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

chimeric_chimera wrote:

Sevej wrote: Just finished Battle Angel Alita. I'm biased af because I'm a huge fan of the manga, but it's really, really great. Most science fictions makes you think, this makes you _feel_, in a good way. Great world building, awesome action... and, man, Alita is extremely adorable. Rosa Salazar did a stellar job with them. The expression... well, they're just great. So likeable, so young... great stuff.

Is it less cruel than manga? I was afraid 'movie for young adults' will spoil the atmosphere of the original story... You may give me spoilers, if you wish, do not afraid of them. Thanks in advance.

Watched The Quake which is the sequel to the Norwegian disaster film The Wave. Same characters/actors but this time, you guessed it, its an earthquake instead of a tsunami. What I like about this and The Wave is that while using some genre tropes it also takes the time to build up the characters/family. If these were American disaster films they'd just be a bunch of action sequences with worthless filler scenes in-between. Here the father has bad survivors guilt from the first movie and separated from his family who would gladly take him back. The young daughter is practically the main character in this one and must say the little girl has some decent acting chops. If you liked the The Wave then I think its safe to say you'll enjoy The Quake as well.

We missed The Incredibles 2 in theaters and saw it on Netflix last Friday. We found it quite enjoyable, if not as novel as the original.

Saw Spiderverse with 150 teenagers last week.
It was great, loved the style of the thing - really great animation. Kids loved it. The biggest cheer was for the anime appearance (it's the demographic) and there were groans and laughs from them all at the end with the relationshippy bit.

I think it was a bit more straightforward plot/character wise than what I was expecting somehow - I don't know why - but, yeah. I liked it better than anything else I've seen of the Marvel stuff.


I also watched "Swallows and Amazons", made in 2016, with my own kids. I loved the book as a kid, and have fond memories of the very faithful 70s adapation. I read the book - plus at least 2 of the sequels - to my two older kids within the last couple of years. They really enjoyed the books too. I think part of the appeal is that the portraits of the kids are very very accurate with regards to dynamics and non-cliched. They especially loved the character of Roger, the young brother - they totally related to him because he was like their own younger brother, it's just all so well drawn. And on top of that, nothing happens in the books. I mean, there's no bank robbers, or real treasure, or major disaster, or death, or big bullies they have to stand up to. It's all so believable - they are the kind of adventures that a kid could realistically have, and the characters spend half their time turning the humdrum realities into imaginative play, it's just so spot on. So, being left alone on an island while the other kids go sailing to capture the flag, the kid is being Robinson Crusoe. It's just right. So well-observed about kids.

Anyway, this film looked great. Nicely filmed. But in updating it they felt the need to add an exciting subplot around russian spies, and have the kids take them down or whatever. It was kind of unnecessary, and not quite in the spirit of things. On top of that, they added a lot of drama between the kid characters - shouting at each other and so on - which again was against the spirit of things a bit I felt. They are all nice kids in the book; they felt pretty whiny here.

Tonight I showed my kids Mad Max - Fury Road. I bought the Mad Max Anthology blu-ray set, which has all 4 movies. It does not have the Chrome edition of Fury Road.

This was only my second time seeing the film; I saw it when it was in the theater, so I had forgotten a lot of it. This movie is insane, and each time you think it couldn't get crazier, it does. So awesome! The kids were enthralled.

I will not be immediately showing them the other films; I think they are a bit more adult in content, but I need to watch them for myself first. It's been quite a while.

Fury Road might have the craziest stunts I've ever seen in a film, outside of some Jackie Chan shit. One negative.... some of the CGI is not great. There are some flame effects, and other CG that really doesn't look good. Easily overlooked though, because this movie is so damn good.

Anytime they are trying to push the 3D, the CGI is awful (like when the stone arch collapses), but you’re right we can overlook it. It’s not Van Helsing or anything.

I need a rewatch of that, I have the blu-ray. What does the fancy chrome edition have, btw, is it worth checking out?

The Chrome edition is Fury Road in black and white. It's a different visual experience because it didn't have to go through color processing/desaturation, so some of the detail is more prominent. Same reason that some comics are better in black-and-white so the color doesn't wash out some of the fine line work. You can get all 4 of them on Amazon, with documentaries, and with the Chrome edition now for about $45.

I think the anthology was $25 on Amazon. No Chrome edition, but it also includes 4 art pieces that are really cool.

Oh shit, I watched Buster Scruggs!

Just great. Loved every minute. Can't decide which one was my favourite (probably the Tom Waits one or the "Gal who got rattled". Although, whoa, the "meal ticket" one. And the last one is written so well. They all are.

