Topic: The Movie Thread

@RogerRoger Oh yeah it's a quite a different type of film, just popped in my head though. One film that pops to mind with similar warmth and charm is The Dish. I imagine it's not widely known but it's a great little film about Australia's part in the moon landing.

@RogerRoger That’s the one. Good to know it’s available to watch somewhere.

Couple of movies for me tonight.

Swamp Thing (Tubi) - I'm not at all familiar with the comics it's based on & I wouldn't say it's a particularly good film, but I did enjoy my time with it. Seems mostly held back by the budget & VFX of the time, but the overall setup was decent & there was at least one entertainingly disturbing transformation sequence (be aware there is some nudity despite being rated PG). There looks to be a sequel, which I'll give a go.

Lupin the 3rd: Goemon's Bloodspray (Blu-Ray) - Goemon centric Lupin film that plays out like an ultra violent modern day samurai film where he finds himself up against a nigh indestructible American assassin with killer axe skills. Very bloody, with lots of excitingly fun action.

the Return of Swamp Thing (Tubi) - Takes a bit more of a comedic tone than the original, & paired with noticeably improved VFX & costuming it's a much more fun watch at that. I assumed it was more of a reboot than a sequel (and in some ways that's still true), but along the way it infers the original is still canon, but handwaves the idea that the villain died at the end.

Ghost in the Shell ARISE 3 & 4 (Blu-Ray) - Last two OVAs in this GitS series. Maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace for it but I thought they were narratively more dense than the first two & I left with some questions. If you liked the first two these are worth a look though.

National Lampoon's Movie Madness (Tubi) - Anthology of parody films (the first a spoof of a family drama, the second a revenge flick, & finally a buddy cop film) that is absolutely terribly dull. While the final one seemed maybe a bit funnier than the first two, I had largely tuned out by then, and all of them feel like they go on much longer than they do (while it certainly has it's duds as well, I think the Kentucky Fried Movie is a much more enjoyable film of this type overall). That, & it seems like a direct to VHS film that got a lazy digital transfer (it's not in widescreen, & there's a very noticeable "screen tearing" effect that happens nearly everytime the camera pans, and sometimes even when a character is just moving).

Deadpool 2 (Disney+) - Still working my way through Fox's X-Men catalogue. Kinda more of the same after the first one, but that's not a bad thing. Being just a bit more versed in comic lore/culture than I was the first time I watched it, more of the jokes/references landed for me even, & just like the first film, in spite of how crass & crude it is, it even managed to make me tear up a time or two.

Finished watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time. Excellent movie! I'm really lucky that Prime Video added all the LOTR and Hobbit movies in preparation for the new show as I already had a subscription to the service so I could start watching them now.

It's really nice to finally meet all these characters I've heard about from the franchise, like Gandalf, Legolas and Aragorn. Not to mention hearing all the famous quotes like "You shall not pass".

The movie was seriously so long and it was fairly slow at start but then it ramped up the pacing towards the middle part. There were lots of exciting stuff going on. Maybe a bit too much going on due to how the camera was cutting away all the time and the movie was constantly introducing new characters. If it weren't for how popular some of the characters are, I probably wouldn't remember any of their names.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the first movie and I can't wait to watch the second one, possibly next weekend when I have some time to spare for these super long movies lol.

Big Bad Mama (Tubi) - An impoverished mother & her two teen daughters get deeper & deeper into crime trying to make ends meet during the depression. Decent enough criminals on the run type film, that features William Shatner & lots of boobs because it's a 70's film.

@LtSarge I will always remember watching the director cuts of the first two movies back to back directly before the theatrical cut of the third film. That was almost 9 hours in the cinema. Suffice to say I did not go to the cinema for ages after that lol.

@JohnnyShoulder Wow, that's very impressive. I can't even watch one movie in one go, let alone three lol.

Tubi movie weekend for me

Runaway
the new 2 animated Mortal Kombat Legends movies
Mr Mom

@LN78 Yeah it was when I was living in Cardiff, and around about that time they started putting on trilogies of films. From memory they showed the OG Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Godfather. They showed a fair few more but forget which ones now.

@LtSarge There were breaks in between movies, but yeah it was a bit of a slog. I defo couldn't do anything like that these days!

Samaritan (Prime Video) - Sylvester Stallone plays a washed up retired superhero (believed to be dead by the public after the climactic battle with his arch nemesis/brother) who winds up becoming a mentor figure of sorts to a neighborhood kid & has to come out of hiding after the kid falls in with the wrong crowd.

I saw the big twist coming a mile away, but I thought it was a pretty good watch.

@LN78 You seen this?

I was tempted to see E.T. when it returned to the theaters a few weeks back. Ultimately opted against it, though.

Watched Everything, Everywhere, All At Once the other day. Quite an odd film, but still rather marvellous, with some extremely intricate editing. Michelle Yeoh is absolutely wonderful, and Jamie Lee Curtis is quite the comic actress.

@mookysam
Enjoyed the film.
Didnt enjoy the hot-dog fingers.

Watched Copland, a decent-ish movie with an incredible cast. Basically a mafia movie except with police.

@LN78 I remember see one of the Jaws films in 3D at the cinema. Can't remember which one as it was probably about 20 years ago. Might have been the third one as I do remember the film not being that great.

@LN78 I can see that. Definitely elements of westerns, noir movies and the like. It was more the setup of the corrupt police officers and their connections across the mayor’s office and other departments that made me think of the mob. Plus De Niro and Harvey Keitel help!

@RogerRoger, yeah, I wasn't even planning on watching it but my father queued it up and although he usually watches movies by the time I'm starting to get ready for bed I didn't have to work the next day so I stayed up & watched it with him.

Between 1917, Swamp Thing, Lupin the 3rd: Goemon's Bloodspray, the Return of Swamp Thing, Ghost in the Shell Arise 3 & 4, National Lampoon's Movie Madness, Deadpool 2, Big Bad Mama, & Samaritan I made my way through quite a few movies over the long Labor Day weekend.

I watched Clueless tonight. I really miss teen movies that were actually witty. The ones made on Netflix these days are just rubbish. There was a weird phase in the 90s to early 00s where they reimagined classic texts as high school dramas but there were some bloody good movies in there.