Topic: The Movie Thread

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (IMAX theatre)
I think I should preface this by mentioning that due to some health issues and poor sleep the last few days, I noticed I was a bit out of it at times and occasionally disconnected from the movie. This was not necessarily the movie's fault, but the result was that it didn't fully "click" with me. I will reserve judgement until I've seen it again, though that will probably not be until the home release is out.

Some initial thoughts, though:
I fully agree with @LN78
It was a 5 or 6 of 10 and way better than Crystal Skull (which I didn't completely hate on my rewatch but, oof, there were some really poor parts that smelled of an overindulgent George Lucas).
Dial of Destiny was at least free of the Lucas stink and it felt like a proper Indiana Jones movie (which Skull didn't, IMHO). Ford was excellent, he was definitely not phoning anything in, and I enjyed the other performances as well. Banderas seemed a bit wasted, I felt, but that's a minor niggle.

The ending was also quite unusual, but I think I kind of dug it. There was a beautiful callback to the first movie there that almost choked me up a bit. Speaking of callbacks, I was expecting Callback City throughout the entire movie, as franchise swansongs are wont to do, but this was blessedly free of them (well, I think, I was a bit out if at times, as I mentioned). Not that I mind a good callback if it's well done and well placed, but it was refreshing that this one wanted to stand on its own two feet

All in all a fine time at the cinema and I have a feeling that I might have enjoyed it even more if I'd been "all there", as it were

@RR529 Glad you liked Airplane! Like you, I was just a bit too young when this came out, not to mention the movies it spoofed, but the sequel was watched so many times that the VHS tape crumbled Having seen them both again only a few years back, I would say the original holds up best, but there are still quite a few gags that still land very well in both. I would say the same holds true for Top Secret and, to some extent, Naked Gun as well, though the latter contains a fairly decent amount of gags that were very much of its time and will feel quaint or even baffling for those who didn't live through those days.

@FuriousMachine @RR529 The Airplane! And Naked Gun films are a rare breed of comedies that I can watch repeatedly and still laugh at the jokes.

watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earlier today. i still think the movie's pretty good. Then this weekend on Saturday Im going to the movie theater to see Dial of Destiny

and tonight Im watching Fast and the Furious 7 and watch Fast and the Furious 8 later this weekend

I second this!

well, im head out to go see the Indiana Jones movie at the movie theater that's all the way downtown which i have to walk which will take me like half an hour to get to the downtown area.

Movie starts at 12.

later folks

@LN78 A worry I always have with the 4K restorations of those sorts of movies is how well the effects hold up. Like I wouldn’t want the mystique to be ruined by a very obvious rubber shark! I guess that’s part of the charm though, I have mixed feelings on remasters that insert ‘better’ digital effects unless the original creator was at least involved.

speaking of Jaws,

Sy Fy Channel just had a weird Jaws movies marathon since yesterday where they went in reverse from Jaws 4 to Jaws 1.

then earlier today it went to a normal marathon from Jaws 1 to Jaws 2 and to Jaws 3

@PixelDragon
Scum was the movie that made me realise I didn't want to be a criminal back when I was young! 😂
Haven't seen it in decades.

@Jimmer-jammer Just re-watched this the other night. One of my favorites for sure. It seems extremely underrated as well which is such a shame. Or, at least, it seems like very few people even know it exists. But yeah, such a good film.

Yet as amazing as that movie is I can't seem to get myself to care about watching Dragged Across Concrete or Brawl in Cell Block 99. Gotta figure Zahler is a fairly capable writer/director but idk, maybe the stars aligned perfectly for Bone Tomahawk. Or maybe those other two are much better than they look.

@Jimmer-jammer @zupertramp Brilliant film. Discovered it on Prime a while back. We need more horror westerns.

This weekend I'll be watching Train to Busan, as it doesn't appear to be on any streaming services, I picked it up on DVD last weekend.

@MightyDemon82 I think the prequel animated film was on Prime, and so was the live action sequel. Both not as good the first film, but still worth watching.

@zupertramp I like Brawl in Cell Block 99 quite a lot actually. Brilliant performance by Vince Vaughan who is a mountainous presence in the film.

@Jimmer-jammer Great film and an under appreciated gem. Have you seen Upgrade? Similar type of visceral violence but totally different setting.

@JohnnyShoulder nice to hear a testimonial at least. I do like serious Vaughan. Which isn't to say funny Vaughan is bad but he can definitely bring an intensity to his dramatic roles where there's less room in his sillier movies.

@Kidfried Just finished watching it, Superb movie.

@zupertramp I like all 3 of them, I really enjoyed Dragged Across Concrete in particular. Brawl is probably better but it’s just a bit too grim for me to want to rewatch. Vaughn is excellent in serious roles. Not sure how I feel about him as a person though, kind of puts me off watching his movies. Don’t really do politics on here but I just struggle to enthusiastically get behind anyone who’s pro-guns.

Goldeneye (Blu-Ray)

Just dug around my Blu-Ray collection for something to watch and settled on this.

I think the last time I watched it, it didn't really stick with me because I was watching a whole bunch of these Bond movies in close proximity, but rewatching it on it's own it really is quite a fun action romp.

