Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

Scooby Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost - After 33 years WB FINALLY gave us the series finale to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo and in the end, it was a major let down. The first hour or so of the film is fantastic. It's entertaining, it makes fun of certain Scooby Doo tropes (especially those that revolve around Freddy), it has a lot of great call backs to the series before it, especially the awesome opening monologue where Vincent Van Ghoul references the plots and ghosts to original show, and some realistic dialog. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd then the last 10 minutes happened, which completely killed the momentum and gave us a huge ass cop out of an ending. Although, even Shaggy got pissed off and was about to call it a cop-out until Scooby stopped him. Despite that moment of hilarity, it really hurt the overall product, leaving a bad taste considering they had 33 years to get this right. I don't have a score for this one because I'm not sure what I want to rate it right now. It's either an 8 or a 4.

[Dr Kain]

So Pet Semetary... that was a thing... Not sure what I think about it right now.

[Kiryu]

Yesterday I finally watched Godzilla (1984) all the way through. The first time I tried to watch it, I was already quite inebriated and was unable to stay awake.

I watched the Japanese version only. Don't plan on watching the American version any time soon.

[jellydonut25]

[O.Supreme]

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Finally saw this over the weekend. After looking forward to the epic conclusion for so long, this definitely felt lackluster. It wasn't awful by any means, but it just seemed *safe*, for lack of a better term. They checked all the boxes, but at no time did it feel like there were any high stakes. Grimmel as a villain seemed bland. They tried to build him as this brilliant strategist, and adamant Dragon Killer, unfortunately, I have to say the Television series did it much better with characters like Ryker or Crogan. Drago in the second film was definitely a more threatening villain, I was actually hoping they would continue with him, since the second film left his ending ambiguous at best. Probably the best part was Grimmel's Dragon's -Awesome design, and definitely threatening.

The kids seemed to enjoy it for the most part. When the second film came out in 2014, I guess I expected the finale to present some sort of Ultimate sacrifice -Either Toothless or Hiccup was going to have to die, and while that may have crushed a generation of kids, it would have made for a conclusion that would definitely get everyone's attention. This film had the chance to be the Transformers:The Movie of this generation, but instead, it will just go on the shelf along with all the other *decent* kids films. I give it a 7 out of 10.

Just for the record, there was a time when I held Dreamworks films in higher esteem than Pixar as far as the overall satisfaction rate and entertainment value of their animated films. Unfortunately they have fallen pretty far HTTYD was my last hope, and now that franchise is over and done with. Instead of investing in highly entertaining films from a few years ago such as Megamind or Monster vs Aliens, they've chosen to go another direction...heck I'd even take another Puss in Boots movie, but it seems that's not happening either. But I guess that's what happens when you start out as your own entity, then get bought by Paramount, then shuffled off to FOX, and now Universal. - Odd fact - All 3 HTTYD films came under the production of the three different parent companies of Dreamworks, it's the only franchise to have done this.

[klen7]

^ I agree. My kid and I went to see it. I told the Mrs that I would have probably enjoyed it more if i hadn't seen the cartoon, because at this point the same plot had been done to death between the second film and the netflix series, so making it the driving force of the third movie felt like a drag

[Dr Kain]

I've never found Dreamworks to be even half as good as Pixar. Sure, they have had some excellent films like the first Kung Fu Panda and first How to Train Your Dragon, but each sequel gets worse than the last. Pixar has only had one true bad movie and two lackluster ones, but even those lackluster ones were better than almost everything in Dreamwork's catalog.

Anyway,

Infinity War - 10/10

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

I feel like The Return of Godzilla is creeping up my list of favorite Godzilla films. On some level I know the movie has problems, but there's something about the tone of it that I just dig and I find it endlessly rewatchable. It's definitely a film where the strongest thing about it is pretty intangible; mood.

Halfway through the Street Fighter and Sister Street Fighter movies, but won't talk about them until I finish them.

[klen7]

[O.Supreme]

[EricDent]

I also saw Hellboy recently, and thought it was decent.
I agree with the "let the characters breathe" thing posted earlier.

Just in case the princess from "Bold" as said above is actually from the movie Brave...

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

Inside Out, Cars, Cars 2, Finding Dori, The Good Dinosaur can all go away.

[Dr Kain]

[O.Supreme]

[jellydonut25]

[klen7]

The Kid Who Would Be King - Despite this movie getting really strong reviews, the trailer looked like rubbish to me. Honestly the only reason I gave it a shot was because I saw that it was directed by Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) and I have been eagerly awaiting his next movie -- So i went in with low expectations, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The first 2/3rds of the movie feels like a modern Goonies take, with a healthy dose of Arthorian mythology. The final act is straight out of a number of Marvel movies, so despite it not working as well for me, I see what it's doing and can't mark it down for taking a page from the MCU. Overall this is a great family friendly flick with a fun mythos and plenty of special effects sequences. I will gladly revisit this one

[Gwangi]

Quo Vadis (1951). During this time of the year, it is a good bet that I will watch a movie of religious nature. I had the DVD of "Quo" since the 2000's. Finally updated to blu-ray and it is gorgeous print!

