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Le Saboteur posted:Went to see Black Bag last night that movie is tight as hell. Soderbergh is really in his (black)bag right now. a 90 minute tight little psychological drama by the oceans 11 team hit so hard. early favorite of 2025 for sure.
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Apr 5, 2025 22:03
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Hook: I don't know if I ever actually watched this movie all the way through before. I feel like I just saw snippets on TV growing up because certain things seemed familiar, but I couldn't tell you what each scene was going to bring. It's not as bad as I was prepared for it to be, but this is still definitely on a weaker Spielberg. Maybe some of it is that I just don't like Robin Williams as much as other people do. At least he's mostly not being full Robin Williams through most of this. I like whatever Dustin Hoffman is doing as Hook, just wild stuff. I want his two cigar smoking apparatus. I like that he turns the kid against Peter, though that whole device doesn't last long and doesn't seem to ultimately amount to anything. Not that I expected the kid to fully abandon his dad, but it's like a major movie arc that's solved in like 3 minutes. The Lost Boys are the worst part of this movie, easily. Bangarang indeed! I didn't like the fat kid rolling into a ball and becoming a weird rolling prop. I also don't really understand why Rufio even dies. It doesn't feel like it's paid off at all, and no one seems to care seconds after it occurs. I guess it's got a good message for parents to not lose the kid in them, and by extension, forget what's important to your own children. But, I don't know I am always over analytical about whether I'm being a good enough father. I could not imagine being some workaholic lawyer dad.
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Apr 6, 2025 02:00
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Something Wild Demme The off kilter nature and great performance of Liotta make me feel that I should have some great appreciation of the film but in truth I feel almost nothing towards it. Perfectly entertaining for 2 hours and perfectly disposable.
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Apr 6, 2025 02:14
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Hundreds of Beavers This is like if you took Speed Racer and cut out all the normal movie parts, so it's just an endless psychedelic green screen nightmare of compositing. Only replace the chimp with a dozen guys in very cheap mascot suits and replace Christina Ricci with a woman who does a competent pole-dancing routine. Also it's through a black and white film grain instagram filter. And there's effectively no dialog. I've never seen a movie like this before and I pray I never see one again. Four stars.
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Apr 6, 2025 05:07
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Watched The Farewell today, this was an interesting watch for me because my grandfather died from stage 4 lung cancer and my Chinese family also chose to hide the diagnosis from him the whole time. I'm not sure this will necessarily hit as hard if you're not an immigrant or a child of immigrants, but I thought it was pretty good overall. At 100 minutes it also wasn't overly long, which I appreciated.
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Apr 6, 2025 07:48
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The Wandering Earth II, 2023 Liked it a whole lot bordering on loved it, everything the first movie did okay this movie nailed. The over the top melodrama works this time instead of being kinda eye rolling, the visuals and effects are outstanding and the way the story is presented by giving you a countdown to a disaster so you can kind of anticipate it and see how what you are currently being shown will lead into something like say, the moon exploding, just really grabbed me. I already really liked Wu Jing in the first one so I'm glad he's back (and he's awesome in the first 2 SPL movies) and joining him as a co-lead is Andy Lau (who's in idk, 10 movies at least I love?) and the story bounces back and forth between what they are doing over the course of 3 hours. Speaking of the length the first hour feels almost like a totally different movie but it rocks, it's jam packed with exciting sci-fi action and set pieces before settling back down into the other 2 hours of slower "smarter" sci-fi. I highly recommend carving out the 5 hours it takes to watch both movies, but this one is so much better than the first. Police Story 4: First Strike, 1996 Multiple times throughout this movie I was asking myself "how is this at all related to the first two or even three Police Story movies" as this series marches ever on away from being about a HK police officer stopping crimes in the city in which he is a uniformed police officer in and instead just reuses his name (except in the dub in Part 4, this time he's just called "Jackie" instead of Kevin??) and plops him somewhere a movie needs to be. All that aside though this rocked, really fun action and Jackie Chan at near peak Ladder Factory Shenanigans with excellent choreography and stunt work. I've seen much worse fake sharks in movies and they are generally not swimming around while an underwater fist fight is happening.
