Movies you've just watched

[BIL]

Watched "Mission Impossible: Fallout" in IMAX last night. Pretty good, but I don't think that "The IMAX Experience" really added anything to the experience at all.

Don't go expecting the pinnacle of the series, but if you go wanting a good ride/fun time, it's there to be had.

And anytime anyone kills off _____ ______, it can't be all bad.

I don't know how to add the SPOILERS thingies.

Spoiler

BIG FUCKEN SPOILER [/Xspoiler]

Delete the "X."

[Zen]

closet

Brazen it out, BIL.
Casually emerge from the closet, bollock naked.
Give him a pleasant and relaxed greeting, while you pass him by.
He will be so shocked and impressed by your suave bravado, he will momentarily freeze, giving you bags of time to make good your exit.

Disclaimer; YMMV

[BIL]

Actually as Tom was (of course) in there the whole time, we just waited it out with a nice albeit hushed chat.

[Zen]

Back, against the wall, then
By Xenu's grace, I hope you emerged "intactus".

[xxx1993]

At least listen to the other guy's opinion on the movie.

[soprano1]

Spartacus (1960)
A wonderful epic from a different age in Hollywood. Lengthy, but never short of wonderful scenes and great moments (there is more than the well-known "I AM SPARTACUS!" part).
Wonderful acting from that magic trio that was Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Ustinov (which reminds me, I still need to rewatch Quo Vadis properly. ).

[neorichieb1971]

Mission impossible Fallout.

Great stunts and some good story. But also a lot of cliches like things rolling to edges of cliffs and stopping, bombs that stop with 1 second left. Hollywood really needs to sort itself out. I know if there were ruthless bad guys that killed on the spot without the 5 minute chat there would be a lot less movies, but what happens in Fallout near the end doesn't make any sense. When the bad guy has all the Aces do away with the good guys.

Its a 7/10 for the stunts and story, but the ending left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Mischief Maker]

Spartacus (1960)
A wonderful epic from a different age in Hollywood. Lengthy, but never short of wonderful scenes and great moments (there is more than the well-known "I AM SPARTACUS!" part).
Wonderful acting from that magic trio that was Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Ustinov (which reminds me, I still need to rewatch Quo Vadis properly. ).

Do you eat oysters or snails?

[soprano1]

Spartacus (1960)
A wonderful epic from a different age in Hollywood. Lengthy, but never short of wonderful scenes and great moments (there is more than the well-known "I AM SPARTACUS!" part).
Wonderful acting from that magic trio that was Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Ustinov (which reminds me, I still need to rewatch Quo Vadis properly. ).

Do you eat oysters or snails?

[lilmanjs]

Total Recall
Arnold does it up good. The makeup really holds up well to this day though the bluescreen stuff is kinda obvious at points, but still, I enjoyed this. Making a note to never see the remake!

[Steamflogger Boss]

Three Outlaw Samurai

A very solid watch from start to finish. Hell of a debut for the director Hideo Gosha.

[neorichieb1971]

Total Recall
Arnold does it up good. The makeup really holds up well to this day though the bluescreen stuff is kinda obvious at points, but still, I enjoyed this. Making a note to never see the remake!

A lot of my friends don't understand this movie. Whilst entertained they don't get the whole "what is real?" vs "what is not?"

I suppose its part and parcel of Arnie always playing the good guy they could never comprehend him as the bad guy.

[Steamflogger Boss]

TR has to be up there as Arnold's best movie. I mean Terminator is fantastic, but I don't really consider the first one an Arnold movie, even though he is in it.

Edit: Been watching some Fritz Lang flicks recently, M and Metropolis. Phenomenal director...

[boagman]

"The Equalizer II"

Yeah, you don't need to waste your time and money. Denzel's just grabbing a paycheck, here. A good letter grade and a half worse than the first one, and the first one was merely okay.

[BryanM]

Danny Glover and David Cross probably took a big cut to their usual rates to be in Sorry to Bother You. What's also nice is the trailer doesn't spoil the dark horror elements of the movie.

'cause trailers these days are just a 2 minute abridged version of the movie. Didn't use to be that way - famously the Alien trailer didn't even show the alien. Now we're showing him in full stunning CGI in broad daylight headbutting a windshield.

What's old is now refreshingly new again.

[GaijinPunch]

What's also nice is the trailer doesn't spoil the dark horror elements of the movie.

Luckily we have you to thank for that.

[Zen]

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Anthony Russo, Joe Russo.

