Topic: The Movie Thread

@TheBrandedSwordsman Highlander of course! I honestly don’t remember Sean Connery being in Zorro although I don’t remember much of that movie at all.

@Jimmer-jammer I take it you watched it with your kids?

@nessisonett Was anything you remember about it as good as this? 🤣 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mniOdBXH2Yk "Wait, here come the ninjas" rofl.

Movies I've seen recently.

BlacKKKlansman (FX) - A film set in the 70's about a pair of Black & Jewish police officers who infiltrate the klan, in an effort to uncover whether or not they're simply hateful, or actually dangerous. It was a really good watch, though the actor who played David Duke (the klan's president at the time) was Eric from that 70's Show, & I just saw him as Eric pretending to be really racist for some reason, lol. Being a more recent Spike Lee production, it also drew some parallels to "Trumpism", with Duke leading an "America First" chant (not sure if that specific phrase is something they used), and later transitioned from a Cross burning to footage of the 2017 Charlottesville riot & Trump's response to there being "fine people on both sides", as to point to the movement "changing guises" rather than going away.

Ghostbusters 2 (Blu-Ray) - I intended to watch this around Halloween, but just never got around to it at the time (made time for the first though, of course). It's never too late for a bit of ghost busting fun though, so I watched it more recently. Yeah, it's not as good as the first, but it's still a pretty fun time. I actually got a kick out of some of the deleted scenes, such as the one where Rick Moranis' character tries out the ghost busting gear by trying to hunt down Slimer in their office.

One Night in Miami (Amazon Prime Video) - Film covering the night Cassius Clay took on the name Mohammed Ali, with Ali/Clay, Malcom X, Jim Brown, & Sam Cooke spending the night in a motel room discussing & debating the issues affecting Black Americans at the time. Really interesting watch.

Otaku no Video (Retro Crush) - Anime film (really, two OVA's bundled together as one) that's kinda a parody of Japanese Otaku culture of the time. It follows a young sociable university student who reconnects with an old friend from high school who drags him into the world of Otaku, and after being immersed in the culture & "rejected from society", decides to transform the world into an "Otaku paradise". The narrative is regularly interrupted with mock documentary style live action segments, with interviews with "real world" Otaku, covering various aspects of the culture (themes usually tied to events happening in the story proper) & their integration into wider society. It was a pretty fun watch, with lots of blatant references to series such as Macross, Lupin the 3rd, Gundam, Urusei Yatsura, & more. An aspect of the culture regularly touched upon that doesn't seem to be a big part of anime/Otaku culture these days is a fixation on realism (the characters would fawn over how the designs of the fighters in Macross are inspired by real world military designs & advancements of the time, such as them featuring Liquid Crystal Displays, "Which is What NASA is currently using!", as well as the realism displayed in special effects & weapon models), which I thought was interesting (simply because when I was young, it was the more serious, real world connections of a lot of anime which drew me to the medium over traditional cartoons, and that doesn't seem to be a big appeal for the fandom/medium anymore).

Space Adventure Cobra (Amazon Prime Video) - 90's sci-fi anime flick, that I think is an adaptation of an even older manga (based on the art style I had assumed it was from the 80's). It follows a legendary space pirate known as Cobra, who gets involved with a female bounty hunter who is at odds with the galaxy's biggest crime syndicate. It's pretty decent. Not that I have much experience with it, but it comes across as a more graphic take on something like Buck Rodgers.

@RR529 Yeah, regarding Topher Grace in Blackkklansman, it's a little weird any time you see someone who is really well known for one thing show up as someone very different but that's usually just in the first few moments for me. Recently watched Penguin Bloom for example which had Andrew Clutterbuck Lincoln and it was hard to unsee Rick Grimes but he sold his part fairly well and then I forgot about Rick.

Anyway as far as Eric from That 70s Show, It probably helps that I wasn't a huge fan of the show and I've seen him in other films but I thought he was pretty good considering what they were going for.

And One Night in Miami is entertaining in the same way as 12 Angry Men in that it doesn't sound like much of a premise but really worthwhile and engaging.

Snyder's Justice League is such a weird thing

Like it looks a million times better than whatever the hell the theatrical cut was supposed to be, but I'm also still wary about getting super hyped for it because I felt really duped by Batman v. Superman even after giving Ultimate Edition a chance

@TheFrenchiestFry I’m hyped just because it’s something different. I like a lot of what Snyder does but he’s always had trouble sticking to what the studio wants. This medium allows him to actually deliver what he wants for once. The director’s cuts are always at least better so if this is like a director’s cut on crack then it could be great.

@nessisonett It does actually look really solid

I do think giving him the permission to do the full 4 hour cut he probably wanted will give him enough legroom to tell his entire story with the film. If they even tried to squeeze half the stuff I'm seeing in that new trailer into that original theatrical cut they were going to do before Snyder left the film I could've seen it being probably even messier than BvS in terms of pacing and how many characters it had to introduce.

