Topic: The Movie Thread

@Kairu I remember watching it at the cinema when it first came out, and not knowing too much about I came away mightily impressed!

If I were to binge watch the series it would be over after the first film! 😂

Just got back from the pictures & was a bit disappointed tbh. Myself & my wife love horror & it’s one of the few days of the year I get to torment my brother but nothing good was on. Had to choose between Pray for the devil, Halloween ends & smile. We went with the latter but it really wasn’t that great. I’ve been excited for Pray for the Devil for a while but got talked off based on the reviews.
It surely can’t be as bad as Smile...

If anyone has Netflix I recommend ''The Ritual'' its a netflix original horror bro-flick with more of a focus on psychological and mythical horror but still has the gore moments . I gotta itch to rewatch when i have time later . last time i watched it was 2 years ago , its a really good movie that'll have you interested all the way through.

my only issue with it that i can remember was towards the end it can get...cheesy ? with the CGI ...

Got the 90's Fatal Fury OVAs on Blu-Ray recently.

Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf (Blu-Ray)

First saw this online sometime about 10 years ago, and decided to pick up the OVA double pack on Blu-Ray once I noticed it was available.

Based upon the fighting video game of the same name (a big competitor of Street Fighter in it's time), it very much feels like the standard martial arts flick of the time (although anime'd up a bit, obviously). Not that that's a bad thing, as while it's not the deepest story, it's good cheesy fun (I especially liked the faux "Arnie" German accent the big bad had, a theme that carries over to the followup as well). Only thing holding it up is that there's no Mai yet, lol.

Fatal Fury 2: the New Battle (Blu-Ray)

Watched on the Blu-Ray double pack (with the first OVA).

I feel about this one a lot like how I felt about the first. It's no masterpiece, but good cheesy anime martial arts fun. I don't think the core story is quite as tight as it was in it's predecessor (though that's not terribly important for a film like this), however I'll rate it a tad higher as I believe the art/animation seems to be slightly improved (and because Mai makes her appearance, naturally).

Trailer for both (couldn't find a remastered one):

@RogerRoger What's your thoughts on JP3? I rarely see it discussed. I didn't think it was that forgettable personally but did suffer from a case of sequelitus in terms of having to raise the stakes (Spinosaurus and how Alan Grant could all of a sudden speak Raptor language).

Also the Fifth Element I totally agree. All over the place but I'd say it's a fun and daft movie.

@RogerRoger Your discussion of The Fifth Element brings back some memories. It’s a movie I’ve only seen once many years ago, I was pretty young at the time and so I only have vague impressions in my mind, mostly of the art design and style. I barely remember any story beats other than the big reveal about what ‘the fifth element’ actually was. And I remember Bruce Willis of course, given his knack for stealing a scene.

I’ve often been tempted to rewatch it as an adult but for some reason have never pulled the trigger when I’ve seen it scroll across whatever streaming service it happens to be on during a random browse. In my mind, it’s a little step-sister to Blade Runner and when I rewatched that as an adult a couple years ago, I came away with similar mixed feelings that you just described. Your thoughts are much appreciated, as I think I’ll probably continue to just leave it alone and preserve the jumbled nostalgia in my mind, since it looks like a second viewing of it would only complicate my opinion further. 😄

@JudgeDredd Only the 5?! 😂 Was it something to watch with the better half?

@JudgeDredd Too be fair, I don't think I've ever finished it. I was never a big Whitney Housten fan after on of her songs stayed in the charts which seemed like forever.

I wish I’d liked Wakanda Forever more. There were moments that I could understand their intentions with wanting to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman but outside of that, the movie just felt a bit aimless. I was left feeling a bit empty at the end, and couldn’t really care less about any of the characters. A shame.

Malignant - A bit of a bonkers premise but a tad too goofy for me.

@CthulhuFhtagn I might be one of the few but I quite liked Dark Fate. Yes, it was a rehash of the first one, but it captured the essence of that movie while having a modern setting. That’s all I can really ask for from those sorts of reboots, which is why so many horror movies get rebooted I guess.

@RogerRoger @CthulhuFhtagn The first Ghostbusters film is one of the few films I watch again and again. Afterlife felt like just a rehash of that film in a different setting but with very little of what made it special in the first place.

