Movies you've just watched

[Jonny2x4]

Batman Ninja (2018) - Even though I'm a fan of the DCAU, I've never paid much attention to the series of straight-to-video movies that they've been putting out since Justice League Unlimited ended. I bought the Blu-ray/DVD steelbook set of this one on a whim and it's pretty much what you would expect from a movie titled "Batman Ninja" (or "Ninja Batman", sometimes they swap the words on the title). Basically, Batman gets warped back to feudal-era Japan thanks to Gorilla Grodd's time machine and now he must learn to become a ninja in order to get back in time. The cel-shaded CGI animation is pretty well done and the redesigned versions of Batman and his family (Jason Todd as wandering monk is a favorite of mine), as well as his Rogue Gallery, are all cool. Wouldn't mind if they revisit this version of Batman again.

Stiletto (2008) - A straight-to-DVD revenge thriller about a Russian femme fatale (Stana Katic) who is killing a gang of mobsters that has wronged her somehow in the past. The DVD cover, which shows the heroine wielding a pair of pistols like the fucking Tomb Raider, makes it looks like some kind of badass action flick, but it's really more of a whodunit that is pretty light on violence (the only memorable scene was a shot where the female detective gets shot in the face). The cast consists mostly of hasbeens like Tom Berenger as the main mob boss, Michael Biehn as one of his lackeys and Tom Sizemore playing a Tom Sizemore character. Nothing that hasn't been done before in better movies.

[BIL]

Good reminder, I was gonna check out BatNinjaMan. Character designs looked fantastic, especially the most powerful man in Japan, Devil Emperor JYOKAA-SAMA. I heard the US release's script was radically edited... out of curiosity, have you compared them? I guess I'll go with JP by default.

Only a very casual comics fan, but I've enjoyed the DCA movies here and there. Thought The Flashpoint Paradox was good nihilistic fun. I kinda roll my eyes at comic book "deaths" - as one-note as Hokuto no Ken's drama is, I've got to respect it for dead meaning dead. So I dig alternate timeline stories where there's no need for the inevitable rollbacks, and these fantastic beings can brutalise one another with abandon. Felt the same about Old Man Logan's future world.

Speaking of superheroes, I was catching up on The Incredible Human Cockroach (snort, ack-ack-ack, got bills d00d *grotesque swallowing*) and wondering if the internet's inexhaustible abyss of IRL horror has forever supplanted ol' Hollywood. Gonna watch RAMBO V: LAST FIRST BLOOD but wondering if it's gonna amount to a Liveleak fanfic.

[drauch]

Gonna watch RAMBO V: LAST FIRST BLOOD but wondering if it's gonna amount to a Liveleak fanfic.

I fuckin' loooooved it, but I'm probably in the minority since I worship Rambo and action in general. I was kinda afraid it was going to get political and super Trumpy border patrol, but it's pretty straight with Rambo just getting revenge and no ulterior motives or "cleaning up" white savior stuff. Rambo is just super pissed and scum deserve to rot! It seriously reaches levels of violence I didn't think possible for a mainstream new movie. Stallone said how pumped he was he got the "Hard R" and it certainly shows. Some folks were letdown since it doesn't have the 400+ bodycount of the adrenaline pumping, mercenary cumtribute that is Rambo 4, but I dug the pace and ultimate payoff of this one. Wankers liken it to Taken, which is pretty goofy when movies like HARDCORE were made 20+ years before that. Revenge is for all-time, ya hear!?

Anyway, it's super violent. Multiple decapitations, overkill, torture interrogations, sleaze--a scumlord's action dream come true IMO!

[BIL]

Oh FUCC that does it DRAUCH-SAMA, enough talk imma fire it up.

