Topic: The Movie Thread

@Th3solution Hm, I dunno. These films tend to be extremely well-received critically and commercially. More than ten years of films with sometimes only slight variations in structure between them, and nobody seems to tire of them. And even the grumps who have tired of them still go and see them anyway. It's actually super impressive.

@nessisonett Killing off and/or retiring the majority of your money-makers will have that effect.

I actually didn't see Black Widow, either. She was always a fairly uninteresting character. If Hawkeye gets his own movie, I'll skip that, too.

Eternals... well, I haven't seen that, but its reception is rather shocking considering how consistently Disney have been able to churn out these formulaic superhero epics.

I actually just watched Shang-Chi last night. It's a fun deviation from the Marvel norm, with most of it feeling more like a martial arts action film. Although it's right back to formula near the end. Was definitely surprised the first ten minutes or so were in full Chinese.

Hope to see more stealthy stuff in The Batman sequel. A lot of times he was just walking into public view in the first movie. Guess he wasn't kidding when he said, "They think I'm hiding in the shadows. But I am the shadows.". As for villains, would like to see either Mr. Freeze or Court of the Owls.

@Ralizah @nessisonett I wonder what the situation would be for the MCU if the pandemic hadn’t arrived when it did. Because yes, it was the end of the Infinity stone arc and culminated in a very definitive and satisfying conclusion, but the natural course of putting movie theaters in hibernation for more than a year certainly had its effect. The three movies that came mostly straight to streaming (Widow, Shang-Cho, Eternals) all had less than enthusiastic reception, comparatively speaking. It’s partly the neutering of their appeal through lack of a big red carpet release, partly MCU and superhero fatigue, and partly a less compelling narrative structure.

Even now, I think the advent and expectations of early streaming access has really changed how we consume new movie releases. It’s not too different from what’s happening in the gaming space, but only the biggest of blockbusters have received the theater attention. It does feel like there’s maybe a shifting back to more in-person theater outings occurring as COVID stays relatively tame for a while (I’m certainly going now), but there are two years worth of movies which never got their proper day in the sun at the theaters.

@Th3solution IS THERE MCU fatigue? I would have thought there was, but then that Spider-Man movie became one of the most successful film releases of all time.

I started going back as soon as I was vaccinated. Covid infection rates ebb and flow, and this thing is going to be with us forever. Or at least for many, many years. There are already warnings of a surge in infections coming soon. In some ways, we're worse off than we were when this first hit: while we have vaccines and more treatments, the disease also wasn't quite as wildly easy to spread as omicron has been.

I think people have just adjusted to the new normal of living with covid.

It's particularly frustrating for me as an American, considering how gigantic the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-science contingent of the country has become.

@Ralizah Good point on No Way Home and I also felt surprised that the movie had such a huge release. I attribute some of that to the reach of the Spider-Man character IP as it’s own perpetual buzz factory. If Dr. Strange opens big then you might be right about there not really being as much MCU fatigue in the populace as we would expect.

As for COVID, I don’t know. We are in this strange place where no one masks anymore and society feels like they have moved on. Time will tell whether things spike enough again to divert the steady march toward “normal” life, or probably better termed “pre-pandemic” life. Theater owners are some of the happiest of the bunch that people have grown comfortable letting their guard down. I actually masked the last time I went to the theater (to see No Way Home, of course! 😄) and so I’m trying to decide if I’ll actually mask when I go next weekend. I feel certain that if I do I will be the Lone Ranger on that front. It’s a little off topic on this thread, but masking doesn’t bother me a bit. In fact I like it because I’m self conscious about my face so I don’t mind hiding it. 😛

@LN78 Oh man, not to get political but I don’t think I can tolerate four more years of that. Political ideology aside, living through 2016-2020 was so fatiguing over here just because of the constant polarization of society. Maybe I should start getting my immigration papers together. 😄

@LN78 There's absolutely no justice in this country. The former president plotted a coup out in the open and the only people who have been punished are the low-income rubes without the means to evade legal consequences.

And with the way blatantly partisan way states under Republican leadership have been redrawing congressional maps, and with voter suppression laws going into effect across the country, and with the way Republicans have fully embraced the Big Lie about the 2020 election, and with the way younger people refuse to vote... well, let's just say the party flirting with fascism is probably going to remain in power going forward. Women are losing the reproductive rights they won nearly 50 years ago (in addition to the high-profile anti-abortion laws that have been introduced in recent months, a bunch of trigger laws will introduce abortion bans in other states when Roe v Wade goes down in June or thereabouts). Honestly wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing sodomy laws being reintroduced in a few years as the Right grows more emboldened by their takeover of the country.

I've already gone through the despair event horizon with regard to our political system. I'm just so sorry the rest of the world is going to have to put up with our nonsense.

