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

Jackwraith wrote: Totally with you there. Tried watching Loki because everyone raved about it. Didn't laugh once and never went past episode 1. Tried watching WandaVision, again because people were raving. Only made it through half the first episode and was like: "Why am I doing this?" The really disappointing thing that I read about Ant-Man 3 is that they took away the essential element that made the first two films the hits that they were: the humor. Why do you still have Paul Rudd as the lead if you're going to make a film that isn't at all funny? Why did you remove Michael Pena's character, who was an absolute highlight of both of the previous films? It just doesn't seem like a sound creative approach and I'd sit through possibly an entire film of Pena giving his take on the weird happenings in the quantum realm before I'd sit through another two minutes of Marvel explosions, at this point.

The Scarlet Witch got cut entirely too much slack in the MCU. "Sorry I, uh, kidnapped an entire town and mind controlled them." "That's okay, we all have bad days."

On the list of classic cinema I saw:

Snatch - I'd seen it four or five times before, but my daughter hadn't seen it. She enjoyed it. If you liked Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, this is its spiritual cousin.

The Long Kiss Goodnight - "What do you want to watch?" "I dunno, what do you want to watch." So we ended up with this. My wife and I saw it in the theaters when it came out, and we had both seen it a few times before, so we knew what to expect. 90's style action movie, with really good actors playing cardboard characters. Aggressively okay.

The Meg - There are definitely better things to do with your free time than to watch it, but a laptop on the coffee table does make you feel a little less guilty when watching it. It's kind of a weird combination of perfectly bland with a surprising amount of gore in spots. Unless underwater scenes, shark movies, or Jason Statham are your thing, just skip it.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - It's definitely the best D&D movie that's been made. So it has that going for it. Pretty bland overall including the characters. I would not buy their action figures. It also doesn't help that Chris Pine has less charisma than a gelatinous cube. They needed an Iron Man to start the franchise and they didn't pull it off.

Ahhh, I liked Chris in that film. It's not his fault he got saddled with a dead wife and zero chemistry daughter plotline. None of the men in the film really come out as strong as they could but I'll forgive it because the ladies carried this one.

Real curious if it will be seen as a sequel worthy success or not. According to box office mojo it hasn't even cracked 100 mill in the US and 200 million worldwide so barring some sort of MASSIVE dvd/streaming hit all the positive word of mouth won't be enough I fear. Maybe it makes it back on merchandise/tie-ins?

Also watched it this week, and while I agree a line of action figures (or minis) wouldn't sell that well, I was very much entertained.

Jason's comment about the women carrying the movie is spot on, I think. It's so obvious that it feels deliberate to me: this movie has zero Conan-like Über-Machos (well, none that live to see the end), no toxic murder hobos, half the fighters are female characters, not trying to offend anyone but it wasn't the DnD I knew at all.

The Barbarians' visit to her Ex's house was a highlight. Almost as if someone is trying to broaden the target market.

Pretty good and even original for a spin-off of to a game that's a spin-off to a series of books that were a spin-off to northern European myths.

I thought Michelle Rodriguez was great in this. But her character is an uber-macho murder-hobo. I wouldn't say either of the female characters ever really took the lead or carried anything. Other than the one ex-husband scene played for laughs. They're fighters who mostly stayed in the background waiting for action like pretty much every D&D fighter I've ever played with. I couldn't even tell you owlbear girls name or remember her backstory at all since her scenes were mostly CGI of different animals. Maybe I'm being overly critical. But I will stand by that Chris Pine was a miscast and none of the characters in the movie stood out.

Not disagreeing. Owlbear girl had exactly one scene of backstory, where she tries to sell her characters' motivation really hard, but there isn't that much to sell.
And Chris Pine just isn't for me, either. I never saw him in anything where I didn't think "this actor is acting" first.

