Topic: The Movie Thread

Decided to watch Barbie with the wife and I am shocked how this movie got such high score anywhere. It is so idiotic ... it tried to be deep but failed miserably. What a huge pile of s**t.

@Zuljaras I'm planning on watching it soon. Did you have big expectations? Surely it wasn't as bad as Return to Silent Hill and the beard that was mentioned.

I nice girl from DHL was just at the door and handed off two lovely steelbooks of Kill Bill vol. 1 and Kill Bill vol. 2 who's travelled from Italy to these icy shores (The Bride finally came home, @Ravix! And she's gorgeous!).
Normally, this would warrant an immediate rewatch, but rumours now abound that The Whole Bloody Affair actually may hit theatrically here in the coming months, so the question becomes: Do I wait or not?
I must ponder!

@Zuljaras I actually thought it was quite fun. A lot better than it had any right to be, that's for sure. Granted, I came in with the lowest of low expectations, so that may have helped. Still, enjoyed it for what it was.

@FuriousMachine I thought you said a bride from Italy arrived at your door. Do you mean there is a third movie in the works that ties them all together? I'm mainly been watching weird 80's ninja movies and knock-offs of franchises from all around the world. Super Ninja was a masterpiece, I watched it twice. How do you feel about the other grindhouse movies like Planet Terror and Death Proof? Are they unnecessary purchases or are you being very specific?

@GirlVersusGame We thought that it was going to be at least funny but it was goofy and deprived of fun. It tried to be emancipating but right at the end and it had zero effect on me.

I wanted at least a comedy, but got parody that tried to be smart and failed.

@FuriousMachine We went with expectation for a comedy with relatively high score.

@GirlVersusGame Yeah, "The Bride" being, of course a reference to Uma Thurman's character in the two movies. I missed the original release of the steelbooks with just a couple of days, but a while later, the fantastic @Ravix alerted me to the fact that Amazon Italy were restocking them. They've been on order for a loooooong time, but they finally arrived today.
The Whole Bloody Affair is Quentin Tarantino's supercut of both movies, released theatrically as 4+ hour single movie with a 15 minute intermission in the middle. It is apparently very good and I've been wanting to see it since I became aware of it (preferably in the theatres). Looks like I may get the chance.
The Grindhouse cut with the Planet Terror and Death Proof double bill, complete with fake trailers for other movies, was never shown theatrically here, much to my chagrin, but that was back in my pirating days, so I managed to get the "full package" nonetheless, only on poorly compressed digital video. Loved "Planet Terror", didn't care for "Death Proof" at all. First Tarantino movie I disliked.

@Zuljaras Ah, that's apparently where you went wrong, then 😅

@FuriousMachine I wasn't that fond of Death Proof either, it felt very forced and focused on the parts of grindhouse that should have worked but didn't. Robert Rodriguez on the other-hand knew what he was doing with Planet Terror. I think a big part of it was that he filmed it on his own home turf and understood exactly what he was aiming for. There was less studio involvement, he ran the show so I'd call it a passion project. The actual theme and story was better too and tapped into something that was already niche. I'd seen a lot of those bad Sci-fi movies of the fifties and appreciated what he did. It's still very unique, unless you count that upcoming John Carpenter game which I'm not sold on. House of 1000 Corpses was sort of similar in that both directors grew up with the source material and made their childhood their reality. There aren't too many instances of that happening anymore which is why From Dusk till Dawn is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. They don't make them like that anymore and they almost didn't with all of the drama from the unions at the time. Watch Full Tilt Boogie if you haven't.

@GirlVersusGame I'm a long time Robert Rodriguez apologist; been a fan since El Mariachi and have been able to find something to enjoy in almost all his movies (though, I will admit, Once Upon a Time in Mexico disappointed me hard).
Been a long time since I saw From Dusk Till Dawn or Full Tilt Boogie (I believe it was included in one of the DVD releases? Or else I may have pirated it back then).

As for Mr. Zombie, I'm more a fan of his music than his movies, but that is just a matter of taste; his "Firefly" trilogy does exactly what he set out to do, and that's cool. I remember I did like The Devil's Rejects better than I did House of 1000 Corpses. Not sure if I ever saw 3 From Hell, but if I did, I remember nothing from it.

@FuriousMachine It was, I have six different copies of From Dusk till Dawn, I buy all of the variants of that movie and the one your thinking of was in a cardboard slip-case that folded out and I believe it was on the second disc. It's funny you saw it pirated, that's how I first saw it too but to be fair everything in Russia was/is mostly pirated and movies were no exception.

