The General Movie Thread

[Bolt]

I enjoyed Rebel Moon enough, I'll check out the second part. I agree it's not all that original. But there's plenty of eye candy. 

55 minutes ago, Big s said:

It at least is better than most of the newer Star Wars stuff 

My first thought after watching it.  

[sh9000]

Self Reliance.

 

[TangledThorns]

16 hours ago, Big s said:

It at least is better than most of the newer Star Wars stuff 

Oof, you are correct there.

[mechaninac]

16 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

She is literally a carbon copy of one of the sisters from the animated film Kubo Two Strings.

That it exactly what came to mind when she shows up on screen; well, without any of the grace and intimidation factor that made the sisters so memorable.

Edited December 29, 2023 by mechaninac

[Big s]

7 hours ago, mechaninac said:

That it exactly what came to mind when she shows up on screen; well, without any of the grace and intimidation factor that made the sisters so memorable.

At least her lightsabers worked unlike the ones in modern Star Wars. I still think it would’ve been cooler to swap her for the spider lady.

[sh9000]

How Batman Should Have Ended.

[mikeszekely]

Did anyone here see Asteroid City?  I remember the previews for it looked kind of weird, but maybe a good kind of weird.  Worth the time to watch it on Prime?

[Mog]

Anyone watch Leave the World Behind?

If you're into Sam Esmail's work, you'll enjoy this one.

Spoiler

Looking at the story, it's easy to see how quickly everything could turn to poop, if we can't use our phones or the Internet goes bye-bye.

The story reminds me of this old Star Trek quote:

Let me tell you something about Humans, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holo-suites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.

Also, there's a few subtle Mr. Robot Easter eggs in this movie.

[Bolt]

37 minutes ago, Mog said:

Anyone watch Leave the World Behind?

If you're into Sam Esmail's work, you'll enjoy this one.

  Hide contents

Looking at the story, it's easy to see how quickly everything could turn to poop, if we can't use our phones or the Internet goes bye-bye.

The story reminds me of this old Star Trek quote:

Let me tell you something about Humans, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holo-suites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.

Also, there's a few subtle Mr. Robot Easter eggs in this movie.

Saw that. Ya , it's quite the logical portrayal of humans when you turn off the grid and leave them to themselves. 
 

[TangledThorns]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:58 PM, electric indigo said:

Just A24 doing their thing. They had me at "Smalltown Boy".

 

Getting 1990s vibes which isn't a bad thing. Will see it in the theater if it has good reviews or just catch it on streaming.

[electric indigo]

Leave the World behind impressed me with a stellar cast, awesome cinematography, and the uncomfortable depiction of our reaction (or not) to (any) impending doom when the signs are all there. And sequences like the Tesla Lemmings were the cherry on top.

Can’t wait to see Esmail’s take on Galactica…

The other favorite movies I watched this year (not produced this year) were, in no particular order:

Athena – The camera work is just breathtaking, it’s worth to watch the making-of. Also, super-intense acting, it feels like a documetary from an embedded war reporter.

Babylon – Epic, multi-layered cinema; with the soundtrack, the movie just took me in for a rush. Robbie is just a pleasure to watch here, forget Barbie.

Maestro – A very intimate portrait of Bernstein as an artist and partner; the movie finds it’s own tone and unfolds very differently from the average biopic, you feel that Cooper put everything in the production and his performance.

Movies that were better than they should be:

No hard Feelings – love it for „I’ll date his brains out“ and Andrew Barth Feldman performing „Man-eater“.

Spirited – Insane choreography in the part-musical version of „A Christmas Carol“, Ryan Reynolds shines again, and some nice twists.

Also, this year I discovered For All Mankind and declare it the best recent SF serial. It’s on Apple+, of course.

[Big s]

Leave the world behind seemed a bit too far fetched for me. It had a great cast but things felt a bit overly stereotypical. It was kinda one of those concept movies like the Purge that the concept is so awkward that I have a hard time getting into. It seemed like things devolved way too quickly. It’s also a bit hard to believe that there are that many teslas around to block the streets, but then again it could’ve taken less.

I guess that the major reason these things don’t work for me is that people are much more helpful than given credit. Anyone that has actually lived through an emergency situation will have many stories about neighbors coming together to help eachother.

Last year we only had a minor emergency situation where the communities up here were snowed in for two weeks. I met more of my neighbors during that time than I have my entire life. We had elderly neighbors that couldn’t get out of their homes to go to the stores and we all checked up on them and walked to get what we could find for them. There were times where I was just trying to dig out the drive area for the cars and we hadn’t seen a plow during that time, but random neighbors I had never met grabbed shovels to help us out and we did the same for others in our neighborhood. And these kinds of stories are things you hear about all over the world, whether it’s a fire or earthquake or tropical storm or even a war. 

