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

I watched Nope on Amazon Prime last night. Should have been called Eh.

It's well put together, and well acted... but just fairly boring for most of the film. Weaker than Peele's prior two films, in my opinion.

Saw DnD movie last night. Very good on all levels.

everyone in my group expected more 'woke' or preaching, but it was absent.

Smeagol wrote: Saw DnD movie last night. Very good on all levels.

everyone in my group expected more 'woke' or preaching, but it was absent.

Got tickets for saturday, very hyped.

Who knows, maybe it will launch a 25 film, 15 year DnDCU spree and we can all give superheroes a break for a bit

I think Hasbro/WOTC just has to crack the Drow and how to visualize them, then we should be in for a pretty good ride of Forgotten Realms stories if they mine their early books for material. FR can be "non-medieval britain/europe" enough that they should have a pretty free hand in casting (just keep my Cattie-Brie a ginger, please!) to keep a global appeal.

Curse of Azure Bonds, the Isles of Moonshae, Icewind Dale, soooo many good tales.

Watched John Wick 4, and if you were down with the previous films you will be down with this.

Extremely pleasant surprise was the shoutout to The Warriors.

I've caught a little bit of grief for this on another forum already. If you'd have asked me yesterday afternoon about Kelly's Heroes, I'd have said it was one of the best WW2 war movie heist comedies ever made. But after watching it last night after a long time between viewings, I have to say it's a little disappointing. It's not bad, but it's not great. It's too long. Some scenes do nothing for the film, and others just drag. The actors are great, and the countryside is nice. If it had been cut it down to two hours it would've been great. As-is, it's worth a watch but not as good as the movie I remembered.

Introduced the kid to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. While some of the portrayals of Peruvian natives and Egyptians have not aged well, this holds up as a masterpiece which goes from one great scene to the next. The soundtrack, the cinematography, the actors — even the bit parts, young Doc Oc and young Gimli! — own all their respective roles.

Also noteworthy for nazis being funny cartoon villains that everyone knows are too stupid and ridiculous to take seriously, instead of actual morons marching with tiki torches etc. But I digress.

One of the great argument for having kids: an excuse to rewatch and/or inflict the great films upon them.

RobertB wrote: I've caught a little bit of grief for this on another forum already. If you'd have asked me yesterday afternoon about Kelly's Heroes, I'd have said it was one of the best WW2 war movie heist comedies ever made. But after watching it last night after a long time between viewings, I have to say it's a little disappointing. It's not bad, but it's not great. It's too long. Some scenes do nothing for the film, and others just drag. The actors are great, and the countryside is nice. If it had been cut it down to two hours it would've been great. As-is, it's worth a watch but not as good as the movie I remembered.

Oh man, I definitely disagree. Watched it last year for the 10th or so time, still love it.

So Dungeons and Dragons:HAT (or whatever we end up calling this one to distinguish it from the previous DnD movies) was as good as promised. The film manages to make a world that feels authentic without distracting modern politics or pandering. Every character gets a realistic motivation that leads to a satisfying outcome (aside maybe from the druid, I don't think the tiefling aspect was explained well and she felt like the character with the least growth).

Plenty of sight gags as well, the SFX team did good work. Lots of dnd creatures we havent seen much of before and nice spell work. They even avoided a lot of the "final boss fight is just a video game with no human interaction" problems I have with lots of superhero films.

Definitely want more.

I didn’t like The Woman King as much as I wanted to. The characters were stock. Viola Davis alternated between stoic fury and stoic exhaustion. John Boyega played the king as one constantly annoyed that he had to keep doing things. I did enjoy Lashana Lynch’s Izogie as a more woman-of-the-soldiers commander than the aloof Nanisca. The story was stock, and every plot thread introduced in the back half was kind of dumb from the scheming wife to the love interest to the long-lost daughter.

I could have forgiven all that. Woman King wanted to be an epic in the mold of Braveheart, and it’s a well-worn genre with its own conventions. What I can’t forgive is not playing up the West African setting that makes the movie unique. Give me sweeping vistas. Don’t give me every other scene in that one palace courtyard. My favorite parts of the movie felt unique to Dahomey: the spear wrestling, the soldiers whipping themselves up for battle. Give me more of that and give me that in the cinematography.

I recently watched Fire and Ice on Amazon Prime. I have no idea why I didn't see this movie back in 1982, because this would have been mandatory viewing for me back then. Animated fantasy by Ralph Bakshi, based on the art of Boris Vallejo, with rotoscoping. I was a huge fan (back then) of the Heavy Metal movie that was in theatres that same summer. My best guess is that Fire and Ice might have left theatres fairly quickly because it didn't go over well with mainstream audiences, so I just didn’t get a chance to see it before it was gone. If I had seen Fire and Ice in 1982, I would have loved it. Nice animation for that time, lots of action and violence, and most of the characters are wearing skimpy outfits, especially the attractive females.

