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

I remember parts of that movie made me feel uncomfortable as a child. My dad watched it often and we always saw it with him.

Watched a few minutes of Rebel Moon on Netflix. It was very dull and formulaic. Maybe it gets better but I doubt I’ll find out.

Courtesy of Amazon Prime, I watched Scotland, PA (2001). It is Shakespeare's MacBeth adapted into a dark comedy. The story focuses on a fast food restaurant in a small town in Pennsylvania (named Scotland) sometime in the mid-'70s. Maura Tierney, James Le Gros, and Christopher Walken star, and they all deliver fine performances. Andy Dick plays a supporting role. News Radio fans may be disappointed that Tierney and Dick don't share any scenes in this movie, but apparently Dick is a huge pain in the ass in real life, so Tierney probably stipulated that she wouldn't do any scenes with him.

Though I was already familiar with MacBeth, the change in setting made the story fresh, and there were still some surprises. The soundtrack goes heavy on hits from Bad Company, but also makes good use of some other '70s songs of a lower profile. Oh, and Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven. I enjoyed it and even laughed out loud a couple of times.

The Iron Claw feels both like a traditional Oscar-bait biopic and a critique of it. Zac Efron stars as the oldest surviving son (in more ways than one) of the Von Erich family wrestling dynasty. There's a rise and tragic fall. There is whirlwind romance and descents into addiction. There are unabashed swings of mawkish emotion and incredible physical transformations.

The basic template varies little from a Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocket Man, but the lower stakes, attaining the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World, described by our lead as a job promotion, make it go down smooth. Furthermore, our lead exists on the edges of the biopic excess. He doesn't experience it. He survives it. It's just a little off kilter and the better for it.

Anyway, it's good. Some great visuals and Ric Flair's scene is great. Between this and Daniel Warren Johnson's Do A Power Bomb! it's been a banner year for professional-wrestling-inspired-art for a person who don't care about professional wrestling.

Over the last three days, I re-watched the Christopher Nolan Batman films, one per day, having not seen them in many years. Seeing them this way, as a complete set, I have a few thoughts and points of interest. On the whole, they all hold up and have their moments. They are also rather long, and spend a bit too much energy on copaganda. I like Bale's performance as Batman the best of all of the live action films, although I have to laugh when he bellows variations on "WHERE IS IT?" or "WHERE IS SHE / HE?" as they happen in literally all three films.

Batman Begins
This one spends quite a lot of time doing setup, but that isn't too surprising. At one point, Batman is scaling a building while a small blond boy is on the balcony. Batman gives him a gadget. That boy would grow up.... to be King Joffre. Also, Rutger Hauer tries to take control of Wayne Enterprises.

The Dark Knight
Overall I'd say this is the best of the three films, mainly due to Heath Ledger's fantastic performance as Joker. It's also the "smallest" plot, since Joker isn't trying to destroy Gotham. Also, surprisingly, no one attempts to take control of Wayne Enterprises.

Dark Knight Rises
Tom Hardy's performance as Bane is great, and I love his goofy voice. I think the film would have been better served by actually using the Knightfall plot from the comics, however. They do touch on it, mainly with Bane breaking Batman's back. Also, the guy who plays Danny on Bloodline tries to take control of Wayne Enterprises.

hotseatgames wrote: Watched a few minutes of Rebel Moon on Netflix. It was very dull and formulaic. Maybe it gets better but I doubt I’ll find out.

Spoiler alert: it does not get better.

I watched the whole thing over the course of a couple of evenings. It's pretty much exactly what you expect from a Zach Snyder movie -- some fun action scenes, some cool-looking slow-motion shots, a drab black/brown/gray color scheme, lots of paper-thin characterization, and boring exposition dumped in the clunkiest way imaginable.

The plot is "The Magnificent Seven" set in a grimdark Star Wars universe. There's some sort of evil empire. There's rebels. There's a sassy robot with a British accent. There's cruel, sadistic warlords. The main character is basically just Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy right down to her origin story. The ships and tech look like they're lifted from Lynch's Dune, or maybe Warhammer.

The frustrating thing is, there's a good kernel of a story idea here. Gamora (or whatever her name is, I can't remember) recruits a bunch of warriors to defend her home village from the evil empire. It's a story that's been done a million times, but it still works. The problem is that each warrior she recruits gets about 3 minutes to show off their skills during their introduction, then they are shoved to the background, and never heard from again until the big final action scene. There's no exploration of who these people are, their backgrounds, their motivations, or even why they would sign up for this fight in the first place.

I'll give Snyder credit for being able to craft some interesting visuals, but the man should not be allowed near a word processor.

It was originally pitched as a Star Wars movie but Disney declined.

Rewatched both Ant-Man and Ant-Man & The Wasp and watched Quantumania for the first time over the past couple weeks while exercising in the morning.

The first two remain decent films, with the first one being one of the more delightful of the entire Marvel oeuvre and the second one still being a solid entry. The last one, not so much. The key with the first two is their sense of humor. Obviously, with a comedy actor (Paul Ruud) leading the way, you're going to have to have some degree of humor and/or farce in the script that comes from a different angle than just the gallows humor that often ends up in modern superhero stories. The first one has that element suffused throughout the script. It's actively funny in many ways. One of the most important ways in both of the first two films is Michael Peña. His character's unabashed enthusiasm for life and the monologues that he goes on (and where he frequently strays from the topic at hand) are highlights of both movies. So, the right approach to the third would be to remove those entirely, right?!

