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

Jupiter Ascending (2015) was better than I expected. Visually spectacular, which I did expect from the Wachowskis, but also a fair amount of intrigue and some nice emotional beats.

Once Upon a Time In Mexico (2003) features a tremendous amount of stylish murder and mayhem. The music is lovely, and Johnny Depp steals his every scene. Great cast, but most of the star power was under-utilized.

Shellhead wrote: Jupiter Ascending (2015) was better than I expected. Visually spectacular, which I did expect from the Wachowskis, but also a fair amount of intrigue and some nice emotional beats.

There are parts of the movie that are absurd but it's entertaining as hell. I really enjoyed it. Considering we watch films where people turn into the green giant or fly in a rubber suit it's pretty mainstream in its conceit.

Germane to recent discussions regarding the Netflix Cowboy Bebop, I watched another live-action anime adaptation: Rurouni Kenshin Part 1: Origins. I have neither read the manga nor watched the anime so cannot comment on how they compare but enjoyed it well enough. Very interested to see several anime concepts including dumb hairstyles and sliding stops from runs translated into live action. It was an even more interesting decision to replicate an extended anime shot of a face with two frames alternating on the eyes on a real face. Pacing was slow between fights, but they were absolute burners. Absolutely worth listening to Kenshin mumble for twenty minutes.

Cars 3 is part of the Pixar tradition that started around Inside Out where the parents are the film's real audience. Not in the sense of scenes like Elasti-Girl crying when she overhears Mr. Incredible talking to a woman on the phone and he then lies about it, but in that I don't see what part of the story is for kids. Lightning is getting old and can't compete with the new generation. This isn't Andy outgrowing Woody and Buzz. This is contemplating retirement old. What part of that is supposed to resonate with kids? It could have worked if Cruz had been the lead and the story about her adapting new techniques and his old training, but it was clearly Lightning's movie. Odd choice.

Kate was absolutely a derivative action flick, but I'm glad Netflix is keeping the mid-tier action movie alive with works like this and Extraction. I'm not looking for meditations on man's capacity for evil but for violence delivered righteously and with clarity. In that, it succeeded. The locations were pretty, and the fights brutal. It's a pity they didn't bother to develop Kate's character beyond "woman who suffers and also has a taste for Boom Boom Lemon," but if she's going to be a woman who suffers, they made that physical suffering and deterioration visceral.

Now go watch Gunpowder Milkshake (netflix) and Jolt (Amazon) and treat yourself to virtually the exact same film, yet slightly different. I think I liked Kate the most out of the three but GPMS had the most creative fight.

I was underwhelmed by Gunpowder Milkshake. There was one great fight and a few good ones, but it leaned too hard on sub-Tarantino dialogue and John Wick world-building of a secret assassin society (the weakest part of those movies). Which is too bad because I was pretty excited by the cast.

I’ll have to look into Jolt, though.

I watched The Hollow Man by Verhoeven in the cinema last night. They were doing a cycle of all his films and we made it to one of his weaker ones.

It's not a good movie. It has interesting aspects and it could have been good but it quickly devolves into idiot ball scenarios. Why does the main character turn into a rapist? Why doesn't anyone notice the first scientist was killed? Why does the bad guy come back from being beaten, electrocuted and set on fire? It's simple; otherwise there would be no movie. The last hour of film was completely predictable: We knew every single character except the main girl and perhaps her partner would die in increasingly stupid circumstances, it was only a matter of waiting for them to do so.

Still, I couldn't help but think it was fundamentally better than most films currently in the cinema. It felt strange to watch a Hollywood movie with actual nudity in it, including a dreaded penis. It seems many current films are completely devoid of sexuality, not in the sense that they don't include the topic but that active steps are taken to remove it. You have characters made to be fuckable but also completely sexless. In other words, the reason this movie wouldn't be made today is not because it has a rapist in it or even exposed genitals, it's that its characters are sexually attractive.

Hollow Man is a fav of mine though I share a lot of the same sentiments. Having read "The Invisible Man" novella fairly recently there isn't really a lot that modern adaptations do with the actual story, much like Frankenstein, but the core idea that invisibility, to oneself as well as others, leads to a lack of human empathy and license to indulge in amoral behavior, is a compelling one.

