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

If you’re going to go with the Magnificent Seven then you might as well skip to Seven Samurai and then do Hidden Fortress.

Flight of the Navigator

You can throw Explorers with young Ethan Hawk into the mix. Maybe partner Young Sherlock Holmes with the new Ebola Holmes movie I also like Krull because the glaive is dope. Maybe Last Starfighter?

We did watch FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR. It's a ~~clunky~~ movie, wow. Parts of it are really good and parts are just thrown together, I wonder if it had multiple directors/editors.

THE LAST STARFIGHTER might be cool, but age has taken its toll on the CGI there too.

SCOTT PILGRIM was enjoyed by the teens, and thank GOD because I would have had to send them out in to the streets if they'd hated it.

These are all really cool suggestions, I'll let you know how things go!

Andi Lennon wrote: ...The Karate Kid - Apologies in advance for the karate lessons you'll need to shell out for in it's aftermath

My daughter took Tae Kwon Do long enough to get a black belt in it. It's great to give your kid some mental toughness. Doesn't help with fear of spiders, though.

ETA: To keep on-thread, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Giant squid fight!

RobertB wrote:

Andi Lennon wrote: ETA: To keep on-thread, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Giant squid fight!

My 7 year old was quite taken by 20K under the sea. Those older technicolor films are really really nice to watch in HD. Swiss Family Robinson is a personal fav of that era, as is The Black Hole but that is too scary for him. Forbidden Planet is also a great personal fav but it might be too slow for kids these days.

Black Hole is a good recommendation. Not the finest of acting moments for Anthony Perkins, but still pretty cool and extremely dark for Disney at the time (late 70s.)

Along the lines of Captain Nemo, the old Sinbad movies (7th Voyage, Golden Voyage, Eye of the Tiger) are great. I'm a Harryhausen fan, so that probably biases me and, again, acting is not the high point of these, but they're great family films with adventure and quite muted violence.

Another good 80's rec is The Last Unicorn. I REALLY regret not getting a signed copy by Peter Beagle at dragoncon a few years back but the kid was grumpy so I couldn't do the line. Anyhoo, it holds up really well IMHO aside from the loooonnngggg bit with Mia Farrow and whatshisname courting, culminating in that atrocious song. The rest is pure magic though and one of the films I'd most like to see remade.

dysjunct wrote: If you’re going to go with the Magnificent Seven then you might as well skip to Seven Samurai and then do Hidden Fortress.

When I watched Seven Samurai I just kept thinking "this is like other movies I've seen but strictly better in every way".

Sat down with the family earlier today and watched the excellent Enola Homes which we all enjoyed a great deal. I think the marketing is a little off on this one as it wasn't quite what any of us were expecting, but in any case it was a real treat - a cracking story with several unexpected turns and plenty of good humour. The character of Sherlock is used very well and (perhaps surprisingly given the way the movie is pitched) respectfully without getting in the way of the main show. There are some really fun fourth-wall asides.

The cast are all excellent and Millie Bobby Brown carries the protagonist very well, even Bonham-Carter manages to avoid chewing on the scenery for a pleasant change. It's empowering without being cloying and is even knowing enough to poke fun at characters when they do start to lean overboard in that direction (avoiding spoilers but egos do get punctured a number of times.) Highly recommend, especially for anyone with age-appropriate kids to watch it together.

Also, I wasn't aware that it is based on a series of books, will have to look out for them as I know my daughter will love to read them. I would be staggered if there isn't a sequel at some point.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) was a mediocre horror movie based on a story by H.G. Wells. Michael York, Burt Lancaster, and Barbara Carrera starred. (I wonder if York and Lancaster had a laugh about the War of Roses?) I have vaguely wanted to see this for a very long time, because the very first Playboy magazine that I ever got my hands on as a kid featured a photo set with a very naked Barbara Carrera and a couple of beast men not found in the movie. The '70s was a weird time when it somehow made sense to promote your movie in Playboy magazine with softcore porn.

