Movies you've just watched

[Xyga]

All in all although set on a floating base hence losing the Abyss-like label, I think Deep Blue Sea (1999) is the superior movie.
It's funny and entertaining in way more places than the two failed underwater horrors.

[emphatic]

Hey Skykid, you got Deadpool in China yet?

[lilmanjs]

Sparrow
Johnnie To movie I bought because of the composer. Heard a track from it on soundcloud and loved it. Turns out that is one movie that will probably forever stick out in my mind. That lounge/jazzy soundtrack really makes it feel less of a Hong Kong movie. Pair that with the fact it highlighted how much more upbeat and light hearted this movie is compared to what To usually makes. A movie about pickpockets that has enough light moments to make me at times forget I'm even watching a Johnnie To movie. I enjoyed it, especially the scene with the bicycle breaking.

[Skykid]

Hey Skykid, you got Deadpool in China yet?

Not coming out. There's no rating system here and they deemed it too profane for minors.

[EmperorIng]

1 billion people just dodged a bullet. Thank you party committee!

[BryanM]

The problem isn't that all the High Advertising Budget movies you hear about are super hero movies, it's that all high advertising budget Hollywood movies are the same.



Replace the theme with whatever (orcs, Oz or some board game) and they're still the same.

That that one movie of the lady trapped in a bottle and had to fight to get out had to have the Cloverfield trademark slapped on it to get anyone to give a damn....

does anyone even read comics anymore

The Walking Dead and Invincible are absurdly popular. There are spergs who still read things by Marvel and DC but they are subhuman and doodoo.

In an abstract way everyone reads comics since every single fad happens in print first decades before they put it to film.

[Vexorg]

Adventures in Babysitting: ***

Yet another Eighties teen comedy, this one featuring Elizabeth Shue babysitting a young girl and her high school Freshman brother with a crush on her, along with a friend of his who got dragged into it. Naturally, things go horribly wrong, and soon her Mom's car has a flat tire and a bullet hole in the windshield, they find themselves on the run from crooks, they end up in the middle of a gang fight and a frat party, and things generally just go badly for all involved. Generally decent, but with a few moments ranging from weird to just plain WTF, and it seems to have a "ran out of budget" type ending. The best parts might be the misadventures of the friend trapped at the bus terminal who they are trying to rescue in the first place.

[Skykid]

1 billion people just dodged a bullet. Thank you party committee!

It's that bad?

[soprano1]

Clerks (1994)
It was OK, i guess. Now i understand the "My love for you is like a truck, berserker" meme everyone was spouting back in 2006 when the first Fate/Stay Night anime adaptation aired.
edit:And that was 10 years ago already, holy shit.

[emphatic]

It's that bad?

You either love or hate it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Who did watch the 2008 Speed Racer movie? Seems like one of those typically taken for a joke by people who didn't.
Here, I found REDLINE 2009 anime (watched on a small screen, but still...) so underwhelming I feel oddly attracted to this Speed Racer title. DVD or even a Blu-ray looks like an all around safe purchase, at least. Having missed out on a theatrical Hardcore Henry screening nearby, I feel this kind of longing...

Re-watched the 2011 Eva with my pal and this time I must highlight its film trickery. The exact kind of effects that tend to age horribly (Terminator 2 is the exception that proves the rule) hold up five years down the line in Eva's case and I won't be surprised if it turns out considered its time Carpenter's The Thing in this regard... in the year 2035 or so. Or at least its time Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

[Mischief Maker]

Who did watch the 2008 Speed Racer movie? Seems like one of those typically taken for a joke by people who didn't.

I did. And I readily admit I enjoyed it. Probably the most visually sumptuous film by the Wachowskis since Bound. I really don't see how anyone could be dense enough to see the plot and overacting as anything but an intentional satire. I'll take Speed Racer over Jupiter Rising any day.

Also the DS game based on the film is surprisingly good, save for that stupid Car Fu mechanic. I'm amazed that a multi-platform movie tie-in game is so technically competent, it glides along at a buttery 60FPS down its twisty turny F-Zero-esque tracks.

[Vexorg]

Captain America: Civil War: ***1/2

Ultimately, I think I still liked Winter Soldier a bit more than I liked this one, but it was pretty good too. Then again, more so than any of the other MCU films (aside from maybe the first Avengers) it had a distinct "Just here for Godzilla" feel to the first half of the movie, where it feels like you're sitting through 45 minutes of extraneous plot waiting for the big airport battle that was in all the trailers. The ending felt like they were trying to throw an unexpected plot twist into the ending, but ultimately you know they're just going to have to hand wave the whole thing away within the first half hour of Infinity War anyway...