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Apr 6, 2025 08:26
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Minecraft: this movie was loving hilarious. It's just a bunch of dumb set pieces and exposition, but every other scene had me cracking up. Very enjoyable, the kids loved it.
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Apr 6, 2025 20:46
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Papercut posted:Minecraft: this movie was loving hilarious. It's just a bunch of dumb set pieces and exposition, but every other scene had me cracking up. Very enjoyable, the kids loved it. I was glad to see a nod to Technoblade.
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Apr 6, 2025 22:10
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Lady Terminator is a transcendent viewing experience. Every frame is a painting by someone with severe untreated psychosis. It's wonderful. Lmao yes I watched this last month totally cold and this is an accurate summary. Presto posted:The 2nd one is the only one I have seen. I had no idea what was happening. I saw the 2nd Matrix movie in theaters and didn’t see the first one until a couple years ago. The first one holds up! And agreed it’s way more bare-bones then expected (in a good way). The Day the Earth Blew Up (2024): Feels like an extended Looney Tunes short rather than a movie and I’m glad I went in with that level of expectation. It’s very silly and a pleasant way to spend 90 or so minutes. Aside from some modern references it feels out of time, like you accidentally stepped into a worm-hole into an alternative reality where this movie could exist. C+/B- Minority Report (2002): I need to go through Tom Cruise’s catalog. He’s really good in this. Ironman stole the hologram computer menus but it doesn’t look as good as Cruise makes it look here. The vision of the future is cool and visually interesting. I don’t think the plot or general messaging is very coherent but I didn’t feel the 146 minute runtime. B/B+ Wizards (1977): I’d only seen a youtube clip of the final confrontation between Avatar and Darkwolf and knew absolutely nothing else about the movie (aside from Bakshi). Huh. Certainly didn’t expect to see that much Nazi footage. Despite seeing said clip I completely forgot about it until it happened and laughed so hard I rewound and rewatched it immediately. C- To Live & Die in LA (1985): I’m weak for a Neo-Noir, beautiful cinematography, movies that heavily feature LA, and general sweatiness. So consider me biased. I’ve never seen Dafoe look quite this good. William Petersen swings his full dick and scrote literally and maybe metaphorically. This movie is strange and uneven and at some points very unpleasant (I feel completely awful for the Ruth character). Also features Daphne from Frasier as a silent lesbian lover. A+
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Apr 6, 2025 22:10
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Watched a double bill of dire films. First up Black Adam. I think this is the most by the numbers film ever made. Plucky female scientist? Check. Overweight Comedy sidekick? Check. Streetsmart kid who defeats the military with the power of skateboarding? Check. Evil Paramilitary force with limitless resources? Check. Everyone in the audience gets to be Dr Fate in this because you all know what's going to happen and when. There is the kernel of a good story in there, the Americans turning up to defeat Black Adam and completely ignoring the evil paramilitary force that runs the country. But it skillful dances round this and then forgets it. It turns it into a big old nothing of a film. I genuinely thought after the first 30 mins I must have seen this film before and forgotten its so familiar and safe. To make that seem good though I then watched Borderlands. The plot is dull and predictable, the action is weak and comedy just misses the mark. It's not funny or fun, the only 2 things a Borderlands film should be.
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Apr 6, 2025 23:31
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Aramoro posted:Watched a double bill of dire films. why did you do this to yourself
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Apr 7, 2025 00:09
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If you never watch disposable trash how will you know when you see something good??
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Apr 7, 2025 01:04
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SolarFire2 posted:I was glad to see a nod to Technoblade. Yeah I didn't get that reference but my kid explained it after and I remember how crushed he was when Technoblade died irl. Putting that shout out in the movie earned it major credit in my kids' eyes.