House of 1000 Corpses did it for me because I understand how Rob Zombie was raised, he was a Carnie and his Family would have fights with other Carnies who tried to steal their spot. They would come at each other with axes etc, he saw some crazy things growing up and worked it into his music and movies, I respect that and his music. Devil's Rejects was more mature, as was his first Halloween movie. I liked the focus on the characters rather than throwing a bunch of random ones in there with no real character development. Three from Hell felt like he'd watched too much Natural Born Killers and wanted to shock for the sake of it. There was no further development other than bad people do bad things. More could have been done with the story too, it started off well then got very samey and stagnant. Maybe it was a wasted opportunity.

El Mariachi is one of my favorite no budget movies, I might prefer it (a little) to Desperado but I feel like Once Upon a Time in Mexico was one big step in the wrong direction. He lost his way and went full Hollywood, I understand why he did, to fund his own studio but it was still awful. I haven't seen his Spy Kids movies or Battle Angel Alita. I did see the From Dusk till Dawn TV show and I lasted maybe three episodes before I stopped. From Dusk till Dawn 2 was better and that was one of Scott Spiegel's weakest movies. Also Robert Patrick was a bad fit for that character. I've managed to forget most if not all of From Dusk Till Dawn 3 The Hangman's Daughter, that was the same director as lost Boys The Tribe, I've managed to forget that movie too.

One of the best things the original movie did was the ending when the camera pulls back and you see the temple that was really clever for the origin of where they came from. Then just like Desperado there was the soundtrack, all great bands and everything fit because Rodriguez is a big music fan. He hand picked those tracks and made sure the budget covered their inclusion in the movie not just 'inspired by'.

@GirlVersusGame From Dusk Till Dawn I saw at the cinema (several times), but I couldn't remember if I pirated Full Tilt Boogie or if it was included on one of my DVDs (I think I have both a bare-bones release and a special edition - where I think it may have been included - but all my DVDs are in storage right now, so I'm not sure which one(s) I have. I do know I have the trilogy box set, though).
I didn't care much for FDTD2 and I only saw it once. Only saw "Hangman's Daughter" once, as well, but that one I liked a bit better. Taken together with the original, they are but pale shadows, of course.
Spy Kids was very charming, I thought, and it was fun seeing Danny Trejo play against type. I've not seen any of the sequels.
Alita: Battle Angel got a bad rap, in my opinion. Love that movie to bits. It's not perfect, but I really enjoy it. Still waiting on that sequel that they keep teasing every once in a while.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the music. Tito & The Tarantulas FTW!

@FuriousMachine Oh I pirated the movie and saw the documentary on that DVD set. It must have been great in the cinema, especially if you didn't know what you were in for the first time. I didn't and instantly watched it again. Weapons was the same and Hereditary, I pressed play right away to see what I'd missed the first time. I hope storage is keeping your things well. I slowed down on collecting again, it sort of comes and goes and I haven't taken to 4K thankfully or it would be DVDs all over again. The second From Dusk till Dawn also had Tuco from Breaking Bad. Have you ever seen the movie about Jimmy Santiago Baca called Blood in Blood Out? It's the same director as Devil's Advocate and Ray (Ray Charles)

I'll give Alita: Battle Angel a watch, you sold me on it.

@GirlVersusGame The marketing for From Dusk Till Dawn back then made no secret of this being a vampire movie - one of the trailers even had the tagline "Vampires - No Interviews", which I thought was quite clever:

That trailer was one of the first movie trailers I downloaded off the internet, with a crappy dial-up connection. From that point on, I would obsess over getting as many movie trailers as possible (I remember being blown away by the first Dark City trailer I came across, back when the movie was still called "Dark Empire").

I saw 187 back when it came out, but don't remember much about it. Never got to see Blood in - Blood out, but I remember one of my mates going on about it at the time.

Continued my catch-up with the MCU and watched The Fantastic Four: First Steps earlier in the week. I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than I expected to, thought it was excellent, and definitely one of the strongest instalments of the series' post-Endgame era. Solid cast, spectacular visuals, delightful retro-future aesthetic, and yet another wonderful soundtrack from Michael Giacchino. I also appreciated its runtime only being as long as it needed to be, as well as its relatively standalone status. As much as I get a kick out of interconnected cameos and rug-pulls, there's nothing wrong with a little reset every now and again.

@FuriousMachine If you've ever read any of the film magazines of the time they came with trailers on CD Roms. A while back I collected up different volumes and had to ask someone why they wouldn't play in my console, I thought they were DVDs but no. I think the earliest trailers may have been from 1999, I'll check when I'm back in England because now I'm curious. I have all of the early DVD ones too, from when Warner Bros and others would have started to push their Perfect Storm, Lost Boys, Matrix, Devil's Advocate roster. After that they went plastic, all of the VHS etc I've collected from the American market are cardboard too, it makes preservation that much harder. You definitely know what I mean by cardboard Warner Bros DVDs, I'd wonder how many survived given the flimsy design.