(I totally slept on this one, first alerted by some wiener lamenting the "SHIFT TOWARDS ALMOST SLASHER MOVIE-LIKE" violence - thought to myself "motherfucker did you SEE Rambo IV?" )

[drauch]

Ya, for real. There's no kids thrown in the fire and then shot again with a flamethrower, and the body count isn't all that high (comparatively), but the decade difference in effects certainly amps up the brutality. This one also feels a lot more personal. Like when Rambo is on that 50-cal mowing dudes into chunks in IV it's just another day at the office. In V he's making all sorts of evil traps that impale and remove body parts, then he steps in to shoot them again to seal the deal! Really sad I didn't go see this in theaters twice because I'm getting a raging boner just writing this.

[Jonny2x4]

Good reminder, I was gonna check out BatNinjaMan. Character designs looked fantastic, especially the most powerful man in Japan, Devil Emperor JYOKAA-SAMA. I heard the US release's script was radically edited... out of curiosity, have you compared them? I guess I'll go with JP by default.

I've only watched it with the Japanese audio, so I don't know how much the English dub deviates, but thankfully they have separate subtitle tracks for each, so you don't have to worry about dubtitles. Strangely enough, the only Japanese subtitles on the Blu-ray are for the English voice track (the dialogue didn't match and there were subtitles at parts what were completely silent in Japanese).

[BIL]

Ah, verbal dubbing diarrhoea. Grew up with it! What was

[murderous glare]

must surely become

"OH NOES I LEFT THE STOVE ON I MUST FINISH HIM EXTRA QUICK AFTER ALL MY APARTMENT COULD BURN DOWN LEAVING ME TEMPORARILY HOMELESS AND IN NEED OF EMERGENCY HOUSING SERVICES ALSO HERE IS SOMETHING NONSENSICAL THE CHIEF HACK THOUGHT SOUNDED X-TREEEM THAT WILL SPARK FORUM NERDWARS FOR GENERATIONS TO COME"

Economy is a thing, kids!

Speaking of the kids, OH HELL NO ITS TIME 4 REVENGE

EDIT: Good stuff. Knowingly a revenge movie in the purest sense. OLD_JOHN suffers and gets not justice but SATISFACTIONS the only way he knows how: ULTRA VIOLENCE. It's a more restrained movie than the media hysterionics let on, I appreciated that. Zetas get butchered in ruefully unfortunate ways, befitting a movie about a Vietnam-spawned monster man trying to keep his lid on, but it relies on implication for the really horrifying stuff inherent to a plot about human trafficking.

Favourite misfortune:

Spoiler

Rambo letting that poor impaled bastard scream just long and loud enough for 100% ALERT LEVEL before exploding his head like a fuckin pumpkin

HARDCORE

Excellent timing with ING's Exorcist III posts up top. Was totally getting George C. Scott aka Best Stoically Tormented Grandpa vibes from Sly in this.

[Mischief Maker]

I worship Rambo and action in general. I was kinda afraid it was going to get political

[BIL]

Oho, Jimmy & Johnny's Eighties Tussles with Ivan Teh Grouchy Bear. （＾ω´ ）I'm mopping sweat from my brow at the thought of 007 SHITOU being a Living Daylights adaptation, because I'd be compelled to shell out MUCHO DINERO to complement my MD copy of RAMBO III

[drauch]

I worship Rambo and action in general. I was kinda afraid it was going to get political

You got me bro!!! RIP

Glad you dug, BIL!

My favorite part was a small little detail, but I just adored:

Spoiler

dropping that severed head while driving down the highway.

That gave me a warm fuzzy.

[BIL]

Really liked the use of a jump-cut between that kill's setup and payoff, right at a moment of unparalleled "AWW HELL NAWW / U GON GET IT NAO" dramatic irony as OLD_JOHN stalks towards the shower.

