What are you watching?

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri: Excellent dark comedy/drama with Frances McDormand kicking all kinds of ass as a mother who wants answers as to the rape and murder of her daughter.
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
Caught Darkest Hour at the weekend. As a whole, the movie is worth watching but the big draw is Gary Oldman. He is very good, as are the prosthetics they used to make him look like Churchill.

I also caught The Commuter, and it's much like Non-Stop and Taken, so there's nothing new to be found in it, but it's reasonably entertaining for the run time.
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
Caught The Post and it's quite good. It shows the importance of a free press, though I felt that Meryl Streep's speech at the end was a little too on the nose.
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
Black Panther was pretty good. Nothing terribly original in the way of story beats, but it was entertaining enough for the run time. If you like the Marvel formula, then you'll like this one.

But if you don't, then I don't know what will entertain you in your comic book movies.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Finally watched Tangled. Interesting take on the story, if a pretty radical departure in many ways.
 
Antimatter said:
Finally watched Tangled. Interesting take on the story, if a pretty radical departure in many ways.
Most of the Disney fairy tale and folklore movies are.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
I saw Black Panther and honestly had a really good time. Everyone in the caste did great with their roles and while the plot is nothing new, it's executed well. I do feel the movie makes some interesting points about how hatred can poison you. A couple of characters made mistakes because anger/hatred (Even if it comes from an understandable place) blinded them to far more productive choices. It also made a good point about learning from the mistakes of the past.

Special mention to Winston Dukes who played M'Baku



For being a surprisingly enjoyable presence on screen. I honestly wasn't expecting him to be anything more than muscle...but he did a good job with his role and I fully understood his motivations even if I didn't agree with all his actions.
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
My local cinema had a secret screening of Love, Simon and I thought it was OK. Not the sort of thing I'd go to see on my own, but a good message about not being a dick to people who dealing with the pressures of coming out.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Pacific Rim: Uprising. Overall I had fun, though the pacing was a little fast....I feel we could've slowed down and explored some of the characters a little more, especially the cadets. The world is also looking good after 10 years of Kaiju free living. It's not paradise but clearly we're all rowing in the right direction at least. That said...it's pretty clear that we can no longer play Defense against the Precursors and their Kaiju...going to have to take the fight to them.
 

Zetas

Lurking upon the deep
Ordo said:
Pacific Rim: Uprising. Overall I had fun, though the pacing was a little fast....I feel we could've slowed down and explored some of the characters a little more, especially the cadets. The world is also looking good after 10 years of Kaiju free living. It's not paradise but clearly we're all rowing in the right direction at least. That said...it's pretty clear that we can no longer play Defense against the Precursors and their Kaiju...going to have to take the fight to them.
I'd agree on the exploration of the characters and the decade of kaiju free living, it'd be nice to see more than just the little snippet of the world we get. What really tickled me was seeing the statue of Unicorn Gundam in the Tokyo scene, made me giggle like an idiot to see that in there.
 

Zetas

Lurking upon the deep
After about a week of thinking about it, I've decided that the creative staff and the directors of Pacific Rim: Uprising watched Power Rangers and Evangelion wayyyy too many times during the production of the film. I mean seriously the drone Jagers are MP Evas in all but name. And don't get me started on the precursors plan, its a shameless rip off of NGE, makes me want to beat my head against the wall with how unoriginal they where.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Watched The Last Jedi, finally.

I can see why people complained; Luke really didn't live up to the 'Wise Jedi Master' title so many fans anticipated post-RoJ. But honestly, I liked him a lot more here. He's flawed as all hell, repentant, and a just plain grouchy old man. And his final scene with Leia - I had tears. It was just a great reunion scene foe Hamill and Fisher.

I liked TLJ better than The Force Awakens, but that's just my opinion.
 
da_fox2279 said:
Watched The Last Jedi, finally.

I can see why people complained; Luke really didn't live up to the 'Wise Jedi Master' title so many fans anticipated post-RoJ. But honestly, I liked him a lot more here. He's flawed as all hell, repentant, and a just plain grouchy old man. And his final scene with Leia - I had tears. It was just a great reunion scene foe Hamill and Fisher.

I liked TLJ better than The Force Awakens, but that's just my opinion.
The casino sequence should have been mostly cut, and I could have done without the "Leia of Steel" scene.

I always told people that if you have to pee during the movie, get up and go when they get to the casino.

Otherwise, I liked it. I didn't think it was any worse than RotJ, and it was better in some ways.

The bitching about the new Star Wars movie is normal. People bitched like you wouldn't believe about Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and it's now considered to be one of the best movies ever made.

It was nothing compared to the uproar over Return of the Jedi. People absolutely hated that movie at the time, and it's now well liked though it's still not considered as good as Empire.

People will calm down, and time will most likely be good to TLJ. Especially if the sequel is decent at all.

Empire's status improved after RotJ was released. It needed the context of the third film to tie things up. It was a bridge film, just like this one is. TLJ wasn't really supposed to answer any questions or bring resolution to anything. That's not what middle films do. I wasn't expecting it, and I think that helped my enjoyment of the movie.

I put it in the middle grouping of movies along with Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. Force Awakens was better, but only slightly so.

Also, Poe's actions were exactly right. He saved the Resistance by taking out that dreadnought. That thing would have ripped the fleet apart if it had survived the opening and would have made quick work of that fortress. The sacrifice was worth it. It is kind of stupid that no one seemed to realize it.

In fact, he repeatedly makes the right call given his position and keeps getting dressed down for it.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Poe's mistake was telling Finn information he didn't need to know. Even if DJ hadn't turned traitor...Finn was infiltrating a ship run by people who read minds...no sense telling Finn anything more than he needed to know.
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
I'll take this opportunity to remind you that they left out the scene where Luke mourned Han in favour of the one where he milked the seacow.
 
