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

mezike wrote: I need to find a good movie to watch. Something with a plot, character arcs, subtext, meaning, and a resolution that isn't either a wide open invitation to the next movie or someone solving things with a big explosion/blue light in the sky/punching the antagonist.

Pig.
I just watched this a few days ago, and I was astounded by it. It may feel like a John Wick ripoff for the first third or so, but it is really quite different.

Edit: I feel the need to clarify: It may feel like the premise is a John Wick ripoff. There are no action scenes, no gun battles, and only a couple of scenes of violence that are mostly subdued.

If Uncharted was written by someone over the age of 14, that person should be ashamed. What a dumb, dumb film.

I made the mistake of watching Men in Black III, thinking I had never seen it, but I had seen it, and yet I continued to watch it because of end of summer term grading stress. Then I thought, "Oh, I'll just click on a few minutes of MIB II" which was also a terrible waste of time. So now I'm watching MIB I, the only one worth watching. I read that even the comic that the movie is based on is not that great. One good part about MIB III, I should mention, is that Will Smith gets slapped about five times.

I disliked the first Men in Black movie, but the cartoon series was good. I didn't bother with the MiB sequel movies.

ChristopherMD wrote: Booksmart - I don't watch a lot of high school comedies and I'm not sure why I watched this one but I'm glad I gave it a shot. It seems to be commonly regarded as a female-led Superbad. However unlike that movie this ended up having some interesting characters, a decent coming-of-age story, and I actually found a lot of it funny.

I saw this on Hulu last night and ended up watching the whole thing. The main characters were great, and I realize it's not supposed to be a realistic depiction of high school life, but the main characters' classmates just felt so absurdly weird and caricatured that it kind of drew me out of the movie. It was pretty funny in parts but felt like it could have been a better movie. My favorite movie in this genre is American Graffiti, but nostalgia definitely plays a role in that decision.

I wish someone could capture the banality and boredom of high school, but still make a movie that was worth watching.

Watched Prey. It's obviously the best Predator movie since the original, which isn't setting the bar tremendously high. In fact, it's really a better-constructed film than the original, with better characters and much better cinematography. But it's also basically the same film as the original, with only slight variations around the lead: Warrior is led into/falls into bad situation. Deals with bad situation while discovering something even worse. Sees everyone get laid waste around by Something Even Worse. Leads Something into attempted traps, which are avoided. Finally achieves victory confirming/reconfirming badass status. It's Joseph Campbell from the word "go" and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's still pretty routine, too. Definitely worth the time to watch, though, and have to give the studio credit for making a fully Comanche-dubbed version, too.

Bullet Train was a lot of fun. I remember seeing the posters and joking with my girlfriend about how terrible it looked. And yet, when a cinephile friend took our group to see because it was some of the most entertaining films he had seen in a while, I trusted his judgement. And it's not a perfect or very high brow film by any means, but it is entertaining and I did laugh quite a bit.

At a glance, the movie is a black comedy in the style of, perhaps Pulp Fiction or a Cohen brothers film, like Fargo. It lays cliché after cliché, with several national stereotypes of assassins bumping each other in a train. You have the clueless American, the quirky Brit, the Japanese yakuza and so the cold Russians in a pretty funny melange. I didn't care about the action, I was there for the quips. And I can see it feeling a bit tiring to those who don't want quips or ironic detachment.

What struck me the most is the whole mystery angle. While watching it I kept thinking of Agatha Christie's And then there were none, with a small dash of Murder on the Orient Express and a Colombo joke. There's a hypodermic syringe, sleeping powder and a character who is killed when others leave. At first I dismissed it as being born out of my current obsession with the genre. But then, things started to fall in place. The film is actually based on a novel, which was written by a Japanese author. And something I've learned is that, in Japan, the "orthodox" detective genre never died, but actually played a large part in shaping the modern novel.

So I decided to look it up. And what do you know, he IS a mystery author. He has writen prizes for his crime stories and even wrote for the Ellery Queen magazine. So I'm not obsessed! Just...percetive, I guess. Between you and I, seeing how the genre evolves and plays with itself is extremely interesting, specially when it's often dismissed as having little literary value.

