Topic: The Movie Thread

@RogerRoger @Ralizah Definitely the pace of the LoTR series can crawl at times, just like the books do, but in a different way. In the movies it’s excessive battle scenes and long scenes showing scenery and vistas while lutes and flutes play classic music in the background while you watch elves and dwarves running from point A to point B. In the books it’s pages and pages describing said vistas and old kings and historical context. It’s a preference thing, I suppose. First off it’s high fantasy which is already a personal preference issue. Secondly, it’s steeped in high symbolism, which is also not always what some people care for in a movie or book. Thirdly, (and this relates to being of the fantasy genre) there is loads of back story and history that can make following the narrative a chore, especially with a bunch of strange foreign sounding names and creatures to try to follow.

But every time I see the movies I just adore the message of the strength of will trumping out sheer brute force. In the small and simple lies great power to affect and change the world. That the world is not won or lost on the battlefield and with large armies and heroic deeds, as much as it is won in the heart of men where the largest battles rage, where power and corruption’s seeds are sown. And the simple everyday man (or hobbit) can be stronger in spirit than the mightiest of warriors.

@RogerRoger Haha, oh just wait until I come on here and report on how life changing the conclusion to Harry Potter is! 😜

No surprise there, the sequel's got a lot of epic monster fight scenes which is exactly what fans wanted to see in the first movie. On the other hand, I didn't care much for the human characters. Not to say the performances were bad but for the most part it felt like they're in the movie just to provide expositions. Interested to see if Godzilla vs. Kong will have both of them eventually teaming up to fight another monster.

Bought and watched Mandy on Blu-ray the other week.....crazy and beautiful movie starring Nicholas Cage. Great concept, stunningly shot, directed and scored, very trippy, but......the latter half doesn’t deliver what the set up intimates: Cage going full rage-crazy. Still very good though, definitely worth a watch...........👍🤪

@jacobia I agree, the second half (all the revenge stuff) is disappointing to be honest but the set up is fantastic and on the whole it’s an awesome game. The soundtrack throughout is amazing and those title cards are the nuts. Love the last scene with Cage in the car too.

Rim of the World (Netflix Original Film) - A callback to the 80's youth adventure genre (with a few other references, such as a nearly blatant copy of the Jurassic Park kitchen scene), that sees a group of young teens at summer camp end up on an adventure to save the planet from an alien invasion. It mixes comedy (these kids can have some potty mouths, particularly Dariush) with more tense moments. Overall it's mostly dumb fun not to be taken too seriously, and while the CGI isn't the best, due to the tone of the film I didn't mind. If you know what you're getting yourself into it can be a fun watch.

I only found out about it after I ran across a Yahoo article talking about how it was causing an "uproar" over racist jokes (and they even managed to scrounge up 4 or 5 negative tweets as proof!). Admittedly It does rely on a lot of established tropes & cliches (in all aspects), but it's all in an effort to capture the vibe of said 80's films, and while that may mean it has some humour that doesn't gel with with a certain very socially minded segment of today's population, the second coming of Birth of a Nation this is not.

Just got back from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and it's official: I will never, ever trust the critical consensus on any film ever again. That was an experience. Which isn't to say it was perfect (the "comic relief" character who kept making fun of the monster names can go die in a ditch, please), but it was pretty much everything I could have ever expected from a Western-made Godzilla film: it was incredibly well-paced and never really had a "down moment," the effects and fights were absolutely spectacular (I love how Ghidorah is almost literally a force of nature, and, from a distance, you can see his spooky silhouette amidst a rumbling bank of storm clouds; they might have overdone Mothra's radiance a tad, but she was quite elegant and scene-stealing the few times she did show up), the human story perfectly supplemented the monster side of things without ever drawing attention away from it, and a LOT of personality was added to the monsters themselves. The score was great, too, especially near the end when they incorporated a lot of remixed but imminently recognizable classic Godzilla tunes.

Not as good as the best Japanese films, if only because the creature is uniquely Japanese and is much more meaningful in that context, whether it be the incarnation of American atomic death in the original, the representation of Japan's sins during WW2 in All-Out Monsters Attack, or a constantly looming threat that exposes the incompetence of Japan's government during crisis situations in Shin Godzilla, but it's absolutely tops when it comes to the more Creature-Featurey installments. This beats the pants off of something like Destroy All Monsters; just sayin'.