[kitten]

re: batman ninja - i thought it was mediocre and was pretty disappointed. the anthology of dc animated movies started off with a few hits here and there, but i felt like they took a huge dip in quality around when they started focusing on new 52 and i totally dropped out of even watching the most of them after how dreadful they were getting. my main motivation for having checked batman ninja out was the out-there, interesting character designs and having handed things off to a japanese studio. the animation felt embarrassing, though. the models are really painfully static with very few points in their rigging (particularly facially) that actually move and animate between frames, the lighting does them no favors, the outlines are indistinct - it feels like i'm watching a ps2-era cutscene with some modern touches, at times.

beyond the minimal points of articulation in the various models, they're also really hesitant to actually to manipulate or warp the models between frames more than really marginal amounts or for just a frame or two (even in heavy action). instances where the model is significantly modified to allow for fluid animation are exceedingly rare - shots with particular angles don't seem to hyperextend limbs to give more dynamic perspective, limbs and weapons tend to barely be warped or blurred for between frames, facial expressions barely actually move any part of the face save for the joker's (and even then it's mostly awkwardly flapping his lower jaw)... even in amateur stop motion animations with action figures, the more intuitive will do things like entirely remove limbs or segments for action shots to unnaturally extend them and then hide it with camera angles to particularly accent certain poses.

something like appleseed had the excuse of being in 2004, but batman ninja was released a year subsequent to houseki no kuni/land of the lustrous - which, if you've not seen, just the first fight should showcase enough to show how far cg animation in anime has gone since then. this years' beastars also looks superb and is similarly working off a primarily cg base with some 2d touch-up. when i watch either of those, i don't consciously think to myself the entire time i'm watching 3d - there are genuine lapses where it's totally off the mind. when i watched batman ninja, it was with a friend, and neither of us could stop commenting out loud on how much the animation was outright unpleasant at any point. i often thought it was unfair to compare works like these to something like the hoijillion dollar pixar movie productions, but with the two aforementioned anime as contemporary comparisons, i feel like i can finally point to something in the same budgetary range and go "wow, this looks really bad and they could do miles better."

as far as the actual narrative of the thing goes, it's... okay. definitely a bit too silly and maybe a bit slapdash in its pacing, but it's okay. if you're unfamiliar with the animated movies they've been pumping out the last decade, some of the early movies really worth watching are superman vs the elite (maybe the most "i miss the dcau" of the movies), batman: year one (i hate frank millar, but this is a stellar adaptation. this is not really a batman movie so much as a jim gordon movie with bryan cranston giving the best jim gordon performance ever), and all-star superman (which is maybe the best comic story any of these are based on). there are more hits than misses from flashpoint paradox, backwards. proceeding forward, you get justice league: war, which is just fucking awful and followed by some stuff that is somehow even worse.

- -

also, re: rambo v, i watched the movie based entirely on having seen this gif and wasn't disappointed -

[soprano1]

Mississippi Burning (1988)
Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe are FBI agents investigating a missing persons case in Mississippi in 1964, and get caught up with the usual racist bullshit from the Klan and it's collaborators. Sad to see some things coming back in our days. Anyway, good movie.

Toy Story 4 (2019)
It was good, but I think 3 still trumps it out of the water. Hell, was there really a need for this?

[Jonny2x4]

The Thing (1982) - Got the Steelbook edition from Shout Factory, which comes with an extra disc containing the 4k remaster that Arrow Video put out for the UK in 2017 (which is the version that I saw), in addition to the 2k remaster that Shout Factory themselves released in 2016 and a third disc with a buttload of bonus content, including a TV cut of the movie (not sure how it differs from the theatrical cut). Not a fan of the cover art they used though (I prefer the Paul Shipper art they used for the regular Blu-ray edition, but that didn't come with the 4k remaster). First time I saw this movie in full and I'll have to say it's easily my favorite movie in John Carpenter's filmography. The 4k remaster is pretty well done, with a sharp and clean image, although it's not an actual 4k Blu-ray (for some reason they still haven't put one yet). There's not much I could say about the movie that hasn't been better articulated elsewhere. You can see the influence the creature designs had on many video games, especially the Biohazard series, and the fact that it's all practical effects achieved with handmade sculptures and puppetry is pretty amazing. The ending is open to interpretation and it could be seen as a bit anticlimatic, but it fits with the kind of story they wrote.

It seems that the 2011 version of The Thing is actually a prequel to the '82 version, although it doesn't seem to be all that interesting based on the trailers.

