Movies, Movies, Movies.....

[Nrthwnd]

We're doing Movie Nights on Wed. and Sunday evenings. And they consist of movie series that we can binge on, one after the other. And they are DVDs that we own. Not renting like we usually do. We just finished the Harry Potter series. Now we're watching The Hobbit films, followed of course, by the Lord of The R-ings films. In the order they were supposed to be watched. We may tackle the Star Wars films, but not yet. So that's what we're now doing, in regards to movies. Ones that we've collected...and neglected over the years.

[tinaalsgirl]

I got a free movie rental from Redbox for my birthday, so my mom and I finally got to see Dolittle. I can see and understand some of the negativity towards the movie, but overall, I really enjoyed it! Of course, I am very easily entertained and even with movies like this where there are admittable issues... I'm pretty good at acknowledging that and then pushing it aside so I can just enjoy the good parts.

[CaptainUnknown]

Just casually rewatching the first Brendan Fraser Mummy movie and the cold open/opening narration/backstory mentions that the curse placed on Imhotep while being unspeakably horrible now, would turn him into an all-powerful demigod with ambitions of world conquest/destruction should someone be stupid enough to awaken him.

 

Maybe they should have not cast that curse...

 

and just given Brendan Fraser his coffee

[Garet]

Mulan will debut on Disney+ in September instead of a cinema release. However, it will be $29.99 on top of your subscription to watch it as a 'one-time event'. For a big family that's cheaper than going to the cinema but I have to wonder if this is successful if other streamers might follow suit in the future having add-on premieres on top of their subscriptions.

[CaptainUnknown]

After 2 years of reshoots, re-edits, delays, and COVID, The New Mutants finally hit theaters this weekend. It was perfectly fine considering everything it went through to get in front of audiences. My biggest complaint was that it could have had some more horror elements considering it was a horror movie.

[McDaniels]

The last movie Ive watched was chinese coffee with Pacino starring, by the way after this movie I started research about usual chinese coffee recipes and found one thing named Dalgona, it was not easy to understand without 3rd party services like this https://pickwriters.com/chinese-translation-services  because it was written on original chinese language so I visited this to understand the way of preparing dalgona xd
About movie - Mixture of detective and comedy. 10/10 for me, as every Pacino movie

[Nrthwnd]

We saw Tenet last week.

 

First of all, the whole theatre experience was, to put it in a word.....wierd. When we first ordered our tickets online (which we had to do ahead of time, no cashiers at the theatres), the seating map presented to us for choosing seats, showed at least 20 or so already taken. All spaced apart, which was fine to us. It showed the theatre chain was working the covid thing out.

 

But when we got to the theatre, got our popcorn, and into the theatre, we discovered there were only three other people to see the movie! No body else came in after the movie started. So this was very strange to us, about the seating map.

 

The movie was fine, although with a Christopher Nolan film, "fine" isn't exactly that easy to describe it. "Time inversion" was the main theme of it all. And although it was explained again and again and A-GAIN in the film, I still had trouble just accepting it and "going with the flow" so to speak.

 

And the dialogue. You really had to listen to everything being said in this movie. No dozing off, here. Miss 5 minutes of dialogue, and you might miss key elements to the plot, etc.

 

We did enjoy it. But would I see it again? Probably not. I do recommend it to see it on the Big Screen. Especially when all the backwards/forwards stuff starts happening, at the same time.

 

8/10 Popcorn Bags

[CaptainUnknown]

^A lot of the dialogue could also be difficult to hear at times (esp. if you're in a theater with bad sound quality). It moved too quickly for such a concept to be properly absorbed and understood by the audience. It is a movie I need to see again with subtitles this time. And like all Nolan films, it is a technical marvel and a visual treat.

[Nrthwnd]

^ Also agree, about the dialogue moving along so fast! Both me and David actually looked at each other, from time to time, saying "what did he/they say?" Then of course, we'd miss some other (usually) important dialogue.

[masterbeer]

Well it is not actually a film, it is a series that im hooked watching - Z Nation. Have you seen this guys?

[Nrthwnd]

^ No, and here's a separate thread for fave television series....

 

https://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=756

 

[bert425]

ok. . spoiler free take on WW84

(which thanks to the new giant TV we just got (75" across, and equipped with HBO Max - which we get free since we pay our cable provider for it), was just like watching it on a Movie Screen anyways).

Overall, it's decent. It's not *great* (certainly not as good as the 1st one), and I'd honestly give it a grade of "C+" - but it's worth seeing, even with several issues.

Pros:

- the design of the film/characters, and overall set design is fantastic.

- the acting is (for the most part) very good, and Kristen Wiig impressed me as Cheetah - I wasn't fully onboard, and early on was a bit concerned. But she really pulls it off.