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Apr 7, 2025 01:16
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Colonel Whitey posted:If you never watch disposable trash how will you know when you see something good?? Sure, but that disposable trash should really be more like Spontaneous Combustion (1989) instead of bland franchise paste like Black Adam. Like if you’d watched the above, you’d get to see Brad Dourif scream while yellow puss and flames shoot out of his forearms because his pregnant mom was intentionally exposed to an H-Bomb explosion for undefined reasons. At one point he also melts and explodes John Landis over the phone. It’s great!
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Apr 7, 2025 01:39
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The Hobbit(Rankin/Bass): it's a bit cramped for the 78 minute run time, but it does have a story book feel. It's too short while obviously PJs 3 films is way too long. The visuals are great with lots of color and some wild character designs. The Elves look freakish and Gollum is a monster. The folksy songs are sometimes fun but sometimes too on the nose. It definitely feels like Bilbo telling the story. The Dwarves are all depicted as greedy cowards that Bilbo has to save. And Gandalf is a bit of dick that even tells Bilbo to shut it with seconds of meeting him.
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Apr 7, 2025 03:02
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I finally mustered up the gumption to watch Bone Tomahawk, and it certainly lives up to its reputation for brutal, shocking violence. There are shots and sounds I'll have a hard time getting out of my mind. It reminded me a lot of The Descent, both in its premise and in just how effective its horror elements are, though they are very different in tone and pacing. I was surprised by how funny this one was throughout.
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Apr 7, 2025 03:13
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checkplease posted:The Hobbit(Rankin/Bass): it's a bit cramped for the 78 minute run time, but it does have a story book feel. It's too short while obviously PJs 3 films is way too long. The visuals are great with lots of color and some wild character designs. The Elves look freakish and Gollum is a monster. The folksy songs are sometimes fun but sometimes too on the nose. Definitely give the Return of the King a look, too. Its strengths are very different than The Hobbit's, but it's a really fascinating adaptation and presents a more mature version of the same world. It has less magic and more melancholy, but in a way that feels very appropriate for the story. The animation isn't quite as crispy, but it takes the style and explores the ugly side of it a little more.
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Apr 7, 2025 03:28
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Colonel Whitey posted:If you never watch disposable trash how will you know when you see something good?? i've seen plenty of dogshit in my life to know when something is worth avoiding. also, there's little excuse for watching two highly panned movies in a row. like, you're not doing that just out of curiosity at that point, you're self flagellating.
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Apr 7, 2025 04:05
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ShoogaSlim posted:i've seen plenty of dogshit in my life to know when something is worth avoiding. also, there's little excuse for watching two highly panned movies in a row. like, you're not doing that just out of curiosity at that point, you're self flagellating. We used to watch several lovely movies in a row, back when we did screenings of Oscar nominated movies and sat through some awful poo poo just because it got a makeup nomination or something.
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Apr 7, 2025 06:26
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i did just recently watch virtuosity for the first time a couple weeks ago and that was unexpectedly lovely, so it's not like i'm some transcendent monk who manages to avoid any movie i won't like. i just know black adam ain't my style and never would be.
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Apr 7, 2025 06:49
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ShoogaSlim posted:why did you do this to yourself I like watching films and if something looks remotely good then I'll watch it to watch it with my wife. So I tend to watch bad films by myself, I quite like comics so I'll often catchup on a comic book movie to see what they did. It's also interesting to see why films are bad, Black Adam has the kernel of a good story and Dr Fate is a great character but it just misplays it so badly, it's an absolute fumble. I think there's also something interesting in it, is Dwayne Johnson doing brown face in this? He is not Middle Eastern but he's acting as a middle Eastern character. We wouldn't accept a white guy playing Black Adam so why him. By rights Borderlands shouldn't be any worse than say, The Beekeeper. But The Beekeeper is an absolute blast start to finish. So it's interesting to see why Borderlands isn't, and it's probably because it doesn't commit hard enough to the bit. The violence is completely sterile, and weirdly bloodless, presumably because it's a video game movie and video games are for children? But who is excited for a Borderlands film in YOOL 2024, it's not the youths. I watched The Seed of the Sacred Fig as well, but still thinking about that one. I don't just watch bad films.