But it's not just the lack of Peña (which is a significant loss) that makes the third film so dreary. It's the story as a whole, where everything is loaded with menace and darkness and the injected humor is one sequence at the beginning where Scott Lang is a celebrity in his neighborhood. But that's all artificially constructed and there's very little opportunity for Ruud to exercise his chops and make things funny at various moments throughout the whole adventure. It's very linear and very programmed and also functions exactly like the prelude to a book, which is where I think Disney's PR machine led them astray. We go into this knowing that Kang is the new Thanos, so everything that happens here is like the previous end credits scenes that delivered the lurking menace of Thanos, but stretched out into a two-hour film. There's not enough story here for a two-hour film. There's barely enough for a half-hour TV episode. But, again, everything is carrying the extreme burden of being the FIRST OFFICIAL APPEARANCE OF THE NEW BIG BAD FOR THE NEXT TWO PHASES, which will put a strain on any story; to say nothing of one presented by a character (and actor) who's largely inhabited the comic relief side of your overall picture for the past few years. This is on top of the fact that the sprawling empire that Kang has built and rules with an omnipresent iron fist seems to fall over and disintegrate in the space of 20 minutes. This is moment #765,428 of noting the fact that most SF writers don't really grasp just how big planets (and galaxies!) really are when it comes to social transformation.

I didn't go into it expecting it to be funny, in the same way I didn't go into the prior two films expecting them to be funny. Superheroes do not require humor to be good stories. But this was not only a departure from form for the main character (I've found Evangeline Lilly and Hope to be mostly dolorous presences that largely dampen the enthusiasm of the first two films), but done so with a story that's routine at best and yawn-worthy at worst. Take all of this with the enormous grain of salt that is me having given up on superhero comics for the most part some 30 years ago when, just like in this case, they all started sounding the same to one degree or another. I still say the best film of the modern Marvel output is the first one: Iron Man.

n815e wrote: It was originally pitched as a Star Wars movie but Disney declined.

Ha. Many, many years ago, I was sitting near Dave Sim at a small press show in Bethesda, MD, listening to him tell some fans that "If you want to write X-Men, just write X-Men and call it something different." Sometimes that works. Sometimes it really doesn't.

The saddest thing about Quantumania, other than a totally wasted Bill Murray, is that with Jonathon Majors issues, Marvel is likely to pivot completely away from Kang so QM is just a dead end movie now, not even serving as a Big Bad (tm) set-up.

Watched Sound of Freedom on amazon. I've vague notions about this film being shelved for being "uncomfortable for the elites" or whatever and the churches jumping on board with it when it did get released. It's a fairly pedestrian film, but it tackles such a brutal topic and wisely zooms in on one particular child, so it hits hard as a parent as well as an educational piece about the evils of child trafficking (if anyone was unaware of it). The "religious" part is really just 1 scene where God is mentioned, the rest is pretty much low budget cop action though the cinematography is actually really good. Jim Caziviel does his bit as he always does, I suppose his casting adds that aura of quality. The third act is a bit of a departure from the rest of the film and I thought it was gonna turn into Commando but no, I think it must hew more closely to the "based on a true story" part.

Anyway, if you want a sober film about a horrible evil that does actually make you feel pretty good by the end, I recommend it.

Bill Murray is, indeed, completely wasted because his role is nothing but eye candy. He's on screen for three minutes and contributes precisely zero to the story. His presence moves the plot forward not one inch and is obviously just there so people can talk about the ham-handed equivalent of an "Easter egg" that (comedic actor!) Murray is in the new Ant-Man film. He probably showed up for those three minutes for an enormous fee which could have, y'know, gone back into the casting budget to, say, bring Michael Peña back...

Re: Sound of Freedom. I'm not sure what you mean by "shelved." The film had wide release for an independent film, appearing in almost 3000 theaters. The fact that its story is complete bullshit (a fanciful depiction of events that never happened to a former DHS agent who's been credibly accused of sexual harassment) is something that pairs nicely with the myths promoted by both said agent and star, Jim Caviezel, that make up a good chunk of the QAnon beliefs about child-consuming Satanic cults and their shadow rule of the world (straight outta Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Jackwraith wrote: I still say the best film of the modern Marvel output is the first one: Iron Man.

No love for David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury?

Wasn't he a lifeguard or something like that?

Jackwraith wrote: Re: Sound of Freedom. I'm not sure what you mean by "shelved." The film had wide release for an independent film, appearing in almost 3000 theaters. The fact that its story is complete bullshit (a fanciful depiction of events that never happened to a former DHS agent who's been credibly accused of sexual harassment) is something that pairs nicely with the myths promoted by both said agent and star, Jim Caviezel, that make up a good chunk of the QAnon beliefs about child-consuming Satanic cults and their shadow rule of the world (straight outta Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

The film was done years ago, some version of why it wasn't released till now was probably what I heard. Not sure what any controversy around the films depiction of grooming (albeit a very accelerated form) and trafficking would be, particularly as the Epstein papers come to light these past few days, the idea that a rich guy would set up an island retreat and stock it with underaged sexual partners seems...less fanciful in 2023 than perhaps it did in 2018 or whenever this film was initially pitched.

Anyway, enough about that film, I'm off to try to finish Rebel Moon for the 3rd or 4th time

Jackwraith wrote: Wasn't he a lifeguard or something like that?

Nah, that was just a cover for his paranormal private investigation service!