@Th3solution There'd have to be something truly catastrophic to make people take up masking in any substantial way again. Of course, it probably differs depending on where you live. I live in a red state, which probably skews my perceptions a bit in this regard.

Thankfully, theaters are rarely very busy where I live, so it's usually simple enough for the family to sit away from strangers.

Road House - A professional bouncer is hired to clean up house at a rowdy bar outside Kansas City, but gets more than he bargained for when he has the nephew of the local mob boss fired.

It's full of cheesy machismo (there's nothing, not even firearm equipped assailants, that can't be overcome with a few well placed roundhouse kicks), but still manages to exude a sense of cool with a classic Americana vibe. It perhaps runs a bit longer than it needed to (though the fact I watched it on an ad supported service didn't do it any favors in this regard), but I don't regret watching it.

Watching Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills tonight.

Watching Halloween 2018 right now anyway

I'm so sorry.

Just watched No Way Home, what an amazing film! Hard one to discuss without tripping over spoilers but they did such a great job with it.

With this, the Spiderman video games and the Into the Spider-Verse film, Spidey fans have never had it so good.

@LN78 @Fragile @RogerRoger I like Tommy Lee Jones alright, but everything I’ve seen in him he does a great job at playing Tommy Lee Jones. Grumpy old guy in a position of authority, usual a law officer of some kind. I’m sure I’ve not seen the majority of his work but his role in Lincoln was about the only time he seemed to spread his acting wings a little bit.

@Th3solution Try watching Eyes of Laura Mars. Tommy Lee Jones is great in that movie even if I’m still conflicted as to whether it’s camp on purpose or accidentally. One of the few giallo movies made in Hollywood though.

currently binge watching Freddy's Nightmares on Tubi. I missed out on all of season 1 back then when it aired on NBC. I only remember the cannibals and the weird mime thief episodes and that was it

@nessisonett Ok, I’ll keep an eye out for it. I think TLJ is just walking camp. It’s like he’s the only one not in on the joke that he’s actually been cast to play a caricature of himself.

I was lucky/sad enough to grab opening night tickets for Doctor Strange 2. It was rather frustrating. I actually liked Sam Raimi’s direction but I’m not a fan of the disconnect between the first movie and this one. It’s felt for years that Strange’s plotlines were totally abandoned and this movie doesn’t really help that. It’s safe to say that I’m over the multiverse now. That being said, this movie doesn’t really go far enough with the multiverse concept and after Spider-Man basically gave audiences what they want, this feels a bit of a letdown on that front. There were some great set pieces and I did enjoy America Chavez’ debut even if she barely resembles her source material but there were just so many poor decisions made by Feige and the background plot people for characters going forwards. The MCU has felt like it’s treading water since the pandemic started, with largely separate stories taking place in a largely disconnected world. This doesn’t change that narrative.

In my current journey through all the X-Men (& related) films I watched First Class this morning.

I don't know whether it's because it's the one I saw back in theaters, because it does such a good job mixing in real world history, or just because of the awesome climax, but I've always really liked this one & still found myself enjoying it.

Multiverse of Madness was Sam Raimi doing Raimi things and that easily makes it one of my favorite Marvel movies.
I love how just a few days ago I saw some Twitter discussion about directors not wanting to do Marvel, because “they would be forced to do them how Disney wants them, not how they want them” and this was clearly the opposite

There are some things it could’ve done but didn’t - but I’ll stop here because it would be potential spoilers, even if it’s technically things that aren’t in the movie.

I guess my opinion is different from @nessisonett ‘s because I’m not great at following the whole MCU thing (even though I think I’ve seen all of it) so I stopped caring about it being cohesive a long time ago
Also, No Way Home’s fan service was my least favorite part about it

@Voltan I’m glad you liked it. It’s a weird one, because it does function better as an isolated movie because it just doesn’t really tie together much from anything except WandaVision, yet inherently it requires a working knowledge of the Marvel IP to feel the full impact of the cameos and alternate realities.

I left my impressions over on the Marvel thread if you’re interested. Suffice it to say I like it less than you did it sounds like, but I still liked it overall.

Just got back from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Surprisingly it does avoid becoming a fan service laden cameo fest, and is probably a tighter more fulfilling experience as a result (just go in with the correct expectations), with the cameos it does have being that much more exciting (even if the big one's been teased since forever). That said, I was kinda disappointed that they didn't utilize one of the two post credits scenes for a cameo opportunity.

We went to a 3D showing (in the hopes that it'd have a 3D trailer for Avatar: the Way of Water, which it did), and the effect was used brilliantly throughout. Although I probably will rewatch it once it hits Disney+, I really think Multiverse will lose something in 2D.