Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

Hell or High Water - This movie was down right incredible! It felt like a western set in the modern day with characters struggling to live in today's word. Not to mention the irony it plays with the banks. It moved by at a really brisk pace and did not feel like the 2 hours it was. The acting was absolutely solid. My only complaint is that Jeff Bridges is doing the mumbling thing he has been doing in the last several movies I have seen him in, which is starting to get really old. Did the man forget how to talk? That aside, if I were to do my 2016 list today, this would easily be in the top 5. A fantastic 9/10.

[Dr Kain]

A Series of Unfortunate Events - After watching the Netflix series I wanted to revisit this movie that I loved back when it first came out. Well after doing so, we kind of regret it now. It's just not that good. For one thing, every single thing that deals with the spy plot is gone. In fact, pretty much all of the plot is missing. It's just an empty husk that goes from one point to the next as if they decided to turn someone's Wikipedia synopsis into a movie. Add on that the acting is pretty bad and all of Olaf's best moments are absent (not to mention Harris is a far superior Olaf to Carrey) and I wonder why this movie even existed in the first place. The best thing about it is in its cosume design, as the clothing everyone wears is outstanding. Overall though, I give this lifeless tragedy a 5/10.

[jellydonut25]

I've been watching some Ultraman movies. Just kinda started randomly, because I'm sick of trying to go chronologically.

Ultraman Dyna & Tiga: Warriors of the Star of Light - Pretty bad. It looks unbelievably cheap, and it doesn't even feel like something you could call a movie. Rough start.

Ultraman Gaia: Battle in Hyperspace - It's not "good," but it's fun and dumb in the right ways. Kinda reminds me of Godzilla's Revenge. It's definitely FOR KIDS, but there's a sense of fun and adventure and whimsy that's a little contagious. Ultimately, not too bad.

Ultraman Tiga: The Last Odyssey - I actually quite liked this. It felt like an actual movie, it still has a sense of fun about itself. I could have done without the horrendous CGI at the end, but overall I enjoyed it.

Ultraman Cosmos vs Ultraman Justice - AWFUL. One of the absolute worst kaiju things I've ever seen.

Ultraman the Next - Hm....a little too self serious. Like, this stuff is kinda goofy and it needs to have a more fun sense to itself. Tiga's the only stuff I've seen so far that strikes the right balance of goofy and still trying to tell a story and not just being for morons. I understand The Next a pretty divisive film for the franchise, and after seeing it I can definitely understand why. I would probably be boring and say I come down in the middle. It's in the upper half of the things I've actually watched, but I feel like I've not watched some of the stuff people say is the best. This will probably settle somewhere in the middle for me as sort of my cut-off point. Anything worse can go away, anything better gets the stamp of approval.

[Dr Kain]

I thought The Next was fantastic. It does exactly what a higher budget version of Ultraman would do. However, I haven't watched it in years, so we'll see what happens when I do later this year. I'm going to watch it just before Nexus since it is a prequel.

The Dyna/Tiga movie did suck though. I used to own it and I think that movie was the reason I got rid of my Tiga DVDs.

[lhb412]

I think The Next has some interesting elements but is mostly a failure, mainly because it tries to be "Ultraman as a Bruckheimer-style American action film" with the budget of only a few million dollars and that's what it looks and feels like. However, its sister TV series, Ultraman Nexus, succeeds in that rather gonzo idea of a more serious, adult-targeted Ultraman series by adding a bunch of twists to the concept and using it's limited budget wisely.

[jellydonut25]

I felt like Next tried too hard to be the "adult" version of Ultraman and comes off somewhat insincere.

[lhb412]

^ Exactly! Meanwhile, Nexus gets really dark but ultimately reflects the uncynical, sincere nature of Ultraman.

[jellydonut25]

Superior Ultra 8 Brothers - This movie was AMAZING!!! Until the horrible CGI at the end...Still, the best Ultra movie I've seen.

[Psycho Soldier]

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie - I've always liked the movie, shallow and otherwise flawed as it may be, because it's well animated and the fight scenes excite me. Tonight, I watched the Japanese version for the first time. The voice acting's fine, but I don't care for the music: most of the tracks sound like pop song instrumentals. The song that plays during the Ryu and Ken vs. Bison fight is pretty solid, but aside from that, I'll take the dub soundtrack any day. It's more ominous and aggressive, which suits the subject matter, and after all, it's hard to compete with Alice in Chains and KMFDM.

[Dr Kain]

I hate to say it, but the SFII movie is probably the only time I will ever accept a soundtrack that isn't its original. Hell, it was done by KMFDM, one of the greatest bands in the world, which makes it freaking awesome. Not to mention the Chun Li/Vega fight is so energetic and badass when you are listening to Ultra during it compared to that soft, slow moving new age dogcrap they call music.

[jellydonut25]

Ultraman Saga - CRAP. Convoluted and horribly executed, this movie felt like an insult after Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers.