- multiple moments of "oh wow" - many straight from the WW comics, that gave me joy out of nowhere. Stay thru the credits, for one of those moments.

Cons:

- at 2 1/2 hours, it's much too long, and multiple "tone setting" scenes should have been dropped, as they slow the plot down to a crawl

- there is a serious lack of clear motivation (specifically in two characters), and it's hard to understand why they are doing what they do, when it hasn't been made clear why they are doing what they are doing.

- the lighting in a key scene towards the back end of the film (a climactic battle at that), really annoyed me. Why ruin some fantastic design work, by filming a lengthy scene in grey tones?

Yes, I get it - they wanted to highlight the golden armor (not a spoiler, it's been in the movie posters), but by greying out everything else? muddy, muddy, muddy

- the plot device to drive the film (and explain Steve Trevor being in 1984) is just silly. It comes across as an executive saying "it's a comic book film, so why not?". . . I mean. .it's not terrible, but it's silly.

and my biggest nit-pick: there is a *lot* of CGI in this film. That's not necessarily "Con". . .but too much of it here is BAD CGI. It's really looks unfinished. and that's kind of shocking, as several scenes are so bad they pull you right out of the film.

(and no, none of them are in regards to the Cheetah character - it turns out the shots that looked so poor in the trailer must have been unfinished at that time, as they are much better in the finished film).

so. . .yeah, worth seeing, and I'll probably get on Blu.. .but not as good as the 1st.

[CaptainUnknown]

To me, WW84 felt a lot like Iron Man 2. Both films were overstuffed with more than the story really knew what to do with to give any of them a proper resolution. It lacked a proper focus and felt like there was some more studio interference this time around which led to massive plot holes and leaps in logic (such as exactly why/how Chris Pine is back and the ramifications of such).

It also weakened Diana's character by making her a starry-eyed waif who was forever crying over a dead guy. Gag me.

And as a fan of the Cheetah character, I was disappointed with how poorly the character was used. Again reminded of IM2 with a lackluster final battle when the antagonist is at their most powerful. Loved the final Cheetah design and wish we got more of it. Though at the same time, I can't help but be reminded of the terrible design of the cats in the recent film.  #Releasethebuttholecut

 

I also watched Soul before WW84 and it was infinitely the better film. The animation was spec-f*cking-tacular and I loved how deep and mature the film was willing to be. While at times I found it too similar to Inside Out (also directed by Pete Docter), I don't necessarily find that a bad thing as I loved that film as well. I was also a little surprised to see that Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross (most notably of the band Nine Inch Nails) composed the score for the film as Jazz is not the style of music I'd associate them with.

[Nrthwnd]

On 9/19/2020 at 4:31 PM, CaptainUnknown said:

^A lot of the dialogue could also be difficult to hear at times (esp. if you're in a theater with bad sound quality). It moved too quickly for such a concept to be properly absorbed and understood by the audience. It is a movie I need to see again with subtitles this time. And like all Nolan films, it is a technical marvel and a visual treat.

We watched it once more, on tv. And this time, it was the same - bloody - thing with the sound! So much "other sound" going on, the dialogue was still too low in parts to grasp what was being said. We had the luxury this time of rewinding and then re-listening again. But even on the television we shouldn't have to do this. Ugh.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

LOVED "Judas and the Black Messiah." We've been fans of the Black Panthers for years, ever since a co-worker was involved in our local chapter and told us all about the great things they do for the poor.

 

Fred Hammond is an American hero. He deserves so much more recognition for what he accomplished. 

[CaptainUnknown]

A couple quick reviews of movies I saw recently:

News of the World: a Tom Hanks film is always enjoyable and I found it a little humorous wherein the first piece of news discussed in the film was about a small viral outbreak.

The Little Things: I found it boring with little to say and overly derivative of Se7en. Jared Leto's performance seemed almost like he was a little disinterested with the role.

Raya and the Last Dragon: Disney animation's latest is another beautiful film with some absolutely stellar fight choreography.

Chaos Walking: Saw it on the strength of the cast which included Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, and Mads Mikkelsen in an orange fur coat. While I can't say it was bad per se, even with the low expectations I went in with, I just don't know what the movie was trying to do and had some annoying cinematography choices.

[Nrthwnd]

^ We wanted to see all four of those films, "Raya/Last Dragon" especially in a movie theater.

And "Chaos Walking"  was intriguing to us for the cast, and the way the trailers have been done.

Thanks for your input on them. We're still undecided... but then, we ain't got our vaccines, yet.