Well, I didnt hate it.
Maestro Alan Silvestri, gave me enough oxygen to keep me alive during the shit-show but it was this Thanos character and his Cosmology, that kept me watching.
I don't know anything about this fellow but I like him! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6F6u5TIUbI

Can I recommend it? No.
Other than the aforementioned Thanos, its shit.

[BryanM]

Luckily we have you to thank for that.

w, wat.

How do you have a horror movie without horror elements?

The marketing switchero is kind of cruel. Lotta reviews be like "This isn't a comedy... this is... I don't know what this is..."

Just because Boots slapped some sunshine and rainbows on it, their brains get fried. It's like an outside context problem they're not programmed to handle.

[GaijinPunch]

Here's a PSA

The Music Box in Chicago is once again having a 70mm Film Festival. The usual Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 are on there, but most everything else is new, including John Carpenter's The Thing. I've got a lot of travel planned for September but am hoping the stars align and I can make this.

[Weak Boson]

I watched Avengers inifnity fight the other day and & justice league just now to compare.

Avenger:

I was actually quite impressed. I'm not an avid follower of the MCU but since I committed to at least watching all the Thor films (don't ask why I'm not sure) I kind of felt the build up to this, and it's certainly new territory for a marvel film. It does a great job of making Thanos seem like a truly frightening villain. The film is actually really brutal in places with the usual comic violence and walloping peppered with torture, disturbing deaths and surprisingly violent moments.

One little moment that made my skin crawl was when Asian bug lady from Guardians of the Galaxy is turned to ribbons of flesh by Thanos' newly acquired reality warping powers. She pulls herself together when the T man gets out but there's a moment when she's lying in a bundle on the floor and her one visible eye winks almost in pain and it's like some Uzumaki shit I swear.

I also liked the savage beasts that attacked Wakanda and how they flay and dismember themselves pushing through the energy sheild. The torture of robot Amy Pond was also a stand out moment. The point isn't so much that they managed to cram all this disturbing shit into a comic book summer blockbuster for the sake of it - it's that it actually builds towards Thanos' character and somehow even works in a film like this.

The things that troubled me while watching were a few extremely corny and stiff lines of dialogue "motivational" lines of dialogue (the Wakandans were prime culprits of this, Thor not really putting in work) and a few jokes that just fall flat. But mostly I thought the writing was good - the cast of characters meant there was room for various interactions which was nice. More seriously and less importantly would be the all the possible plot holes you could think of. I mean questions like "they could have won if they did X, why didn't they do X??" "thanos makes no sense because of X" which are never far from the mind. Of course the correct answer is: "shut up it is space fight movie" and some suspension of disbelief is definitely required; the only thing to remark on is that you definitely need more in this than in other MCU films, which are usually pretty good at establishing the rules of the game.

On a more personal note I was disappointed that they didn't do thaaaat much with Vision. He seemed super op in civil war but in this film he could have absolutely let loose. In general the heroes don't make any attempt to use the power of the infinity stones in their possession. but whatever im sure they know what they're doing they're the avengers for god's sake.

Anyway looking forward to the next one (which wasn't how I felt after Ultron) although I'm scared they're just gonna do some mumbo jumbo to revive characters which died. I get that this is probably inevitable, but I want blood damn it!




OK onto Justice League:

Compared to this Infinity War is a masterpiece of cinematic craft. It was better than Man of Steel because there was a scintilla of chemistry between some of the characters (mainly Flash and robot man). But almost every line of dialogue is eye meltingly bad, either because of its bad writing, direction or just being fucking stupid. Like when batman plays a sound to lure the enemies away and then it cuts to his bat face in a close up just so he can say "follow me, damn it!". Completely unnecessary forced and just yuck. It's basic failures of film making like this that drag it down and it's almost at every turn.

I have many other complaints but basically the only good points are: Gal Gadot being pretty; Aquaman being the wettest of all boys; and most importantly the bad guy's callbacks to elder scrolls IV oblivion.

[EmperorIng]

Here's a PSA

The Music Box in Chicago is once again having a 70mm Film Festival. The usual Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 are on there, but most everything else is new, including John Carpenter's The Thing. I've got a lot of travel planned for September but am hoping the stars align and I can make this.

Duly noted! It might be worth my while to get to see Arabia or 2001.

I know I can't convince any of my friends or family to go to Dark Crystal with me. Everyone I know hates that movie.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm definitely gonna go see something this time... just not sure what. I might need to buy some type of butt cushion for 2001. Their seats are just not comfy.

