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

Slightly tangential: I was watching some Premier League yesterday and saw a trailer for the latest Michael Bay film, Ambulance. Putting aside the simplistic absurdity of the title, akin to 70s shows like Emergency!, the story seems to be something about an ambulance streaking around a major city with some guy with a submachine gun in the back who points it at the actual medics and tells them they can't stop. So, like Speed, but somehow impossibly dumber.

Look, I try not to criticize others' entertainment choices. If it works for you, it works. I don't get into WWE or anime or baseball, but those things simply aren't for me. There are millions of fans who love them. Fine. As long as it isn't hurting someone else, do what you like. But, FFS, it feels like there has to be a lower limit of that principle at some point, right? I mean, maybe there are lots of people in this thread who enjoy Michael Bay's output. I'm not one of them, but even before this, I can see the appeal for a lot of his productions (fast-paced, explosions, etc.) But this just seems like they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

If I was making a movie that would feature explosions, and really, why would I make a movie without explosions, I would want Michael Bay involved.

The first time that I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey was during college. Most of the classic movies that I saw in college were shown on Saturday night at midnight in the Student Union, but this one was shown on a weeknight in a public library far off campus. I dozed off during the first hour, but caught some of the big scenes at the beginning and end.

I just watched it for a second time, and nearly fell asleep again. This time I was watching it at home, so I was free to pause the movie and get up and stretch to ward off the drowsiness. But it must be said that 2001 is glacially paced at times, and that drains the movie of some of the potential intensity.

And I am going to go out on a limb and say that 2001 is as much a horror movie as a science-fiction movie. There are lengthy stretches in space that feature some extremely strange and creepy music that deliberately sets an eerie tone to the movie. And then there is the primal violence in prehistoric times, and the homicidal computer, and the alien abduction.

Did I like 2001? It was okay. The best scenes were great, but time dragged in between those scenes. The the movie is only slightly longer than 2 hours, but features an actual intermission. Maybe attention spans were shorter back then (I doubt it) and people needed an intermission if the movie was longer than 90 minutes. This one felt longer than 3 hours due to the sluggish pace. And yet, the transition from bone to space ship is brilliant and iconic. The confrontation with Hal 9000 will continue to haunt every conversation about artificial intelligence. And specific scenes in the movie seemed like direct influences on Alien, Space: 1999, the Shining (the bathroom scene), and Prometheus.

Maybe it's the film nostalgia talking, but I've always considered 2001:A Space Odyssey in that special pantheon of films where you aren't just "watching a movie" it's all about "you're watching 2001." Films that don't really have an antecedent, or a direct descendant. So it's not like, "I'm watching sci-fi," or "I'm watching a horror movie," it's much more like "I'm watching 2001." Which isn't to mean everyone loves it, or even likes it, but that it's kind of a singular viewing experience, even after all these years.

2001 always impressed me with how scientifically accurate so much of it is. Before "artificial gravity" became a default space ship function with Star Trek type shows, space films would often try to simulate zero-gee and space ships were built on the rocket model (vertically stacked) versus the cruise ship model.

The Expanse is one of the few returns to that style in recent memory

Read an opinion that with 2001, film SF had caught up with contemporary SF literature. And that previously, the only SF film that had caught up with written SF was Forbidden Planet.

And I agree with fightcitymayor about 2001. It's not a movie I just surf into or hunt up on Netflix; I have to be in a mood.

Shellhead wrote: And yet, the transition from bone to space ship is brilliant and iconic.

Just to be pedantic, it's actually a missile satellite (e.g. both tools of violence).

I adore 2001, but I get how it can be a total slog. I agree with fightcitymayor that it really is it's own unique beast.

I watched Netflix's new movie, The Bubble. It's about a film crew / cast sequestering in a large English manor during Covid so that they can produce a sequel in a B-movie franchise. Lots of celebrities are in it, including Pedro Pascal, who would be enough on his own.

While the premise doesn't sound great, I found myself really enjoying it. I was a bit hesitant at first because I don't really want to re-live the 2020 experience, but this film is fantastical enough that it doesn't really lean into a lot of that stuff. I think it's a good choice if you want something light and funny. Let's say... Good, for a Netflix film.

I've loved 2001, but the last time I saw it, in a theater on a recent anniversary, the sound was so loud that it gave me or exacerbated my tinnitus. (The specific moment was the monolith on the Moon "shrieking," but there's another moment like that later where it goes from absolutely still to screamingly loud.)

Threads - Saw this as a teenager and Day After too but wanted to rewatch this one. Still fucking horrifying and not at all like the Mad Max fantasy everyone has clamped onto in the decades since. I remember in 7th grade we were talking about nukes for some reason and instead of some duck and cover nonsense, our teacher commented how she hoped to be at ground zero so there was no chance of survival. May we all be so lucky.

Metal Lords on netflix. This is a love letter to metal and the angsty kids drawn to it in high school. It's not a great film, but it has enough humor, teenage era drama, and most importantly, an absolute love for the source music to carry it through. I can't even imagine what the music rights cost for this unless D&D, yes the infamous David Benihoff and D.B. Weiss of GOT fame, threw in all the $$$. What does it take to get Rob Halford to show up for a cameo?

Quite frankly, if this is what D&D gives netflix, may the metal gods scream!!! Anyone who was a former awkward kid in high school who used metal as an escape will relate to this.

Loved Metal Lords. I was a long haired metal head in high school, so this hit home pretty good. There was a surprisingly good foundation of metal tunes to be heard. I appreciated the Jason Newstead getting fired zinger. Interesting metal artist cameos.

Because I recently watched 2001, HBO put 2010: The Year We Make Contact in my recommendations. Figured I might as well watch it while my memories of 2001 are still fresh. I saw it once before, when it came out in 1984. There was a new wide screen theater complex in our area, so I saw it there. This time, I watched it on my big screen tv.

2001 was 2.5 hours long, but felt much longer than that due to the slow pace of most scenes. 2010 was only 2 hours long, but moves along at such a smooth pace that it feels more like a 90 minute movie.

While lacking the powerful and iconic moments that everybody remembers from 2001, 2010 is in all other respects a better movie. There is more warmth, humor, and humanity in the characters. The dialogue is better. The cold war politics intrude to just the right degree. The story telling offers more clarity. Like many sequels, 2010 revisits several important elements from the original, but it always feels crucial to the story without feeling like fan service. Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, and Helen Mirren are all good casting choices, and deliver decent performances.

Death on the Nile (2022) is a bloated bore that I should have turned off halfway through. And by halfway through I mean an hour in, which is still before the actual murder takes place.

Like I said on Twitter, the film is terrible and I cannot think of a better reason why than them covering the origin story of Poirot's moustache. Of all the things they could do, of all the random changes they could insert, they decided to add an explanation for the strange look of his facial hair.

This film is a waste of footage.

Sonic 2 is a lot of fun. I know basically nothing about whatever game storylines they may be mining for these films but clearly two tails and knuckles are in some of them because wow did the kids in the audience react well to those characters, as well as the post credits reveal for the inevitable Sonic 3.

Jim Carrey steals the film, much like he did in the first one. James Marsters has a bit less to do I think, and doesn't get to play off Carrey as much, but still serves as the surrogate parent for Sonic. There is a bit of silly human drama with the secondary characters (the wife, her sister, etc) to eat up some non-CGI screen time but they do their best and generate a fair number of laughs.

And DAMN, seeing the Top Gun trailer in theather....woooooow. Gonna have to find an IMAX for that one.