It is Peter Ustinov as Nero that steals the show. And though I did not mean it to happen, I could not help but to humor myself thinking that perhaps Ustinov saw visions of the future - perhaps foresaw the political environment in the late 2010's to get his inspiration for Nero. BUT enough said on that!

"Quo Vadis" and DeMille's "Sampson and Delilah", released two years earlier, were most likely the first Biblical spectacles in color (and later in widescreen), that would grace the screens for a decade and a half (ending with John Huston's "The Bible" in 1966). Truth be told, I have not been a fan of these recent Bible movies such as "Noah" or "Exodus". Yes, the filmmakers were trying to put a different spin from what DeMille and others gave us, but I am just too nostalgic for the older features that I grew up watching.

[lhb412]

For my birthday I got the new box sets collecting all of the Sonny Chiba Street Fighter movies and the Sister Street Fighter spin-off series. I won't bother trying to review the individual films, as they tend to blend together - especially the first three sister Street Fighter movies!

These are all exploitation films from Japan circa the early to mid '70s, so there's some unfortunate skeeviness that detracts from some of the enjoyment for me. I just don't feel scenes of sexual assault really belong in what should otherwise be fun karate movies where certain moves cause people to explode into blood volcanoes. I mean, that sounds horrifying, but it's so unrealistic how could you possibly take it seriously? Surely there would be other ways to show just how villainous the villains are, and if the audience demands sex why not show consensual sex? In short, it took me out of the films unlike in the Female Prisoner Scorpion films (I haven't seen enough of these yet, but I'm going to make a wild stab at it and say that the Scorpion movies with the best exploitation films made in Japan in the 70s) in which sexual assault was woven in to the themes of the story and always served a purpose, even if it didn't always adhere to good taste.

Anyway, you have to admire the fact that the original Street Fighter commits so fully to the premise of having Sonny Chiba's character be a true anti-hero, pretty much just as villainous as the villains. The final moments are especially shocking, giving the impression that he's a total monster, a wild animal. I love it when a film gives you that final shock to stun you right in those last moments. The two sequels do a disservice to the first film by making him increasingly heroic, but I have to say in terms of sheer enjoyment I may have liked the third film the most! He becomes a completely different character at that point; a master of disguise and master criminal in the Lupin III mode in addition to a brutal martial artist.

The Sister Street Fighter films star Etsuko Shihomi and they're total rip offs of Enter the Dragon. Seriously, the initial three of these movies are basically remakes of each other similar to how the Daimajin trilogy is, and they adhere to a formula very closely based on Enter the Dragon, minus the martial arts tournament (which is the thing most movies copy!). Shiomi is Koryu, half Chinese and Japanese martial artist who starts each movie in Hong Kong only to have to go over to Japan because a family member or friend has become involved with a criminal organization involved in drugs and human trafficking. The eccentric head of the gang collects a rogues gallery of eclectic martial artists to protect him, and Koryu has to fight them. These films are a lot of fun, and Shiomi has a wonderful fighting acting style that really emphasizes locking into these crisp poses that are very cinematic.

Oh, and there's a fourth sister Street Fighter movie that's just a completely different Shiomi karate picture that uses the Street Fighter branding. It's kind of dull, but some of the action takes place on a film set were they're filming a samurai movie and seeing Shiomi essentially fighting samurai is fun.

[Dr Kain]

Hellfest - A stupid ass movie with a lot of great visuals. It features the most unrealistic haunted house ever (seriously, no one would ever put THAT much money into a haunted house like that, especially its hallway space), but at least it is cool to see on screen. There's no character development though, everyone who dies dies by stupid means, and the entire scenario is just dumb. It could be worse though, it could have been as cheap as the new Pet Semetary. I give it a 5/10.

[UltraDada72]

Curse of La Llorona - A very stupid, formulaic movie that offers nothing but predictable, cheap jump scares and a lame looking ghost woman. James Wan needs to put the brakes on his Conjureverse and re-assess, because these movies are going down the toilet fast.

Mercy Black - Yet another lame Netflix original. It basically takes the premise of the real life Slenderman case (2 girls who stabbed another classmate as offering to an imaginary entity they worshipped). One of the girls involved in the attack is now an adult and has just been released from the psyche ward to her sister's home. Instead of focusing on the psychological scars that this event in her life caused her, it resorts to a handful of cheap jump scares and a story that just goes along half heartedly. They had the premise for something interesting but it doesn't really go anywhere.

[UltraDada72]

[Dr Kain]

The Nice Guys - Fanfriggintastic as always!! A shame it didn't get a single Oscar nomination while garbage like La La Land did. 10/10

[jellydonut25]

I thought La La Land was awesome.

And The Nice Guys too.