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Apr 7, 2025 08:30
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watching bad movies is fun
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Apr 7, 2025 08:41
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Aramoro posted:I like watching films and if something looks remotely good then I'll watch it to watch it with my wife. So I tend to watch bad films by myself, I quite like comics so I'll often catchup on a comic book movie to see what they did. didn't want you to think i got the impression that you purposely only watch things you think will suck. i can totally understand having some morbid curiosity around certain movies, i felt it myself a little regarding the newest crow remake. it also depends on what your threshold is for genre. i'd rather take a chance on a "bad" dramedy or something bc i have more of a tolerance for even subpar ones. if you're a big comic fan, it makes sense you'd wanna at least give something a shot in case there's something about it that wins you over. i have van helsing on my letterboxd watchlist and i'm sure it's gonna be crap. i haven't seen it since around when it came out, and i barely remember a single detail. i'm just in the mood to watch werewolves and bat creature type poo poo, so i'll get around to it eventually and try to enjoy it for how lousy it is.
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Apr 7, 2025 08:54
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Jeremiah Johnson (1972) - watched this because of the meme, came away impressed with everything except Robert Redford who seemed to be unable to grasp how people in the idiom talk. Every other actor does a great or at least passable job of sounding old-timey Western Walter Brennan-esque eeh-hee-hee style fur-trapper authentic, but hearing Redford deadpanning modern English and then throwing in "b'ar" for "bear" just makes me LOL. And why does every line of dialogue out of him sound like an American tourist trying to make himself understood at a ticket counter in France. Just speak LOUDER and remove INDEFINITE ARTICLES Is it a whole thing, how you have "movie stars" who are pretty faces but who can't act worth a drat, and "character actors" who aren't generically pretty but who can act rings around the star? And then the Best Actor award always, invariably, goes to the big top billed star and never some unknown who steals the show It's a good, powerful, contemplative true-ish story, but the key moment of the plot—where he looks around at the Crow burial ground and supposedly notices that the skeletons are all newly adorned with the blue trinkets that his wife had—was completely lost on me because a) I had never noticed her having any blue trinkets and b) I could not distinguish any putative blue trinkets in the burial ground scene, despite the camera whipping around and zeroing in on grave after grave for like three minutes straight while I wondered what the hell I was supposed to be looking at and shocked by. Maybe colorblindness? Idk, I don't have trouble with blue and I didn't see anything blue nor did I have any idea what blue trinkets would have signified. But then I'm also a person who never notices things like someone's eye color which is apparently super important and obvious to some people to the extent that whole narratives can hinge on eye color to my complete obliviousness. So I was left totally mystified by the entire last half-hour until I went and looked up the plot summary to figure out why the hell he knew his wife had been killed or who had done it and therefore why he went on his murder spree. Could they maybe have thrown in ONE shot of a clearly recognizable trinket, closely zoomed in, that had previously been established as something she had, instead of just full-frame skeleton after skeleton like what I was supposed to think was that they were about to jump up and dance like an Ub Iwerks cartoon? Bad at watching TV I guess. Anyway, beautiful mountain cinematography, and I cannot loving believe the studio tried to make him shoot it on a backlot Data Graham fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Apr 7, 2025 |
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Apr 7, 2025 11:24
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feedmyleg posted:Definitely give the Return of the King a look, too. Its strengths are very different than The Hobbit's, but it's a really fascinating adaptation and presents a more mature version of the same world. It has less magic and more melancholy, but in a way that feels very appropriate for the story. The animation isn't quite as crispy, but it takes the style and explores the ugly side of it a little more. Thanks, I'll try to find the Return of the King. I feel like I saw parts of it as kid and have a memory of this is weird. But who knows. I saw there's also another animated Lord of Rings made around the same time. Might have to check that one out also.