[Mischief Maker]

The only interesting thing about the Thing prequel is they made practical effects for the whole thing then scrapped it all for shitty CGI.

[BIL]

if you're unfamiliar with the animated movies they've been pumping out the last decade, some of the early movies really worth watching are superman vs the elite (maybe the most "i miss the dcau" of the movies), batman: year one (i hate frank millar, but this is a stellar adaptation. this is not really a batman movie so much as a jim gordon movie with bryan cranston giving the best jim gordon performance ever), and all-star superman (which is maybe the best comic story any of these are based on). there are more hits than misses from flashpoint paradox, backwards. proceeding forward, you get justice league: war, which is just fucking awful and followed by some stuff that is somehow even worse.

Loved Year One, being a fan of the source comics. I'm not sure if it's part of the DCAU, but I thought The Dark Knight Returns was pretty excellent too. It more or less didn't try to capture the comic's raggedly discomforting art style (its Robocop-bleak TV sequences are totally flat on-screen), but it got the broad feels across. Excellent move releasing it in two parts, it'd have been a shame to lose even a page of the source material. Even if it's more earnest than the vibe I get from the book, the soundtrack is stirring stuff.

Oh shit, Peter Weller voiced Bruce Wayne, didn't he? Unintentional ROBOCONNECTION

Thought Superman vs the Elite was fine too (Manchester Black is an interesting fellow), and although I don't recall being offended or anything, I can't remember much of All-Star Superman other than enjoying it after being recommended it here, years ago. I'm kinda surface-level with my comic book flicks when I've not read the source materials.

also, re: rambo v, i watched the movie based entirely on having seen this gif and wasn't disappointed

The way his head flies off to the top-left...

If they ever do a live-action Metal Slug (so much more potential than KOF... could be a total riot in the right knowing hands!), I sincerely hope they consult Rambo IV's creators. That is some absolute body-shredding carnage overload at the climax. Just like Slug it's horrifying in theory and raucous in practice. I'm sorry, ambiguously evil enemy grunts! But circumstances dictate your explosive HEAVY MACHINE GUN demise be hilarious!

My favourite bit is when things appear to be winding down, then a fresh truckload of grunts comes roaring into Johnny's sights right on cue, Operation Wolf-style.

The Thing (1982)

One of those movies you envy people who are seeing it for the first time! (also one of the best "watch with first-timers" horror movies ever )

It seems that the 2011 version of The Thing is actually a prequel to the '82 version, although it doesn't seem to be all that interesting based on the trailers.

It's got one or two memorable creature scenes (compromised as MM says by overlaid CG muck), but the surrounding movie isn't there. Not only is 82's visit to the Swedish (I mean Norwegian!) base a better horror experience in a tiny fraction of the time... 82's novelisation provides a glimpse at the fate of the camp more chilling than anything revealed in 2011. I'm not gonna say those events should never have been revealed, but the optimal way of doing so is basically 82 Again so why bother?

EDIT: well no, I'm an idiot. You could do some very interesting stuff with the Swedes. Norwegians, sorry. Did the alien slowly claim the camp unnoticed, until the handful of survivors found themselves plunged into a nightmare, surrounded by monstrous facsimiles of their comrades? Or was it a jagged, violent process with numbers gradually dwindling? A talented writer could easily glean another interesting cosmic horror tale from the camp's downfall. Personally I'm intrigued by the thought of a 95% innocuous film full of optimism and good cheer, wow think of all the wonderful advances we'll make with this mysterious alien cell and the unfathomably advanced technology that delivered it to Earth, ha ha! Wait what the -

The important thing is what 2011 almost entirely dispensed with, that is, the subterfuge and paranoia of the alien.

"Yo, I like how Thing Two Oh One One dispenses with he dumb + gay tactical mindgames and just RAWR @ bitches so they SCREAM 4 HELP - he scare 'em AND they friends come runnin', then he OWN EM UP w/ his BADASS TENTACLE WHIP." *interviewee makes a lashing gesture accompanied by crude whipping noises*



I'm probably more forgiving of 2011 than I should be, that was an amazing year in my life. Also Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a cute MacReady-chan, shame about the surrounding movie! Just watch Fargo season 3 instead!

