Topic: The Movie Thread

@LN78 Jeez, is that still going? I think the latest film has been released since that wast first heard about.

... Wow that certainly was a different take of Dark Fate @Ralizah to the previous one by mookysam!

That sounds... Bad

I thought Rise of The Machines was... Alright. Not a great Terminator film but a pretty decent action flick if you turned your brain off.

Didn't like Salvation though and Genysis (Or however ya spell that) was all over the place.

Shame Linda Hamilton seemingly quit acting (or did much smaller roles) for the most part before coming back to this.

I'll watch it eventually probably but... Definitely not at the cinema!

Probably gonna watch this later this month.

Looks like it could be a good movie.

Also, has anyone watched The Irishman, yet? Read that there's a limited theatrical release currently.

I watched The King on Netflix.

Very well produced and performed take on some of the life of Henry V. I've seen Timothee Chamolet's name around but not seen in anything that I recall. His performance was great, as was Joel Edgerton - whose Yorkshire accent is almost uncanny.

The show is very much stolen by Robert Pattinson though. His sneering Frenchman is absolutely on point. Initially there's something rather comical about his delivery as the Dauphin; I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching Antoine de Caunes doing his best (vampire) Lestrade - soon enough, the genius of his performance shines through. It very quickly feels like an authentic delivery of English by someone who despises the language and the people who speak it.

Also somewhat of a show-stealer is the photography. I'm not certain as it could just be clever colour grading - but the outdoor scenes all feel as if they were shot with natural light (as was done with The Revenant), and it adds a beautiful realistic feel to scenes.

Anyway, great dialogue expertly delivered, authentic feeling production design and a wonderfully grim depiction (though on the small side and pretty inaccurate) of The Battle of Agincourt. Well worth a watch.

Second Bad Boys For Life trailer.

@WanderingBullet Ford Ferrari looks like it could be good.

Not feeling Bad Boys at all. But then, I thought the second one was pretty crap anyway.

Allow me me to signal my indignant rage!

Or at least, rolled eyes.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/wolverhampton/...

@KALofKRYPTON Looking forward to watching that once I've finished U-571 over here.

***

Clearing up my "let's randomly add this" Netflix list, I watched the over-directed Arnie vehicle The 6th Day with semi-detached amusement. I was giving it a pass for at least having roots in a valid attempt to say something worthwhile about technology, humanity and self-identity. "This is a solid example of an early 90s sci-fi blockbuster," I thought to myself.

Then I realised it was made in the year 2000.

Yeesh.

@KALofKRYPTON @WanderingBullet I see Bale has lost a load of weight again for that role. Always blows my mind when actors do stuff like that

@KALofKRYPTON I actually thought a lot of jokes in the Bad Boys 2 were quite funny. My problem with it was the story but that's usually the case with Michael Bay movies anyways. Another issue with his movies are racial stereotypes.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, I haven't watched Vice, yet but I read that he gained 20 pounds for his role in that movie.

@WanderingBullet Vice is great!

Bad Boys 2, just - urgh. The new one looks like most recent 'sequel for the sake of cash' movies. Pointless and trying a bit too hard.

@KALofKRYPTON Was never a fan of the Bad Boy films, the bickering between the two stars always got on my nerves.

@JohnnyShoulder 13 year old me thought the first film was great. But it had that Shy Guy song being played everywhere you turned out and about and people at school loving it etc etc.

Not a film I've sought out to revisit, but it was fine at the time.

@JohnnyShoulder But bickering between partners is what usually makes buddy cop movies or series funny, though. haha

@WanderingBullet @KALofKRYPTON Maybe it was a sign of the times and those types of movies don't really work anymore. Or maybe it's just me getting older and my tastes changing. I liked some back in the day, Tango & Cash, The Last Boy Scout, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours to name a few of the top of the head. Something about Bad Boys didn't click with me. I might have seen too many by then lol.

@JohnnyShoulder Probably fair to say that the films you mention are all in another league compared to Bad Boys.

