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

Jackwraith wrote:

Nodens wrote: TWhat this movie has going for it is of course the music by Queen and Clancy Brown. And beheadings. And quotable lines. Oh my. I still loved it, warts and all. And even if you can't honestly say that it is a 'good' movie, some parts are perfect cinema.

Is genuinely a bad film. Will not begrudge anyone enjoying it. (And, yes, the sword technique is one of the things that sticks out to me every time I've seen it, as well. Have I seen a bad film more than once? I sure have.)

I agree that Highlander is a bad movie, with some great things: Queen, Clancy Brown, beheadings, and quotable lines. And an interesting overall concept, which is how we got a tv show that lasted several seasons, and multiple movie sequels of lesser quality. The notoriously bad first sequel movie made the mistake of trying to follow up the original movie, even though it had written itself into an ending that closed off any reasonable sequels. The tv show and other sequel movies functioned better with the understanding that it great to have these Highlanders running around and dueling each other, as long as it never came down to just one winning survivor.

In high school, I had a friend from Scotland who loved this movie so much. It’s a fun movie.

I liked the Highlander tv show, except for the super-annoying supporting character Richie. For all I know, Stan Kirsch may have been a lovely human being, but his character Richie was a constant drag on the show. He didn't have much of a career after Highlander, possibly due to his role on Highlander, his level of talent, or both.

Jackwraith wrote:

Nodens wrote: TWhat this movie has going for it is of course the music by Queen and Clancy Brown. And beheadings. And quotable lines. Oh my. I still loved it, warts and all. And even if you can't honestly say that it is a 'good' movie, some parts are perfect cinema.

Is genuinely a bad film. Will not begrudge anyone enjoying it. (And, yes, the sword technique is one of the things that sticks out to me every time I've seen it, as well. Have I seen a bad film more than once? I sure have.)

How dare you!

I'll defend Highlander till death but yeah, it makes little sense but since it keeps running and never looks back it all works. Because it has no preachy message it never trips up on it's own hypocrisy. If anything, watching it with the context of the second film (WTF?) and then the 3rd and 4th with the series, can radically alter the experience as 'the mythology' of highlander, such as it is, can not tolerate much, if any, scrutiny.

I've high hopes for the Cavill adaptation at least being more interesting with the swordplay. In particular how someone that is virtually immortal and fairly quick healing would fight compared to normal dudes. Run forward to take a sword to the chest just so you could take his head? Sure, why not? Use a thin bladed weapon when only decapitation is final....sure ok, I guess. More diverse traditional weapons as well, axes, ghurkas, maybe even a guy so bored of the whole thing he fights with a bo staff or wooden bokken, Mushashi style.

Star Trek: Section 31 was a disappointment. This should have been an automatic good movie for me, since it features both Michelle Yeoh and the Terran Empire of the Star Trek Mirror Universe. Michelle Yeoh is amazing. She started out as pageant queen, then switched to acting, with an emphasis on Hong Kong action movies. She often did her own stunts, and once upstaged Jackie Chan by jumping a motorcycle on top of a moving train. She was also a Bond girl, but continued to win roles as she aged due to her fluency in English, her cool demeanor, and her acting chops. And while the Mirror Universe always represented the opposite of the values that define Star Trek's Federation, it makes for an occasional refreshing counterpoint to the righteous protagonists of Star Fleet.

So how did Section 31 go so wrong? Some might complain that it didn't feel like a Star Trek movie, but I don't find that to be a valid complaint because Section 31 is the secretive black ops arm of the Federation that doesn't follow Star Fleet rules. I think the real problem is that this movie is what was left of a scrapped Section 31 show. So a lot of characters and concepts get introduced quickly, too quickly to land solidly. And the plot is too ambitious, covering too many events too quickly for viewers to keep up. It's possible that a better script could have made it all work, or maybe a better cast could have delivered the lines more solidly, but I think that the scope of the movie is still the biggest problem. Yeoh delivers a solid performance, no notes, and everybody else seems to be giving a real effort. But it doesn't come together as a cohesive work.

Section 31 might still be worth a watch if you like Michelle Yeoh, the Terran Empire, or science-fiction action movies. The movie looks good, on par with the modern Star Trek shows Discovery and Strange New Worlds. The pace is brisk and the fight choreography is good, even though Yeoh is now in her early 60s. There is even some humor in the mix. Check it out on Paramount+ if you like.