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

I'm assuming, or hoping, that the Final Destination movies are splatter-comedies (if there is such a genre), because I ended up watching The Final Destination last night*. I got more laughs out of it than any sense of suspense.

*My daughter got control of the remote last night. Most of the time I think my wife and I have done a pretty good job of raising our kid. Then she picks The Final Destination, and I get another mark in the 'failed as a parent' column.

Just finished Annihilation and I thought it was amazing. Alex Garland somehow managed to pull off an adaptation of a book I love, and yet make it something other than the book.

Annihilation is a surrealist horror masterpiece... well, maybe not a masterpiece, but it's a stunning film that gets under your skin. The source material, by Jeff VanderMeer, is one of those books that's "impossible" to film, because a lot of the horror of the novel, and the underlying surrealism, is heavily language dependent. The novel worms it's way into the crevices of your brain and takes root. It's one of my favorites. The entire Southern Reach Trilogy is fantastic.

What Garland does is turn that linguistic metamorphosing into visual poetry and while deviating from VanderMeer's plot extensively, he manages to capture what makes the novel great. It's thought provoking, visceral, terrifying and fascinating.

Shellhead wrote: Saturday morning, I had to run a bunch of errands. I noticed a huge line at the local comic/game shop, wrapping around the outside of the building, but drew a blank on why that might be.

Free Comic Book Day. 1st Saturday in May

Just saw Avengers End Game. I liked it, but needing to pee about half-way through made it seem terribly long, which it is.

I often sat there thinking how amazing it is that some writers pulled this thing off. It's also nice that many characters get individual moments in which to shine.

There was a dickhead sitting directly behind me, making the most obvious statements in the world to his partner, and I wanted to shush him many times. Oh, that's Captain America! Yeah no shit, shut the fuck up.

Spider-Man Far From Home seems interesting.

I'm a bit bummed I slept on BlacKKKlansman, Spike Lee's latest polemic, and, frankly, highly entertaining, engaging and accomplished film. Lee takes and absurd, but true, premise and breathes life into it. Lee keeps what could be broad satire grounded, with a good script, clever filmmaking, and some great performances.

Terrance Blanchard's score is predictably great, and the cinematography by Chayse Irvin accompanied the tonal shifts of the film, without becoming too flashy or bombastic.

A really good movie, from the always interesting, though not always successful, Spike Lee.

In an effort to prepare for Avengers: Endgame, I have been catching up on various Marvel movies that I hadn't previously seen. When I was a kid, my all-time favorite comic was the Avengers, and I was also a fan of several solo books featuring Avengers, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain Amercia, and the unfortunately named Jungle Action title starring Black Panther. But I was reluctant to see the movies at first, after seeing too many disappointing superhero movies during the '90s. I did see the first Iron Man movie and all three Thor movies in the theater, and also several of the phase III movies.

The Avengers was much better than I expected. While a superhero team can work okay as a tv show, especially if animated, I usually find them disappointing in a live-action movie format. Joss Whedon managed to make it work, with a decent story and some good character moments. Great cast, especially Mark Ruffalo, big action, and a decent pace. I still dislike the creation of the Chitauri for this movie, when there are so many existing alien races in the comic book Marvel Universe who would have worked well, especially the Kree.

Captain America: Winter Soldier was the movie that I didn't need about the story that I didn't want, but it was very good. I still believe that Bucky is a character better left in the past, but the Brubaker run handled the idea well. The movie is more direct and less dark, and probably better for it. The introduction of the Falcon feels a bit forced, but I was raised on the Englehart run of Captain America & the Falcon, so I was glad to see him. In the comics, Black Panther devised Falcon's wings, and that might have been a nice way to lead into the Black Panther movie, but the MCU approach worked better for this movie.

Avengers: Age of Ultron wasn't a disappointment, it was exactly what I expected from a movie with too many superheroes. Too long, too convoluted, and not enough focus on a core cast. That left too many scenes feeling extraneous. I liked seeing so many connections to other MCU movies, but it diluted this story. I disliked the attempt to make Ultron's personality seem like Joker-lite, when it might have made more sense to have Robert Downey Jr read his lines. Overall, this movie felt too similar to the previous Avengers movie, with all the lesser Ultrons functioning no better or worse than Chitauri troops, while one main villain (Ultron or Loki or whoever) gets the better scenes.

The Avengers and Winter Soldier are good enough movies to make it into my top ten list of comic book movies, and I would be happy to re-watch either of these movies again from time to time. Age of Ultron is a key movie for the MCU continuity, but I doubt that I will ever want to watch it again.

ugh, age of ultron is definetly on of the weaker MCU movies.

Chitauri have been around since 2002 I think, in the Ultimate universe, which much of the MCU takes cues from. Still, licensing is definitely a big part of why they used the Chitauri vs something like the Skrulls.

The best thing about Ultron is it set the stage for Civil War.

Mass battles in MCU have always been total bullshit. It's never clear how far they are from winning/losing. And, most of thetime, they're all gone with a single button push. All they serve is to show how good the heroes are against grunts.

Sevej wrote: Mass battles in MCU have always been total bullshit. It's never clear how far they are from winning/losing. And, most of thetime, they're all gone with a single button push. All they serve is to show how good the heroes are against grunts.

And that is a symptom of another problem often seen with superhero teams in both comics and movies: sometimes certain heroes on the team are significantly more powerful than others. In the Avengers movies, Cap, Black Widow, and Hawkeye all need mooks to beat on while Thor, Hulk and Iron Man face the bigger threats. In the comics, we see guys like Batman and Green Arrow on the same with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Flash. Characters that could single-handedly blitz an army while Batman and Green Arrow look like statues.

Zombieland was the classic struggle of a good cast trying to make a weak script work. It was tolerable, but not actually funny or scary. I could see the movie trying to be funny, but just failing. The surprise cameo was cool. Weak soundtrack that unbelievably failed to include the T Bone Burnett song "Zombieland."

I watched the first hour of House and gave up. It was a cheesy horror movie from the mid-'80s that also wanted to be funny. The actor who played Norm on Cheers plays a supporting role. House fails as either a scary or funny movie and instead settles for annoying.

Shellhead wrote: Zombieland was the classic struggle of a good cast trying to make a weak script work. It was tolerable, but not actually funny or scary. I could see the movie trying to be funny, but just failing. The surprise cameo was cool. Weak soundtrack that unbelievably failed to include the T Bone Burnett song "Zombieland."

It's definitely something that needs to sink in with repeat views. For a zombie movie, Zombieland is utterly comfortable.

I have a feeling that what flashes through one’s senses at the exact moment one’s receiving permanent brain trauma is John Wick 3.

Incidentally, this has been my review of John Wick 3.

Can't wait to see it.