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

My wife enjoyed X-Men: Dark Phoenix. I did not. It wasn't boggling bad like Last Stand, but maybe that would have been better. Even though nothing in that movie mattered as everything thing of substance beside the deaths of Cyclops and Jean Grey was walked back within the movie, it felt like the writers and directors were throwing everything at the wall in the hopes that something would stick, even if most of what stuck was ludicrous. Dark Phoenix just felt like no one cared. It felt like a contractual mandate that absolutely everyone was just trying to get through with the least effort. Craft services probably just left the meats and cheeses in the grocery store plastic and made people mix their own juice concentrate.

Dazzler and Quentin Quire's cameos, Jean dragging Xavier up the stairs, and Nightcrawler's tail cuff were the extent of worthwhile things in the movie. We've already seen Magneto find a peaceful life only to be dragged back into violence. We've already seen an abbreviated Dark Phoenix story. What could have been a thrilling scene of the X-Men and Brotherhood working together against a common enemy was undercut by an enemy whose motivations and abilities and everything were not described in any form. Beast and Mystique yell at Xavier even though his sin was pretty minor and he was right about the rest.

The movie just couldn't be bothered to make me care about anything. Maybe they'll do a better job next time they reboot the whole thing in four years and try Dark Phoenix in six.

DarthJoJo wrote: Maybe they'll do a better job next time they reboot the whole thing in four years and try Dark Phoenix in six.

Hopefully they don’t hire Simon Kinberg again. I guess they thought the guy who wrote Last Stand would do a better job the second time around if they also let him direct it. Maybe third time’s a charm?

Watched The Room again this weekend. I have seen it several times, and I keep finding quirks. What a strange, mess of a movie. So bad it's.... well it's still bad but you still have to see it.

I enjoyed Ad Astra. The ending was perhaps underwhelming but the metaphor behind it was interesting. Some of the science may have been junk, but don't care, this felt a bit like Apocalypse Now in space. Not quite as profound though.

charlest wrote: I enjoyed Ad Astra. The ending was perhaps underwhelming but the metaphor behind it was interesting. Some of the science may have been junk, but don't care, this felt a bit like Apocalypse Now in space. Not quite as profound though.

Yeah, I felt almost exactly the same way. It was visually gorgeous, but the action set pieces that occurred seemingly every 30 minutes were distracting (and didn't really seem relevant to the story).

Regarding the ending:

Gregarius wrote:

charlest wrote: I enjoyed Ad Astra. The ending was perhaps underwhelming but the metaphor behind it was interesting. Some of the science may have been junk, but don't care, this felt a bit like Apocalypse Now in space. Not quite as profound though.

Yeah, I felt almost exactly the same way. It was visually gorgeous, but the action set pieces that occurred seemingly every 30 minutes were distracting (and didn't really seem relevant to the story).

Regarding the ending:

Warning: Spoiler!

I'm not sure which part you found "underwhelming," but I would have preferred for us not to see Roy make it back home. Not that I wanted him to die, but rather to just leave it unanswered. Like maybe end it right as he gets accelerated by the blast.

I liked a fair bit of Ad Astra and, especially because the number of thinky SF films out there is minimal, would mildly recommend it, but while it wasn't as talky as Gravity--the modern benchmark for me for externalizing everything inferabe through talk--it was just too talky for me to really enjoy. Pitt is a good enough actor, and the visuals and story are good if derivative enough, that there's no need for constant VO, but there it is.

Haunt is nothing you haven't seen before a dozen times, but it's like a good version of last year's(?) Hell Fest or this year's Escape Room. My wife and I saw this with an apparently rare showing of the 1958 McQueen version of The Blob. I'm sure this was better at the drive-in, but you could at least see the glimmerings of what McQueen was able to do on-screen.

Like many people, I enjoy watching horror movies at this time of year. Several of my all-time favorite movies are horror movies, but I can be snobby about the genre and there are plenty of bad horror movies by an reasonable standard. Tonight, I enjoyed watching an anthology of short horror movies called Tales of Halloween. Each of the ten shorts takes place on Halloween, and features a different director and cast. The variety is impressive, with stories ranging from scary to darkly humorous to bold and strange. Each segment is paced nicely, and none of them overstay their welcome. The final bit pulls them all together, but it's the only disappointing part. The director of the last one is Neil Marshall, who has done exactly two good movies and a few bad ones, including the failed Hellboy reboot.

Brad Pitt: Daddy Issues: The Voiceover was incredibly stupid, whole story and all action sequences made no sense at all.
Positives: interesting future setting, nice sound, great visuals and acting was ok/good.

I think I'm the only person who enjoyed the voice overs. Probably because it reminded me of Willard.

dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/lead-astray.html

Saw Joker. Eh.

dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/t...-kind-of-misses.html

My wife and I saw Hereditary on Netflix. It was interesting in a 'what the hell' kind of way. Toni Colette was fantastically raw and manic.

Jackwraith wrote: Saw Joker. Eh.

dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/t...-kind-of-misses.html

Thank you for this. It's great to read someone critiquing this moving on it's own merits instead of lazily comparing it to super-hero movies.

Watched Shaft last night and it was funny as hell. I laughed during this more than any comedy in recent memory.