Recently watched movies!

[O.Supreme]

So I finally took the plunge & watched X-Men: Apocalypse. As a stand alone action film, it really isn't bad, or not as bad as I thought it was going to be. When put into context with the rest of the film series however it is a continuity train-wreck. I got sort of a "Mortal Kombat Annihilation" vibe. Whereas X3 was guilty of portraying characters wrongly, this film just has them there, and not really doing anything at all (albeit there still is some flat out incorrectness in this film as well). I find this amusing because on a Yahoo article very early in the year there was tons of praise about Olivia Munn as Psylocke and the *depth* of her character. My response was something like -I bet she has as much dialogue/screen time as Bishop in DOFP, which was not responded to kindly, but as we can now see, turned out to be pretty much true. I know Logan is coming out next February, and though I have no intention of seeing it, This will be the 10th overall film. With FOX trying to start up 2 TV series, and problems with Gambit & Deadpool 2, I think FOX should just give the whole movie series a rest. Maybe start all over again in a few years, completely disconnected from the current series. They don't have to reinvent the wheel, we don't need more origin stories. Just jump into the action. If you don't know these characters by now, chances are you are not a fan, and are not going to see these films anyway.

Despicable Me Have not watched this in a good long while. After the huge POS that Minions unleashed on the world, it was nice to go back to the original. Gru is the star, and Steve Carell nails it. I know he needs some other characters to play off of, but I hope next year when DM3 comes out, it gets back to basics.

[Dr Kain]

Alice Through the Looking Glass - Good god this was dreadful. I'm not sure what was worse, everyone phoning their performances in, Depp not even using the same voice or mannerisms he used in the last movie (not that anyone really was), the terrible looking effects (the CGI looked like it was from a low budget Sy-Fy movie), or the fact that this felt more like a story out of The Witcher rather than Alice in Wonderland. Does Burton not even give a damn anymore? Not that he really has in years, but this really felt like he was doing it for nothing more than a paycheck. At least he tried with the first one. The only scene that was even remotely interesting was one where Time meets Hatter, Hare, and Mouse and a plethora of time puns ensue. That was the only scene that wasn't a total waste of... time. HA! Overall, don't even bother for there is nothing worthwhile in this 4/10 star movie.

Lights Out - 2016 is definitely a horror year. Not only are horrible things happened in the real world, but the horror genre has been quite stellar this year. Lights Out is no exception. Granted, the movie is far from perfect as it moves at a really slow pace. It's only 80 minutes long but feels like 100. There also isn't much in the way of deaths, so if that is your thing, you will be disappointed. What we do get is a movie that cares more about suspense and tension rather than a kill count or blood. Unfortunately, things are figured out pretty quickly and the characters aren't really all that interesting. Thankfully it makes up for it with its acting, which is really good and even the little boy does a great job. The only aspect the movie lacks is in its music as the music is just forgettable (and sometimes seems to be non-existant even though it is there). If you want a movie that builds on fear factor, you must check this out. 7/10.

[O.Supreme]

[Dr Kain]

Doctor Strange is the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It sets out to break the rules of reality as we know them, but how is the movie overall? Watch to find out.

[canofhumdingers]

Need a break from all the politics (btw, for everyone who's been discussing it, thx for keeping it mostly civil so far. Another thread I go to devolved into NASTY arguing and childish name calling almost immediately)


King Kong vs Godzilla - man the bluray of this looks so good! Always an enjoyable time. My only real gripe with the American cut is the replacement of ifukube's score. I don't DISLIKE the stock cues chosen as they actually work quite well in most cases. But Ifukube's original work was SOOO good. Here's hoping that with the Legendary remake coming we finally get a deluxe set of both cuts of this Showa classic. Hopefully using Toho's recent 4K restoration!

[Dr Kain]

The Purge 3 - Who knew a series about a night where murder was legal could be so damn boring, but it was. This movie dragged on forever. It had a lot of pointless characters that could have been removed to speed up the pacing. Then there was a character who apparently has some history of being a Purger, but they never go into one bit. It's all just, "Oh, you are THAT person," and then that is the end of it. WTF? If you are going to tease something like that, SHOW US!!! There's not much else I can say about this snoozefest other than I give it a 6/10.

[jellydonut25]

I enjoyed Purge Election Year. Anarchy is the best in the series, but they're both better than the first and all are at least decent.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

Pretty sure the answer to that is no.

[klen7]

Neon Demon: Refn has talent, but his pacing (especially with dialogue) is ponderous, which hurts my enjoyment of his films. There are a lot of interesting visuals here, but the film itself goes off the rails. I guess some of the twist was hinted at early on, but its execution seems rushed.. which says a lot for a 2 hour movie that feels like a 3 hour movie. 5/10

The Wailing: This Korean possession film will probably be in my top 10 for the year. The ending is a bit of a contradiction, and usually that would cause me to write a film off as sloppy, but the execution of the film seems so intentional every step of the way that it has me thinking days after watching it. This was one of the rare films that had me ready to watch it again as soon as it ended. 9/10

Arrival: Touching, intelligent, dramatic sci-fi. This may end up on my top 2016 films list as well, but there was a subplot that hit particularly close to home that made this a very emotionally engaging film for me as well. 9/10

We'll probably take the kid to Trolls this weekend

[Dr Kain]

The Green Room - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 5/10

[klen7]

^ Wow. couldn't disagree more. I thought it was a pretty taut thriller. I guess if you look at it as "slasher" film it may fall short, but there was a number of tense scenes in this movie that kept the film running between the brutality. I don't think I'd rank it above 'The Guest' but its definitely up there in the thriller category.

