Topic: The Movie Thread

Then I suppose you're as happy as I am over the fact that Dan Trachtenberg is working on a new installment titled "Badlands", set some time in the future. Excited to see if he can do it again

@FuriousMachine I’d be gutted if they binned all the younger lot and brought back Captain America and stuff, but it’s not out of the question when it comes to Feige and Iger and that bunch. They seem to be approaching it as a marketing tactic, where they pump out content that specifically annoys the chuds, and then they can ‘backtrack’ and bring back characters that appeal to that lot and create some sort of second coming of the MCU. I’d appreciate new stories more, especially since I prefer the legacy heroes in the comics to most of the old heads.

I've watched a couple of movies the past week.

Friday the 13th (1980)

It hasn't aged that well but it was still an interesting movie. Although it's kinda weird you never actually see Jason in the movie. He's always in first-person or out of frame whenever a killing occurs.

Joker (2019)

Excellent movie and amazing performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Although it is a slow burn, the payoff is great when you finally see the character become the Joker. The movie also humanises him and makes you care about him due to his tragic past. Even a villain used to be good at some point.

Scream 5

So it's kinda weird that I'm going through these movies backwards as I watched Scream 6 last year but that's because it's so hard to find a place to watch all these movies. Anyway, it wasn't too bad knowing some stuff in the sequel while watching it. I thought it was a good movie, although not as good as the sequel. I just love the concept of breaking the fourth wall in these movies. Really refreshing for a horror franchise.

@LN78 If you really listen to critics then you’d come away with the idea that all Marvel movies aren’t exactly good on most metrics. So it comes down to enjoyability and The Marvels had that. Compare that to Eternals or that god-forsaken Thor movie and it’s night and day. Bandwagoning means anything they put out will get slated and I have to admit I haven’t bothered keeping up recently despite being devoted to the franchise since I was literally 7 like a crack addict, but The Marvels seems like the wrong movie to take the brunt of the criticism given how much more of a clear vision it has than the many soulless projects they’ve put out since Endgame. Not everything pans out and the film is edited a bit oddly (tends to jump about a bit tonally and can give the impression that the film’s on a schedule) but I appreciate the attempt more than some more forgettable movies. Like does anybody remember Thor 2? Ant-Man and the Wasp? Those came out during the ‘golden years’ and I couldn’t tell you much about them.

@LN78 Hey, at least Doctor Strange 2 has all the Raimi schlock to make it hilarious. The millionth dolly zoom still doesn’t get old. The cameos were awful and felt like they were from a different film but when it played into the horror elements it was close to being a decent movie. That’s the problem I think. Feige wants directors and writers with their own style but it can never interfere with his plans and ideas of what movies should be. So it always comes across like a neutered version of what it could be, with the same brand of humour shoehorned in. Apart from Thor 4 which is mostly irredeemable. I’m convinced the ex-wife is the talent since every single Waititi project after he dropped her for Rita Ora has been rubbish.

Fatal Frame (Blu-Ray) - Pretty disappointed in this. Not nearly as scary as the games (really not scary at all), and while it does center around the mystery of a cursed photograph, the Camera Obscura from the games essentially only makes cameo appearances and is largely immaterial to solving the supernatural shenanigans (almost like they only included it at all to fulfill a contractual obligation). Honestly it was kinda dull all around.

Hardbodies (Tubi) - Raunchy 80's comedy that sees a group of middle aged men seek advice from a young local on how to pick up beach babes (unironically called "Hardbodies" here, not sure if that was ever actual slang). It's a low brow raunchy comedy from the 80's (and not up there with the best), so it obviously won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's worth a watch if that's something you're into.

My Tutor (Tubi) - A high school senior must spend his summer with a French tutor (his father is pressuring him to get into Yale, and it's the only subject he failed), which at first seems to get in the way of him & his buddies partying, but as things progress turns out he might have better luck in love at home. A bit uneven tonally as it seems like it can't decide whether or not it wants to be a steamy coming of age romance or a raunchy teen comedy, but I ended up liking it quite a bit.

Ponyo (Blu-Ray) - Par for the course for Ghibli, it looks fantastic (& I love aquatic themed movies, especially animation), but this is probably about the most bored I've been watching one of their films. It really feels like a "kid's film" rather than a "family film that appeals to kids", which I think hurts it, though admittedly it's still better than 99% of other "kids" stuff.

A bit of topic, but I can't see @nessisonett's posts & I don't have them blocked.

I haven't seen them post in awhile & I assume they just left, but apparently not given how often they've been tagged the past couple pages.