[GaijinPunch]

Finally made it to the Traverse City Film Festival

The Sentence
This one hits the heart strings pretty blatantly, but it's not hard to w/ the subject content. It shows a pretty close look at mandatory minimums for federal crimes, even for non-violent offenses. Coming from draconian and/or laughable judicial systems like Japan's, I laude the US's with kudos in that you have a fighting chance with a competent lawyer. But, it's far from perfect, and shit like what happens to the family in this one perfectly illustrates it. Created/directed/filmed by the mother's brother, it started out as home video footage (albeit on a nice camera) that he thought his sister should see. He later became a film maker in order to put it together. He, and some subjects from the film did a Q&A afterwards. I didn't care for all of the choices he made (almost everything was shot at 50mm) but nonetheless was educational. Comes out on HBO in October.

The Guilty
Intense Danish film featuring a police man stuck on emergency services duty. Shit gets real when he gets a call from a kidnap victim. This was one of Michael Moore's (the film festival's main organizer) top 5 on the list. The showing I went to was sold out. Comes out in the states in October. Very entertaining.

[Zen]

The Return (2003) - Andrey Zvyagintsev

Another upbeat, life-affirming, Russian feel-good film

Actually, its really good.
The performances are strong and the story, the real core here, is engaging (I seem to be in a minority, in that I did not find the story to be in the least bit confusing)
It seemed pretty obvious, where the father had been and where he was going with his sons.
A very "Masculine" film.

Highly recommended.

[Vexorg]

Here's a PSA

The Music Box in Chicago is once again having a 70mm Film Festival. The usual Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 are on there, but most everything else is new, including John Carpenter's The Thing. I've got a lot of travel planned for September but am hoping the stars align and I can make this.

Cinerama in Seattle is doing one as well in September.

[Vexorg]

Mission Impossible: Fallout: ****

Daniel Craig:. They had to pay me a ton of money to convince me to come back for another James Bond movie at age 51.

Tom Cruise:. That's cute.

You will leave the theater after this movie wondering how the hell Tom Cruise is still doing full fledged big budget "I do my own stunts" action movies when he's old enough to make the cover of AARP Magazine. Much like the Fast and Furious films, this series seems to look for ways to keep getting more and more ridiculous with its action set pieces in each installment, and while F&F mostly just devolves further into technicolor CGI absurdity with each new film, M:I actually tries to stay at least vaguely believable. The end result is nothing groundbreaking, but is a good solid action movie light on fluff. The supporting characters do their part as well (Simon Pegg is one of my favorite current actors) and keep things from getting too dark.

That said, Henry Cavill doesn't bring much to the table in his role here (I actually liked him in Man from UNCLE a couple of years ago but that doesn't seem to translate well to this one) and the villain from the last movie seems to be relegated mostly to McGuffin status here. The plot was also rather generic (terrorists trying to obtain nuclear weapons, pretty standard stuff) and mostly served as an excuse for big action set pieces to happen.

[Skykid]

Point Blank

Lee Marvin’s rock solid psychopath killer in a borderline arthouse revenge thriller is nothing short of a masterpiece of American cinema. Violent, risqué, dangerous filmmaking for 67 that’s incredibly modern with its cinematography and remarkable sound editing. This is probably Boorman’s most accomplished film - and that’s saying something alongside Deliverance and Excalibur.

[boagman]

"Ant-Man & The Wasp"

This was, quite honestly, better than expected. This is certainly a Marvel Lite movie, as was the original, but that really isn't a bad thing, in either case. The earth isn't going to be destroyed, the universe isn't in danger, humanity isn't going to be mutated into slave-borgs or anything of the kind. It's smaller scale stuff.

But they get the lighthearted nature of things *correct*. I actually think that I like this one a bit better than the original, if only because they let Evangeline Lilly emote a bit more, and she brings some decent stuff to the table.

It's fun. It's funny, in a lighthearted way. There isn't a heavy thing about it. The effervescent Walton Goggins still grabs me on the screen. It fits the bill in its own way.

I'd watch the next one for certain.

[Infiltrator]

Seen Total Recall about a week ago too. Still holds up and this time seen it through new eyes, the blurring of reality.

[soprano1]

Point Blank

Lee Marvin’s rock solid psychopath killer in a borderline arthouse revenge thriller is nothing short of a masterpiece of American cinema. Violent, risqué, dangerous filmmaking for 67 that’s incredibly modern with its cinematography and remarkable sound editing. This is probably Boorman’s most accomplished film - and that’s saying something alongside Deliverance and Excalibur.

Oh, seems like a good choice to watch next weekend. Thanks for the post, Skykid.