Topic: The Movie Thread

I think of The Fast and the Furious movies as the equivalent of Call of Duty in the gaming world. Annualized hormone-fueled action with enough familiarity to just keep the masses coming back for more, time after time. Lots of explosions and dude-bros flexing while they quip back and forth as they wade through a shallow sea of retreaded pop culture iconography. They print money, so they keep making them. And despite fitting the target demographic, I just can’t seem to muster any interest in seeing them.

If I were the theater chains, I’d close for a while. I can’t imagine why many people would want to go to the theaters right now anyways. Looks like MGM had the right idea with delaying No Time To Die for such a long period.

Speaking of Mulan... that's now also delayed. Not a surprise honestly, and Disney was probably waiting to simply not be the first. In other news, A Quiet Place: Part II has also been delayed and it upsets me that I now have to wait an indeterminate amount of time more to see Emily Blunt in action again. Maybe it is time to finally watch Devil Wears Prada.

@Tjuz have you seen my summer of love? It's an early Emily blunt film, well worth a watch if you are a fan

@LN78 @Th3solution That franchise just doesn't make sense anymore. It went from illegal street racing to XXX meets Mission Impossible. Hobbs and Shaw even had some sci-fi elements.

@crimsontadpoles Same. I still go watch them for some reason even though I think the movies are pretty average.

@Tjuz Did they announced the new dates for Mulan and A Quite Place II?

@ralphdibny I haven't seen My Summer of Love actually! It's a lot of her older stuff that I haven't seen. Thank you for the recommendation however. I will watch it this week to replace A Quiet Place: Part II and report back with my thoughts.

@WanderingBullet No new dates for either Mulan or A Quiet Place: Part II unfortunately. Both will be a pain in the bum to reschedule I'm sure, having spent all of their ad budget already. I doubt they can delay them for too long without it becoming stale, but it'll be hard finding space for them in an already busy fall schedule. End of summer is probably the best bet for both of them at this point.

@Tjuz I see... With Mulan, China is obviously a huge concern for Disney.

@LN78 Thank you, I'll be sure to pick that up when I have an opportunity to, I'll look forward to watching them all.

I finished up my DC watching with Justice League tonight. Yeah, it’s not great at all. I can fully understand the clamouring for the Snyder Cut as I do believe it was a decent movie buried under reshoots that turn it into an episode of Buffy circa 1997. Upper lips aside, it’s just a bit of a mess. BvS looks great in comparison now. Although I personally enjoyed BvS more than TDKR.

@nessisonett Yeah. JL is a massive shame. I knew it was going to be before going in, and the opening mobile phone footage of Superman confirms it from the get go (bad face cg - why is he wearing the new suit...).
It's Whedon at his very worst, and no-doubt rushed. I'm surprised they got him to do it given the task of reshooting and editing so much of the film considering his post Age of Ultron burnout.
Elfman's lackadaisical score doesn't help matters either.

BvS has its problems, but the extended cut remedies most of the theatrical version's narrative issues and beyond that, I think it becomes a matter of taste over quality.

@KALofKRYPTON I actually haven’t seen BvS Extended Cut. I should probably give that a watch then, although I’ll give it a while since I feel a bit burned out from all those DC movies! I was tempted to watch the animated movies but I honestly don’t know if they’re worth it or not.

@ralphdibny I watched My Summer of Love today, as per your recommendation, and I have to say I wasn't super impressed. I wasn't really feeling the chemistry between Blunt and Press, and the development of their relationship felt too short and rushed. I also thought Considine was a bit of a caricature all things considering, and the only time they really added anything to his character they made him a bit too over the top. All that aside, Blunt did a really nice job in the film and her charisma here is undeniable. She clearly was made for the big time even with her earlier stuff like this. It's nice to see where she came from. I wasn't particularly impressed by the directing of Pawlikowski either. It felt a bit safe, basic and uncreative, and I definitely wasn't a fan of the constant camera movements. I assume it was an attempt to make the film feel more naturalistic, but instead it made it feel more amateur. Nonetheless, it's really nice to see where Blunt's career really started and I thank you for the recommendation! If I may be so bold, I would recommend to you Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I get the feeling you would really enjoy that film if you're a fan of this one.