I tracked down a PC game of From Dusk till Dawn too and a rare Demo of it. I'll look for those too, I definitely want to see what the earliest trailer would be. I collected most if not all of the Playstation Magazine Demo discs too. I don't even know if discs like that are still a thing, probably not. I've collected them all the way back to the original Playstation 1 disc, the variants too. I think some Playstation discs had trailers too. I probably saw the majority of my movies from somewhere shady until I moved to England, I bet I still have my original Russian copy of From Dusk till Dawn too. It probably had a different name like how right now Badlands was called Dead World. Which for a while was confusing because someone would ask have you seen such a movie? 'no' then they'd explain the plot and I'd realize I did just under a different name. It still happens. Even Zootopia has a different name here (UAE) Zootropolis.

Then there were the many movies that were edited before I saw them. The ending of Rocky was changed so Ivan Drago won, I'd seen it so many times then saw it years later in England and it was like suddenly finding out who Keyser Soze really was. I probably dropped something. I didn't know media was being changed like that, it was absolutely propaganda. Some other movies were changed too but that one sticks out because the premise was East versus West and the powers that be went so far as to modify the ending. I think my copy of Terminator was changed too but I can't remember which parts. I'd have to go through all of those DVDs and manually check but they would have come through morals/ethics before they came to my DVD player. The ones on the market would have most likely been untouched, pirated of course but free from influence. It was a kind of niche system where they'd do it for the children of State officials etc, it may have even happened with my Disney movies.

There were benefits to that system, I saw and maybe have a very rare cut of Cobra that I don't think saw a Western release because it was probably stolen from the distributor before it could be censored and cut. I had a lot of work-prints from the time. It's similar to why I have 35mm cinema reels that were supposed to be destroyed after what happened on September eleventh. The studios ordered certain reels be cut and destroyed, I have one from an American Pie movie too. It showed the original skyline, it might not even be in the DVD or Blu-ray anymore. They locked down so many theatrical releases because of the skyline but Spiderman was the main one, it might be the last 35mm copy in existence. I've never seen another come up in any collector circles or markets. I think my copy of End of Days was a stolen work print too. Hostel definitely was, I could hear people on the set. It hadn't even gone through full post production, but because they shot in Eastern Europe the cut was compromised. My copy had no score and I bet I still have it somewhere.

That's the same game, it was set on an oil tanker.

I really wanted to email customer services with the header 'Where is my Minority Report?!' But alas, it was delivered without a hitch.

Going to line that one up for a weekend watch to see how the 4K is presented. Maybe i'm tempted to try the John Wicks too, as it's going to be a dull old weekend here.

@FuriousMachine O, Sensei. What would you suggest? Do I take the Wick for a spin, or do I go for something that pairs better with Minority Report? Should I instead be leaning into more sci fi? 12 Monkeys perhaps, Or maybe Dark City? (Kind of wish I still had a bunch of middling action sci-fi trash ala Paycheck or something like that) but both of those mentioned would kind of mirror the sci-fi/detective feel 🤔 or perhaps I lean more toward Tom Cruise with Vanilla Sky...

This is what I pay you the big bucks for... hypothetically and/or in spirit!

Did you decide on whether to Tarantino it up this weekend, yourself, or whether to hold off? I'm glad the mighty steel came in eventually 😄 and in a way it'd be a shame to not watch right away to celebrate, but then if you are getting to see the whole bloody affair on the big screen it does throw a spanner in the works!

@GirlVersusGame I'm assuming you're referring to the horrible "snap case" DVD covers of the time. I don't think I ever had one fall apart on me, so despite the cardboard, they seemed to be quite sturdy. Annoying as hell, though. Glad they transitioned over to the Amaray covers after a while.

@Ravix To be fair, it's been many a moon since I last saw Minority Report, but barring the possibility of a double Dick header by pairing it with Paycheck or The Adjustment Bureau, which would be my preference, I'd say Dark City seems the better fit of the others you mentioned.
Alternatively, I might have gone for a Spielberg/Cruise double header and paired it with War of the Worlds.

My own report should be landing in my mailbox one of these days, too, ghost of Philip K. Dick willing...
As for the Bride this weekend, looks like I'll hold off for now, but mostly because I plan on spending most of my time with "SW: Outlaws" and if I watch any movies it will most likely be Peking Opera Blues

tubi weekend for me.

Species 1 and 2 along with Date with an Angel

@Zuljaras

It's not feminist too. I hate it when a media praise feminism supposedly but then act hyprocritical with showing all male characters dumb/inferior/awful etc. Have a balance God damn it! I especially hated the scene where Females regained the control and then offered men little jobs/parts and men were all cheering etc.]. Where the ***** is feminism and equality in that!?