[jellydonut25]

Green Room is awesome. A great thriller and (essentially) bottle film. 4.5/5, honestly. Just excellently constructed, acted, directed and written throughout. One of my top movies of the year easily.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

^Ooooh, I like a good siege movie. I'll have to check it out.

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

The movie starts off with the kids stealing gasoline. They are terrible people right from the get go. I wanted to see them learn the error of their ways, but they were dead before they could learn jack squatt.

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Fantastic Beasts - I'm quite impressed with how this movie turned out. It was fun and entertaining while giving us some likable characters and not so likable ones. The majority of the cast did a great job with the roles they were given, especially Dan Fogler, who was outstanding. The different creatures shown were interesting to see and I liked the 1930s setting. I am curious to see where they are going to take this series and how far to Harry Potter they are going to role with it. Right now the books are open for them to do anything, hopefully they take advantage of it intelligently. Lastly, it was also interesting to see the American side of things in this world and fits exactly how we are as a country nicelessly. I give this fantastic adventure an 8/10.

[Dr Kain]

Taxi Driver - I watched this yesterday but didn't bother posting it as I've been processing it. I'm still kind of processing it but as a whole, this was a damn good movie. Robert DeNiro was terrific and watching his breakdown into madness was done extremely well. Not only that, but the movie is beautifully shot as it captures NYC from the time perfectly. Scorcesse makes the city feel like it is just as much as its own character in the same manner that Travis is. Add on top a truly incredible score that fits the mood and the psychosis of Travis perfectly. My only complaint is that the movie was maybe 10 minutes too long, but as I said, I'm still processing things. Nevertheless, right now I'm it an 8/10, but I'm sure that score is going to go up with future viewings.

[Dr Kain]

Blood Simple - Well this was an interesting Neo Noir. The first half was very slow moving, but the second half was down right brillaint. I absolutely loved the lighting and sound design. The story was pretty good while the acting was hit or miss (the girl was not that great). Emmet was phenomenal though and it brought a new spin on the case of mistaken identity plot. I'm going to give this one a 7/10 for right now.

[Dr Kain]

Gangster Squad - The best thing about this movie is its lighting. That is absolutely stunning. The rest of the film isn't terrible, but it isn't very good either. There's very little in the way of plot or character development as the movie tries to tell way too much in such a short running time so there isn't time for anything but the action scences. Also, Cohen is not even close to being accurate. Oh, and what was up with the last big action scene having bullet time in it? That was so stupid and random since it never happened at all in the rest of the movie. It's a shame that this movie is a mess because they have so many great actors in it. Hell, it has Thanos, Falcon, and Luis, it should have been a great movie!! Well whatever, I give it a 6/10. The bonus features on the disc were far more interesting than the movie itself.

[O.Supreme]

The Legend of Tarzan - I wasn't too into this, but the wife wanted to see it. Surprisingly I liked it better than I thought I would. I like that it was a story of an older, already established Tarzan, and origin story plot points were used sparingly in flashback. One thing I miss in films though is actual animals, not just CGI all the time.

Ice Age Collision Course -dumb humor for the kids. I lost interest in this series after #2, but they keep churning them out because they make 5X their production budget, even when they tank in the US. I only mildly smirked in one scene in which Diego & his girlfriend appear before small mammals with glowing evil eyes, and *blood soaked fangs* (from eating berries) and terrorize them unintentionally. This last film made far less and was panned on critic sites, hopefully this will be it for a while. Maybe they can do a Netflix series for kids or something, just keep the endless pointless sequels away from the theater.

Rango Had to wash out the taste of a bad kids comedy, with a truly genius one. Films like Rango are sadly few and far between. Too bad Johnny Depp has a thing for playing weird characters in live action, because without going back to the PoTC well too many times, I think he would be great as a regular Voice Actor in animated films if they had the slight adult edge to them. This film never ceases to make me laugh, and I always seem to catch something new I didn't see previously.

[Dr Kain]

Well after the terrible Thanksgiving I had, I needed to watch some movies.

Mario - Yes, THAT Mario movie. Why did I waste my time with this? For starters my g/f had never seen it before. Secondly, I hadn't seen it since it came out on VHS so being in a semi-Mario mood I just wanted to see if there was any good to be found in the movie. Sadly, not expectedly, there is not. Oh my god this movie is terrible. There is absolutely nothing that even resembles the video games. The worst part is is that someone got paid for writing this "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!", someone got paid for filming it, and someone got paid to direct it. What the hell were they thinking? At least Uwe Boll's movies have something in them that resembles the source material, this just doesn't. I give it a 2/10 because the acting was so bad it was funny.

The History of the World - To wash the taste out of Mario we watched History of the World. Now THIS is a great movie. It's hilarious. The comedy is dead on. The skits for each time period are fantastic. The 15 commandments is probably my favorite joke bit. It does move a little slow in some places but it is enjoyable nonetheless. A 9/10.

[O.Supreme]

I've never seen the Mario Bros. Movie, but I do know that Bob Hoskins (RIP) was quite outspoken stating it was the worst thing he ever worked on.