[Ixmucane2]

The Boy

An unreasonably beautiful girl moves from the USA to the remote English mansion of an elderly couple for a job as the nanny of a porcelain doll. It's a replacement, or something, for the son that the elderly couple lost about 20 years ago; and it's to be treated like a real boy. (All this setup is clearly exposed at the very beginning).
As dolls in horror movies tend to do, it appears to be animated but not dangerous; various collateral events and characters are more creepy.
Just when one starts to suspect a subversive story in which reasonable people interact with something strange to find constructive solutions to problems that are not life or death at all, events take a deliberately sudden and ritual turn towards brutal violence and very commonplace survival horror situations.
The ending is a coherent and well-done revelation of what the real situation had been all along, but due to the predictability of the resolution and the high expectations created by more than half of the film I'm a bit disappointed anyway.

Special effects: almost none. Scenery and props: well designed, but not very appropriate for a contemporary setting. Photography: irritating abuse of unrealistic lightning and close-ups. Music: none that I remember.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not so recently watched, but I can tell you what about A Tale of Two Sisters (장화, 홍련) didn't work for me - most of the time we can't tell whose perspective, dream, hallucination etc. what is, therefore we don't care about the characters.

See no further than the 1965 Repulsion (maybe its director's other "apartment" movies too, as well as Chinatown and Frantic) to find examples of them being always clear about who is supposed to hear and see what we are being shown.
The way it is, A Tale of Two Sisters reminds me of Profondo Rosso and I don't mean it in a good way. At least Dario Argento made a prototype of music videos as we know them, whereas A Tale... comes as an attempt to make a Hammer-style horror without substance. And this was heavily pushed towards foreign markets? Always a warning sign. Nothing terribly wrong with wanting to win awards and be recognised, but do I must feel this air as I watch a film?

[lilmanjs]

Blast of Silence
A short movie only being an hour and 17 minutes long. A noir film from 1961 about a hitman who goes to New York City during the week of christmas to do one last job. The narration fuels this movie and rightfully so. Gritty and dark, but hits all the right cues to be a good look at a hitman who's decided he's quitting after this. Enjoyed it enough to recommend it.

[GaijinPunch]

Unforgiven

One from the 90's I simply missed. Good, but didn't feel it was best picture good. I have to think there was more to life back then than ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers.

[Mischief Maker]

Unforgiven

One from the 90's I simply missed. Good, but didn't feel it was best picture good. I have to think there was more to life back then than ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers.

Unforgiven isn't to be taken in a vacuum. It's a deconstruction and refutation of the western genre in much the same way Harakiri is a deconstruction and refutation of the samurai genre.

I mean the whole point of this scene is tearing down the myth of the quickdraw.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Unforgiven

One from the 90's I simply missed. Good, but didn't feel it was best picture good. I have to think there was more to life back then than ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers.

The 2013 Japanese remake is remarkably good. Something about Western movies (be it anti-Western) translates real well to other times and places than mythologised Wild West (to namedrop When the Raven Flies - and I'd have more examples to give).
In a way, the genre outside of States outlived its own demise there. Sort of like Euro Jazz scene these days, or drawing Orthodox icons in Russia long after the fall or (Eastern) Roman Empire.

[Skykid]

Unforgiven

One from the 90's I simply missed. Good, but didn't feel it was best picture good. I have to think there was more to life back then than ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers.

I think Unforgiven is probably Eastwood's best from a directorial standpoint. Considering most of everything he's made is pretty shitty, that might not sound like much, but I did think it was a pretty good flick.

Also Oscars, no-one should give a fuck.

[GaijinPunch]

Also Oscars, no-one should give a fuck.

Yeah, you got me on that one. But sometimes they have a decent hit ratio.

Don't get me wrong, it was good. And I know it was a bit of a throwback to the old westerns that didn't exactly have the strongest stories (or actors really). I like Eastwood's more recent stuff far better (Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino). Maybe it's b/c I assumed he could only do dirty hairy and westerns. I think the Coen Brother's take on True Grit is about the best I can imagine a western being.

[Skykid]

I like Eastwood's more recent stuff far better (Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino).

Really? I really don't care for just about anything he's made since Unforgiven. Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino were perfect examples of the kind of superficial sentimental Hollywood toilet paper dramas he keeps churning out. Watchable perhaps, but forgettable in every other sense. Flags of our Fathers was so poorly made it didn't actually meet the aforementioned 'watchable' grade and Mystic River is a total piece of shit. Oscar Winning shit at that.

