Topic: The Movie Thread

@kyleforrester87 Glad you liked it! Yeah, that upside down camera was a wonderful touch. Really communicated the idea that the characters were entering a space where ordinary social conventions and expectations don't apply.

@Ralizah oh yeah, lots of laughing, which was understandable. But then 2 girls behind me got the giggles and wouldn’t stop, even when Dani and the other laddies were screaming at each other, which got a bit annoying!

I will say, despite how much I enjoyed it - it’s probably going to be one of my favourite films come to think of it - I am not desperate to see it again in a hurry. Some of that is down to its long run time. We’ll see in a few months, though. I have seen Bladerunner 2049 a few times in the past year and I always enjoy it and that’s a bit of a commitment too, although less of an emotional drag. I’d like a version of it with the same mood where everyone just has a nice time for 3 hours, frankly.

@kyleforrester87 The thing for me is that I don't really "watch" movies like this so much as experience them. So emotionally resonant or intense experiences like Midsommar are very draining for me, and I rarely rewatch them. Some of my all-time favorite films I've only seen once, to be perfectly honest. Whereas B-movies with no emotional resonance are easy to digest, and I rewatch them frequently when I find them on TV. It's probably why I've seen the hilariously bad 90's Judge Dredd film so many times over the years.

@Ralizah lol I nearly mentioned Dredd as an example of a film I can watch multiple times. Of course, I meant the new one, which on balance is probably my “favourite” film if I had to pick one. I can’t really tolerate the 90s one haha

@kyleforrester87 Oh man, I still need to watch the newer one. Never got around to it. I've heard it's a very decent action movie, though.

I can't blame anyone for not wanting to watch the 90's film. It's objectively awful. I love it, though. It's like cinematic junk food. I know I shouldn't be watching it, but it's addictive and I'm going to 'consume' it regardless of what I should be doing.

Action movies are great at being low-investment (emotionally speaking) wastes of time. I've also seen Die Hard, Die Hard With a Vengeance, and Kill Bill Vol. 1 (pretty much the only Tarantino film I've gotten on with, to be perfectly honest) more times than I can count. Those are all fantastic action movies, and it's hard not to watch them when I come across them.

@Ralizah oh man watch the new one and let me know what you think. It does what it sets out to do pretty much flawlessly. Karl Urban is so cool.

“What happened in there?”

“Drug bust.”

Papillon (DVD) - True story from the 1930's that sees a Parisan thief framed for a murder he didn't commit and sent to a penal colony in French Guiana that was famed for being inescapable. I won't spoil the ending, but the film chronicles all the escape attemps he made over the years. Given the subject material the film can be quite a bit raw & gritty, but I thought it was an interesting watch and was really into it. I know there was an older version, but this was a more recent adaptation (Raimi Malek, the guy who played Freddie Mercury in last year's Bohemian Rhapsody, had a prominent role).

the LEGO Batman Movie (TNT) - It's not often I catch a full movie on cable (commercials & all that), but I had the time this afternoon and caught it just as it was starting so I figured what the heck. I actually had a lot of fun watching this. It got a little chaotic during the climax, but it was a good time overall and is one of the few movies I've seen in recent times that has legitimately made me laugh. Much like Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, it's a bit of a breath of fresh air compared to both contemporary superhero flicks & typical western CGI cartoons (though I know there've been a couple of other movies with the LEGO aesthetic).

Info about Marvel Phase 4

Mahershala Ali as Blade! I do have concerns about how Marvel's gonna do a PG13 Blade, though.

Also, Taika Waititi's returning for Thor 4!

And here's IGN's reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsbKOwZ9KGk

@WanderingBullet i still don't get how Jane Foster can gain the power of Thor if Mjolnir was destroyed in Ragnarok unless she is either A: from another timeline or B: from another universe or C: they get another Mjolnir from another timeline/universe

@FullbringIchigo Oh, you make an interesting point. Did they actually confirmed her character was going to wield Mjolnir? I kept thinking about how she's gonna be female Thor when stature wise she's kinda small that I didn't think about hammer part. The multiverse part would work cause Dr. Strange 2 is apparently about the multiverse as the title suggests.

@WanderingBullet yes they did confirm she will be Wielding Mjolnir

also Strange 2 has a lot of promise with a title like that but on the flip side it could overload the entire franchise, they need to be REAL careful doing that kind of thing

@KratosMD Cube is kinda nuts. Not a lot on Netflix films wise these days. Overlord is very good in my opinion, that’s on Prime.