[xxx1993]

Glad to see Rambo: Last Blood get some love here. I was worried I'd be the only one to have seen it on this board. But I enjoyed the movie very much, easily one of my personal favorites of 2019.

[BIL]

Totally solid NAMsploitation-flavoured REVENGE 'EM UP fare!

Be attitude for OLDMANFORCE
1. Shoulda listened to gramps
2. Nothing is over
3. KILLINS AS EASY AS BREATHIN

As for me I did a terrible thing

[xxx1993]

Spoiler

The main villain’s death was extremely satisfying to watch. Rambo gets this knife out, stabs him in the chest, and rips his fucking heart out with his bare hands! It’s all too much like a Mortal Kombat Fatality!

[BryanM]

Didn't he like, kill only one guy in the first movie before the series turned into Ikari Warriors?

EDIT: well no, I'm an idiot. You could do some very interesting stuff

I've gotta disagree on getting more blood out of The Thing. At least as a flick. Everything the first film had to say and explore was already covered in the first movie, no need for sequelitis.

It's a haunted mansion movie. Same core movie as Alien, 13 Ghosts, Event Horizon, Cube, etc. The tapestry for "a haunted mansion movie" is so much wider - there are so many variations on monsters, isolated settings, characters and themes you can do. To make a Thing spinoff as a movie is inherently flawed and a soulless cashgrab - it'd have to be a series like the Psycho tv show. With few haunted mansion episodes.

These later Ghostbusters and Star Wars, where they're only being made because people are emotionally tied to a name, but they gut the screentime of the actors and characters the fans cared about... multiple good movies could have been made inspired by them for the same cost.

I think this next movie will be around the threshold Disney finally sees a profit from buying Star Wars? Considering how hard they've been squeezing this turnip, that's crazy.

[BIL]

Didn't he like, kill only one guy in the first movie before the series turned into Ikari Warriors?

Yeah! And accidentally, in self-defense, too! And tragically, that man's dying screams were subsequently harvested by the very Japanese he valiantly fought against in WWII!

He was a horror movie monster even then though, just a friendly misunderstood one. Hides in the shrubbery and stabs that Richie Cunningham-looking deputy right in the butt!

Rambo V is actually a relatively (relatively!) credible return to First Blood. FRONTAL ATTACK not a great idea, John! This isn't Rambo III: Ivan Drago Must Die! Hide in shrubbery for +100 boost to your Stabs Butt stat.

I've gotta disagree on getting more blood out of The Thing. At least as a flick. Everything the first film had to say and explore was already covered in the first movie, no need for sequelitis.

Oh I agree - damn thing should never have happened in the first place. Just saying, it didn't have to be quite so off-target. Give the creepy body-xeroxing alien more creepy things to do, not a hentai tentacle whip to PWN entire rooms of grown men with, before he RAWR and chase 'em down and eat their faces while his Hand Options mop up stragglers.

We already have the Dark Horse comics for that.

Spoiler

I still idly ponder a Swedish Base movie where absolutely nothing untoward happens. Just lots of ruminations on the vastness of time and space, prompted by the staggering discovery of extraterrestrial life and technology - until on the morning of departure for Sweden, some random mishap exposes the aliens in a benign yet innately cosmic-pants-shitting way, at which point you get two minutes of Brain Dead meets Cronenberg.

*Norway

[drauch]

I'm really curious how David Morrell (the author of First Blood) handles the novelizations for both Rambo II and Rambo III, which is pretty nuts they got him to do that. I picked them up recently for my giant action paperback collection that sits all over my hovel, but I haven't started either yet. He reportedly really liked Rambo IV (although hated V), and from the one trusted gent I read some reviews from, they're supposed to be ace stuff in the Men's Adventure genre. Wish he would have done a Rambo IV novel! I need pages and pages of meaty .50 cal descriptions to truly live for something.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I can see Drauch and MM giving each other a hard time but I would like to add movies have always been political. Some are just more subtle than others.

