Topic: The Movie Thread

@WanderingBullet Nope but will keep an eye on it. Am in the mood for something a little different this week.

I saw Overlord in the cinema quite recently. It's a horror movie set in WWII, with nazi scientists doing supernatural crazy evil stuff. The trailer pretty much spoils everything, ... is it just me or does that happen with lots of trailers these days? Often when I watch a trailer today, I feel they reveal far too much of the plot, or finalé even.

Anyway, Overlord reminded me of the latest Wolfenstein games for some reason (especially the 2009 one), perhaps it was the mood of the movie that brought this on. It offers nothing ground-breaking in terms of concept, but has a good and strong set of characters I would argue, especially the lead, Jovan Adepo. Not sure I would recommend it for a cinema viewing, which is quite expensive these days, but it's worth a look if it shows up on Netflix and you like horror movies.

@Bonbonetti Yeah, I definitely want to see Overlord, and I think I’m going to enjoy it as I get exactly that it’s going for a great horror-adventure feel. And yep, a lot of trailers do guff up and reveal far too much of a movie, although I was super delighted that the Hereditary trailer just gave you the dread feeling of the movie rather than any specific plot development. Looking forward to seeing the new Suspiria! 👍

So I’m watching the new Transformers. I loved Age of Excinctuon, but this one is too complicated and going off the deep end. It’s funny though because it mirrors the original series. When Prime is removed for a long period of time the original series also went off the deep end and got too complicated. I’ll say more once I finish it.

@jacobia I'm half way through hereditary right now... lol

@Rudy_Manchego Ah, ok. It's really good and personally it's one of my favourite Korean movies.

@kyleforrester87 😱😱😱.....sooo, did you like it?

A PG-13 version of Deadpool. Wth?! lol

@jacobia honestly I didn't love it in the end, which is a shame, because i really thought I would - especially just before the halfway point where things took an unexpected turn, but then I kind of enjoyed it less and less as it progressed.

What didn't I really like about it.. I'm not completely sure.

Overall I didn't dislike it by any stretch, but even going in with my expectations in check I didn't come away feeling completely satisfied.

I have to say the final scene was pretty memorable, nicely shot and nice dialogue and music.

So, I watched Overlord. It's fun. Not the most original concept in history, especially if you play a lot of Western video games, but I liked it for what it was.

I wouldn't call it horror, though.

@kyleforrester87 Sorry for butting in. Anyway, about your first question about Hereditary...

@Ralizah see I don't get how they managed to engineer that? It was a bunch of random uncontrollable events.

Also I thought the minatures would have had more relevance in the end. And while I'm talking about minatures I.. am not sure why she decided to recreate that particular scene. It didn't seem like a believable part of a grieving process if that's what it was meant to be!

@kyleforrester87 Seemingly, but the cult appears to have the ability to influence how events play out with some aid from the supernatural. The family is constantly besieged by psychic assaults and delusions of supernatural origin, too.

The miniatures. Well, I take them to be both a reflection of the mother's collapsing mental state over the course of the film as well as symbolic of the family's own lack of control over their lives (which are in thrall to forces beyond their comprehension).

Did you end up watching this? I literally know nothing about it and just seen it mentioned in an email.

@JohnnyShoulder quoting doesn't send a notification but I saw this 😉 Yep, saw it twice - really enjoyed it, recommended. Music/visuals are glorious. Solid acting. It's sort of a film of two halves, unfortunately the second half has some issues with pacing and continuity in my opinion, but that might just be down to the individual - either way it's still full of interesting scenes.

I will be watching it again before too long.

@kyleforrester87 Cool, will add it to my watch list. So I assume by your comments that we get a good Nic Cage? His agent must have an interesting job!

@JohnnyShoulder he still gets to be Cage - a shot of him right at the very end in a car had me pi**ing myself.

Just got back from the second Wreck-It Ralph film. It wasn't really bad, persay, but it didn't feel like a terribly cohesive experience (the first and second halves of the movie feel VERY different, honestly), its portrayal of the internet is practically as glib, sanitized, and commercialized as something like The Emoji Movie, and while I can appreciate the themes it tries to tackle near the end... I dunno, I just feel like it detracts from what was already established in the first film.

Nowhere near as good as the first film.

So ... Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
What can I say about this movie? To sum it up — I spent the first hour and a half of the movie lamenting how far the JK Rowling universe has fallen. Then for the last ten minutes I once again admired the author’s amazing skill at crafting intricate machinations.
In the early parts of the movie its a convoluted mess with a rather boring plot line. The characters beyond Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander fail to inspire, and even Grindelwald, played by the overacting pro Johnny Depp, was forgettable. The movie was unnecessarily complex in the early stages and quite hard for me to follow. Admittedly, I am not a Harry Potter scholar, but I’d say I’m probably above average as it relates to knowing my Harry Potter lore. And if I had a hard time following the plot and character arcs, then I know the average viewer was certainly dumbfounded by the first 2/3 of this quagmire of a script.
Fortunately, in her usual style, Rowling wraps things up at the end and connects dots that you didn’t realize even existed and thereby salvages the story. Obviously I won’t spoil anything here, but if you have experienced the Harry Potter movies and/or books, you have come to expect the sharp crescendos to the climax that the series is known for. And that’s fine, it does make for great dinner conversation after the movie to discuss the big and interesting reveals, but in this movie, you’ll also be reviewing the plot with your mates in order to clarify in your mind what really happened. Because when all the stray side stories come together (kind of) it happens so fast with such brief explanation that you might just not have time to absorb it all. Not to mention, you may have dozed off by the time the end rolls around so you’ll need someone to explain what happened while you slept. That is, if they even understood it all themselves.
I’m a sucker for a good ending and I like plot twists. I also have a soft spot for the Harry Potter universe. So I have to say I ended up enjoying the show. But I know a few of the friends I was with were quite put off by it and it took a lot of rehashing and explanation to make sure they even got the whole point of the show.
That said, there are some cool and exciting nods to the original movies. As you know the Fantastic Beasts movies are prequels, so they’re filled with back stories of lesser known characters and cameos from the complex wizarding world of Mr. Potter.
If you didn’t care for the other movies, especially the first Fantastic Beasts, then you probably won’t enjoy this. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ve probably already seen it. As for me, I’ll probably watch it again at some point, if for no other purpose than to prepare for the inevitable third Fantastic Beasts installment. Because I don’t want to start out confused at the outset of that movie, but that’s probably unavoidable.

Finally got around to Cloud Atlas.

Really enjoyed it.

Long run-time but not arduous with with it; and other than being a long film, I'm having a bit of trouble rationalising the negative critical responses the film stacked up. It's not a masterpiece, but well intentioned and very well executed (other than one of Hugo Weaving's character representations that reminded me so strongly of something else that it was really, laughably distracting - but that was my fault!).

I'd certainly recommend it.