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Apr 7, 2025 19:41
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That other one was visually referenced a lot by Jackson. It has some terrific animation and moments, but it also ran out of budget 1/3 of the way through and was cobbled together with barely-rotoscoped live action footage and some incredibly rushed animation. Not a good movie, but a cool curiosity. e: It does have my favorite Gandalf, though. He's much less warm than McKellan's take. More aloof and enigmatic. Feels more like the book depiction to me, and more of a classic wizard feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Apr 7, 2025 |
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Apr 7, 2025 20:22
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Yeah, that animated Lord of the Rings is a Bakshi flick, so you know you're in for an interesting time if nothing else!
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Apr 7, 2025 20:26
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And then you can read this ancient Internet lore movie review! https://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/bakshi/bakshi.htm Aw man all the images are broken lol, it lasted like 28 years with no ill effects
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Apr 7, 2025 20:32
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I still maintain the Bakshi LOTR is a more fun watch then the Jackson ROTK but that's probably because it was my first exposure to real fantasy as a kid.
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Apr 7, 2025 20:50
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Le Saboteur posted:Went to see Black Bag last night that movie is tight as hell. Soderbergh is really in his (black)bag right now. 
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Apr 8, 2025 01:24
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Margin Call: An economic crash themed movie felt appropriate. But the stakes here never quite felt high enough for me. There's the threat of the firm ending from the bad mortgage crisis trades, but that just feels like rich people losing their jobs and being rich still. The film hints that it could spread and harm the public, but we only ever talk to wallstreet bosses and traders where the most guy makes 250k. There's a couple monologues where people defend wall street risky trading, but it does alway seem like the film also usually has a doubting character and viewer present. Kevin Spacey as the good guy is weird.
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Apr 8, 2025 04:59
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Nazzadan posted:
I'm a Chandinista but somehow I'd never heard of this, so I watched it last night as Police Stories 1 and 3 are some of my favorite martial arts movies. About 30 minutes into this I was pleasantly entertained but thinking "I've kind of seen most of this before". Then we finally get to Australia and eventually Jackie Chan gets into fights with sharks and sea urchins that make little gribbly noises when they poke you. Also, watching the Ladder vs Pool Cue fight (classic Chan, very fun choreography) I thought to myself "Surely someone got hurt during this stunt and surely they'll show it during the bloops" and sure enough, Jackie Chan gets speared in the face with a pool cue while trapped in Ladder Jail. (he lived tho) Really enjoyed this. Maybe a "Lesser Chan" comparatively (the cut I watched felt cobbled together from harsh edits) but it's pretty hard not to enjoy yourself watching Jackie do his thing. Also, Baby Nathan Jones makes an appearance wearing a suit that's 2 sizes too big for HIM!
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Apr 8, 2025 16:05
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I’m watching The Virtuoso right now and I really wish it didn’t have a dumb voiceover. Anson Mormont can sort of act, just let them do it!
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Apr 8, 2025 18:32
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Phone Booth (2002) - Ruled. Aggressively brisk pace, Joel Schumacher directing the hell out of it complete with his favorite big shots of cool graffiti, tense melodrama, Colin Farrell crushing it as a sleazeball who gets tortured, Kiefer Sutherland being a hilariously evil little bastard...It's just a rip roaring good time. Very funny when I realized there's a Yakuza substory that pays tribute to this movie. That explains why it was so odd.
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Apr 9, 2025 00:57
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checkplease posted:Margin Call: An economic crash themed movie felt appropriate. But the stakes here never quite felt high enough for me. There's the threat of the firm ending from the bad mortgage crisis trades, but that just feels like rich people losing their jobs and being rich still. I find the detatched way people talk about the music stopping, so to speak, pretty chilling. But, yeah, I have to bring the context to the table myself on this one.