Why it gives superhuman resilency and strength to what is otherwise a naked guy is a bit odd. The recent Blum house version had a similar issue. But that is just the legacy of slasher films I think.

I hear a female centered "Invisible Woman" film is being made, I'm very curious how they will alter the leads proclivities. Will she be a straight hero or are there feminine desires that she will fall to beyond lust, theft, and violence?

jason10mm wrote: Hollow Man is a fav of mine though I share a lot of the same sentiments. Having read "The Invisible Man" novella fairly recently there isn't really a lot that modern adaptations do with the actual story, much like Frankenstein, but the core idea that invisibility, to oneself as well as others, leads to a lack of human empathy and license to indulge in amoral behavior, is a compelling one.

Why it gives superhuman resilency and strength to what is otherwise a naked guy is a bit odd. The recent Blum house version had a similar issue. But that is just the legacy of slasher films I think.

I hear a female centered "Invisible Woman" film is being made, I'm very curious how they will alter the leads proclivities. Will she be a straight hero or are there feminine desires that she will fall to beyond lust, theft, and violence?

I think Invisible Woman is a sequel to last year's Invisible Man, with Elizabeth Moss. That one's definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it. Although it side-steps the "invisibility makes you an asshole" problem by making the guy a complete asshole already. I did appreciate the method of invisibility, though. Probably just as impossible as the others, but at least it explained how a person that light passes through could see anything.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights turned out to be one of the better DC direct-to-streaming movies. I was raised on Marvel comics and never really felt strong interest in any Green Lantern comics aside from the awesome Hard-Traveling Heroes run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, by Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams. This animated movie does a nice job of introducing the viewer to the basic GL lore and works like an anthology of good GL stories within the framework of a larger story. Voice actors include Nathan Fillion, Henry Rollins, and Roddy Piper. My only disappointment was that the very interesting origin of the main villain Krona was skipped over. They could have covered the basics in a minute or two, but I guess it didn't serve the needs of this story.

After watching No Time to Die I watched Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) on the iPad, in a single day. I had seen Casino Royale in the theater and was surprised by how much I had forgotten. I guess anything that I saw 15 years ago or later is just slowly being erased. They were not amazing, but I didn't hate them either. Every Daniel Craig Bond movie has him getting betrayed, a close friend dying, and a peripheral female getting killed after having been deflowered by bond. Bond moves through his world in a cloud of death that destroys everyone around him,

I watched two films on flights recently. This is of course not the most ideal way to experience a movie, but it's what I had.

Free Guy - way better than expected. Ryan Reynolds plays Ryan Reynolds, which is what he always plays, because he is an enjoyable person who can't really act. A perfect, light film, quite ideal for a flight.

The Green Knight - oof. This film is NOT ideal for a flight. While visually pleasing, very little happens over the course of the entire film, and I guessed the ending quite early, while waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen. Pass.

hotseatgames wrote: Free Guy - way better than expected. Ryan Reynolds plays Ryan Reynolds, which is what he always plays, because he is an enjoyable person who can't really act. A perfect, light film, quite ideal for a flight.

Ryan Reynolds was in it? Was he the guy that was on the screen while I was looking at Jodie Comer?

No spoilers, but Spider-Man: No Way Home is pretty darn good. It doesn't dethrone Raimi's Spider-Man 2 for me, but it's in the top tier.

How kid friendly is it? Typical MCU level of ok, or does it have those weird tangents into horror/grim violence that some of the DC flicks have?

My kid wants to see this pretty badly, I'm debating on how many of the prelude spidermans I want him to watch. Seems like SM2 and ASM2 at least, might have to suffer through SM3 and ASM though as well? He's seen Raimi's SM and the new ones already.

jason10mm wrote: How kid friendly is it? Typical MCU level of ok, or does it have those weird tangents into horror/grim violence that some of the DC flicks have?

My kid wants to see this pretty badly, I'm debating on how many of the prelude spidermans I want him to watch. Seems like SM2 and ASM2 at least, might have to suffer through SM3 and ASM though as well? He's seen Raimi's SM and the new ones already.

From Twitter:

"Do I have to have watch Spiderman 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, and 2 to understand what's going on in Spiderman 3?"