If you want some nice slices of classic Coen, this delivers a few times over.

Friday night I started watching Await Further Instructions on Netflix. I had remembered seeing the commercial when the movie came out in theaters, so I figured I'd check it out.

The premise is that a white English family comes together for Christmas. The son, who has been estranged, brings his girlfriend, who is of Middle Eastern descent. This doesn't go over very well. They pledge to get up early the next day and take off. I know what you are thinking.... this sounds like Get Out. Well stop right there! There are huge differences, the primary one being that Get Out is a good film...

As they go to make their escape the next morning, they discover that the ENTIRE house has been encased in strong metal bands of some sort. And I don't mean like Manowar. There is no escape, apparently. Suspiciously, many rooms have air pipes connected. Eventually the television begins displaying strange instructional messages, informing them to do various actions. They pretty quickly learn the consequences of non-compliance.

Eventually a mishap occurs, and one character winds up with a compound fracture. This particular event has always made me squeamish as fuck, and it was late, so I turned it off. Last night I was drunk and thought, what the hell, let's see how this dumb movie resolves. When will I learn... I KNEW it wouldn't pay off. But they actually made it dumber than I could have imagined.

Friends, don't watch this film.

The Mad Max anthology set that I bought includes the chrome edition of Fury Road. But I won't let myself watch it until I finally get a big screen tv. Hopefully soon if my next job interview goes well.

I just finished watching the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. There is a lot to like about these movies. Great visuals, plenty of action, some wonderful casting, and the unforgettable character of Jack Sparrow. And yet, there is something lacking in these movies. They each run a little too long, with probably one or two plot twists too many. And the rush to cover so much story means that some of the character beats don't land solidly, and some of the plot points feel underdeveloped. I saw the first one in the theater, but didn't feel a strong need to see the sequels in the theater. The fourth one is at least loosely based on one of my favorite novels, but my favorite characters from that story are probably missing from the movie.

Some repeats at the house, because we were bored. I should paint some minis again. Anyway:

Ocean's 11 - Sonderberg is a master of the heist movie. I think I might have watched that movie one time too many though, because it's now just pleasant background pictures.

Mad Max: Fury Road - I've seen it 15 times? 20? I haven't gotten tired of it yet. The epitome of show, don't tell.

Bright - I'm not sure how that got picked - I blame my wife. The first time was pretty meh, and the repeat viewing didn't help it any. It's a movie that doesn't really know what it wants to be. An allegory for racism? A buddy cop movie? A series pilot featuring magical realism? I'll probably watch "Bright 2: Electric Boogaloo" if it comes out, but my expectations will be low.

Lego Movie 2 is well done and builds to a nice emotional arc, and of course it remains a technical marvel, but it's also a marvel explored now for the fourth time in five years, and it's all starting to feel like playing yet another of the endless Lego video games, any one of which is pretty cool and fun but any dozen of them is repetitious. I'd kind of dreaded going to see it because I worried that it would sully my memory of the first one. It doesn't do that, and it goes for a somewhat different sort of tone and theme, but inevitably it can't re-create the twist or the freshness of the first movie.

The Oscar-nominated documentary shorts are a heavy emotional load to bear over two and a half hours. The one I got the most out of was "End Game," an intimate but respectful piece about palliative care and the emotional (if not financial) decisions and non-decisions that go along with that. While it calls attention to gender discrimination, "Period. End of Sentence," about women entrepreneurs in India selling menstrual pads they manufacture to other women, is more funny, snarky, and inspiring than sad. "Black Sheep," which I'll talk about only circumspectly because it's better just to see it, is an intriguing growing-up story of a young man who faced difficult circumstances and made some bad choices along the way. "Lifeboat" recounts some of the work of services that attempt to rescue refugees fleeing North Africa for Europe by flimsy boats; it's a little broad and detached, but the central narrative focus, one of the rescuers (who has since died), is compelling, even if we just get some fleeting insights into the refugee experience from the refugees themselves. It feels a little more promotional for a good cause (rescue) than a great film. The one that's been most talked about, though, is "A Night in the Garden," a seven-minute presentation of archival footage, with slight bits of context, about a 1939 Nazi rally in New York City. I don't really have anything to add about it. If you want to see it, you can also find it on YouTube and other services.

But it also had the best joke in the Lego movie series. Like, a total “I am your father” revelation.

I dreaded seeing it too but my kids were psyched for it. It was better than expected, but it felt a little saggy and not as committed to the concept.

Apocalypseburg was cool. I liked General Mayhem. The banana was funny. I could have done with even less Batman, that but feels a little worn out.

I dunno after Spider-Verse, the stakes are a lot higher.