Although I could see things devolving if it were over longer periods of time. This movie just had everything devolve practically overnight. I could see things kinda getting like Mad Max where in the first film things were rough, then the next one that seemed to be after a certain time things got even worse. But this movie had things go bad by day 3

[Mog]

I don’t know:  no internet, no phone, no communications, no GPS, not even local TV.

I could see things going to poop.  

Having home field advantage would help.  But being in a vacation rental and out of your usual element would definitely make matters worse.

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Leave the world behind seemed a bit too far fetched for me. It had a great cast but things felt a bit overly stereotypical. It was kinda one of those concept movies like the Purge that the concept is so awkward that I have a hard time getting into. It seemed like things devolved way too quickly. It’s also a bit hard to believe that there are that many teslas around to block the streets, but then again it could’ve taken less.

I guess that the major reason these things don’t work for me is that people are much more helpful than given credit. Anyone that has actually lived through an emergency situation will have many stories about neighbors coming together to help eachother.

Last year we only had a minor emergency situation where the communities up here were snowed in for two weeks. I met more of my neighbors during that time than I have my entire life. We had elderly neighbors that couldn’t get out of their homes to go to the stores and we all checked up on them and walked to get what we could find for them. There were times where I was just trying to dig out the drive area for the cars and we hadn’t seen a plow during that time, but random neighbors I had never met grabbed shovels to help us out and we did the same for others in our neighborhood. And these kinds of stories are things you hear about all over the world, whether it’s a fire or earthquake or tropical storm or even a war. 

Although I could see things devolving if it were over longer periods of time. This movie just had everything devolve practically overnight. I could see things kinda getting like Mad Max where in the first film things were rough, then the next one that seemed to be after a certain time things got even worse. But this movie had things go bad by day 3

Oh it was believable to me. I think the major difference you're using as an example is people coming together over natural disasters and regular occurrences of heavy weather situations. Humans have been dealing with these things forever. But now, in a society where most are so heavily dependent in the digital reality even just to tell them they're ok.. Leave The World Behind seems all too realistic for me. 
Another real life personal experience, in the Northridge earthquake of 94' i was working at Home Club (like Home Depot but membership) driving a forklift stocking overnight. The earthquake hit at like 4 am. By 7 am people were gathering at the doors, by 8:30 they were demanding  batteries and water. One of our own employees was hysterically egging on the crowd, they were working up the nerve to rush inside and just start taking stuff.  The manager asked us all to stay to help with crowd control and he let people know they were free to buy whatever they want.  I had never seen so many scarred  and panicked people before. It worked out ok, but for a brief time, it was teetering on the edge. And that was just an earthquake. A year before we had the riots in LA..

[Big s]

31 minutes ago, Mog said:

I don’t know:  no internet, no phone, no communications, no GPS, not even local TV.

I could see things going to poop.  

Having home field advantage would help.  But being in a vacation rental and out of your usual element would definitely make matters worse.

I think that would make people search others out, and the vacation people seemed more generous about others for the most part than the home field people in the film.

 

8 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Oh it was believable to me. I think the major difference you're using as an example is people coming together over natural disasters and regular occurrences of heavy weather situations. Humans have been dealing with these things forever. But now, in a society where most are so heavily dependent in the digital reality even just to tell them they're ok.. Leave The World Behind seems all too realistic for me. 
Another real life personal experience, in the Northridge earthquake of 94' i was working at Home Club (like Home Depot but membership) driving a forklift stocking overnight. The earthquake hit at like 4 am. By 7 am people were gathering at the doors, by 8:30 they were demanding  batteries and water. One of our own employees was hysterically egging on the crowd, they were working up the nerve to rush inside and just start taking stuff.  The manager asked us all to stay to help with crowd control and he let people know they were free to buy whatever they want.  I had never seen so many scarred  and panicked people before. It worked out ok, but for a brief time, it was teetering on the edge. And that was just an earthquake. A year before we had the riots in LA..

That sounds like a Black Friday event. People tend to be more agitated with companies and businesses than neighbors.

with us the local market actually got crushed and the only store was a gas station that already didn’t have much. No riots or anything here but those riots were for a different thing with people being angered over a situation. The movie didn’t really have an obvious agitating situation like those that caused the riot.

I just think without digital communication of any type that people would check on neighbors to see what was happening. I don’t think the country would just nuke itself in a couple days 

[TangledThorns]

Had tickets for my wife and I to see WONKA at our local Alamo Drafthouse last night for NYE but all their projectors were down for the day. My guess it was due to a network problem though it wouldn't shock me if an employee tampered with them to avoid working NYE. 

[Big s]

10 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Had tickets for my wife and I to see WONKA at our local Alamo Drafthouse last night for NYE but all their projectors were down for the day. My guess it was due to a network problem though it wouldn't shock me if an employee tampered with them to avoid working NYE. 

That’s pretty odd. Hope they refunded you 

[Dynaman]

Closest I had to anything like no movie at all was having the projector (or something) go out when watching Colors.  We were given passes to come back and see the remaining 15 minutes or so (well, and the rest of the movie again).  I never have gotten round to watching the rest...