Mighty Joe Young - Watching some Kong ripoff type stuff before getting into full-on KONG marathoning. I'd only ever seen bits and pieces of this as a kid. It's good....not great. It's a lot of fun, but the DNA of Kong is pretty evident here. So much so this totally could just be a King Kong sequel (if not for legal reasons, I'm sure). There's an innocence to it though that's ultimately charming and utterly enjoyable.

[Psycho Soldier]

[lhb412]

The Witch (or, to respect period typeface: The VVitch)

The extraordinary attention to period detail in this movie is so impressive it's like a special effect. This movie and it's aesthetic is sure to color our minds anytime we think about, say, Salem or Young Goodman Brown. Great performance from the entire cast. Just enough surprises or twists or moments of weird horror to keep the genre fan part of your mind happy while most of the film deals with realistic character reactions to such things.

And with Black Phillip, The Babadook, and the thing from It Follows (still haven't seen that one) it seems we're getting a spate of iconic horror figures again! Cool time for the genre.

[lhb412]

Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro

... yup, still great. This is the first time I've noticed that Discotek whipped up some really cool English language end credits for the movie for their release (the Japanese movie, as is, ends on a 'The End' title with no credits).

[O.Supreme]

Godzilla 2000 - watched this with a friend of mine who had never seen it before, and wanted to because he wanted to see where Orga came from (he's familiar only with Orga from the Atari/ Pipeworks game trilogy). Admittedly it had been a while, in fact I may have never watched the Blu ray despite getting it in fall of 2014 when it came out. Unfortunately this film has not aged well. I found it to be pretty boring, the Playstation level CG was Cringeworthy, (ooh that underwater swimming shot) and the 5 minute fight with Orga while cool, was way too short. I saw this twice in the theater, guess I was just way more optimistic in my mid-20's, just turned 41 last week...dang I'm old.

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

The CGI and digital composting (I'd argue the second a bit more, since it's in almost every FX scene) really didn't age well in G2K.

[O.Supreme]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

A blond cavewoman (Victoria Vetri) escapes being sacrificed to the sun by her own tribe, is rescued by fishermen from another tribe (one of whom falls for her, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend), but the folks from the first tribe are really intent on this whole sacrifice thing and find her and take over the second tribe so she escapes again and ends up getting adopted by a enormous mama dinosaur... of course, the entire thing is punctuated with multiple monster attacks, all beautifully animated by Jim Danforth aside from a few unfortunate stock shots from the '60s version of The Lost World.

I dig this goofy movie. On paper and by most technical metrics this film's predecessor, One Million Years BC, is better, but I think the looser, goofier nature; fantasy book cover aesthetics; as well as the novelty of having a film dominated by beautiful creature animation that's stylistically different from Ray's or O'Brien's makes me like this film a bit more.

[jellydonut25]

Mighty Joe Young (remake) - Disney sure Disney'd the hell out of this movie...it's overall enjoyable (and the effects work is GREAT) but it's really missing a good rampage that the original had, with punching lions and destroying the night club.

Konga - This movie is something else. Less a Kong ripoff than a mad scientist movie...and the Kong ripoff portion is actually the least interesting part. Michael Gough as the a-hole scientist is awesome though. Worth a watch.

Mighty Peking Man - This movie is INSANE. One of those movies that's so much a failure in so many ways, it's actually an unbridled success...it's just so bonkers, and SLEAZY and entertaining. It's too bad it's also a movie with animal abuse...

I also watched enough clips from A*P*E and Queen Kong to get a feel for what they were like, and yeah, I wouldn't put myself through those movies.

[klen7]

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore - Macon Blair (Actor: Blue Ruin, Green Room) has his directorial debut with this film that Netflix picked up off the festival circuit. He clearly learned a lot from working with Jeremy Saulnier, but he puts his own spin on the style with a film that has more talk and humor than Saulnier's films while maintaining the pacing and violent punctuation points. If you liked those Saulnier's films or Coen brothers crime thrillers you'll like this as well, if you thought they were too slow, you'll have the same issues here. Story is about a depressed nurse that turns to vigilantism after her house is robbed.

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

Logan - Wow, not only was this an incredible movie, but it is hands down the best X-Men movie ever!! There's not too much I can really say without going into spoiler territory, so I will keep this brief. The acting is top notch, the soundtrack is really good, the character development is extravagant, and the surprises it brings are mindblowingly badass. There is no scene after the credits, which is good for those who don't like to sit through them. The only true negative I have on this movie is that it moves very slowly to the point where I thought it was 3 hours long. Best of all, the stuff shown in the trailers were pretty much all from theI first act, so they gave absolutely nothing away. It's a shame Fox hasn't been able to give us a legitimate X-Men movie that is this deep in its narrative, characterizations, and it doesn't pull any punches doing so. I'm going to give Logan a 9/10.