Topic: The Movie Thread

@Ralizah kill bill vol.1 is one of my all time favourites!

Regarding Ghibli, I like most of their production but I tend to prefer the movies that aren't directed by Miyazaki - Mononoke is certainly one of his bests, though. I'd pick something like Whisper of the Heart or Only Yesterday as my Ghibli favourite.

Watched Home Alone 3 with the family last night.

Its actually pretty funny.

Also I miss the time we didnt have mobile phones, life was better somehow.

I watched Bladerunner 2049 this week and thought it was truly amazing.

@Rudy_Manchego My favorite film of 2017. The fact that it flopped in the box office disappoints me to no end.

@Ralizah The original was never a hit at the box office iirc. So maybe this one will become gain a but of a cult following too.

@Ralizah @JohnnyShoulder Yeah, this film was just great. I am not surprised that it didn't succeed at the box office, long film, slow and deliberate pacing and characterisation, no major action scenes and it makes you think. Sad but true. I agree this is going to become a minor classic in time.

Godzilla "2014" (Amazon Video) - I've been in a big Godzilla mood recently, as you'll see reading down this list, so I bought this. I really like how they did this one. Godzilla is actually Godzilla in this one and not some overgrown Iguana, the human characters are effective enough to be worth following, but not powerful enough to resolve things without the big guy, and it's overall a very good blockbuster type film.

Godzilla: Monster Planet (Netflix Original) - The first entry in an anime film trilogy funded by the streaming giant. While it has a fresh take on the franchise (Godzilla has destroyed civilization, and thousands of years later humanity is now back from deep space in an attempt to reclaim the planet), it's just blah. It's visually dull, and despite all the time you spend with them, it never makes you care about the human characters. A few interesting things occured at the film's end however, so I'll probably give the second a chance when it releases.

Mudbound (Netflix Original) - Film chronicalling the intertwined hardships of two families (one white, the other black) in rural 40's Mississippi. It's a well made film, but unbearably depressing & constantly tense. I felt miserable by the end (though it looked like there may have been a positive ending, though I'm not sure).

Shin Godzilla (Amazon Video) - A reboot for the franchise that sees the titular Kaiju returned to metaphor for real life tragedy. This time he represents the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and the consequences of the Japanese government's mishandling of the event. There can be a lot going on at times, but I think It's one I'd like to rewatch occasionally to really get it.

Summer Wars (Amazon Video) - I LOVE THIS MOVIE! I'm becoming an old fuddy duddy when it comes to anime. While they can be entertaining, newer efforts like One Punch Man, Attack on Titan, and the like just don't seem to grab me like the series' of my adolescence. However, this movie sure is something special. When I first watched it a few years ago it grabbed me like those franchises of old, and no matter how many times I watch it, it always has that magic to it. Fantastic.

Violent Cop (Amazon Video) - The oldest, and most disappointing Takeshi Kitano film I've watched. It's different from his other films I've seen in that he's an edgy cop rather than a member of the Yakuza, and while it's interesting enough at first, I feel like it drags on (it isn't that long of a film either), and there's no real personal conflict/chemistry between the antagonists & himself, except for maybe the final 20 minutes (and even then I'm not sure if their slight against him was entirely intentional, but rather an unlucky coincidence).

Colossal - Bit of an odd one this. Part Kaiju movie and part amiercan indie romance com. What is even weirder is that is not the part of the film that doesn't make sense, but the sudden tonal shifts from some of the characters. And the standard roman com stuff is a bit by the numbers. All the actors are good Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, with only Hathaway being not being that believeable as a drunk the only blot.
Defo worth a watch if you fancy something different. I don't think there will be anything quite like it for awhile.

It Comes At Night. Not the horror flick that the marketing and the misleading title wants you think it is. More a psychological thriller about the impact of the unexplained event, the paranoia and solitude that goes with.
Expertly crafted with some neat editing tricks with aspect ratio, and some scenes oozing tension. The cast are excellent too with Joel Edgerton in particular giving a stand out performance.
Unfortunately the story telling is very ambiguous which I don't mind, but it answers hardly anything which leaves an unsatisfying ending.

@RR529 I love Summer Wars! Really, really good fun. Have you seen Wolf Children or The Boy and the Beast?

Watched men in black and men in black 2 over the last few days. Lets bust some wigs!

Good films to watch with the family and the chemistry of Tommy Lees stonewall approach and Will Smiths all action acting works really well.

@RogerRoger, @mookysam, Yeah, Summer Wars is pretty great.