[Thom]

Saw Rebel Moon and despite hearing a lot of criticism about it, I liked it. It was interesting, adventurous and fun, which is my bar. I thought Sofia Boutella did a good job doing the character of a tortured ex-soldier. Andor (I forget what his character name is, but the guy she left the village with) was pretty good too. He came off as a bit weasel-ly at the start but proved himself. The other 'Samurai' were good too. If I have one critique, it is that they blew through their introductions a little too fast, and then they were just in the background or filling out fight scenes. I would have sat through twenty more minutes to flesh them out with more interactions.

Really interested in seeing the next one, and finding out why she has the nickname of Scargiver... There was pain on her face when Noble called her that.

Spoiler

Something tells me she may have been instrumental in the deaths of the royal family.

One thing I really didn't like about it, was the design of the ships. To me, they were too rounded and bulbous. King's Gaze had a nice profile, but that was it. Watching it, I was wishing they had the ships from Jupiter Ascending instead. Those designs would have fit better.

 

 

 

Edited January 2 by Thom

[Big s]

20 minutes ago, Thom said:

If I have one critique, it is that they blew through their introductions a little too fast, and then they were just in the background or filling out fight scenes. I would have sat through twenty more minutes to flesh them out with more interactions.

That really felt way too rushed. We don’t know these characters, they don’t really know these characters, then they’re instant friends and now they’re dead or mostly quiet. For a two parter it really felt rushed. 
I made most of my complaints earlier, but I still say it wasn’t as bad as others have reviewed it to be and now we gotta wait for part two of Starwarhammer 7 or whatever 

[Thom]

8 hours ago, Big s said:

That really felt way too rushed. We don’t know these characters, they don’t really know these characters, then they’re instant friends and now they’re dead or mostly quiet. For a two parter it really felt rushed. 
I made most of my complaints earlier, but I still say it wasn’t as bad as others have reviewed it to be and now we gotta wait for part two of Starwarhammer 7 or whatever 

No, other than that, I thought it was pretty good. And they are working the script for a third.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

No, other than that, I thought it was pretty good. And they are working the script for a third.

I thought it was gonna just be a two parter. Hope they trim the fluff by cutting the slo mo and giving a bit more time to flush things out a bit better 

[electric indigo]

A well made trailer. Song by Fever Ray, they were also heard in the "Dark" series.

 

[mechaninac]

 

[Big s]

14 minutes ago, mechaninac said:

 

I guess I wasn’t the only one that was really bugged by the slo mo

[sh9000]

Honest Trailer.

 

[Duke Togo]

Napoleon is bad. Like The Counselor bad. And the guy who wrote it wrote the script for Gladiator 2. Does not bode well for that movie. 

[sh9000]

 

 

[mikeszekely]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, mikeszekely said:

Did anyone here see Asteroid City?  I remember the previews for it looked kind of weird, but maybe a good kind of weird.  Worth the time to watch it on Prime?

Never did get a response. I figured it was because no one had seen it (or people were too busy with Rebel Moon. Now I'm not sure. My wife and kid were out today, and my gaming group cancelled, so I watched Asteroid City.  And, frankly, I'm not sure what to say. I couldn't even tell you if I liked it or not.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Never did get a response. I figured it was because no one had seen it (or people were too busy with Rebel Moon. Now I'm not sure. My wife and kid were out today, and my gaming group cancelled, so I watched Asteroid City.  And, frankly, I'm not sure what to say. I couldn't even tell you if I liked it or not.

I haven’t seen it. The guy that makes it basically does every movie in an odd quirky way and I’ve always finished them not knowing if I liked the movie or not. So I kinda skipped this one waiting to see if anyone had a different opinion, but most people just haven’t seen it 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

The guy that makes it basically does every movie in an odd quirky way and I’ve always finished them not knowing if I liked the movie or not.

Believe it or not, it's the only Wes Anderson movie I've seen, but yeah, that's exactly how I feel.  I mean, at no point during the movie was I bored or anything.  It held my attention, which is more than I can say for a lot of movies these days.  But after watching it I'm not sure I understood it.  I could tell you what happened, but I'm still not really sure what it's about, or what Anderson was trying to say with it.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Believe it or not, it's the only Wes Anderson movie I've seen, but yeah, that's exactly how I feel.  I mean, at no point during the movie was I bored or anything.  It held my attention, which is more than I can say for a lot of movies these days.  But after watching it I'm not sure I understood it.  I could tell you what happened, but I'm still not really sure what it's about, or what Anderson was trying to say with it.

You’ve just described every one of his films that I’ve seen 

[sh9000]

100 Years.  100 Trailers.

 

[TangledThorns]

ROAD HOUSE (in Peter Griffin voice)

 

 

[Dynaman]

Hard to say which would be the scarier thought.  That someone thought that trailer would entice anyone to want to see Road House remake or that the trailer actually would entice someone to see the Road House remake.