As for the whitecasting, or rather, "American casting" controversy, it's a mixed bag. On one hand, the whole "national assassins" angle is a lot of fun and makes for a great adaptation. On the other, Japan looks fake and forced at parts. Nobody notices the large number of foreigners on the train, much less the main characters themselves, who are not surprised at finding another English speaker. Most notably, the idea of a Russian man joining the Yakuza and climbing the ranks until he takes over just doesn't work. It goes against the very definition of Yakuza and their relationship with Russia.

hotseatgames wrote: If Uncharted was written by someone over the age of 14, that person should be ashamed. What a dumb, dumb film.

I'll second that. My wife loves treasure hunt movies, so it made the cut. But it's not very good.

Also in the 'made the cut but not very good department', Red Notice. Ryan Reynolds once again saying Ryan Reynolds things. The Rock is The Rock, and Gil Gadot sure is pretty. But it's even dumber than Uncharted. I guess I deserved it, since I had seen a comment somewhere (could have been here) that said, "x was certainly a lot better than Red Notice," and I was curious.

Still trying to shake some virus that my brother gave me. Not covid according to the tests, but not good, whatever it was. So last night was movie night.

First we watched Black Dynamite. I didn't get to see any of the African American action films of the 70's, except for Shaft and Superfly, so I'm not the target for nostalgia. But you can see it's a nostalgic send-up of that genre that teases because it loves. IMO it wasn't quite as funny as I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, but it was well worth watching.

Then my wife wandered off, and I decided to watch Apollo 11. We know how it ends, but I can stand 90+ minutes of mission control chatter. Awesome stuff. I should have seen it in IMAX back when it first came out, and I'm not sure why I didn't.

So by the end of that I had hit my second wind and knew I was going to be up for a little while. I ended up watching Battle of Britain. Planes! And an insane number of British actors, including a young Ian McShane. As for human drama, it's kind of flat. But you don't watch it for drama, you watch it to see planes.

Black Dynamite is one of the most underrated films of all time. The show was good but the film is spectacular.

"I threw that shit before I even entered the room!"

Day Shift on Netflix. The movie is terrible but SO GODDAMN FUN. It is a balls to the wall evil dead meets Kung fu meets Vampire$ schlock fest with some tedious John Wick Continental like Lore (maybe R.I.P.D. Or MiB is a better analogy) but fuck I don't care. The kills are amazing, the action is great, the comedy almost all hits. Snoop Dogg with a mini gun is the hero I never knew I needed

Scott Adkins is such a sleeper martial arts star, I hope this film gets him into the high budget Netflix world he deserves. The fights in this film are BRUTAL in the most zany way. It doesn't really advance the vampire genre much, if any, as I think even the cool idea of fangs as $$$ bounty and being valuated based on species and age has been done before, as is the sunscreen idea in Blade.

The last line call back to Lost Boys....chefs kiss!

Third movie from the battle has been watched: The Taking of Pelham 123. God damn what a great time. And a glorious panoply of schlubby 70s dudes. The best final frame of a movie ever. 10/10.

Curious about the remake but I don't want to see a bunch of Chris Pines or Jared Letos in schlub suits. Denzel is a fine guy but even he would tell you he's no Walter Matthau.

Next up: Young Frankenstein

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Cranberries wrote: I wish someone could capture the banality and boredom of high school, but still make a movie that was worth watching.

Although not a movie, my favorite all time show set in high school times is Freaks and Geeks.

Saw Minions: Rise of Gru. It was worse than I anticipated.

Freaks and Geeks was great. It is set during the same year that I was a sophomore in high school, so the nostalgia factor is strong for me. Talented cast, and some bold stories.


In my own personal head canon, Black Snake Moan is the sequel to Pulp Fiction. Jules changes his name and moves back to the country where he grew up.

Shellhead wrote: In my own personal head canon, Black Snake Moan is the sequel to Pulp Fiction. Jules changes his name and moves back to the country where he grew up.

Hah, that probably works. I'm trying to remember early Sam Jackson roles to see where he developed his particular acting style, maybe he always had it? Without going to IMDB to cheat I gotta think Pulp Fiction was his breakout role but I"m sure he was in earlier stuff. Certainly by "Long Kiss Goodnight" he was basically "Samuel L. Jackson, the character" and stuck with it for the rest of his career. He's never had a long pause and needed a revival either.