Recently watched movies!

[canofhumdingers]

I don't hate AoU, but it's not great. The first time I saw it I found it entirely underwhelming. When I watched again on BD I enjoyed it more, largely because I knew what to expect. But it's still easily one of the weakest marvel films. Can't say I've got much desire to see it again anytime soon.

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

Scrooged - 8/10

Muppet's Christmas Carol - 8/10

[mr.negativity]

On this day in 1988, John McClane saved the Nakatomi Plaza from terrorists. Never forget.



We track down Ellis from Die Hard, Mr Hart Bochner, to talk about acting, directing and his environmental work. Plus: his teeth…

[Dr Kain]

Civil War - 9/10 Six months later and it is still the second best MCU movie to date! Everything in this film is just near perfect.

The Howling - The make up and atmosphere were outstanding. Unfortunately, that is about all of the positives I can say as this movie was kind of boring. It wasn't terrible, but I've seen werewolf movies done better. It also doesn't help how predictable some of it was. In the end, I give it a 6/10.

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[jellydonut25]

Kate Plays Christine - Really blurs the lines between fiction and reality, documentary and movie, actor and character...It's a bit too stuffy at times, with method-actor-type frivolousness and some of its preachiness, but it brings it all home in the ending in a fairly big way.

It's hard to really want to put spoiler tags on a movie where we more or less know the ending (considering it's a documentary about Christine Chubbuck) but just in case anyone's a little touchy on that:


^Those are pretty mild spoilers. For more spelled-out spoilers:

I definitely want people I know who like film and discussing it to see this because it's something I want to talk about for a bit.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

This Christmas I finally watched The Star Wars Holiday Special... with Rifftrax commentary, though. It was a thing to see, and apparently, despite the fact that I've heard Lucas abdicating all responsibility for this thing all my life it was Lucas who insisted upon the unworkable premise of a Christmas variety show being an in-coninuity sequel to Star Wars focusing on a group of inarticulate wookies howling at each other. That's as George Lucas-y as you can get. I mean, it could've been just actors from Star Wars (and droids and stormtroopers) introducing skits and musical guests and that cartoon and it would be remembered along the same lines as the characters appearing on The Muppet Show.

... and about that cartoon: thought the animation was cool, but it was ultimately pointless. Boba Fett helps our heroes when they're poisoned, the droids overhear him communicating with Darth Vadar revealing he's been hired to gain the Rebellion's trust and betray them, droids tell our heroes and Boba immediately runs away... shouldn't they have at least had a fight or something?

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

^I forgot he did What We Do in the Shadows!

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

Because heroes don't kill heroes. It would have brought in unnecessary drama that didn't need to be there.

[lhb412]

King Kong (1976)

In which one of the greatest, most fun adventure films of all time is modernized (for the '70s) as a more serious and socially conscious film that's a bit of a drag, and also there's lots of awkward humor. Nice score from the great John Barry, though.

Got a bunch of movies on Blu-ray for Christmas, and this is certainly the poorest one, so's I got it out of the way first.

[O.Supreme]

Cloverfield (2008) - OK so I have not seen this since it was in theaters almost 9 years ago now, but because I noticed it was on Amazon Prime I figured I'd give it another shot. It was better this time, but I think that's mostly due to the fact that the "shaky cam" effect was on a smaller screen. Never again will I watch such a film in theaters. Also I didn't realize this was TJ Miller's first film, which makes sense, back then he was an unknown, and as far as I know is the only person in the film to have spawned a prolific acting career. (OK so I looked up all the Actors/Actresses on Wikipedia, they have all been pretty successful, but none of them have been in any movies I have seen, or would want to see aside from TJ Miller) .

I wish there was a "non shaky" version as a bonus track on Blu-Ray, but that probably isn't going to happen. Also I guess another reason why I hadn't seen this in so long is I was hoping for a budget Blu-Ray set at Wal-Mart of Cloverfield and Super 8 (both films I marginally like but not enough to pay premium for individually), but I guess now I'll await the much more likely Cloverfield/10 Cloverfield Lane double-feature (which I still have yet to see). Also The scene from the Coney Island footage of something supposedly falling in the ocean...Sure there are plenty of videos on Youtube, but I don't see it in the actual film, was this a deleted scene, or am I just missing it?

Anyway...its a decent film, I was surprised how quickly it felt like it went through. One contention with the story however was when rescuing the main guys girlfriend from the leaning skyscraper, with a piece of rebar impaling her through her upper chest area is a little far fetched. She would have bled out quickly, much less be able to run at full speed towards films end. Oh well. I doubt we will ever see a true sequel, but it would be nice to see a standard film about this that explains exactly what was going on.

[klen7]

[mr.negativity]

[lhb412]

^That's part of the reason I (mostly) stopped reading superhero comics as a teen: there was this great emphasis that the stories were going somewhere, but they never really could. That's the key thing that annoyed me; the slight-of-hand BS of insisting that something that wouldn't happen is happening.

... honestly, it bothers me less now: just enjoy the work for what it is. It doesn't matter what came before or what comes after if you enjoy the work for what it is now.