I don't think we've ever interacted much, so I don't think I've ever said anything to upset them (just in case they have me blocked), but sorry if I did in some way.

I’m really looking forward to Madame Web now. Those reviews are incredible.

@nessisonett @LN78 The Marvels was an average MCU film that mostly received hate for the temerity of its casting lol.

I wouldn't watch it again, but at least it didn't make me sit around the theater actively wanting to die like the last Ant-Man film did (Quantumania, I think it was called? It was so stupid).

@LN78 Yeah, I think that was implied by my comment. Brie Larson brings out the crazies for some reason. And there's a non-white female lead.

Lousy script? At least the dialogue wasn't 90% 'sarcastic, but quippy' 90's style Buffy-speak like in a number of the MCU films.

I don't recall the editing being choppy. Maybe people were turned off by the film's attempt at a more whimsical young adult aesthetic?

I'm not defending the film at all, but anyone who acts like it's significantly worse than the majority of Marvel's other recent output is kidding themselves imo. And I'd marathon it for days before I touched Thor 2 again. I've never successfully stayed awake for that film. You'd have to pry my eyes open ala A Clockwork Orange to achieve that lol

@RR529 Yeah, Ponyo was oddly disappointing. I felt the same way about the most recent Miyazaki release as well. I think his moviemaking largely lost its magic after Princess Mononoke.

Pity to hear about Fatal Frame. As a fan of the games, I've contemplated giving it a watch, but am often disappointed by live-action video game and anime adaptations, and see that this is no different.

@Ralizah The editing was a little odd in regards to sort of jumping tonally between different plotlines but I put that down to them thankfully not making it 4 hours long like other Marvel output. The script was pretty good I thought if you ignored the villain being under-baked, another criticism that could be levelled at even the better Marvel movies. Kamala’s family are a highlight same as they were in her show. I just really really hope she gets a season 2 and it’s not been shelved due to the movie not doing great.

@nessisonett The family was pretty fun! Much more engaging than the alien/superhero bits. The villain sucked, but yeah, it's Marvel.

The show was interesting insofar as it felt like a coming-of-age/teen dramedy first and a superhero show second.

Not a fan of most of Marvel's shows (aside from parts of Loki and Wandavision), but it was interesting enough that I watched all of it.

@Ralizah The shows haven’t really stuck the landing other than Ms Marvel mostly because they’ve been a bit too ambitious to be honest. Maybe that’s why I liked Echo so much, it didn’t promise anything more than basically Justified on a reservation and absolutely nailed that brief. This concept of a 6 to 8 hour blockbuster just isn’t sustainable.

Wow, yeah, I may have been a bit quick to buy a ticket for that one after having read CBR's positive 8/10 review... oh well, have only been to the cinema once this year, so I'll go and hope that I'll be able to enjoy it nonetheless (well, weather forecast indicates that Oslo may be one giant skating rink this weekend, so if I need to bring out my snow spikes in order to go, I'll stay home instead)

@FuriousMachine Hahaha, I was being semi-sarcastic as I thought it might be good for a laugh but wow, I can’t believe it got a good review from someone, it’s been almost universally panned. And not even in like a Mother! situation where it’s a movie I like that’s really divisive, more just in a ‘everybody hates this’ sort of way.

@nessisonett I wasn't sure if you were being sarcastic at first, having only read that one review and thinking "hey, cool, maybe we have a winner here"... then I saw the articles summing up the Rotten Tomatoes score and then I realised that "yup, definitely sarcastic"
The reviews are approaching Morbius levels of bad, a movie I couldn't even get halfway through, so that does not bode well... Interestingly, /Film looks to have a seemingly positive-ish review (haven't read it yet and it feels like they're damning it with faint praise from the headline), so maybe it's not that bad? (yeah, I know, it probably is...)

First I've heard of that, but yeah that is good news. Considering I've not looked too favourable on film like this, that I want more is a win!

Date night with Mrs MightyDemon, off out for an Italian and then to watch The Iron Claw!

Fairly happy about the BAFTAs, the right people won imo. Really glad to see The Zone of Interest get the Best British Film, it’s been kinda overlooked in general. Emma Stone is totally deserved, Poor Things is entirely down to her performance and it’s not an easy role at all. Wasn’t that big on Oppenheimer but I can get why it won a few of the big ones. The whole schadenfreude made me slightly gleeful about Saltburn missing out on everything though.

@LN78 He’s holding up remarkably well considering it’s been about 30 years since the diagnosis. Was brilliant in The Good Wife as a lawyer exploiting his Parkinson’s to gain sympathy as well.