The human characters... are OK. Certainly more interesting than the non-entities in the 2014 film. Vera Farmiga's character is a bit much, but she's a stellar actress and does the best she can with what she was given. I feel like Ken Watanabe's character needed more... exploration to make his pivotal scene in the film really connect. In general, I do agree that more could have been done on the human side of things. But it wasn't nearly the train wreck it was made out to be by critics, and, more importantly, it integrated perfectly with the larger plot.

I really, really dig the stark, apocalyptic vibe of the final hour or so of the film. It was really well-done, and they did a great job selling Ghidorah as a terrifying threat.

Definitely my favorite non-documentary film of the year. It's not off to a super start in the States, but it seems to be performing well overseas. Hopefully it does well enough to justify continuing the development of this big-budget kaiju franchise after Kong vs. Godzilla next year.

I saw Aladdin yesterday. It was fantastic. It was a faithful renake of the original, and I don’t understand why people complain about how it is as shot for shot the original movie in a lot of ways. It’s supposed to be that. It’s a remake not a reboot. It’s a good thing.
They did make enough changes to fit live action. They say they handled Aladdin being a thief and a rogue was excellently done. The stealing and parkour were really cool. They also changed enough to allow for Will Smith’s Genie to shine while still being faithful.
Speaking of which, Will Smith is a perfect live action genie. He did it so well and exceeded expectations. He was hilarious and made it his own role.
The parade scene in particular was fantastic and was a complete and total joy to watch.
The new song, “Speechless” I think it’s called wasn’t the best. It felt a bit heavy handed and kinda like they’re trying to make Let it Go 2.0. They definitely changed Let it Go. A small complaint though.
Overall it was a amazing adaption and I highly recommend it

@Ralizah Cool! Hopefully I get to see it while it's still in rotation.

@Jaz007 Are there any 'trademark' Guy Ritchie moments/quick cut, quick fire 'this is the plan' explanation scenes?

@KALofKRYPTON No, there aren’t any of those actually.

@Ralizah Is the movie worthwhile for someone who hasn’t followed the lore and genre of the Godzilla movies? I think I’ve seen one of them a few years ago, and I don’t even know what it was called.

@Jaz007 Colour me surprised!!

@Th3solution It's a direct sequel to the American 2014 film, so beyond that it should be alright... actually, even without seeing that I'm assuming it'll be alright

@Th3solution There are a few recurring characters from the 2014 film, but this film explains anything you might need to know to enjoy it.

@Th3solution @KALofKRYPTON It's a direct sequel to Godzilla (2014) as well as Kong: Skull Island. And will lead up to next year's release of Godzilla Vs King Kong.

Together they are the Monsterverse basically their take on a MCU.

@Tasuki oh, ok. I think I heard good things about Skull Island. Never saw it though. I think the 2014 Godzilla was the one I saw, but remember nothing about it.

@Tasuki I do hate the notion that they're going to have to contrive a way for King Kong to stand a chance against Godzilla 😂

@KALofKRYPTON I think it was stated in Kong: Skull Island that he was still growing. That would certainly suffice for Kong to eventually be on par with Godzilla.

@jacobia If Godzilla can still beat Ghidorah (which I'm assuming he does in the latest film, and that Ghidorah isn't nerfed), then really big ape shouldn't be a problem 😂

Even if Kong ends up the same same size as Godzilla, a quick nuclear-fire snog should sort him out! 😂😂

@KAKofKRYPTON Yeah man, that nuclear-fire snog...get’s em every time!🤣....
But, seriously (as far as giant monsters-in-a-movie goes!), with Kong being a primate with a bigger brain than Godzilla, he might be smarter, plus he’s got longer arms, bigger hands (and you know what they say about primates with bigger hands), upper torso strength, moves around quicker and is much more agile than Godzilla 🤷🏻‍♂️

@jacobia @KALofKRYPTON Opposable thumbs rule the animal kingdom, bruh.