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Apr 9, 2025 01:25
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Vesper: The synthetic bacteria theme as techonology, flora and fauna was kind of cool, but everything else in this movie is dreary. Fairly standard dystopia that really shows its minimal budgett since the whole movie basically takes place in a shack. The plot itself was never really that engaging and the movie ended up being pretty boring all in all. Back to the Future, Part 3: I've seen this when I was younger, but all i remember of it was that I found less interesting than the others, since it all took place in a boring western setting. Rewatching it now, I'd rank it above part 2. It's fun and breezy, and the finale with the train is a good set piece (even if it's painfully obvious that the train isn't really moving that fast). I understand that BttF is supposed to be accesible for the whole family, despite being a time travel movie, but I find the over explanations of the premise funny. Marty constantly checking the picture he has of that tombstone, for example. Or when Tannen says "You owe me 5 dollars for the whiskey and 75 for the horse," and Marty responds with "That's 80 dollars!" Yes, good job kid, no wonder the scientific genius who invented time travel keeps you around. Also, the fancy steampunk rifle that Doc is introduced with in the past is never seen again, even though it probably would have solved a lot of problems.
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Apr 9, 2025 08:01
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I just saw The Woman In The Yard and I don't think I liked it very much. I appreciate small-scale filmmaking, doing a lot with a little, but when mental illness is the main thrust of the narrative and the main character is unlikable, I hate that I was rooting for her suicide. It's like how I felt after The Visit, with mental health issues as sources of horror. It really puts the pressure on the filmmaker to walk a delicate line that is respectful of the struggle and not exploitative of their experience. And it just rarely happens. And then you layer in an unreliable narrator and multiple false perspectives along with a muddled premise, it's much like people's dissatisfaction with Lost not giving a satisfying resolution to the narrative. I'll just assume everyone's in purgatory going through this personal hell every day and move on.
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Apr 9, 2025 08:38
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The Hurt Locker. loving holds up. An audacious piece of filmmaking whose parts are so finely working together you're lost in its world, a terrible world full of death and too much excitement that might be one of the few effectively anti war movies ever made. It isn't a gauntlet like Come and See tho, the movie places you in these literal ticking bomb scenarios where you watch Jeremy Renner use his insane lack of affect (an amazing performance just based on how little capital A acting he gives you for a movie that won Best Picture. How the hell did this get Best Picture again) and serious mental issues to jam his hands in the guts of a IEDs. And you're right there as the camera picks up details that are reminiscent of what happens to you at moments of severe stress in real life. It's harrowing but also entertaining. This movie is the tops, though I was a bit wrung out by the third act.
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Apr 9, 2025 12:55
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The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It's a serviceable movie, I guess. A real B-/C+ of a film, a pretty weak Spielberg! This is the first movie I really remember seeing in theaters, so I might be softer on it than other people. I like that Ian Malcolm is back, but I don't feel like they really get the fun of him again. He's just fully neurotic and worried the whole time. Though in his defense, I guess the stakes are higher this time. I like that he has a black daughter, and the movie mostly doesn't make any sort of a deal out of it. (There is one throw-away line from Vince Vaughn about "family resemblance." ) The dinosaurs mostly don't look as good in this one. They leaned more on CGI, and it shows. Though the T-rexes mostly seemed to hold up fine. My wife and I laughed when Kelly gymnastic kicks the raptor to death. The whole San Diego section is weird. There isn't a lot of sense of place. The T-Rex goes from a dock to the suburbs and then downtown. He's really getting around! Apparently, Spielberg is open about not being very precious about this movie. He does it largely for the money and to get some more fun Dino stuff done. It's his only sequel outside of the Indiana Jones films, and those are sequential and temporally all over the place, so they don't feel as traditionally like "sequels" anyway. Shoutout to the bald dinosaur hunter though, he's a badass character!
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Apr 9, 2025 13:38
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Shageletic posted:How the hell did this get Best Picture again literally 9/11 I remember liking it when I saw it but I don't know if I have the stomach to revisit any movie that even remotely valorizes the armed forces or american foreign policy. the trailer for (in big bold font) A24's Warfare made me a little sick
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Apr 9, 2025 13:39
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