Lord Raa said:
I'll take this opportunity to remind you that they left out the scene where Luke mourned Han in favour of the one where he milked the seacow.
They also had Leia ignore Chewbacca after Han died in The Force Awakens. So I consider this canceled out if we're comparing the two films.
 
Saw Avengers: Infinity War

Theater was silent as the movie ended.

Was not disappointed in the slightest. Might have some nerd bitching about comic lore, but no complaints about pacing, comedy, or action. (Maybe a little with awkward CG in a couple minor spots.)

If you've watched any Marvel movies in the decade, this one does the job of meeting all the hype and build up. Excited to see what Part 2 may bring.

Edit: And it does get grimdark towards the end of the film. There are some major emotional rollercoasters throughout.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Avengers: Infinity War is a great film, but that ending hits hard....even knowing what is likely to come next year. I originally planned to see it twice in one day but....I decided to...hold off and give myself a day to soak it all in.
 

Ordo

Well-Known Member
Also...I never expected to like 'Casual clothed" Thanos more than armored warrior Thanos but here we are....it just worked so well.
 

Zetas

Lurking upon the deep
The showing of Infinity War i went to was hilarious, the ending had like half the audience gasping in shock, the palatable amount of "holy shit" in the air almost made me break out laughing.
 
Just got back from Infinity War, have been avoiding the internet in general before I saw it.

I was absolutely not surprised by the ending. It was exactly what I expected in fact.

I'm actually a little surprised by how much of it I called.

It was also funnier than I was expecting.

Still a Great Movie. Definitely one of the better Avengers movies.

If you have young kids, see this one before taking them to see it. This is not a movie to take an eight year old who runs around the house in a superhero mask unless you want to deal with an emotionally wrecked child in the aftermath.

It is easily the darkest MCU movie yet, and not everyone comes out of it okay. There are scenes of death and torture, and it pushes the limits of PG-13.

I'd be less wary about letting a young child to see Deadpool than Infinity War. While Deadpool is crass and gory, it's also "fun", this movie gets pretty bleak in some scenes.
 
Saw The Meg last night.

It is not a good film. I would describe it as a "big budget B-movie". It's not a JAWS remake in any sense that I can see - the film is based more closely on Deep Blue Sea, but without anything of the positives of that movie.

Frankly Deep Blue Sea had better writing, a better script, better acting, a more plausible premise, and somehow better special effects despite being made almost 20 years ago.

The premise was, frankly, insultingly stupid. The "where" and "how" of where the shark has been hiding all this time is completely unbelievable, the setup for the shark's introduction makes even less sense, and by the end of the film I was just marveling at how 'paint-by-numbers' this monster movie could be.

You've all probably seen a film or played a video game where the monster's behavior is driven entirely by the script and not by any sense of logic. It's shown to be more than powerful enough to destroy anything in its path - and yet for some reason it simply avoids or fails to kill the protagonist when convenient for the script? That's all over this film. That's almost every scene of this film, in fact.

On the off chance that anyone wants to see this movie I'm going to avoid spoiling it, but there's one scene I want to bring up: near the beginning of the film, shortly before the shark appears, one of the 'rescue' submersibles is attacked by an architeuthis; that is, a giant squid - which for some reason the pilot (played by Li Bingbing) fails to identify as such despite it being larger than her submersible (she describes it as a "huge squid" instead, despite being a oceanographer). Granted this beast is less like a real giant squid and more like a Kraken, but even so - if your sub were suddenly attacked by a squid larger than the sub itself, what would you call it?

The squid wraps its tentacles around her submersible and starts crushing it - and right before it manages to rupture the vehicle, suddenly the shark kills it, and it lets go of her sub. She's eventually forced to flee to the surface and Jason Statham's larger submersible takes over the rescue operation.

The shark killing the giant squid is egregious enough - the squid dies quite suddenly and quietly, without any of the violent jerks we'd expect from having an approximately 40 ton shark slam into it at attack speed - which is what sharks do to prey smaller than they are. The scene is supposed to surprise the audience and make them wonder why the squid suddenly stopped attacking before revealing the shark, but it plays out nothing like how such a scene would really go. The squid attacking the submersible is reasonable in and of itself - squid are surprisingly belligerent, to the point of being cannibalistic, but that's the only realistic bit of this scene.

But no, that's not the worst bit. The worst bit is this: this scene takes place at a location even further down than the bottom of the Mariana's Trench, lower than even the Challenger Deep. The water pressure in the Challenger Deep is approximately 1086 bar, or around 15,750 psi. The film tells us that the submersibles are rated to 12,000 meters, approximately a full kilometer deeper than the known maximum depth of the Deep - that means they are rated to withstand about 1185 bar, or around 17,000 psi. Any submersible attempting such a dive has to be able to withstand that much pressure for extended periods. How exactly could even a giant squid squeeze the sub any harder than the water is already doing?
 
The Meg cut a lot to get PG-13.

It was originally intended to be gory camp in the vein of the middle Jaws films, but the studio nerfed it.

There may be a better cut once it hits streaming and blu-ray. As I understand it, they actually shot a lot of the gore stuff they wanted to do, but it ultimately ended up cut.
 
The lack of gore was a problem in and of itself - the first rule of a good monster movie is that most of the cast should die, preferably on-camera. I think we got a grand total of 4 main cast deaths out of like 12 people - and one wasn't a monster kill. The deaths don't have to be SAW-level but they do need to happen.

After a while all the tension is gone because you know the production team wasn't going to kill anyone else. They didn't even let the fucking rich lady's dog die.
 
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