X-Force film is more likely than a 'Deadpool 3' and I think that's the right choice.

[Dr Kain]

Gun Crazy - While this may never break my top 10 list of Film Noirs, it was still a pretty enjoyable ride. Sure, the acting was stiff at times, especially from femme fatale, but the story itself was well written and well shot. One of my favorite moments was at the end when everything was engulfed in fog. There were quite a few really intense moments and then a couple facepalm enducing moments because of how dumb the main character was. Also, I got a kick out of the beginning of the movie as the main character starts the movie at 14 years old and is played by War of the Gargantuas' Russ Tamblyn. He looked just like his older self. Overall, the negatives do slightly harm the film, so I'm only going to give it an 8/10.

[lhb412]

[klen7]

^ I LOVED that documentary. I found myself completely enthralled.

^^ Sounds worth checking out.

I watched the new Mummy movie. Someone handed out way too many blank checks to make this movie. Enough has been said about trying to force a cinematic universe, but they should never have spent $125 making a Mummy movie. At times I would have said it was more fun (better) than World War Z - but the secret society stuff slams the brakes on the movie more than once. There were some great visuals (Ahmanet climbing the chains like a spider looked really cool, the design of the sarcophagus was effectively creepy) but overall this was a miss for me, with the ending feeling like it belonged in another movie altogether.

[jellydonut25]

My wife wanted to watch The Greatest Showman so we did. I'd say it's like the equivalent of maybe...Rampage(?). If you're into the genre, you'll enjoy it, but if not, you'll notice its many shortcomings. Songs are catchy but it's also quite lazy in a lot of ways.

[eabaker]

Saw Solo over the weekend, and...

It is now very clear that a thing that is not the worst can still be the least good. Like, no, it didn't have anything nearly as awful as the worst elements in The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, but at the same time, it had almost nothing entertaining or engaging to offer, either. It was largely just a blank.

Basically, it was a lot of plot - a lot of incident - with very little story to tell. There were some overtures towards a theme about slavery and freedom, but nothing that had a real direction, or coalesced into anything.

And then there was the really terrible editorial rhythm, which literally only significantly varied one time in the entire movie. Seriously. That scene between L3 and Qi'ra was the only time that the movie altered its rhythm at all. It was a glorious respite, but it was not to last. It was basically like sitting through over two hours of just the first five notes of the Green Acres theme playing over and over again.

Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun
Duh dun duh duh dun

AUGH!!!!!

I liked Lando, but he really didn't contribute anything significant. I liked L3, and she could have been a meaningful part of the narrative, but then she turned into a plot device applied once and then abandoned.

This was filmmaking by committee, with no focus and no particular vision.

And, lord, the use of classic Star Wars musical themes is consistently totally unearned.

It may not be as unwatchable as the worst of the prequels, but it is also less rewarding than even the worst of the prequels.

Not the worst, but the least good.

[Dr Kain]

The Incredibles - Incredible. 9/10.

[lhb412]

John Carpenter's The Fog

You know, it's really great to see a ghost rampage movie. I mean, ghosts don't usually rampage. They're more ephemeral and such, and it wouldn't quite be right to have a constant stream of movies where ghosts rampage, but the rarity of that lends a great sense of novelty to The Fog. Add to that the fact that it's a wonderfully well-done film.

[EricDent]

Incredibles 2 was great! The baby is really fun, and the story is good.
Didn't really see the twist coming until the reveal.

Be aware there are a couple scenes with bright flashing lights, which didn't really bother me (much), but could be trouble for some younger people.

Before the movie the voice actors basically said "we know it's been 14 years, but it's worth the wait".
Which I agree on!

Previews were both from Disney

Christopher Robin: An adult Christopher Robin meets up with Winnie the Pooh...Looks pretty heartwarming with a hint of sad.
Wreck-It Ralph 2: Looks really fun, and pokes fun at the usual internet memes.

The LEGO game based on both movies also came out, and so far it's fun as well.

[lhb412]

Saw the Fathom Events theatrical screening of Pom Poko and wow! I had never watched with the English dub before, but this is maybe Disney's best Ghibli dub. The cast is stacked with superb voice actors, many of whom are pretty recognizable to anyone who's watched cartoons in the last three decades.

[canofhumdingers]

Power Rangers - it’s on Prime, so I gave it a shot. It’s not bad. But it’s not particularly good, either. I mean, I guess they did about as good of a job as could be hoped for balancing respect for the intensely cheesy source material while delivering a (somewhat) more serious and dramatic take on the franchise without making it so serious or dramatic that it forgets how to have fun. I think my biggest issue with it really is just how long they spent building the team and how little time they spent actually BEING a team. ‘Cause, thing is, the movie is really fun in the third act when they’ve finally become a team and work together. I thoroughly enjoyed them figuring out how to coordinate their piloting to operate the MegaZord. And the stuff about them meeting each other and becoming a team isn’t bad. There’s just too much of it. It could easily be condensed and then they’d have had more time to spend on the much more fun part of the movie were they’re full fledged rangers working together.

I feel similarly toward this as I felt towards the theatrical cut of Batman v. Superman: there’s the material in place for a movie I would truly love, but the choices in editing and narrative construction seriously hamper the film. I’m not saying this is as bad as the theatrical BvS, just that it evokes a similar response in me: the film has tremendously unrealized potential that seriously hampered my enjoyment.

Thankfully, with BvS they offered that alternate version in the Ultimate Edition (which I do truly love). I don’t know if it’d be possible with this film,but I’d be all for a directors cut that trims the team building and expands significantly on the third act.

[Benjamin Haines]

Game Night (2018) - I liked this a lot. The cast does a great job of committing to the premise and there are some genuine surprises. Jason Bateman is terrific as always and it's great to see Rachel McAdams doing comedy again because she's really funny (Mean Girls and Wedding Crashers were so long ago now!). It's one of the better comedies that I've seen in recent years and it also boasts impressively-staged action sequences and some striking cinematography. I recommend avoiding all trailers and watching it with a group of friends.

[lhb412]

^ I just turned 30 and no sentence has made me feel older than "it's great to see Rachel McAdams doing comedy again."

... Mean Girls was a long time ago

* Death sharpens his scythe *

[Dr Kain]