Topic: The Movie Thread

Went to the theater recently to watch Suzume, which was another delightful experience from Makoto Shinkai. There's the usual romantic element with the male love interest, who has his soul trapped in a small yellow chair by a curse, but I actually appreciated the warm and nuanced portrayals of the normal people protagonist Suzume encounters as she travels across Japan with her chair boyfriend to shut portals that are causing natural disasters. And, of course, the animation is gorgeous. It's so nice seeing ultra-detailed, hand-drawn animation in theaters.

Also rewatched The Evil Dead with my sister recently. I don't think I quite remembered how much obnoxious screaming and laughing the demon people do in this movie. Obviously a classic, and insanely impressive given the budget and age of the filmmakers at the time, although it definitely hasn't aged as well as films like Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, etc.

Just seen that David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is now available on 4K Blu Ray. If memory serves me right, it can get quite grisly, so not sure if I want see it with a more crispy detailed picture!

@LN78 I'll get to it eventually, but it not something I'll watch anytime soon. I'm trying to finish off shows I've already started and catch up with ones I've missed, rather then start anything new that comes out.

watching Downhill Willie on Tubi right now.

Its a weird comedy ski movie starring Keith Coogan, Staci Keanan and a young Locklyn Munroe

A few movies this past weekend.

the Wandering Earth (Netflix)

China's attempt to output a Hollywood quality big budget sci-fi blockbuster. When it's discovered that the sun is unstable, Humanity decides to put aside their differences and form the UEG (United Earth Government) and in a massive undertaking constructs 10,000 massive engines across the globe in order to pilot the planet to a new solar system...

The premise is laughibly dumb (the core of the story is set 17 years into the 2,500 year long journey, where humanity must leave the safety of their underground strongholds in order to repair the engines on the surface after many are damaged by Jupiter's gravity, before the planet is too far gone to resist the gaseous giant's pull) & I can't remember anyone's names, but I actually had (a lot) of fun with this.

While the effects can feel a bit too "video gamey" at times, the production is overall a lot more modern and up to snuff than I'd have imagined, with often absolutely stunning scale & really cool looking tech design. In terms of vibe it kinda reminded me of 90's blockbusters like Independence Day, Armageddon, or Twister (just, orders of magnitude bigger) which I liked. Really fun popcorn flick kinda stuff.

Memories (Blu-Ray)

Anime anthology film consisting of 3 sci-fi shorts.

"Magnetic Rose" - A group of deep space scrappers runs across the wreckage of a giant ship sending out a distress signal. Mystery & danger abound when they explore it and become involved in a sci-fi twist on the haunted castle trope. This is the deepest when it comes to narrative & emotion, with some affectingly powerful scenes.

"Stink Bomb" - A sick office worker for a pharmaceutical company unwittingly becomes a walking bio-weapon after taking some experimental pills, and he stumbles his way towards Tokyo while avoiding an all out military assault aimed at taking the befuddled guy out. This one was really super fun & even humorous in a bit of a dark way.

"Cannon Fodder" - A day in the life of a family who lives in a society who's entire existence exists to wage war (from the schooling, to industry, and even the architecture of the city itself) just for the sake of waging war. This is the most artful of the bunch, with a unique aesthetic imbued with the vibe of fascist & communist propaganda imagery, with something to say about the pointlessness & futility of war.

Overall it was a pretty interesting watch & one I'd recommend.

Beast (Amazon Prime)

While on an African safari a father and his two estranged teen daughters find themselves being hunted by a lion with bloodlust on it's mind after his pride is killed by poachers.

While most modern films of this Ilk try to go too big and bombastic (the Meg, the modern Jurassic films), the smaller, more personal vibe of this one really works in it's favor. Of course there's still some Hollywood magic at play (both Idris' character & the lion survive things that should have realistically killed them a time or two), but overall it's pleasingly tense.

@LN78 Event Horizon is a stone cold classic and I will go to bat for that movie any day of the week and twice on Sundays, as they say I also enjoyed his first Resident Evil movie, but I never had any attachment to the games so that may have been a factor. The rest of P.W.S.A's output is... shall we say, "lacking"? I also agree with your assessment of Emmerich and De Bont. I would say that Emmerich does have some unexpected good ones in The Patriot and White House Down (which I prefer to the [..,] Has Fallen films). I also enjoy Independence Day, but his other movies aren't my cup of tea.

@FuriousMachine @LN78 Event Horizon is almost a masterpiece. Almost. But other than that I don't know much about WS Anderson except that for some reason I thought his movies were somewhat commercially successful, if not particularly good... especially the resident evils.

I guess what I find fascinating about Rodriguez is that he's at a point where he's getting handed the keys to a Disney franchise. Which is weird because you probably wouldn't do that with Anderson.

