Topic: The Movie Thread

@kyleforrester87 yeah Sean Harris is always great and the film is nice visually but just not enough story there for me.

Hey all, so I need help finding particular movies if anyone is interested.

Here's the deal... I have another movie night get together coming up and we try to choose a different theme or genre each time. This time is my wife's turn to pick... she starts to go with Creature Feature but then the two of us realize it's June so hey maybe just go with movies with LGBTQ characters or themes. But we didn't wanna force that on the group so we put it to a vote and literally no one voted LGBTQ. So now her and I are determined to select movies that have some type of monster/creature but also have at least a gay character and I'm really having trouble finding anything.

So by all means, I am very much open to suggestions.

Hmm, it doesn't exactly have a monster/creature although it depends how you would define that, but my recommendation would be Switchblade Romance (also called High Tension) - French subtitled, by the director of The Hills Have Eyes, I have always enjoyed it and worth a watch, but don't think about the plot holes too much.

@zupertramp If you can convince your wife to forego the creature theme, I recently liked A Man Called Otto and it would fit for the Pride Month criteria.

I’ve not seen these but here’s what a search came up with:

1. "The Shape of Water" (2017) - Directed by Guillermo del Toro, this Academy Award-winning fantasy film features a romantic connection between a mute woman and an amphibious creature.

2. "Hellbent" (2004) - A slasher film set during Halloween, it follows a group of gay friends who encounter a masked killer while attending a festival in West Hollywood.

3. "Thelma" (2017) - This Norwegian supernatural thriller revolves around a young woman discovering her own powers and grappling with her attraction to another woman.

4. "Grabbers" (2012) - A horror-comedy film set in an Irish village, it features a lesbian character among the residents who must band together to fight off tentacled creatures.

I can’t vouch for the quality of any of these and the first one is the only one I’ve actually heard of. Maybe someone else knows the others on the list. 😄

@kyleforrester87 @Th3solution thank you both! And yes this would be much easier without the creature stipulation but that's already been decided unfortunately. The adding in of pride month criteria is more my doing though I hadn't realized there were so few gay characters in those types of films until now.

I mean, even the creature feature category is fairly broad, including everything from Pan's Labyrinth to Shaun of the Dead to Signs. And you'd think there'd be a whole handful of movies with at least a gay side character but there's really not much.

Also doesn't help that my wife and I both need 3 separate films. But I'll definitely be adding some of these because why not.

Saw Spielberg's semi-autobiographical "The Fabelmans" at the weekend. His best movie since "Munich" (and his "West Side Story" was bloody good) with standout work from Michelle Williams - she's such a brilliant, empathetic actress. Hilarious David Lynch cameo, too.

@JohnnyShoulder @kyleforrester87 another fan of The Green Knight here. Need to watch it again. They don't make enough quality films like that these days.

watching Come Play on Freevee right now. Movie's really good

Saw "The Boogeyman" at the cinema this weekend and while I enjoyed it, it certainly wasn't anything special. A serviceable creature in the closet movie that I probably won't remember for very long. Good characters and actors helps a story that is very by-the-numbers, I felt.
Haven't read the source material (yet), so can't speak to the faithfulness of the adaptation.

tonight watching the classic 1997 Kevin Kline comedy In and Out. Been a long long time since ive seen that movie when it was on HBO a few times back then

Ninja Scroll (Blu-Ray)

Wandering swordsman Jubei winds up getting roped into fighting for the Tokugawa shogunate against the forces of the Hideyoshi clan, particularly a band of 8 evil super ninja with supernatural powers. Joining him are Kagero (a kunoichi, and the last surviving member of a ninja clan slaughtered by the 8), and and old Tokugawa aligned ninja who ensures Jubei's assistance by promising him an antidote to a poison he inflicted our hero with. Along the way he'll have to come to grips with the fact that the leader of the 8 might just be an old foe he thought dead years ago.

This is 90's anime sword & sandal action that goes hard with gore & nudity to oftentimes taboo levels (at one point a man rips off the arms of an opponent and drinks the blood pouring out, and then shortly after is involved in a very voyeuristic rape scene featuring Kagero). It's not much more than that, but it's very good at what it does, and is worth a look depending on your sensitivity/offense tolerances.

Story is pretty simple "boss rush" style progression, but it's enough to keep things going and the 8 reminded me of a ninja-fied version of the rogues gallery from MGS3 for some reason (it was probably the bee guy).

watching these movies this weekend

Beastmaster
Batman
Batman Returns
The Wizard

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse (cinema)
Just got back from this and freakin' loved it! Granted, Into the Spider-verse is probably my absolute favourite Marvel-movie of all time and this one didn't quite live up to that, but I thought it got close. I guess my main problem with this was maybe too many spider-variants this time around and none of them really connected with me the way Noir, Peni, Spider-ham and Peter B. did in the first one (apart from Miles and Gwen, naturally)
Looking forward to Beyond the Spider-verse now

@FuriousMachine That’s good to hear! Glad that you enjoyed it. I really had little doubt that Across the Spider-Verse was going to be excellent, based on the first film, but I’m glad to see confirmation. I was going to go see it today but something came ip. Hopefully next week.

saw Transformers RIse of the Beasts at the theater yesterday. Pretty good movie.

the Noah character and MIrage do some kind of interesting fusion thing.

that and the thing with G.I. Joe at the end of Rise of the Beasts

If anyone fancies something different to the mainstream stuff, then this looks delightfully odd. If Yorgos Lanthimos previous films are anything to go by, it will at very least not be a unforgettable experience, albeit not always that enjoyable. There is also a new Wes Anderson film out this month too.

@Th3solution Definitely worth the trip to the theater; hope you'll enjoy it too

watching Tim Burton Batman and Batman Returns today. currently watching Batman with the commentary track on.

then later tonight ill be watching The Wizard which is on Tubi

@JohnnyShoulder Looking forward to this one, a very interesting film maker indeed. Admittedly I’ve only seen “…Sacred Dear” but i loved that.

Also, Anderson hit a high bar personally with French Dispatch so really have high hopes for Asteroid City 👍

@lalefi The one with Ana de Arnas and Chris Evans? That one didn't work for me. I love de Armas and after she kicked all kinds of ass in "No Time to Die", I really wanted this to be a longer version of that.

However, for a spy-action rom-com, the comedy didn't land, the romance felt forced (and I felt she and Chris Evans lacked the chemistry) and the spy-action was... okay, I guess? I suppose it fell victim to me having way too high expectations, but like most of these "streaming originals", I found it quite mediocre.The Marvel cameos were fun, though.