We know it's probably not to going to be followed up on considering WB seems extremely adamant on steering clear of his direction for DC's films but if that is the case I at least am glad we're getting some resolution on some front like seeing Leto's Joker not act like a guy who just dowsed a Monster Energy after snorting crack

@RogerRoger Oh yeah 4 freaking hours of this

I'll probably have to watch it in hour-chunks. The film is going to have to be super engaging if it's prompting me to sit straight through all 4 hours. This is honestly an instance where I'm glad it's not getting a theatrical release and went straight to streaming. That format works a lot better for a film like this imo

@RogerRoger @TheFrenchiestFry I dunno, some super long films are still engaging like the extended cuts of The Lord of the Rings. Although I’m the person who can sit down and watch an 8 hour long Holocaust documentary so clearly I’m not the person to judge 😅

@nessisonett I mean

I also like LotR way more than any Snyder film so it might just be that as well

I couldn't sit through a film like BvS Ultimate Edition if I tried in theaters. I know it made some people look at that film more positively in retrospect but outside filling the gaps in regards to Clark investigating Batman in Gotham and interviewing the city's residents as well as that sick Lex Luthor/Batman scene at the end it just didn't do much for me

Probably a similar story here. I know my dad would probably get super achy with a film this length as well

4 hours in the comfort of my home isn't too bad. 4 hours in the cinema though, no thanks.

@RogerRoger Michael Bay's Transformers movies were like the one group of films that needed like 5 intermissions and I've never gotten even one through watching them in theaters

They're like the kind of films where you think you're at the start of the third act but apparently it's actually the midway point of the second

I’m just glad we might finally get a CGI-less Superman

@RogerRoger I literally haven't seen Revenge of the Fallen since the theaters back in 2009

The only things I remember were Devestator's wrecking ball tits, Shia LeBoeuf going into cardiac arrest mixed with a seizure during a college lecture, and Optimus Prime with a jetpack

In fact I think the only Transformers film I've actually rewatched is Bumblebee, like the one that's actually good

@nessisonett Honestly the sacrifice of the facial hair wasn't in vain given Cavill killed it in Mission Impossible Fallout

The way they massacred Superman's face does not even compare to how they massacred Batman's...everything

@RogerRoger @TheFrenchiestFry @nessisonett @zupertramp I saw the extended cuts of the first two LOTR films followed by the tird film when it released in the cinema, back to back to back. They had intervals between each film, but man did I not want set foot in a cinema for awhile after that!

But I've also did that with the Back to the Future, Indiana Jones and original Star War trilogy films. There were probably some others but I forget. I would never dream of doing that now, even if the cinema were open.

@RogerRoger Yeah I'm not going in expecting Snyder's vision to be completely without compromise. Apparently WB were interfering with the production of the film as early as prior to principal photography due to the mixed-negative reception to Batman v. Superman coupled with how it underperformed from the studio's perspective

Apparently Terrio was talking about how they purposely aimed to give Justice League more levity in its writing and presentation as they wanted to step away from the desaturated look of Man of Steel and BvS in an attempt to address the complaints about the grim tone and dour presentation of those prior films, similar to what was happening with Suicide Squad when you look at the Comic Con 2015 trailer and then every piece of promo material afterwards

@JohnnyShoulder One thing I really wished I could go to was the Marvel Movie Marathon prior to Endgame's release where they showed all 22 of the MCU films that were released thus far back-to-back before an early showing of Endgame

They sound like massive undertakings but I would've totally been up for that, considering I missed most of Phase One during their initial theatrical runs excluding Iron Man and the first Avengers, before Phase Two was when I really started watching all of them in theaters

@RogerRoger Honestly Snyder's social media presence defending these films are a sight to behold in of itself

I honestly almost admire how self-indulgent that guy is about how serious and "dark" his takes on the characters are

I do admit I'm actually feeling like ordering some new DC Comics in the wake of all that's coming out as of late. Batman Earth One has especially been on my radar for some time but now that Matt Reeves' film is basically completely inspired by it based on that trailer I'll have to read it for myself now. Same with some of the Superman and New Gods stuff

I feel like for a lot of people Snyder can still be viewed as super divisive and the only people who can really stomach his takes on the characters are hardcore comic book readers. For a lot of the mainstream audience WB wanted to capture who've never read a lick of comics in their life the films basically influence their perception of the characters and given how drastically Snyder tweaked Superman to suit his vision for the DC canon it predictably scared a lot of people off or left people more indifferent while Disney basically has the shared universe of comic characters down pat. I do expect his Justice League to be more in line with BvS but it'll probably retain some of the jokes that we saw in that Comic Con 2016 footage they showed years ago like that exchange with Cyborg and Bruce where he goes "I'm real when it's useful" or when he's recruiting Arthur onto the team. According to Snyder himself he also intended for this film to be the one where Superman is acting a lot more in line with how he's depicted in the comics