Emmerich and De Pont however do have huge commerical successes on their resume. And they generally make halfway decent theater fodder. Masterpieces they are not but neither are they Planet Terror levels of bad.

@zupertramp @LN78 I actually enjoyed the Grindhouse experience (we didn't get it in the cinemas, so I had to wait for the home release) with the movies and the fake trailers and I felt that they nailed exactly what they were going for, Planet Terror in particular. That one still gives me a solid chuckle. As for Machete, as much as I love Danny Trejo, that one works better as a fake trailer than an actual movie.

As for Rodriguez in general, I would hesitate to call his movies bad (I don't think there are many movies in general release out there that are objectively bad, it all boils down to which metrics you apply to them). While many of them certainly are sub-par, I will easily defend Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City and Alita: Battle Angel. So, I disagree with the notion that he is a useless director, although his output has disappointed me after the promise he showed initially.

@AgentCooper I can get down with Death Proof. It's not a favorite or anything but it's downright stellar in comparison to Planet Terror.

@LN78 I'd agree there a lot of bad films. I'd also agree the new Thor is one of them.

watching Fulci's Zombie on Joe Bob Briggs' Last Drive in on Shudder today this weekend along with rewatching The Beyond for like the 3rd time. i swear The Beyond is the easier Fulci movie to really get into and enjoy and not take it seriously

also this weekend is also my Tubi weekend

-Bloodbath at the House of Death
-Attack of the 5'2 Women a classic comedy poking fun at the craze of Lorena Bobbit and Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding

and on Freevee
binging through season 1 of Fringe and might watch that movie Come Play

Only one movie for me this weekend due to all the new gaming goodness in Future Redeemed & Jedi Survivor.

Coffy (Blu-Ray)

After her sister falls victim to drug pushers and finding out that the law isn't exactly on her side, Coffy decides to take justice into her own hands by hunting down the dealers & the powerful men who enable them.

This was pretty fun when all's said in done. I'd have liked a bit more action, but what's here is good (shoutouts to the dude who got shotgunned to the head & the big cheesy prostitute brawl. A "prostitussle", you could say?), and it can be quite effectively brutal at times. King George's bold yellow pimp jumpsuit has to be seen to believed, and you'll get an eyeful of boobs, which is always a plus (though not always in the most politically correct of scenarios, being a 70's flick, if that bothers you).

Oh whoopsy, some one will be fed to the dogs for this.

@JohnnyShoulder yeah definitely not good. But "millions watched it"? I doubt that. Probably millions clicked on it to confirm that it was indeed the full movie on Twitter.

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not something the suits want to happen but as usual the language being used on some of these articles about it seem a tad hyperbolic. Like, a mediocre movie rip got posted online and people may have actually subjected themselves to watching it in its entirety... stop the presses.

Being the only human in the galaxy that has yet to succumb to the dreaded "super-hero fatigue" that has struck every corner of the cosmos, I've just returned from seeing "Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3" in IMAX and I really enjoyed it. Feelgood and highly entertaining; James Gunn delivers the goods in a proper send off for the Guardians.
If you've enjoyed the previous GotG films and your case of SHF is only mild and non-debilitating, I recommend it heartily

@FuriousMachine I am feeling the SHF but I love the first 2 GotG films so I'm hoping it can round them off with a fitting conclusion. From what you say that's promising. Would you say it's as good as the first 2?

@BearsEatBeets For me, I'd say it falls a bit short of the first one, but I liked it better than the second one. Your mileage may vary, of course, but as you loved the first 2, I'm sure there's plenty to enjoy for you with this one too, so it's definitely worth a watch.

@FuriousMachine Good to know thanks. I haven't gone to the cinema in years so I'm going to hope I can avoid spoilers until it hits physical/disney +.

Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (Blu-Ray)

A franchise film that doesn't feel like a franchise film, in a good way.

When the students & staff of Tomobiki High School slowly start realizing that they're repeating the same day over & over again they set out to figure out the cause of the phenomena, all while the stability of their world seems to unravel the closer they get.

Pretty much a more high concept Groundhog Day, about a decade before that even released, with some absolutely stunning animation & dreamlike imagery. It's much more of a slower burn than other things in this franchise that I've seen, but it managed to hold my attention better, and it's interesting to note that the core characters don't really seem to push the narrative forward a whole lot for the majority of it's runtime, with supporting cast like Sakura & Mendo doing most of the heavy lifting until the end.

been watching the 1987 The Curse movie on Tubi recently. i noticed some on camera mistakes and dunno if the director and film crew even noticed but there was a boom mic that's caught on camera where its showing on a bedroom mirror lol.

also other movies im watching this week

Goddess of Love the weird fantasy romantic comedy starring Vanna White along with St Elmo's Fire which I have never seen at all in my entire life