Yesterday, my best friend started yelling "SHAME!!" at me when I admitted that, beyond brief clips of its famous one-liners, I had never seen Predator and so, earlier today, I grabbed a copy whilst in town.

Funny thing is, the one-liners (especially "Stick around!" and "Knock knock!") feel really out-of-place in what is, for the most part, a well-written, well-acted, well-directed, well-paced and just, well, well-made monster movie. All of its various elements were great; even its now-dodgy special effects weren't immersion-breaking in any way and yes, I am going for a record number of hyphens in this paragraph.

My two favourite things? Firstly, the way in which the Predator itself was a slow-burn reveal; we were still seeing new layers to it, even during the final battle as it revealed its true face. The framing of the early jungle sequences was excellent, with many characters off-centre so as to show us more of the foliage and get us nervously studying it, wondering whether we could catch a glimpse of this mysterious, mostly-invisible creature. Not knowing how anything went down, I found it genuinely tense in parts, rather than thinking I was supposed to feel tense. Second of all, I loved the soundtrack score. Back when films were allowed to have actual music, rather than just walls of emotive noise. Good ol' Alan Silvestri.

I'd obviously braced myself for a somewhat-mature picture, given the 18 rating on the box and all, but the only bit that made me uncomfortable was the extended shots of the skinned soldiers. That was more to do with the idea of it, though, and not so much the visual itself (which was a very impressive display of practical artwork, I must admit). The Predator's face is also a Stan Winston highlight reel candidate, for sure. Some of the dudebro dialogue hasn't aged well, especially the stuff during the chopper ride, but I know that, in reality, such folks say worse, even today.

So yeah, tick another genre classic off my bucket list. Should probably check out Rambo next.

It was actually slated pretty badly upon release @RogerRoger if I recall right... It's only since then it's become known as a classic!

I totally agree too. It's once of the few films that I could happily rewatch on a regular basis.

I think the "cloaking" effect for the Predator actually holds up fairly well for the most part... Glowstick blood not so much though lol

At one point Jean Claude Van Damme of all people was supposed to play the part of the Predator in one of his first roles (apparently he was not happy at all and left)

It looked terrible too before they got extra funding and hired some legendary special effect/make up artist AND they got the 7ft Kevin Peter Hall to don the make up and prosthetics in the now iconic look!

The sequel... Uhh... Danny Glover is ok I guess? It's... passable. But nowhere near as good.

There is no third and fourth either before you say, that's just crazy talk

Just rewatched The Shining in anticipation of Doctor Sleep, which I'll be seeing in a few days. It's... full of iconic imagery, tense direction, and creative cinematography, of course, but the film still feels disjointed to me. Which is probably intentional. Jack and Danny walk around looking like they've been doped up on Prozac through most of the film, and Wendy... I dunno. I think the character was supposed to come off as demure and passive, but, honestly, she just seems stupid in this film. Having little to nothing in the way of an internal life or character arc of her own, she exists to scream and look terrified and hurt as the bug-eyed Jack Torrance becomes increasingly unhinged. The black chef guy was an interesting character at first, but I'm really disappointed with how his arc ends, given the build-up it receives throughout the film. And Danny's 'shining' ability feels fairly inconsequential to the film as a whole, beyond one subplot that terminates too quickly.

All of this contributes to a sense that Kubrick's film is conceptually empty. It's full of great setpieces and images and scary music, but, when you drill down into it, you come away with a story that's not about much of anything in particular. And, due to the weird, disjointed pacing, it feels like the film exists to set up this weirdness and little else. It's no wonder Stephen King hated the film.

As an exercise in style and filmmaking craft, though, it's still very much worth watching.

@RogerRoger Honestly, First Blood is probably nothing like what you're expecting, based on the reputation of the series in popular culture. It's pretty much the furthest thing imaginable from dumb, jingoistic action cinema.

Speaking of, have you seen the film Commando? It's a terrible movie, honestly, but a ton of fun in a "shut your brain off and enjoy the sociopathic Reagan-era machismo" sorta way. It's sort of like a distillation of everything that went into action movies through the 80's, but with the conscience removed, which makes it very honest, in its own special way.