What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

I completely agree about the ending of Bridge of Spies. It's a weird world where John LeCarre was never born and the cold war wasn't a tremendous waste of human life and resources.

I finally watched Spiderman Homecoming. The best part of it was watching it with my 18-year-old son, who liked it, and my wife, who tolerated it ("A fifteen-year-old boy saves everyone! Woo Hoo!") without any arguing breaking out. It was funny at times and reasonably entertaining. I can't believe it has been a year since it was released.

I just found out that movies at a local theater are onliy $4.00 before 4:00 p.m. so I'll probably watch a bunch of mediocre movies during the remaining days of summer, especially Ant Man and the new Mission Impossible.

Jackwraith wrote: Ah. You have discovered the problem with every Spielberg film, post Schindler's List. He's so conscious of the message he's trying to convey (GOOD triumphs over evil! Even when it's a guy lost in an airport.) that they all descend into this sappy, treacly mess that makes you feel like "...and they all lived happily ever after." is embossed at the end of every screenplay.

You are probably right. It is the feeling I had, actually. I'm not really knowledgeable about Spielberg or films, in general, but I remember that sappyness in other Spielberg films, though I admit tuning out of him around that time. None of the films he has made in the last 15 years seem very appealing.

It's interesting you mention Bridge of Spies. My parents, who love this kind of stories and have a sizable John LeCarre collection, were very dissapointed with the film exactly for the reason you say.

Watched Killing of a Sacred Deer last night, the follow-up effort from the director of The Lobster and Colin Farrell. It was expectedly weird, and very dark. Very dark.

The atmosphere (buoyed by that haunting score), reminded me mostly of Hereditary. Very nasty, interesting film.

I'm 0 for 2 with my latest HBO selections. Last night I watched The Snowman. What a boring, useless film. I was never invested in anyone, there was no tension, and I just can't believe someone greenlit this thing. Don't waste your time.

Just to save you the trouble of even tracking down what this movie is... Michael Fassbender is a detective in Norway, tracking down a serial killer who leaves a snowman at his crime scenes. SPOOOOOKY. No. No it isn't.

hotseatgames wrote: I'm 0 for 2 with my latest HBO selections. Last night I watched The Snowman. What a boring, useless film. I was never invested in anyone, there was no tension, and I just can't believe someone greenlit this thing. Don't waste your time.

Just to save you the trouble of even tracking down what this movie is... Michael Fassbender is a detective in Norway, tracking down a serial killer who leaves a snowman at his crime scenes. SPOOOOOKY. No. No it isn't.

That't disappointing. Fassbender is a fine actor. The Hellblazer comic did a four-issue story arc along similar lines, and it was great.

ok good, the trailers looked kind of creepy but I heard it was terrible. Glad I didn't waste my time.

You want scary? Hereditary.

btw I hate to admit it, but I'm actually excited to see THE MEG

Saw Walk the Line, or “The vastly abridged and disjointed life of JR Cash”. Liked it well enough but not well enough to not walk away for 20 minutes, come back, and not miss much.

My wife and daughter were out of town a couple weekends ago so my sons and I saw Ant-Man and the Wasp. Last weekend my wife wanted to take my daughter to it, so that's how I saw Ant-Man twice in two weeks. It's an improvement on the first in basically every way; it's funnier, the stakes are more intimate and compelling and the action scenes are as clever and inventive as anything in the MCU.

Not all the jokes land (this is the consequence of just having too many jokes instead of tightening up the script, I call it "Deadpool Syndrome") but Paul Rudd has great comedic timing and they do a much better job of portioning the screen time of Ant-Man's ex-con buddies (a little of Luis can go a long way). Michelle Pfeiffer is really good as well and I wish she was in the film more. I put it right up there with Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok as far as lighter Marvel fare goes and I can definitely say the movie holds up on a second viewing.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Saw Walk the Line, or “The vastly abridged and disjointed life of JR Cash”. Liked it well enough but not well enough to not walk away for 20 minutes, come back, and not miss much.

You are now properly primed to see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (available on Netflix). A great musical biopic satire that is even greater when Walk the Line is fresh in your memory.

I had never seen Carrie and finally watched it last night. It is good but it has the problem of being 2 films (school bullying melodrama and paranormal thriller) and doing neither of them proper justice.

My bad movie journey continues. My son asked me to rent Ready Player One for $6, and I relented. Surprise, this movie... is not good.

It is, however, visually interesting. Everything looks great, and there is a lot to look at.

Everything else... no thanks. The plot is uninteresting, the characters are uninteresting, etc. It is the cinema equivalent of a Scooby Doo episode.

Ready Player One is the worst book I’ve ever bothered to finish reading. I detest it thoroughly. However, I actually liked the movie. It’s one the weaker side of Spielberg’s catalog (1942 < The Lost Wolrd < Crystal Skull < Ready Player One) and I wish that the big fight scene at the end was as well executed as the racing one at the beginning, but I somehow enjoyed it. Enough to watch it twice. By no means am I calling it great, just watchable.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: I had never seen Carrie and finally watched it last night. It is good but it has the problem of being 2 films (school bullying melodrama and paranormal thriller) and doing neither of them proper justice.

Carrie was the first R-rated horror movie that I ever saw. When I was a kid, I was worried that a really scary horror movie might give me recurring nightmares or even cause me to go insane. Nope. I watched Carrie and wasn't even scared except for the final gotcha scene that made me jump. I slept soundly that night, and I am not aware of any lingering mental problems.

My son also begged me to rent it last night. I didn’t hate it. It’s a stupid, stupid movie that trucks in that horrible geek mashup thing that I despise while playing a supremely facile “people gotta connect in the real world” message that seems like old folks wrote it. I mean, it was almost more eye-rolling than the po-faced patriotism in Saving Private Ryan.

The references were exhausting. I felt like the whole movie was a where’s Waldo book. And if you know Battletoads and Spawn and Street Fighter and whatever else you can’t help it. It’s stupidly encyclopedic, and aimed straight at people my age- which is a little weird, really, because the movie is geared toward 18-25 but the references are more for 35-45. A couple of them genuinely surprised me-



The race was really well done, I actually thought the opening was too- it was pure Spielberg.

My son loved it, and I actually enjoyed pointing out all of the stuff with him. We were watching it late and a few times I had to tell him to keep it down because he’d get so excited about certain characters or whatever.

I do feel like a HUGE opportunity was missed to really satirize pop culture obsession and how the socially inept use it as an interface to communicate like Halliday does...but the end result was more like playing with a big box of action figures from multiple product lines.

It was entertaining to see once but I don’t know if I’d want to watch it again.

Michael Barnes wrote: I do feel like a HUGE opportunity was missed to really satirize pop culture obsession and how the socially inept use it as an interface to communicate like Halliday does...

It will take a different movie to do that. Both the book and the movie bask in the gloriousness of fandom. This is nerd empowerment fantasy fulfillment. "Finally, my encyclopedic knowledge of (insert random source material) will not only make me cool, but also save the universe."