If I had a hand in writing DnD, I would have added a scene where Druid-girl does acknowledge that "the planner" does have value. Maybe a scene where wizard boy, flush with confidence, realizes that as savior of the city he has his pick of women, and can approach druid girl as a peer, not a simp. Give her more of a growth arc and him less beta male attributes. I feel like the first couple dozen times you torch a crowd of baddies will cure you of social anxiety and adolescent type awkwardness. Pretty sure he hit fifth level during the film and we all know that once you get level 3 spells its "prime time wizarding!" from then on out

Sisu was disappointing, perhaps I expected too much.

It draws from Inglorious Basterds, First Blood, Fury Road, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It's not nearly as good as any of these.

Way too over the top and and absurd, in a comical way. Not a terrible film by any means, but not a great one.

I never liked Elvis, though I did like a couple of his songs. Elvis was already a fat, sweaty, drug addict by the time I became aware of his existence, and the initial near-religious cultural reaction to his death soon gave away to a great deal of mockery. But I loved Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann, and also found his Great Gatsby to be decent. Baz has a keen eye for spectacle, and will go to great lengths to utterly nail an emotional beat. With trepidation, I finally decided to watch Baz's Elvis (2022).

The musical selections were surprising and interesting. For a movie about a famous musician, there was a surprising amount of music by other people. It's true that Elvis appropriated black music and repackaged it for white audiences, though he did inject his own sense of style. But I didn't think that the rap song in middle of the movie was relevant to a guy who died a couple of years before rap even started. There were similar deviations while the end credits rolled, but I think that Baz was trying to show the ongoing influence of Elvis on musicians.

The acting was fine. Tom Hanks disappears entirely into the role of Colonel Parker, who functions as an occasional narrator during the movie. Austin Butler was credible as both slim young Elvis and chunky older Elvis. Everybody else on screen was decent, if not quite memorable. Baz doesn't do long scenes with a lot of dialogue, he is better at linking scenes of dramatic impact with soaring music and glitter and lights, and stringing them all together like a necklace. All the important stuff is addressed in order. I still don't like Elvis, but maybe I would have liked him better without the Colonel steering his life and career. I don't think I need to ever see this movie again, but I'm not sorry that I watched it today.

We watched The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. It was decent, but nothing special. GotG Vol.1 is our favorite MCU movie, but the sequels were just okay. In the past week, we even watched the remaining MCU stuff we hadn't seen to catch up. Though we're not super into the MCU, it's light and easy entertainment, we weren't impressed. She-Hulk had terrible CGI, D-list "heroes" used for comedic effect, and the breaking of the 4th wall was done poorly. Black Panther 2 was just kind of boring, though I did like Namor and his mythology. Quantamania was way too Star Warsy for my liking, and also just kind of boring (redundant when referencing Star Wars, I know). I think we might give up on the MCU entirely at this point. We haven't cared about anything in Phase 4 or 5 so far (other than GotG3), and looking ahead, none of it seems the least bit interesting. It was a good run while it lasted.

Recently watched "Enemy" by Villeneuve and starring Jake Gyllenhaal

Weird movie with tons of odd imagery, people that like to read between the lines of a lot of inexpelicable events and Spiders appearing symbolically will like it.

Also watched "The Rover" with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson. A desperate guy (Pearce) in the near post apocalyptic future has to do desperate guy stuff. Very violent, and potentially pointless but I didn't turn it off which says something in the streaming era. (it was more interesting than the Funkoverse rulebook I was trying to read) The Rover is australian with heavy accents and a lot of slang, in case you aren't down for that.

Enemy is my favorite Villeneuve film. So odd and disquieting.

It's a weird one. Putting it above Prisoner is bonkers though

I really like Prisoners (Paul Dano is so good in it). And I even rewatched it a month ago so it's fresh in my mind.

But, from the Villeneuve I've seen, I'd rank them like this:

1. Enemy
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Arrival
4. Sicario
5. Prisoners
6. Dune

I really like all of those as well. Dune was great in my opinion.