As a middle-aged adult, I found Fire and Ice to be just okay. The animation isn't impressive by modern standards, and the movie is full of standard fantasy tropes. And the movie clocks in a little under 90 minutes, which is almost always a sign of a mediocre movie. If you have nothing better to do, Fire and Ice is an acceptable way to pass some time, but I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to see it.

F&I is nice just for the fluid animation. After a steady diet of the janky stuff we get these days, old school animation is just a pleasure to watch. There are anime titles out there that I still can't believe folks drew BY HAND.

I’m just the opposite in opinion. Back when I first saw F&I as a teenager. I wasn’t impressed. Rotoscoped animation wasn’t something I liked, I much preferred animation that wasn’t “cheating” by drawing over actors. The story wasn’t engaging enough for me.

I recently revisited it and I found it fantastic. I’m less against rotoscoping, seeing it as another expression of art. The story is much better to me. I like the lack of exposition, nobody talks needlessly to explain their world to the audience, they just exist and behave as they normally would. I find that refreshing; I don’t know all the details, history or mechanisms, and I actually don’t need to. I also like movies that give quiet scenes, instead of rapid cuts. Older movies did this more than more recent ones and it’s great. The end result is allowing the audience to observe, think and make conclusions instead of being fed all of it.

A better movie than I remember and, as a middle-aged adult, one I think is worth watching again.

I am enjoying this discussion about the tension between our younger and older selves.

I rewatched The Matrix for the first time in probably ten years. Ten years ago I saw it with sarcastic ubernerds in a class and it felt a little hokey. This time everyone was enthusiastic and it seemed almost perfect.

I watched Bladerunner for class a few years ago and although I liked it, it wasn't the perfect movie that I felt it was supposed to be.

tl;dr: I have no opinions of my own and am easily swayed by others.

I watched Blade Runner in college for the first time immediately after reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and didn't really enjoy it. I went back and watched it 10 years later and really enjoyed it.

jason10mm wrote: So Dungeons and Dragons:HAT (or whatever we end up calling this one to distinguish it from the previous DnD movies) was as good as promised. The film manages to make a world that feels authentic without distracting modern politics or pandering. Every character gets a realistic motivation that leads to a satisfying outcome (aside maybe from the druid, I don't think the tiefling aspect was explained well and she felt like the character with the least growth).

Plenty of sight gags as well, the SFX team did good work. Lots of dnd creatures we havent seen much of before and nice spell work. They even avoided a lot of the "final boss fight is just a video game with no human interaction" problems I have with lots of superhero films.

Definitely want more.

In terms of acronyms, I'm going with DADHAT.

I saw it this weekend with my kids (ages 9, 13, and 26), and we all loved it. As my oldest daughter noted, "It was way better than any MCU movie in the last 3 years." Agreed, even considering that DADHAT borrows pretty heavily from the MCU playbook in regards to tone and humor.

Stuff I loved:

The cast, but especially Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez. They managed to create some really fun and interesting characters, with a real sense of history between them. I can only imagine they're going to spawn a whole lot of knockoff D&D characters in many a home game (not unlike the generation of "drow rangers" before them).

The way the movie just casually drops in tieflings, halfings, tabaxi, dragonborn, and whatever the bird people are called, totally unremarked upon and unexplained. Very effective and subtle world-building. This world has cat-people, and nobody bats an eye. Cool.

The "nested quest" story structure. They need the thing in order to get into the place, so they go talk to the guy, who knows where the thing is. Loved it. Very D&D.

The inside jokes and easter eggs are fun, but not distracting. I hope you all catch who the other adventuring party is during the big arena scene. I'm not going to spoil it, but if you know, you know. I had to explain it to my kids of course, and they're like, "Jesus, Dad, how old ARE you?" Pretty fucking old, thanks.

Rene-Jean Page's NPC Paladin. The dude steals the whole movie, and he's only in it for like 15 minutes.

The special effects work is terrific, and better than any recent MCU movie. I loved that most of the big action scenes take place during the day. The movie is bright and colorful. I'm so frustrated with action movies who take place at night during the rain, in order to hide their shoddy effects.

I hope this movie is successful, I would love to see more. Keep going with this cast, or even with a completely new cast. I heard they're trying to make a Drizzt TV show which ... sigh, whatever. I loved Drizzt when I was a kid, but those books sadly don't hold up very well. But, he's easily the most popular D&D character, so it would be weird if they DIDN'T bank on that.