On another note, I saw Richard Jewell in the cinema a few days ago. It only released in the Netherlands last week, oddly enough. It will probably the last film I'll see in the cinema for a little while considering the current state of the world. I did really enjoy it though, and it's quite a nice note to take a break on. I'm not all that familiar with the Jewell story, so it all was somewhat fresh to me. I therefore also don't know exactly how true to the real life events it was. Despite all that though, I thought it was a very touching story with quite an important message even if the plotting had some pacing issues throughout the film. The lead actor is outstanding, and Bates once again proves that she can chew scenery when she wants. I wouldn't have nominated her for an Oscar for this specific performance, but her scene with the speech was undoubtedly a stroke of greatness. As expected, it was expertly directed thanks to Eastwood's deft touch on the entire project. I wish we had seen a bit more of the media's side instead of simply vilifying them, even if deservedly so. I suppose the movie is called Richard Jewell though, so maybe they had no interest in portraying any of that either. The second season of Manhunt which recently came out on Spectrum will also be an adaptation of the same events, and I will be watching that, so I'm interested to see what the differences will be. Overall a very competently made biopic that I really enjoyed.

@nessisonett It's a better experience that generally just requires fewer leaps of logic to navigate the plot threads. And it features possibly Batfleck's greatest on screen moment that was cut from the warehouse fight. It's a wonder they cut out what they did.

The animated films are mostly great and usually adapted very well.
Superman: Doomsday isn't very good, and feels like there were massive constraints on what they could include from the story. They redeemed that a couple of years ago with the Death and Return of Superman.

There are a few of them, so I'd say the highlights are: Justice League: New Frontier, Batman: Under The Red Hood, All-Star Superman, Justice League: War, Justice League: Doom, Batman: Year One, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Justice League: The Throne Of Atlantis, Batman: Bad Blood and Justice League: Dark.

I finally got round to watching Pi on Friday, it was really quite entertaining, I started it a bit late on in the evening so was getting a bit sleepy toward the end. I’d watch it again. Cool film. Ignorance is bliss.

I also watched Colo(u)r out of Space last night, really enjoyed that one. Loved Cage once more, his face when he’s picking those tomato’s 😂. Some of the CGI stuff was pretty shoddy but as a B movie that’s to be expected, I’d certainly watch it again.

I gave Momento a watch yesterday whilst lesson planning (Will I actually be teaching tomorrow though I wonder?)

Ironically I'd forgotten about this film and that I'd watched it before until the film had snapped back to the colour narrative for the first time and it all came flooding back.

Guy Pearce really is great as the lead Leonard "Lenny" Shelby not to mention Carie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano are fantastic in the supportive roles too.

I won't say much if you haven't watched it as it relies heavily on the narrative structure (In fact the film's story would be quite average if it played out normally) but it's a noir thriller with some psychological elements.

It's definitely a very unique film and Christopher Nolan is on top form here with the second film he ever made.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @LN78 One of my all time faves. Think I tried watching it in chronological order, but wasn't keen and much preferred it the way it was presented originally.

Weird Science (Blu-Ray) - 80's teen comedy that sees a couple of high school buddies (Wyatt & Gary) go from dweebs to cool after they inadvertently create a reality bending beauty named Lisa (when simply trying to create a female AI on Wyatt's computer in order to practice speaking to girls), who uses her powers to help them climb the latter of popularity.

It's 80's culture distilled into it's purest form (cheesy, neon infused, with a wide eyed wonder at the unlimited possibilities of computers), and while it may not be a movie that'll stand the test of time, I've always found it to be a fun watch.

Interesting to note that they really went all out with the special features. In addition to all the standard stuff (production photos, theatrical, televesion, & even radio ads, all sorts of commentary), it even has high definition scans of it's various film posters, VHS boxes, DVD boxes, & Blu-Ray boxes from throughout the years, and even regions. It even has a digital copy of the film's script!

@LN78, Yeah, I got the steelbook edition (it was only marginally more expensive than the regular release, so I figured why not), and while I'm not sure if you'd be able to get the exact same release over in the UK (I'm in the US), I don't see why there'd be any difference in terms of special features (I forgot to mention that it includes the extended cut, which is what I watched, and even the edited for TV version, in addition to the theatrical cut).

I think my favorite line is when Chet (Paxton) was berating Wyatt becsuse it was snowing in his room.

@Tjuz I'm glad it was worth a watch in some ways at least! By no means is it one of my favourite films but I thought if you were a fan of Blunt then it was a pretty essential film to see. They had us watch it on our film degree and I thought it was OK. I really hope to see Richard Jewell one day. Eastwood directs and stars in (not always at the same time) some of the best films in my opinion.

@nessisonett @KALofKRYPTON I think I saw the live action JL film with the lowest expectations ever and I came out of it mildly surprised. I actually enjoyed it and just thought it was fun to watch. The BVS extended cut and likewise the Suicide Squad extended cut, do make both films a little easier to watch but BVS does remain stupid in so many ways. I probably had higher expectations for that film and was let down by it hence me regarding it as worse than JL.

It's funny that justice League war, which I think was like 70 or 80 minutes long, did a better job of adapting that story than the live action film. I've since seen all of the animated films in that continuity and I have to say that I love them. They are wicked.