Yeah with everyone starting their own streaming service nowadays Netflix has lost alot of movies and shows. Heck I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years Netflix is gone unless they become like the indie movie channel or something.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah Overlord is great, it has also just appeared on Sky Cinema/NOW TV for the folks that have those.

@FullbringIchigo I may be being daft but didn't Thor have Mjolnir at the end of Endgame?

Eh, I think they'll be able to hold on strong with their original content, a lot of which is pretty popular, rather than focusing on indie films or folding.

Disney will certainly shake things up though once they launch their service.

@ZeD wasn't it put back afterwards?, when Steve took the Stones back to their original places in time he took Mjolnir with him

@FullbringIchigo Did a quick google and yes you are correct. That would make the new film rather interesting. The film is released AFTER the next Strange film. Maybe that is the key?

Just got back from The Lion King. It was... underwhelming. Other than a few changed lines and one added scene, it's practically a shot-for-shot remake of the original animated film, but with all the personality sucked out of it. The vast, lush Pride Lands now just look like any random place in Africa. In the original, when the cubs entered the elephant graveyard, it felt spooky and magical, almost like they were transported to an alternate dimension. Here, it just feels like they stumbled across a dark spot with some old bones in it. The worst thing about this is the voice actor for Scar: all of the same lines are here, but without Jeremy Irons' theatrical performance, which was equal parts sarcastic, menacing, and hammy, they just feel... empty. The voice actor sounds like he's bored and reading off the lines in the script for a paycheck. Timon and Pumba are largely similar: they sound... somewhat similar, but without the distinctive voice work and vibrant personalities. In all cases, the visuals contribute to this lack of personality: the best and worst thing I can say about this film is that it feels like Disney filmed some animals and dubbed voices over them. Is it remarkable that they've made a film that's 98% CG look almost indistinguishable from real life footage? Maybe. But it's also a shame that they went to all this work to create something that feels so wholly inferior to the original. This didn't need to exist.

Most of the songs are... not destroyed, but, again, just inferior versions of what was found in the original. There's no song in this that felt like it contributed anything to what was already achieved in the original. In Circle of Life, while this cover is perfectly acceptable, it lacks the pop that the original singer gave it. I Just Can't Wait to be King sounds OK, but, given that the sequence is entirely lacking in the vibrant cartoonishness of the original (lots of cuts, animals jumping around, interesting scene framing, etc. are replaced with... realistic CG animals walking or running around), it didn't impress at all. Scar's villain song had almost all the lyrics changed and was just flat out ruined. It doesn't even sound like a song most of the time. I didn't even know what it was supposed to be the very end, which is similar lyrically to the original. None of the striking scenes where green gases burst into the pitch black of night, or the chilling shot where the Hyenas are marching in succession before Scar, their long shadows cutting into the face of the rock behind him. Hakuna Matata is... OK, but, again, the visual elements are significantly less memorable, which makes the sequence feel far less playful. Can You Feel the Love Tonight was well-done, and was the one sequence in the film that didn't feel quite undermined in some way (although I can actually think of one shortcoming: they don't have the sequence as adults where they start wrestling like they did as cubs, only to realize their affection when Simba pins Nala down and she licks him while wearing the "come hither" expression, giving the sequence a thematic connection to their wrestling earlier in the film).

It's not aggressively bad like Beauty and the Beast, but it also doesn't improve on the original in any way, and when contrasts do exist, they're never in the remake's favor. This film feels uniquely pointless. I don't really like the phrase "cash grab," as all films are basically made to generate revenue, but this feels like a cash grab, like they drained all of the expression and emotion out of the original cartoon to make this realistic facsimile that never leaves much of an impression at all.

EDIT: Oh, and whoever voiced Pumba can't sing.

@KratosMD These are are some horrors/psychological thrillers that I’ve enjoyed on Netflix (UK).....
The Haunting Of Hill House (series), The Invitation, Creep, Creep 2, Apostle, The Ritual, Get Out, Mama, Hannibal (series), Cube, Hush, The Thing, Life, From Beyond, As Above So Below, The Cabin In The Woods, Before I Wake....and probably others that I don’t remember right now.....
These are 2 movies that I haven’t watched yet but have heard only good things about...
Gerald’s Game, The Perfection.