Topic: The Movie Thread

@JohnnyShoulder He’s great, isn’t he? Someone you’d like to nerd out with down the pub!
Another channel I subscribe to is Dead Meat, where the host (very likeable and witty) posts ‘The Kill Count’. They’re vids that cover the kills from various horror films, with a fun little pie chart at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2IYWWifoIht9T47z1Z5lJw

@jacobia Yeah Stuckman is cool. Not heard of Dead Meat, will check it out. I like Jeremy Jahns also, a bit simular to Stuckman in is geeky views.

@Gremio108 @jacobia Saw Bird Box last night thought it was very good if not up there with something like The Quiet Place imo. Not sure it I would class it as sci-fi though, it is more of a psychological thriller. There are layers to it as well, with how the people deal with depression and if you are mentally unstable effecting what the main threat does to the person. Thought all the cast did really well, with a few notable names in there. And yeah some really really tense scenes, doubly so if you have kids of your own.

@JohnnyShoulder Thanks for the recommendation, Bird Box has come up on my radar and I’ve been meaning to add it to my list. The Quiet Place was an awesome film, can’t wait to see what they do with the sequel.

@JohnnyShoulder I've still not seen A Quiet Place yet. Looking forward to it, when I get around to it

Watched Bumblebee yesterday. Wonderful little movie full of 80's nostalgia and a great live-action representation of the Transformers universe.

@Ralizah disagree, I thought it was very boring, not any kind of an improvement on the other Bay movies. The original animated movie is still far superior to any of the modern dross.

Widows and Mortal Engines both really good, bad reviews for Widows are bit daft and the trailer for Mortal Engines did it no favours, just a lot of flat acting, otherwise great. Aquaman pretty decent action, nice set pieces and costumes and even lore, unfortunately the acting is very mediocre, still would recommend. Suspiria I watched recently, dance company witches coven set in 80s Berlin, absolutely amazing film, probably my film of the year.

@Ralizah gunna see it asap (26th or 27th), wanted to see it today but been so busy.

I love Transformers but the live movies so far sucked - pretty hyped for this one!

@kyleforrester87 Yeah, this is a lot more fun than the chaotic Bay movies (although I stopped watching after the second one, but I've heard they only get worse).

Seeing Aqua Man tomorrow!

@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Oh come on. Even if you didn't like it, you have to admit that it's a far more coherent experience than the Bay films were.

@Ralizah thought Bumblebee was brilliant!

So. Aquaman is... uh... kind of all over the place. It's definitely not bad, and there's some great visual inventiveness in the different aquatic settings, but it feels very unfocused, like the filmmakers opted for a 'kitchen sink' approach on what to include in the film. I'll admit: I got an enormous chuckle out of the chase scene with the robotic manta ray vehicles that seemed ripped straight out of Star Wars. It's fun enough: absolutely better than the dreadful Avengers: Infinity War or DC's own Suicide Squad. Not as good as Wonder Woman or Batman v Superman, though.

@kyleforrester87 It's fun, right? Feels like both a decent 80's movie homage and a solid Transformers movie.

I finally got around to seeing Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. People have been raving about it and honestly, I was pretty much going in without any prior knowledge of really what it was. I didn’t see any trailers or read any reviews. I wasn’t that hyped for it since it was animated and I don’t really get into the animated comic book movies. I really only went to see it in a theater because some friends convinced me since they had already seen it and loved it and told me they knew I would love it.
So I have to say I’m a tiny bit ... disappointed. It was a good show but I guess I was expecting more, plot-wise.

Not only am I not typically a fan of animated comic hero movies, but I also haven’t read the source material on any of these heroes, DC or Marvel. I have really enjoyed the live action MCU and DCEU movies, and I’d say I’m a pretty rabid fan of those, so maybe that’s why it is hard to see this movie with an open mind. It’s clearly written with a modern generation in mind and although I enjoyed the hip-hop music and overt attempts at diversification, it felt a little bit like a fish out of water. I’ve no problem with Miles Morales character - he’s a likable and relatable protagonist. And the voice acting and writing was very good. The visuals also were uniquely dazzling, although they get to be a bit much toward the end with all the crazy effects going on. It’s a bit fatiguing trying to follow what’s on screen with flashing lights, quick bursts of action and frame changing, and just all the explosive display of animation that it throws on screen all at once at certain points.