I don't want to offend anyone by this, as I mean it in the most honest possible sense, but I think if you're American you probably take more away from his movies. He definitely panders to the home crowd.

I really love Clint for everything he did when he was Leone's heel, but nowadays I wish he'd just give it up.

And Space Cowboys. Fuck.

[GaijinPunch]

I've only seen them once, but for some reason I like watching a crusty old racist (even if he does come around in the end). Maybe b/c I spent so much time in Japan? I thought the end of Million Dollar Baby was pretty poetic and not usually what Hollywood goes for. But again, just watched either one which I guess makes them only watchable to me? I rewatch things I like regularly... I will regularly not rewatch Unforgiven.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Pretty much all that I remember of the original Unforgiven is the first person off-screen narration (so I am possibly mistaken and thinking of an entirely different picture). Some can be still heard in the epilogue of 許されざる者, but I didn't even mind terribly. It helped that I typically don't expect much of 21st Century's Japanese movies, so I can watch them pretty laid-back.

[boagman]

Pretty much all that I remember of the original Unforgiven is the first person off-screen narration (so I am possibly mistaken and thinking of an entirely different picture).

Yes, you are mistaken in that remembrance. No such thing in that movie.

I actually rather like westerns, and I get that from my dad. "Unforgiven" is actually quite a good movie (great?) whether it's a western or not. Is it perfect? No, but it does so many things right, and it gets the absolute *best* from its players, especially the stars themselves. Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, for absolute certain, show how terrific they can be, and so many others as well. I can't imagine someone not thinking Morgan Freeman's performance was wonderful.

It's well-written. I can't really think of any real part that panders to the Lowest Common Denominator of movie-making, unless you're *really* trying to pick nits about the result of the saloon event at the end.

It's a great script, with terrific actors mostly working at the top of their craft, that yes: happens to be a western.

[Zen]

Unforgiven

One from the 90's I simply missed. Good, but didn't feel it was best picture good. I have to think there was more to life back then than ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers.

Unforgiven isn't to be taken in a vacuum. It's a deconstruction and refutation of the western genre in much the same way Harakiri is a deconstruction and refutation of the samurai genre.

I mean the whole point of this scene is tearing down the myth of the quickdraw.

This gent gets it.
Expanding on the not to be taken in a vacuum point, I believe Clint said it was his last western? This added to the nostalgia/hype and introspective attitude some viewers brought to the cinema, when they first saw it.
Eastwood knows how to climb up on the back of the emotional American/Hollywood beast and ride the shit out of it. When he really tries, he is a master at this.
Im not saying that a film should be judged on anything other than its merits, just that as well as being a wonderful piece of cinema, this film is a "timepiece".

[Skykid]

Eastwood knows how to climb up on the back of the emotional American/Hollywood beast and ride the shit out of it. When he really tries, he is a master at this.

That's not a positive.

One of the main reasons I favour Unforgiven over pretty much all of his schmaltzy drivel is because it doesn't rely on patented Hollywood sentimentality.

[Zen]

Eastwood knows how to climb up on the back of the emotional American/Hollywood beast and ride the shit out of it. When he really tries, he is a master at this.

That's not a positive.

One of the main reasons I favour Unforgiven over pretty much all of his schmaltzy drivel is because it doesn't rely on patented Hollywood sentimentality.

Its not stated as a positive or, a negative. Just an observation.

It took me many years to bring myself to watch million dollar baby, due to being allergic to schmaltz (it was good but I still felt kinda dirty). American sniper? Well, Clint can fuck right off with that. That level of shit-eating is to rich for my digestion.

Point re. GaijinPunch's post, is that if you are only watching unforgiven for the first time in 2016 and wonder about its best picture status, you might be missing out on the whole meta vibe it had going on in 92.
Also, as Mischief Maker pointed out, this is not just a film about "ex-bounty hunters going after people that cut up hookers".

Unforgiven, in my personal opinion, is a masterpiece of cinema. It had me at the opening shot, with Claudia's theme be played slowly on a nylon string, all the way through to the end, where we finally see the "man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition".

[Skykid]

Unforgiven, in my personal opinion, is a masterpiece of cinema.

I wouldn't go that far.

[Opus131]

Unforgiven, in my personal opinion, is a masterpiece of cinema.

I wouldn't go that far.

Certainly among the few Clint Eastwood films that are actually good. Most of his stuff is decently directed but very poorly written.