But I generally don't enjoy any of the reboots/remakes that I've seen. I'm a bit sick of them tbh and wish the industry would stop dragging the films I grew up watching through the gutter with each new sub standard release.

finished watching The Video Dead on Tubi earlier today.

still have Basket Case 2 and 3 to watch on Tubi

went to a Dollar General store earlier tonight and found and bought a DVD documentary about the wrestler Iron Sheik

Wasn't feeling too well last night (well, all week long TBH), so I sat back and watched Mickey: the Story of a Mouse on Disney+.

Pretty much a light hearted documentary on the evolution of Mickey Mouse & his affect on pop culture (though they did manage to reflect a bit on Walt's outdated/racist elements that worked their way into the older cartoons too, so it wasn't entirely patting themselves on the back).

It was actually pretty interesting, though they acted like my era of Mickey & Co. didn't even exist. From the perspective of the documentary you had Mickey's Christmas Carol in the mid 80's, then a few decades of being nothing more than a corporate icon until he was revived by the modern shorts.

This of course completely ignores Mickey's House of Mouse (which was my go to Saturday morning cartoon for a few years), arguably the entirety of the Goof Troop/Goofy Movie continuity, and his transition to video games (Castle of Illusion, Epic Mickey, and of course the titan that is Kingdom Hearts) to make it's case.

It's really good until then though.

Saw a few movies in the theater recently.

Bones and All, from director Luca Guadagnino, is billed as a "romantic cannibal road film," which ends up being a fairly apt description of what I sat through. It sounds bizarre and potentially exploitative, like a cannibal version of Natural Born Killers or something, but the subject matter is treated with some level of restraint. I mean, there are definitely some rather gross sequences in the film (mostly thanks to Sully, an elderly cannibal our protagonist meets early on who serves as a mentor in the ways of safe cannibalism, if such a thing exists), but the focus of the film is less on the stomach-turning taboo and more how people live their lives while being forced to address, and ultimately accept, a horrifying aspect of their being. In this respect, it's less a cannibal horror film and more of a "cannibalism-as-metaphor" sort of film. Anyway, the bulk of the film's runtime eventually becomes consumed (heh) by the love story at the center of it, which unfortunately didn't resonate much with me. Definitely an interesting blend of genres for people who want something new in their romantic dramas, but anyone who goes in expecting a horror movie is going to be disappointed.

A much more satisfying experience came in the form of director Mark Mylod's new dark comedy The Menu. Ads for the film give you the sense that you're in for a foodie-themed horror flick, which is only partially true. It actually ends up being a rather fun, and frequently funny satire of celebrity chef worship and pretentious upper-crust foodie culture in general. Particular kudos to star Ralph Fiennes: despite the air of civility he maintains throughout his murderous performance, notes of malice and contempt can be detected, which help pull the role together.

Finally, I watched Disney's new film: Strange World. Disney apparently had the nerve to create an environmentalist fable following a mixed-race couple and their unapologetically gay son, but not enough to actually communicate any of this in the advertising, perhaps fearing another Lightyear-style backlash from racists. Actually, the marketing has been pretty light overall, which would suggest Disney sent it out to die. It's certainly losing them a ton of money, considering how poorly it's doing so far, which is a shame, because it's not half-bad when it's exploring father-son dynamics, the various ways in which one can be a man, etc. The film overall does lack that certain something you find in the best Disney films, but it's a solid family film nonetheless.

Tagging @nessisonett for this post.

@Ralizah The fact that Bones and All uses cannibalism mostly as a metaphor and not just as yet another twist on Bonnie and Clyde ‘twisted love’ tropes is a bit reassuring actually. Still not convinced it’s for me but I’ll maybe try it!

Strange World is a movie that I genuinely didn’t know existed until very recently, Disney’s marketing has been woeful at least in the UK. Part of me wonders whether that’s on purpose, burying a movie with diverse characters in order to convince shareholders that they don’t sell!

@nessisonett Why would they want something they've invested in to fail? Surely these greedy shareholders and execs don't really care what makes them money?

Also the evidence is pretty damning that films/TV shows with on the nose political and social messaging don't go down well with audiences who want to be entertained and not lectured to.

@nessisonett It's bizarre. The advertising doesn't even allude to the diverse nature of the characterizations, and has been very thin. The result is that the film is probably going to lose Disney at least $100 million once all is said and done. It sounds like ideal fodder for "anti-SJW" types to crow about, but I've barely heard commentary even from that side of the ideological spectrum, which tells me that the film's downfall is absolutely due to its lack of visibility.