I have seen Wolf Children, and while I liked it, I didn't like it as much as Summer Wars. Haven't seen the Boy and the Beast yet, but I have seen the Girl Who Leapt Through Time which was another good one from that studio.

Currently watching Enter The Dragon with Bruce Lee. Probably a bit cheesy by today's standards and some of the fight scenes may look a bit lame compared to something like The Raid, but I still love it. By jeez the english dub is laughably bad in places.

So, i watched Black Panther yesterday and I really liked it, another great movie made by Marvel.
I didn't know Black Panther before Civil War, now he is one of my favorites Marvel heroes.

@themcnoisy that's where my name Wig Splitter comes from

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2c0f0e76-95ea-42a5-a243-75848b8d...

Here you go

I was watching it at the cinema and needed a cooler Counter-Strike name at the time!

@RogerRoger If you liked The Force Awakens you will most likely hate The Last Jedi lol

I watched Thor: Ragnarok last night. Easily the worst marvel film they’ve made. I was very disappointed. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. The tone is weird, overly comedic and doesn’t fit. Thor is constantly out of character to be funny and try to make us laugh, but I find it hard to really laugh at bad character writing. The cinematography wasn’t very good. It moved from drama to mellowdrama a lot. It tried to be cool or what not too often and fell flat along with the soundtrack. It almost completely forgot it was in a Thor movie a lot of the time. Completely at times as well. It was too focused on the onset Thor was on instead of instead of Thor, and the 80’s rock had no place in it. It was starting to get better at the end, but then completely destroyed itself again by playing it. It wasn’t much of a Thor movie in many ways. The ending with Ragnarok happening and Asgard getting destroyed also fell really flat because the movie tired to be too comedic and whatnot in tone. It was hard to care that much, and that’s something you should feel and care about.

@RogerRoger If you thought the The Force Awakeninfs was disappointing, The Last Jedi might be better. It was a really good movie, much better than the The Force Awakens. It changes things up and was original. It got rid what was never going to do well and just focused on telling a god story. I’m honestly concerned about JJ Abrams directing Episode 9. He can’t handle honestly. He didn’t make the cut with Episode 7 and I think has no business directing Episode 9 after 8 blew his movie out of the water with another director.

@RogerRoger I wrote quite a bit on this thread earlier about TLJ. And @Ralizah had an excellent breakdown of it which made me look at the film a little differently. Being a Star Wars fan means I look at things with a heavy dose of prejudice, but I liked both TFA and TLJ, but I liked them for different reasons. I really want to read your impressions after you watch it.

Edit: comment #521 and a few following that. After you see it, obviously, since multiple spoilers are there.

@RogerRoger @Kidfried In basic terms (and forgive me if this is redundant with previous comments) The Force Awakens seems very much an attempt to tap into the nostalgia of fans of the original movies and characters. By way of background, I believe when Lucas did the prequels, his goal was to move toward new and different content (new worlds, characters, and ideas) and there was a big backlash from many core fans who commonly rate the prequels as subpar. I’ve read comments that Lucas ruined Star Wars with the prequels and some choose to ignore that they exist. (I’m not speaking for myself, just what I hear and read) Multiple comedic memes, parodies, and songs have been made over the years poking fun at the prequels. (my favorite is “The Star Wars that I used to Know” a parody of Gotye’s famous song. Google it and watch the music video on YouTube. It is pretty hilarious, especially if you’ve seen the music video for the original song, which is also on YouTube) So with that in mind, I can totally see why Abrams went the direction he did with VII. It was very reminiscent of the original trilogy and A New Hope especially. (Desert planet orphan, Droid with secret information, Cantina alien scene, the return of Han, Chewie, Leia, Millennium Falcon, etc, etc, etc). So the movie seemed to be an attempt to give fans what they had been clamoring for for the last 10 years — more of the same. And they succeeded in that. (And Lucas was vocal, initially at least, about his disagreement with the direction of TFA, since it was just a copycat of prior films and didn’t innovate the story or world much.)

Now for fans who truly want to see the epic move forward, The Last Jedi does that to an extent. Since VII gave us all the nostalgia, now VIII appears to be designed to get back to what Lucas probably would have wanted — a reimagining of the story. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of SciFi and SW tropes, but I think many who dislike TLJ do so because it doesn’t feel as familiar to them, in the same way the prequels didn’t.
This is all just my opinion.
Personally, I like them all. Like I said before, I just like them for different reasons, but I know it’s possible I am just rationalizing it all in my mind to explain away my shallow enjoyment of seeing lightsaber battles and Jedi mind tricks.