Recently watched movies!

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

Hector and the Search for Happiness - Hang with the gal and with her affinity for Simon Pegg, we popped this on Netflix. It is definitely a feels movie. A bland routine based man goes on a globe trotting adventure to find out what make people happy. Meets interesting people, almost dies, yadda yadda yadda ends up happily ever after with a less routine life. Great little bit parts from Jen Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, and Christopher Plummer.

Although there was almost a sour spot for my girlfriend with the movie. She's staunchly Child Free™ and it kind of hints that for women, only happiness can be found in being a mother. Luckily it didn't end showing Pegg and his gal with a gaggle of ankle biters so she was alright with it. But this is the same reason she didn't watch the last episode (or two I think) of Parks and Rec because of what happens with April and Andy.

All in all I enjoyed this movie and made me interested in reading the book it was based on. Even if it's just Lite-Philosophical Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Novel, from what I gather from the reviews online.

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

Tomorrow Never Dies - A pretty good movie with some great action and banter between James and Lin. It isn't as good as Goldeneye, but still a pretty solid entry that is better than most of Moore's run. Carver was also a nice change of pace from the villains who want to rule the world with an iron fist. I give this one a 7/10. Too bad it all goes downhill from here with Brosnan.

[Hybrid Gojira]

So I managed to catch a subbed version of Attack on Titan....

I was pleasantly surprised. I've watched the anime, and while there are some changes, the movie is mostly fun and the Titans are terrifying. The movie plays out more like a giant zombie horror film - tons of blood and guts and lots of people getting eaten. In particular, the Colossal was amazingly done and his roar (if you can call it that) is something else...really great stuff.

The special effects are 80% good with a few spots that were kinda off, but overall I really love Higuchi's work. If anything, this has me more excited for the new Godzilla film. Overall I'd give it a 7/10.

[lhb412]

Ponyo

MIyazaki and his staff really outdo themselves with the animation on this one. In many ways it's more casual and loose than Ghibli's usual animation, which just makes it expressive, and then there's an experimental bent to it. The mixed media look, where the film resembles watercolor and colored pencil drawings come to life, is a particular highlight.

This must be the best movie ever when you're five years old.

[Dr Kain]

lol

Yeah, Ponyo is by far the weakest Miyazaki movie I have ever seen. In fact, it is one that I watched the day it came out on BD and haven't rewatched it once.

Anyway, we got to see the 1953 movie Pick-Up on South Street today at the Alamo Drafthouse and what an excellent movie this was. I really hope it comes out to BD in the near future as I will definitely be picking it up. It did a really nice job of keeping you guessing what was going to happen and the concept was well done. The characters and acting were great, but I think my favorite moments are when the camera is zoomed close in on the characters' faces at times as you can see the sweat and stuff coming down. The only negative I can say is that it was only 80 minutes long, but felt like it was nearly 2 hours. Nevertheless, I give it an 8/10 stars. Another superb Film Noir.

[lhb412]

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

[klen7]

I'm at

Totoro
Mononoke
Ponyo
Spirited Away
Kiki's Delivery Service
Howl's Moving Castle
Nausicaa
Castle in the Sky
Porco Rosso
Castle of Cagliostro


I haven't seen
Future Boy Conan
The Wind Rises

I see the merits of Howl, but it's kind of an exhausting film, so i put it below Kiki, which is a much lighter story..i've also seen Kiki a lot more at this point because my daughter enjoys it, so maybe thats part of the bias. Also, big fan of The Cat Returns

[jellydonut25]

I've only seen The Wind Rises and Kiki's Delivery Service, and I'd put Wind Rises WAY above Kiki's Delivery Service, which I just found utterly pointless.

[lhb412]

^Kiki is brilliant slice-of-lifey coming of age story, and the flying animation is perfection.

... I mean, as slice-of-life as you can be when you're climax is an incredible action sequence.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Of all the Apatow-era comedies this one is my favorite - by a wide margin, too! I only recently became aware that this movie bombed when it was released. I can only guess that it was because the movie won't make much sense to people not really familiar with pop-culture from the '50s through the '70s.

[lhb412]

Dracula AD 1972

Hey, I didn't think it was that bad! Pretty much an average Dracula sequel transposed to modern day with little actually done to modernize it. Goofy fun. It had Peter Cushing. It would have definitely been worth a trip to the drive-in.

[XvGojira]

[DannyBeane]

Honestly the Satanic Rites of Dracula is the only Hammer Dracula film that I can say is truly bad and even then its not so bad if you take it as a movie about Doomsday cults and not a Dracula film.

[jellydonut25]

Labyrinth - this was one of those things where I liked everything ABOUT the movie more than the actual experience of watching the movie itself. The puppetry, the cast, the sets, the imagination of Henson just running wild...

