Movie thread, or; what movie did you watch last?

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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Auntie Slag
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Human Traffic, the first DVD I ever bought. Watching it again for the first time in many years it's not as painful as I thought it would be. Pretty fast and fun, maybe more fun than originally :)
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Blitzwing
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Post by Blitzwing »

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:If anyone's not seen it yet, Get Out is fantastic.
Yeah, it's easily the best movie of 2017 so far. I wouldn't be surprised if it remains in my top 5 by the end of the year.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Close Encounters of the Third Kind! The original theatrical version.

I hadn't seen this movie in years since I got the Director's Cut VHS waaaay back, and it bugged me that it was missing the ending I had seen on television, and I got the blu-ray box set which has all three versions on it sometime last year from a used video store in exchange for a bunch of DVDs I took there as an experiment (turns out they're worth even less there than trying to auction them off, unless I trade them, so I grabbed this and Fight Club on blu).

Having watched it after all these years, it's obvious that my impressions of the going-ons have changed as an adult; for example, something I never thought of as a child, was the way Roy's wife running off with the kid is just a plot device to free him so he can go Wyoming. And when all the abductees are returned, they're not exactly coming back to the world they once knew.
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Pleasantly surprised by the new Power Rangers movie.

It's not what I'd describe as "good", but it's better than I expected it to be and falls safely into the category of satisfactory.

But bear in mind I'm not a MMPR fan. I watched it sporadically when it was on in the 90s, but as far as I'm concerned it was absolute garbage, so people with a proper attachment to the franchise may feel differently.

But a slow-build Chronicle-inspired superhero origin story that eventually culminates in the trademark giant robot vs giant monster fight was fine with me.

Not brilliant, but far better than it deserved.
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I liked Mark Kermode's review of Power Rangers - 'part Breakfast Club, part kingu-fu monster film...its about halfway on the scale between Transformers, which is nonsense, and Real Steel which was good fun'. I want to see this, but will probably wait to rent it.
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Yeah I heard Kermode's take after I'd seen it and it's in roughly the same ballpark as my feelings, though I thought it was funnier than he seemed to.

The big battle does feel a little "Mission City fight" from TF2007, though the film itself lampshades that a bit.

Saw the new Ghost in the Shell last night. It's so-so. It's a live action remake of GitS, and that's pretty much it. Doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but does its job fairly well.
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Blitzwing
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Post by Blitzwing »

Saw Power Rangers last night. It was harmless fun, marketed to a younger audience than myself. I think I enjoyed it enough to want to watch the eventual sequel, not enough to ever sit through the whole thing again though.
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Tetsuro
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Post by Tetsuro »

Watching The Lost World: Jurassic Park right now.

As I'm watching it, I'm kind of realizing that not only I don't particularly like this movie, I don't think I liked it very much even as a child, and I can't really put my finger on why. Maybe it's because it's a much darker film compared to the first which was more like a theme park ride in itself. Maybe it's the character roster, like that one guy who looks like he's drunk all the time and seems to only exist to become dinosaur food.

EDIT: That really was not a very good movie. In fact, the flaws were so terrible that I felt compelled to write an IMDB review about it.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

The Walk. Pretty good overall; I can watch Joseph Gordon Levitt in most things and he's got the charisma. Fun format and they still managed to make the tightrope walk look awesome.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Tricky to say, though given the similarities in narrative and closing dialogue, I'd be surprised if its inclusion was solely because one of the supporting cast liked it. Would presume a happy coincidence until confirmed otherwise.
Yup - more than likely that James Mangold, actual film director, can come up with a homage to a famous Western (that I've never had much time for either, but you can't argue with its' fame) that's been homaged dozens of times without the input of a guy who likely got the nod because they couldn't age McAvoy convincingly enough.

Enjoyed Logan but I can see why people didn't; it's one of those films you have to be a little sold on before going in, in terms of knowing Logan/Wolverine and seeing him as more of an icon than a film character. Liked the washed-out tone and intentional low-key feel, very Old Man Logan - that "this is going to be the bit where the claws come out and it's all 'snikt, bub', you'll see, you'll see...".

Like the Fox film series as a whole TBH; it's my guilty pleasure. The plots are idiotic and the timeline's a mess but most of them manage a couple of super set-pieces (I would happily watch 2 1/2 hours of just Quicksilver scenes) and they have this weird binary thing where each character is either a blatant suck-up to the fans or a deliberate attempt to piss them off.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I watched the Secret Life Of Pets - its ace! I like that this is a kids/ all ages film that just concentrates on being funny without having the usual jokes-that'll-go-over-the-heads-of kids in. Great voice cast and some really snappy animation from Dreamworks (still can't get over how real the water looks...which is an odd thingto be enthused about).
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Post by Tetsuro »

I wanted to rant to a friend about The Lost World being crap but hadn't seen it so we made a deal that I would watch Prometheus (which I did) and he'd watch that one so we could rant each other about them.