Until now, I have avoided the various Punisher movies, even though I was fan of the Punisher for a while back in the late '80s. I had this gut feeling that the movies would end up feeling like generic action movies, and that was nearly the case in this 2004 movie. Thomas Jane is actually a very decent pick to play an action movie star, but he fails to elevate this material. The movie is a strictly average quality action movie that is slightly more memorable for some odd elements that are either better or worse than par. The supporting cast is weird and sort of awful. John Travolta is okay, and has enough star quality to light up his scenes.

My life was in utter chaos in 1991, so I missed Point Break in the theater, and never got around to it until now. The first hour is interesting, and then the movie descends into an utterly mad bromance between Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. If you liked Xtreme sports in the early '90s, this is your movie. Anthony Kiedis (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Lori Petti also have parts to play, but this is mostly about director Kathryn Bigelow's weird fanfic idea.

All of these movies pale in comparison to an Amazon Original of very recent vintage: Get Duked! It is a dark comedy about hunting and hip-hop in the Scottish Highlands. On paper, this script must have looked ridiculous and a complete longshot for production. And yet, Get Duked! somehow works. It's weird, and mental, and wraps the story neatly with a completely absurd deus ex machina, and I enjoyed it anyway.

Shellhead wrote: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) was a mediocre horror movie based on a story by H.G. Wells. Michael York, Burt Lancaster, and Barbara Carrera starred. (I wonder if York and Lancaster had a laugh about the War of Roses?) I have vaguely wanted to see this for a very long time, because the very first Playboy magazine that I ever got my hands on as a kid featured a photo set with a very naked Barbara Carrera and a couple of beast men not found in the movie. The '70s was a weird time when it somehow made sense to promote your movie in Playboy magazine with softcore porn.
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My life was in utter chaos in 1991, so I missed Point Break in the theater, and never got around to it until now. The first hour is interesting, and then the movie descends into an utterly mad bromance between Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. If you liked Xtreme sports in the early '90s, this is your movie. Anthony Kiedis (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Lori Petti also have parts to play, but this is mostly about director Kathryn Bigelow's weird fanfic idea.

I saw Island in the theater, first run back then. I remember it being pretty meh, but that's about it.

Point Break - it's kind of dumb, but I'll watch it if nothing else is on. And Covid probably killed this: Point Break Live .

The remake of POINT BREAK was utterly terrible.

I've been a Kurosawa fan since I was 18, and I have some admiration for the samurai worldview, despite the flaws. But I rarely see a non-Kurosawa samurai movie that I enjoy. 47 Ronin was decent, I guess, and the original story is a classic.

Now I have seen 13 Assassins, and it favorably reminded me of the story of the 47 Ronin, and also of Kurosawa's legendary work The Seven Samurai. The samurai worldview is alien in some respects. For example, a samurai in this movie declares, "If you value your life, you will die like a dog." Another character says farewell to his wife. When she asks when he will be back, he replies, "Soon. I am late, I will be at the Festival of the Dead."

Conflicting views of samurai honor are explored, and an impressive body count follows. The story is very good, and the subtitles were just right for pacing and visibility. There was nice attention to detail and accuracy, and so I had forgotten how awful the real geisha look to my western eyes: no eyebrows and teeth blackened to invisibility, making young women look like smooth-skinned crones. Ugh. The production values were good and the pacing was great. Director Takashi Miike is like prolific Quentin Tarantino, but 13 Assassins plays more like The Seven Samurai than Kill Bill Part 1.

Agreed, the "Samurai Code" or Bushido or whatever is very difficult to portray on film for westerners because it is very alien to our sensibilities. I think it comes across better in novels where the internal conflict between duty, honor, and personal desire can be shown, all the while being stoic and placid externally. Plus that era has HORRIBLE treatment of some peoples, much like most places at that time, which requires balancing watchability with authenticity.

Still, some of those films are my favorite B&W movies. I still haven't seen a decent modern samurai film. The korean and chinese stuff dominates these says with a some what similar class economy and martial spirit.