...but the movie itself is just a little bit, I dunno, slow or something. It seems stuck in neutral for a chunk of its running time. Though it definitely IS a supremely successful CHILDRENS fantasy movie. I probably would have LOVED this were I like 10-12 years old. 3.5/5

[klen7]

^ Wow. Just when i didnt think you could get any wronger you go an post something like that. I just dont understand how your brain works.

[jellydonut25]

It works by seeing things and saying stuff about them. I don't know what it is about that post that's so egregious. I liked it. It was good. Then I moved on.

[Psycho Soldier]

Copying and pasting from another thread...

Attack of the Supermonsters - Well... I've wasted time on worse. Which is kind of like saying I just ate soda crackers with nothing on them, but it's fine because I've also eaten cardboard. This movie's full of logical inconsistencies, flat dialogue and characters (the leads become more interesting after the first 20 minutes, but eh...) and some strange visual choices - namely, 2D animation over live-action backgrounds. Two out of four are almost certainly due to the dub, the characters could go either way, but I don't know what to make of the animation-on-live-action. Was this an experiment, or a cost-cutting measure, or what? I can certainly tell the movie was edited from a TV show. That leads to my next question: does Aizenborg have a proper ending? Because AOTS definitely does not. Either way, it makes me wonder why they bothered.

[jellydonut25]

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell - I could see how, if you're not in the mood, it may feel a tad unpleasant or slow in the middle, but I was SO in the mood for some atmospheric Toho scifi that only makes a shred of logical sense, and that ending is bananas.

[Rody]

I decided it was high time for me to see the beloved Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, so I watched it last night.
Am... Am I missing something? I didn't really like it.

Despite being over an hour & a half long, I could barely keep pace with the many developments in the story. Char is leading a new Zeon government and decided to punish all earthlings by sending an asteroid to, essentially, reboot Earth. Bright Noa and Amuro Ray are leading the Federation forces in Earth's defense. A politician and his eccentric daughter travel to space on peace talk businesses. Noa's son Hathaway also travels to space. Numerous other characters are also introduced, and the film drops us right in the middle of these developing events, with only some expository dialogue to help bring us up to speed. There are so many characters that it's a hassle to follow what everyone's doing - and then the REAL headache sets in when the relationships start.
If there's one thing I disliked about the original Mobile Suit Gundam, it's how the show handled its romantic relationships. This only got worse in Zeta Gundam, and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better in Char's Counterattack. We barely have a chance to get to know these characters, and all of a sudden they're attracted to each other and getting involved in all sorts of drama amidst the war. Amuro and Char each seem to have a new girl, but then in comes Quess, the young newtype girl, who sets her sights on Amuro and then Char, while flirting with Hathaway and Zeon Cyber-newtype Guinley, respectively; which spurs moments of jealousy from multiple involved parties. That isn't even mentioning how both Amuro and Char are still haunted by their own relationship(s) with the late Lalah Sune. What makes all this especially frustrating to me is how integral this stuff is to the story. Yes, the big plot is that a new war has broken out, but the personal drama surrounding Amuro and Char may be the true driving force here. Quess gets the most attention in the story besides the two warriors, yet ultimately I felt she was no more than a side issue for the deeper conflicts present.
Frankly, any time the story starts focusing on the newtypes, not only in Char's Counterattack but in the preceeding two shows, I feel the story gets too abstract for its own good. I suppose the writers were trying to make stronger statements about the state of humanity, but frankly it gets lost on me. The movie ends more abruptly than it starts, with Amuro fighting Char and doing everything he can to stop the asteroid - and then ... I'm sorry, what just happened there?
I will say this in support of the film: it is in no way lacking an epic scale. The art design is stunning, presenting all of space and the war as grandly as possible. Animation is pretty smooth, and the battles are thoroughly intense. In my limited experience with the franchise, Gundam shines its brightest when presenting the thick of battle, and Char's Counterattack is no exception.

Unfortunately, to tweak a quote by Yoda, wars do not make a movie great, and when the film is doing anything other than fighting, I feel pretty much lost and confused. I hope I can improve my opinion of this movie in the future, because as it stands now, I feel pretty disappointed.

[eabaker]

[XvGojira]

Terminator: Genisys - I enjoyed it way more than Salvation and not sure if I like it more than T3 or not. It definitely feels a little odd. It's like they took a story line from one of the Dark Horse Comics or a more than half way decent fan fic and made it into a movie. But it is by no means a great movie. Jai Courtney is wrong for Kyle Reese on so many levels it's outrageous. Emilia Clarke should have trained a bit more to sculpt her muscles to make her look a tad more like T2 Sara. She acts alright for her role, but it's written WAY too modern day snarky to me. The whole John is the Terminator is interesting angle. And Matt Smith obviously was there because they told him he'd have a bigger role in the sequel. All in all, I enjoyed the hell out this stupid movie. Reese fighting the revived '84 T-800 was pretty cool to me.

In a odd way it felt like this could have been the start of Terminator: The Saturday Morning Cartoon is it was animated and had less swearing.

TL:DR - Stupid but entertaining.

[Dr Kain]