[xxx1993]

I have no idea as to why David Morrell hated the movie. Personally, he must have hated it out of spite against Stallone. I can only assume there was probably a fallout between the two at some point during production. But that’s just my opinion.

[BIL]

My uncle who works at Nintendo told me that Stallone said he liked Metal Slug X and Morrell went "PFF NOOB, 2 > X" and Stallone replied "X is a playable 2, without slowdown, much better level design, more enemies and weapons, usually well placed for the section you get them at. It's not really longer either, mostly because you can actually deal damage with the new weapons. It's a huge improvement over 2, and it boggles my mind anyone would say otherwise." Morrell went "OMFG STFU" and ran away! I dunno how accurate unc is here, Morrell sounds kinda inarticulate for a published author!

[xxx1993]

That’s not what really happened, right? There must have been a falling out between the two, but that’s not how it went, right?

[soprano1]

The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Miguel and Tulio are two 16th century Spanish con artists, who get their hands on a seemingly fake map to the land of El Dorado, which leads to an awesome adventure in the New World. This fantastic animated movie from pre-CG fest Dreamworks is just beautiful, with one of the best scores I ever heard. While Prince of Egypt had that glorious tone going, this one is bright and poppy. Voice cast is good too. Watch the recent Blu-ray release for all that glorious animation.

The Inspector General (1949)
My mother taped this on VHS when I was 7 or 8, and it's comical scenes and songs remained in my head to this day. So, while it's not exactly a masterpiece, it's not mediocre either: Georgi, an illiterate gypsy, too honest to fool people with his partner Yakov's miracle elixir (shoe polish), finds himself being mistaken for the Inspector General, an incorruptible and honest civil servant, by a town's completely corrupt council (everyone is related, and it's wonderfully presented in the opening scenes). If you like satire focused on corruption and greed (and very funny singing acts), check this out.

[BIL]

That’s not what really happened, right? There must have been a falling out between the two, but that’s not how it went, right?

Yeah, just kidding! I think Sly's more of a Shock Troopers guy myself.

[drauch]

That’s not what really happened, right? There must have been a falling out between the two, but that’s not how it went, right?

Yeah, just kidding! I think Sly's more of a Shock Troopers guy myself.

I love all of this <3

[BIL]

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) As widely reported, it's a blatant T1+2 amalgam with the most sparing of innovations. If you can't allow it this, you'll hate every second. I myself am resigned to such bullshit, so I only mildly grimaced when Guitars, Cadillacs popped up to HARARIOUS EFFECT.

As a story, it's quite watchable. AHNULD and Linda Hamilton comfily inhabit their classic roles, he as lovably deadpan as ever when they go for another round of Hapless Roboman VS Feral Radfem. Mackenzie Davis does well as CYBER BIEBER, tirelessly beseeching the black hole of personality that is JUANITA CONNOR.

As a chase thriller it starts off surprisingly adroit, with a visceral car chase followed by much nefariousness from T8MILLION, who uses every dirty surveillance state trick in the book to harry the protagonists from afar. This restraint persists into the halfway point, the Not T1 Police Station Escape.

After this, the director is future-assassinated and replaced by Michael Bay, and it abruptly turns into fucking Transformers. Screamingly dull zero-G battles, multiple plane crashes, multiple underwater fight scenes, and an astonishingly glib Not T2 Foundry Showdown obliterate the prior half's goodwill in a sparkly barrage of cartoonish, dick-numbing excess. "USE ME AS BAIT" says JUANITA CONNOR. She proceeds to alternate standing behind AHNULD and CYBER BIEBER while T8MILLION obediently homes in like a fucking DOOM monster, taking sparkly funnybook blows to the back of his head. Oh no!

JUDGEMENT: 50% watchable chase thriller, 50% tacky cartoon parody of the originals' bleak desperation. Even an indulgence of its soft-rebooting, dead horse-battering nature is no refuge!

WATCH INSTEAD:

Spoiler