EDIT TO ADD: Also, want to see "Soul" and "Onward" "Mulan"and a few 2020 others on The Big Screen again. I mean, once rules are in place and we can see movies in theaters again, why not studios bring back the ones that didn't make it there, the first time, due to you-know-what? I know people would flock to the complexes again. Not huge numbers. But you never know hmmm?....

[tinaalsgirl]

You're so right. I can't see a good reason why the studios couldn't "re-release" their movies to the big screen. I mean, Avatar just re-released in China and made so much it took back its box office record from Avengers: Endgame. I would absolutely pay to see some 2020 movies on the big screen. I was so thrilled when Dune got re-scheduled, because I have to see that one on the big screen.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Yes! I love the Dune series, and am very much looking forward to the new movie. Missouri's doing the absolute worst job of vaccinating people, but we're still getting closer to normality.

[Nrthwnd]

OSCAR Nominations came out today. And of the few movies we actually saw, and most of them were on tv, Mank got a lot of noms.

And we were glad to find out that Amanda Seyfried got a nom, for Mank. as Marion Davies.

But, other than the above, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom too, not many more 2020 movies seen (in any medium) that got noms.

I do hope we get to eventually go back to theaters/theatres, to see films in their normal size, heh.

EDIT: I re-thought what we actually did see last year. And there are a few more.... Tenet, The Prom (tv), The Invisible Man, and Onward (tv)... and that's it! Smallest - number - ever - of new movies we've seen, in any year.

[bert425]

Ok. . no spoilers (at all - not even characters that have been given away as being in this). But having sat with it for a little bit after watching last night:

Zack Snyder's Justice League is *incredible*
 

the Theatrical release was a C- film. This? this is a SOLID A
(and if you're a comic fan, with some familiarity of the DC Universe? A+).

I know some reviewers have commented there's a little filler in here, but I didn't think any of it was filler. The ~4 hour run time just flies by.

This is NOT anything even close to the theatrical release - perhaps 20% (or 18%) is footage we've seen. . the rest is all a brand new film. A new film that really fills in tons of character info/motivations/and triumphs.  Clearly the two that benefit most are the Flash & Cyborg, but really all the characters benefit from more "stuff" that just wasn't in the original film.

I really hope this does so well, that WB/DC greenlight the follow-ups, as I REALLY wanna see what comes next.

 

 

[Nrthwnd]

^ We decided to split this movie into two "acts." and we're seeing the second two hours of it tonight. Very impressed with what was kept from the original release and what Snyder added to it. And focusing on a couple of backstories, this was great!

I was a bit confused though, about Aquaman. Where does his movie fit into this timeline? I mean, he did re-unite with his mother in his film at it's end, but in this one, it appears he's none too happy with her. So .... ?

Looking forward to the "second half" of this.

[bert425]

^ the 3rd act is really incredible.

there's a ~25 minute Epilogue section, which really can be skipped - it's just follow up, and set up for other films (that likely are never going to happen. . but perhaps, if reaction to this one continues to be great, WB will greenlight continuations)

 

you'll be blown away by the 3rd act.

 

it's SOOOO good.

 

As to "Aquaman" film. . it follows this one directly.  (he doesn't know why his Mother disappeared, he just thinks she walked out on him - just like the beginning of "Aquaman" film.  Also, he's not an ally of Mera yet - tho you'll get some follow up on that in the above mentioned "Epilogue" section.    but that's why she begrudgingly respects him at the start of the "Aquaman" film)

[CaptainUnknown]

I also watched the Snyder cut twice in the past two days. I also re-watched the theatrical cut for comparison's sake. While Snyder is obviously the better film, I still see some merit in Josstice League. Neither film is perfect. I thought Snyder cut had some pacing issues and didn't really explain everything that it needed to. Some scenes just ended without reason to while others did drag on for a beat longer than they should have. I can't help but wonder what the film would have looked like if Snyder was involved beginning to end with the theatrical cut.

 

I also saw The Courier in theaters on Friday night. It was a decent Cold War drama in the style of Bridge of Spies from a couple years ago (with Benadryl Itchandscratch substituting in for Tom Hanks), but I couldn't help but notice the headless Wall-E in the lobby.

[RCT3Bross]

This post is kind of pointed at the people who saw the Snyder cut.

Honestly I have no real desire or rush to go and see the Snyder cut and some positive reviews won't change my mind, I'm completely done with the DCEU for many reasons. One of those reasons is Warner Bros. just is way to responsive when it comes to the movies, what is evident with the existence of the Snyder cut actually being released. That also brings me to my biggest fear towards this version of the movie (I saw the original Justice League) that this still isn't Snyder's original vision.

This is why I want to ask people that did see both versions: Would you say  this version has some clear responses to criticism the original got or does it feel like this was indeed the intended version (I also like to know if it fits establish lore from previous movies better)?