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

Disgustipater wrote: I’ve been interested in this strictly because I liked In Bruges. It sounds like the tone of Banshees is not the same? I actually don’t know anything about the plot.

A little Closer in tone would be The Guard, Young Offenders, The Gentlemen or the show Brassic.
Only one of them has Farrell, though.

I was looking for something a little dumber to watch, just for a few laughs and stumbled upon Vacation Friends with the one and only John Cena as a drug fiend version of his likeable persona (or is that just how he is as a person? I would love that, actually. Not the drug fiend version, mind).
Normies on vacation in Mexico meet a strange and carefree couple, crazy antics, the vacation friends then show up uninvited at the wedding to wreak havoc. Everyone becomes a better person, love all around. Except this is only what this movie might have been. It can't be that hard, can it, it's been done a million times before. Here they try to get away without ANY character development, every single character in the movie stays exactly the same. And they aren't even characters, you don't need more than one line to descibe any of them.
So it gets old really fast. Faster than the actual runtime is what I'm trying to say. And yo might feel insulted by the script. This is a waste of your time only if you can't do without said character development. Or characters, actually. Or a plot. So it's not really a movie, ok. But I did laugh two or three times. And I like John Cena, sue me.

On a pretty good run of genre films lately. Somebody I Used To Know feels like a rom com by somebody who loves them but is a little embarrassed to admit. It hits all the notes of the career woman returning to her small hometown and reconnecting with an old boyfriend but does them in a more restrained way. And with copious swearing and a surprising amount of nudity. It was a delight to see Alison Brie and Danny Pudi together again.

Up to the finale of Flashpoint, it felt oddly contemporary, like it was built to be enjoyed as GIFs. Donnie Yen throwing off his shoes before taking on someone in a boxing ring. A villain introduced by punching a hole in a toilet to get his phone back. It felt so minimal compared to what I expected. But then we got to that glorious finale and twenty minutes of straight violence. So great.

Upgrade was a true original. Not its by-the-numbers revenge plot but its vision of action. It created a new martial art in asking what it would look like if a computer could fight. And the camerawork made me want to jump up. Too bad mid budget films like these are exceedingly rare.

Fans of the Idris Elba cop show Luther should check out the just released film on Netflix. It is WAY better than I expected it to be. Admittedly I had low expectations.

The ending gets a bit ludicrous but it is a good time regardless. If you have not watched the series, I'd suggest doing that before you watch the film. Certainly not vital, but I would not call it a good entry into the world of Luther.

Have always been meaning to watch the series. Am assuming I could watch the film first, since you said "entry"?

hehe I think you'd be better off watching episode 1 of the first season. The movie doesn't spend any time telling you who Luther is, or anything.

After it was talked up quite a bit around here, I was excited to get the opportunity to watch Prey. Now that I've seen it.... this film is squarely average. Every beat is telegraphed a mile away, a character dies and literally no one mentions it, etc. I think the writing could have been punched up a bit.

The concept of the film... now that is extremely cool.

Rachels death warrant proves that Deckard isn't a replicant. She was completely harmless and would have just run out the clock. But that society was so terrified of replicants being on Earth they had to terminate her. Yet they allow Deckard to run around with a gun and license to kill anyone he thinks is a skinjob. She proves the idea he's a replicant is ludicrous. They would never allow someone they knew was a replicant to live on Earth. Deckard would be the most terrifying one since he's got access and weaponry. No fucking way.

Los Angeles, November 2019

1982 thought we'd get flying cars and off-world colonies. We got a pandemic.

I saw two other films this weekend...
Sicario - Day of the Soldado. The first Sicario was pretty cool. This one is... much less cool. Not bad, just not great.

Spiral - this "sequel" to Saw is... well that all depends on how you feel about Saw. I liked the first film, but after that really couldn't stomach the gore. This one has some pretty gory scenes, but what really turned me off is that they throw every cop movie cliche in the book in here, up to and including the renegade cop who doesn't need a rookie partner. Also, Chris Rock's acting is... sub par. He is only good at portraying Chris Rock.

ChristopherMD wrote: Rachels death warrant proves that Deckard isn't a replicant. She was completely harmless and would have just run out the clock. But that society was so terrified of replicants being on Earth they had to terminate her. Yet they allow Deckard to run around with a gun and license to kill anyone he thinks is a skinjob. She proves the idea he's a replicant is ludicrous. They would never allow someone they knew was a replicant to live on Earth. Deckard would be the most terrifying one since he's got access and weaponry. No fucking way.

The idea of Deckard as a replicant also completely destroys one of the main themes of the film: What makes us human? How is it that a machine like Rachel can show so much emotion, while a human like Deckard has so little of it, especially when confronted by her distress in his apartment until it finally dawns on him that this is a PERSON whose world he's just destroyed? It's just a stupid fan theory from people who didn't really understand the story.

Whatever happened to Ridley Scott? Two amazing sci-fi films (Alien & Blade Runner), Gladiator, Thelma & Louise. Then nothing. I heard some rumor he was thinking about revisiting Alien, but thank goodness that never happened! Can you imagine how awful that would be?

His more recent output has been uneven post GLADIATOR.

Good:

BLACK HAWK DOWN
AMERICAN GANGSTER
THE MARTIAN

Middling:

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ( directors cut only )

SHITE

ROBIN HOOD
ALIEN COVENANT
PROMETHEUS


He's got an upcoming Napolean biopic which I am optimistic on if he can refind his roots from when he did THE DUELLISTS.

I’m on a Samurai kick. Last week I saw The Hidden Fortress and this week it was Yojimbo. Both are fantastic movies. Next will be Sanjuro and then Incident at Blood Pass.

Gregarius wrote: Whatever happened to Ridley Scott? Two amazing sci-fi films (Alien & Blade Runner), Gladiator, Thelma & Louise. Then nothing. I heard some rumor he was thinking about revisiting Alien, but thank goodness that never happened! Can you imagine how awful that would be?

He had the same problem that a lot of directors fall into: he mistook spectacle for story. When both Black Rain and Thelma & Louise were huge moneymakers on star power (and minus story in the former), he shifted gears from thoughtful pieces like Blade Runner to circus maximi like Gladiator. After that, it was mostly about making a splash with STARS(!!!), although The Martian is a solid all-around film and American Gangster was at least a good effort to present an interesting period. But, yeah, you look at the trifecta of The Duellists, Alien, and Blade Runner and would've thought that this guy was on his way to being an auteur with muscle, but it just didn't happen because he decided he liked explosions in more of his films than not. (Who uses siege artillery in a field battle? No one with any sense, but they look impressive, so...)

I should've included Black Hawk Down. Much as I like The Martian, though, the directing seems pretty pedestrian, like a Ron Howard film.

I've had Kingdom of Heaven in my to-watch pile for ages. I need to get to that one.