The story was just what I had to manually disconnect my brain in order to enjoy. There is a strange dissonance in the narrative and it is told in a very comic book style and with a lot of tongue-in-cheek plot points. I’m trying to avoid major spoilers, but simply put, you can’t take the story too seriously. And for an animated, cartoon/CG style movie I suppose that should go without saying, but at times it tries to explain itself and be a serious story with clear nods to the comics, but then there is some offputting silliness and parts that pull you out of the Spider-Man world, scratching your head at what is going on. For example, it just seemed weird that Miles is reading a comic book about Spider-Man, who is a real person in his world, and then he even is in his own comic book toward the end. It’s a cross over of real life and fictional life that just seems weird. It makes moments of legitimate emotional impact fall flat to me, like when the reveal comes that his uncle is the villain chasing him, it just doesn’t move me as a viewer nearly as much as it could have since the whole world is just kind of a made up fantasy place. And maybe the intent is to have it just be a popcorn movie purely for fun. I can respect that. But at times it does seem like the film has a small identity crisis and doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Again, all this from me, a person who is pretty ignorant of the actual comic book material. Maybe if I’d have read some of the Spidey comics then I’d appreciate this strange mish-mash of characters and setting.

It sounds like I didn’t like it, but I did. I liked it a lot. But I certainly wouldn’t put it up there with the greatest superhero movies of all time, as some people have.

Watched Aquaman last week and BumbleBee earlier today. Nothing special but both decent movies. Story wise BumbleBee's premise was a bit too similar like the first Transformers movie. Teenager desperately wants a car, finds BumbleBee, befriends it and they fight the Decepticons. Oh yeah, there's also John Cena's character which is essentially Josh Duhamel's character in the previous movies. Best parts were the action sequences and of cause the decision to use the original designs for the some robots. One of my favourite scenes was the part that had Soundwave and Ravage. Other parts were a bit too slow and sometimes boring to be honest. Not that I have any issues with it but BumbleBee also does feel like it's a kid's movie. On the plus side, at least its better than most of the previous Transformers movies and I also liked the soundtrack.

Even though Aquaman was only okay for me, it's still the second best DCU movie so far.

I give BumbleBee a 6.5 and Aquaman a 6 out of 10.

@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Agreed but I didn't like those white plastic looking suits that the Atlantis warriors wore, though.

Watched Vice. Pretty much the leftist character assassination piece on Cheney I was expecting, although it has to be said that Christian Bale really did a fantastic job in the role. He disappears into it, and captures Dick Cheney's growling, sardonic mannerisms perfectly. Sam Rockwell was much less successful as former President George W. Bush, and his mocking performance wouldn't have been out of place on something like SNL. There's a time and a place for mocking portrayals of major American figures, but an ostensibly serious biopic isn't it. Its screenwriter also clearly has no taste for crafting political interactions that really seem genuine, which makes a lot of the drama of this piece fall flat.

With that said, it was at least a creative film, with an amusing fake-out ending halfway through, as well as a memorable sequence where Dick and Lynne Cheney chronicle their political ambitions in iambic pentameter, which was clearly meant to evoke Shakespearian drama.

Films I watched over Christmas:

Avengers Infinity War: very good fun, this might be the first Marvel film where I can remember what happened more than 24 hours after it finished.

Saving Mr Banks: started half-watching this on Boxing Day, ended up really enjoying it. Reminded me how much I like Jason Schwartzman.

Bumblebee: This film rocks. It's like someone said "let's re-write the first Transformers movie but this time let's at least try to aim it at normal people instead of drooling idiots"

Trainspotting 2: It took me a while to get around to this, because I was worried it would be rubbish. It wasn't rubbish, in fact it had some great bits, although I kind of wondered what the point was.

Tomb Raider (2018): Wasn't expecting much, but I enjoyed this a lot. Very good effort, probably the best game-to-movie adaptation I've seen. Makes me want to play the recent trilogy, which I still haven't got around to.

Peter Rabbit (2018): Put it on for the kids while I tried to do some work. It entertained them for the duration. That's all I can say. Beatrix Potter would have hated it. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your disposition.

Watched the original Mary Poppins with the family. It's... mediocre. The plot is practically non-existent, the movie just halts for long periods while absurd sequences with no real relevance to the larger story play out (there's a dance number with chimney sweeps, in particular, that just seems to go on forever), characters feel static, 2D, and largely unchanged by the end (and the evolution of Mr. Banks is so graceless and jarring that his transformation did nothing for me), and the whole film just doesn't feel like it comes together well. Julie Andrews is great, of course, but she's wasn't given a lot to work with, and, in terms of musicals she was in, much prefer The Sound of Music.

@Ralizah yeah there are quite a few films like that which people hold in such high regard but in actuality are rather mediocre other include Willy Wonker and the Chocolate factory (the new version is a lot better), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the original Star Wars movie

@FullbringIchigo First time I've heard the original Star Wars being called mediocre. What didn't you like about it, out of curiosity?

Anyway, I think a big part of the problem is that these movies insinuate themselves into peoples' lives from an early age. We form emotional attachments to and associations with these films. Same reason "90's kids" who grew up with Nintendo consoles are often so worshipful of Mario 64 or any number of SNES games, or people born in the mid-to-late 70's swear up and down that various random 80's films are actually timeless cinematic classics.

@Ralizah @FullbringIchigo Yeah, sometimes it’s best to not go back and rewatch old classics as they rarely hold up. Unless it’s Star Wars.