It really helped that it built it's narrative around the then topical collapse of the Soviet Union, adding a level of believable political intrigue to the mix (even if the Russian government weren't really the bad guys), it had some really fun action sequences (like the whole opening sequence, as well as the tank scene), and just the right amount of camp (love the sequence at Q's lab) without sacrificing the tension of the serious moments.

Golgo 13 (Blu-Ray)

A live action adaptation of a manga of the same name, it follows an assassin known as Golgo 13 who is hired to take out Max Boa (the crime lord of an international criminal organization), who has been kidnapping women around the world & is currently in Iran.

The narrative isn't deep, but it sets the tone for what is a pretty decent action flick. It's a bit slower than I'd have liked, but it definitely has it's cool moments (such as a sequence where he escapes being tied up, and another in how he figures out who his real target is amongst a group of doubles). Despite being a Japanese production, it's filmed entirely on location in Iran, which is an interesting backdrop you don't often see in movies (though being a 70's flick, keep in mind this is the Iran of 50 years ago, before the revolution). Given what else of the franchise I've experienced, I'm actually kinda surprised (and maybe a tad disappointed) that there wasn't any nudity. In fact I'd wager that it may even be a bit tamer than the Bond movies of the era in that regard (though, this could be a side effect of filming in Iran).

Project A-Ko 4: Final (Blu-Ray)

The final entry in the Project A-Ko series, it's pretty much more of the same. I'll admit they got me with the twist surrounding the space princess even though I should have seen it coming a mile away given the events of the first film. Like the last one, this one didn't have as good of action as the first two.

I enjoyed seeing the Gunbuster related Easter eggs given I just finished watching that a bit over a week ago.

Even though ive seen the old Nightmare on Elm Street movies a bunch of times, im watching them again this weekend.

Especially with Elm Street 5 and New Nightmare since the New Nightmare movie for DVD has the commentary track which I dont think i listened to at all.

They really need to release single 4K blu ray releases for Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and 3 with alot of bonus features. old archival stuff and new looking back bonus features.

Heck a cast commentary for 4K blu ray for Elm Street 2 and 3 would be nice

@XandertheWise 1..2..Freddy's coming for you.

Went to see Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning at the IMAX yesterday. Loved it. Felt like it was only 90 minutes long. Didn’t feel bored for one second.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning part one (IMAX Theatre)
So, let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love this franchise. Apart from a few bits in M:I 2 (I think that one drags a bit in places), I've really enjoyed rewatching the entire series in anticipation for today's trip to the cinema.

To say that I was ready to get all aboard this one would be a pretty solid understatement, especially coming on the heels of the excellent M:I - Fallout, with the same director calling the shots this time around. To say that I came a way massively disappointed would be an even bigger understatement. While there were, as usual, some really solid action set-pieces and some high-octane stunts, it simply felt like a poor remix of other movies, like The Italian Job, John Wick and, incredibly, the first Mission: Impossible having the same "making a deal on a speeding train" climax while also managing to rip off the big Uncharted 2 set-piece in the process... after the obligatory fight on top of the train, naturally. I saw a reviewer (think it was from the Independent) half-jokingly say that the script felt like it was written by a poor AI, and the man was not wrong.

Now, the plot in these movies has never been particularly sophisticated, so how come I couldn't just "go with it" in this one? Well, this one felt lazy to me, but I was going along with it somewhat happily until about the halfway mark, where the movie really p***ed me off and from that point on the flaws of the movie just popped out at me. I'll discuss that in more detail in spoiler tags and warnings at the end, but if you've seen the movie you probably know what I'm referring to.

On a positive note, it was fun to see Henry Czerny as the still very slimy Kittridge and Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Shea Whigham were all good additions to the IM universe. Esai Morales and Carey Elwes were criminally underserved with cardboard cut-out characters, though.

I'll need to see this one again and hopefully I'll think better of it when I'm not expecting it to be among the top half of the M:I films. As it stands, I'd probably place it in the bottom two.

So what made me so annoyed and pulled me out of it?
SPOILER WARNING!!!!! SPOILER WARNING
This movie has the most egregious example of fridging I've ever seen in my entire life. Fridging is, for those who don't know, a storytelling trope where a character, most often a female, is killed solely for the purpose of creating motivation for the hero character. And in this one, the movie literally tells the audience that one of the women has to die in order to get Ethan to do what he ends up doing.
And the annoying thing is that it's so incredibly unnecessary and it's evident that with the introduction of Hayley Atwell's character, they simply didn't know what to do with Ilsa for the second half of the movie. Granted, as this is merely part one and Ilsa died from what appeared to be a switchblade to the shoulder, they may walk it back in the next one and say that they faked it. Hunt said to her earlier in the movie something akin to "everyone thinks you're dead, make sure you stay dead", so the death may be a fake-out. If so, does that make it better? Not for me, I actually think that would make the whole thing even cheaper.

So, one of the movies I was most looking forward to this year and, consequently, the biggest disappointment for me. Sure, there were things to like, and, as I said, maybe I'll mellow a bit on it after seeing it a second time, but hopefully you all will enjoy it more than I did this time around