So, regarding Prometheus...uh...well, for a prequel that's supposed to be about answering questions, it sure raises a whole bunch of 'em without actually answering any. And it does that lovely thing where a lot of stuff just happens for no apparent reason. How did David know what the black goo would do? Why was the biologist who was so scared at first so eager to pet an alien snake? What was the point with the geologist coming back as a super-zombie? How did the captain of all characters figure out what the Engineers' site was for? Why was Weyland hidden aboard the ship and why was no one surprised to find out he was there?

And that's just the ones I can think off the top of my head.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also watched it because I'm going to see Alien: Covenant tomorrow. I sure hope that movie is going to at least bring some resolution to Prometheus' cliffhanger (but I'm not counting on it).
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:Yup - more than likely that James Mangold, actual film director, can come up with a homage to a famous Western (that I've never had much time for either, but you can't argue with its' fame) that's been homaged dozens of times without the input of a guy who likely got the nod because they couldn't age McAvoy convincingly enough.
TBH I know almost nothing about Shane (and the clip was one of the bits where the sound wasn't great at my screening), so how it works as a metaphor for the film as a whole was entirely lost on me there.

Been slowly working through my Universal Horror boxset. The Mummy was surprisingly dull and just stopped rather than ending, but The Invisible Man was great fun. The bandages off scene was still a fine "Bugger me" moment and there were all sorts of fun tricks for the floating about stuff. The bike riding by itself feels like the sort of thing that should have been impossible in the 30's.

Kind of bummed there are now proper collections of the Frankenstein/Dracula/Wolfman/ect films out rather than this representative set though as I think I'd rather have had the complete Frankie collection and the odd one off from the other ranges (ie, Invisible Man but no Mummy. Can't imagine Phantom of the Opera being that great either). Hugely fond memories of the increasingly silly non-Karloff ones from when I was a kid.
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

inflatable dalek wrote:TBH I know almost nothing about Shane (and the clip was one of the bits where the sound wasn't great at my screening), so how it works as a metaphor for the film as a whole was entirely lost on me there.
It's basically about a gunslinger trying to escape his past who doesn't want to corrupt this kid. You can work out the metaphor part from there. ;)

Yeah, the Invisible Man is ace.

The way the Universal Monsters stuff's been collected has always been a bit annoying. I've got some of them on R2 DVD and others in the R1 DVD "Legacy" sets. Haven't bothered upgrading to Blu Ray because, until recently, there was no sensible option available which wouldn't have just replaced random discs.

Saw Alien: Covenant on Friday. It's better than Prometheus, though still not very good. Most of its problems come from being a Prometheus sequel (who'd have thunk it, right?). Pretentious and portentous and smug and heavy-handed and not anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is. Still more concerned with answering questions nobody asked than constructing a compelling story of its own.

It's watchable if you just unplug all expectations of there ever being a half-decent movie set in this universe ever again.

Though on a tangent, Ron Perlman confirmed on Twitter yesterday that Sigourney Weaver made that basketball shot in Resurrection herself in one take. Which he nearly ruined with his reaction to it.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Brendocon 2.0 wrote:Pretentious and portentous and smug and heavy-handed and not anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is.
Are talking worse than the whole subplot with the cross necklace that seemed like it was supposed to represent something but didn't work because nothing around it made sense?
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Post by Sunrunner »

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
Harmless enough fantasy film, with Jax Tellar tearing up Londinium with Excalibur. It bears no resemblance to the traditional story, could easily have been any generic fantasy character with a magic sword, but I suppose they thought the Arthur title would sell a few more tickets.
All the cockney gangster stuff felt massively out of place in dark ages Britain though.

Got me thinking, have we ever had a truly great King Arthur movie?
I can't think of one, which seems strange given the wealth of stories and legends attached to the character.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Sunrunner wrote:Got me thinking, have we ever had a truly great King Arthur movie?
Excalibur - Merlin going past 11 and up to about 74, mud, blood, battered armour, O Fortuna.

Watched Prevenge by the quietly incredible Alice Lowe. A fraction too Ben Wheatley tribute act but really there are worse mentors to follow.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Sunrunner wrote:Got me thinking, have we ever had a truly great King Arthur movie?
I might think of one.
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Post by Tetsuro »

Might be a tad off topic, but I'm sure someone might be interested (I sure am); Kino Lorber is releasing the original theatrical cut of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly on blu-ray in the US. No idea if it'll be region locked or not, but that should be good news for someone. It's coming out in August.

Also Arrow Video in the UK has John Carpenter's "The Thing" in their possession. No word on release date, but it should hopefully based on the same source Shout! used in the US which utilized less aggressive DNR (ie. no disappearing table tennis ball).
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Brendocon 2.0
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

King Arthur was weird and boring and badly edited and really really difficult to watch because of the dull colour pallette but I've seen far worse movies this year. Weirdly the "wacky cockney banter" segments are actually the best bits, feeling like they've stumbled in from a different, better film.

I'll stick with Battlefield, tbh.
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