Jun 25, 2023 3:30:52 GMT @ness said:

It's scary when someone reviews a movie before System can see it.

I left it one day because I was travelling and I get caught lacking

Didn’t see The Flash intentionally though

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Side characters are awful,Mads’ tried but the villain’s motivations make no sense and it just repeated the same sequence over and over again. I honestly enjoyed Crystal skull more than this.

Some sequences for cool and I like the subtle references to pulp fiction going out of style in favour for space & astronauts though

If you think “interdimensional beings” was too far wait until

SPOILER: Click to show

Indy time travels and gets to meet Archimedes who just happens to have time for a chat while they are in battle at Syracuse

Jun 21, 2023 12:06:55 GMT System said:

No Hard Feelings:

Funny but very predictable comedy film but I’m just so happy to see a return to adult comedies even if it wasn’t a home run.

I just saw No Hard Feelings and I thought it was excellent. It does follow the traditional formula but the two leads are great interesting characters, there's a solid supporting cast, and the humour hit the right mark. Nice mix of raunchy comedy, light-hearted gags and some physical comedy thrown in the mix. Even a short homage to pro-wrestling. Very little to complain about. I laughed a lot.

Finished my biyearly watch of Rounders. So love this film.

Had The Sandlot going on repeat on my little 2 year old's portable DVD player in the truck while running around yesterday. It's not as kid friendly as I remembered, everybody kept looking at me weird when he kept saying "shit" at the grocery store haha.

He's simply A Superhero In training.

Jun 28, 2023 16:17:57 GMT System said:

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Side characters are awful,Mads’ tried but the villain’s motivations make no sense and it just repeated the same sequence over and over again. I honestly enjoyed Crystal skull more than this.

Some sequences for cool and I like the subtle references to pulp fiction going out of style in favour for space & astronauts though

If you think “interdimensional beings” was too far wait until

SPOILER: Click to show

Indy time travels and gets to meet Archimedes who just happens to have time for a chat while they are in battle at Syracuse

Weird decision to make indy the bad guy in this.  He is socialist thief who just violently attacks people and is a menace.  

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

System and c already posted their criticisms on this film and I mostly agree. Too little action, too many long dragged out segments, the story was kinda weak and all over the place. For most of the film I wasn't rooting for Miles at all, his character really started to drag on me, irritating "me-know-best" teenager attitude. I guess it works because the target audience is teenagers, but not for me. Miles escaping thousands of more experienced Spider-people is also very hard to believe.

What action we did have was really good, I loved a lot of the side characters, even those that appeared for a fraction of a second. I did kinda like Miles' parents and most of what Gwen did was pretty cool. I liked the twist with Miles unintentionally travelling to Earth-42, that has no Spiderman.

All34LOL was the clear MVP of the film. His abilities are vague but I didn't care. Somehow his animated combat sequenced made sense to me despite being completely bizarre. His introduction scene with the ATM was fantastic. Has a cool look, a solid backstory, and a winning personality. The cliffhanger may have been a cheap tactic but with the gang from the first film getting back together, and a tease of final boss All34LOL, I feel enthusiastic.

Legion of Super-Heroes: While DC’s live-action movies can be pretty hit or miss, with the animated films, however, they tend to hit it out of the ballpark. With that said, this is a pretty decent movie, that sees Supergirl team up with the far lesser-known Legion of Super-Heroes.

No Hard Feelings It was the Wife’s turn to pick our date night movie and this is what she went with. As someone who finds most comedies to not actually be funny, No Hard Feelings got a few laughs out of me, which is a nice change of pace.

2023 Films Seen

SPOILER: Click to show

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham
Cocaine Bear
Creed III
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Evil Dead Rise
Fast X
Flamin’ Hot
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
John Wick: Chapter 4
Knock at the Cabin
Legion of Super-Heroes
M3GAN
Missing
Murder Mystery 2
No Hard Feelings
Peter Pan & Wendy
Plane
Scream VI
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Shotgun Wedding
The Magician’s Elephant
The Mother
The Pope's Exorcist
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Unseen
Your Place or Mine

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

Action sequences and stunts are fantastic, storyline is as clunky as it’s title at times with some bad dialogue but nothing that deters too much from the fun of watching this on the big screen.

Though if you have a key that holds OMG THE FATE OF THE WORLD maybe don’t just keep it loose in your pocket?!

Elemental: The Wife and I took the boys to see this one over the weekend, they enjoyed it and I liked it as well. With that said, there’s nothing overly groundbreaking about Elemental, however, it’s a Pixar film so it’s definitely worth a watch, once it comes to Disney+. Of course, with two young boys, I'm sure I'll be watching it on there, plenty more times.

The New Mutants: I finally got around to watching this, it was a thing... a thing, I doubt I'll ever watch again. On a somewhat positive note, I didn't mind Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin (aka Magik), but honestly, that's about the only good thing I can say about the film.

2023 Films Seen

SPOILER: Click to show

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham
Cocaine Bear
Creed III
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Elemental
Evil Dead Rise
Fast X
Flamin’ Hot
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
John Wick: Chapter 4
Knock at the Cabin
Legion of Super-Heroes
M3GAN
Missing
Murder Mystery 2
No Hard Feelings
Peter Pan & Wendy
Plane
Scream VI
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Shotgun Wedding
The Magician’s Elephant
The Mother
The Pope's Exorcist
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Unseen
Your Place or Mine

Went to take daughter to Indiana Jones but then she saw that the Teenage Kracken movie that I’d said I would go to was playing so we saw that instead. It was very meh (or mid as the kids say?). I fell asleep a few times. Cute idea but very flat.

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 was fun. A little bit too long, probably one bit of convolution too many, but the action pieces were terrific of course.

Barbie:

Such a fun film, visually incredible (oddly reminded me of the play sequence in Beau is Afraid), humour was great and even some jokes I think flew over a few peoples heads and just a really smart film that doesn’t get too preachy with its themes despite having a lot to say.

The real world stuff got boring but I think they realised that as it’s not a massive part of the film.

Oppenheimer


You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

The lighting is “The Long Night” levels of awful and had me looking forward to the black and white scenes spliced throughout where I could actually see (and at times hear) Robert Downey JR.

It’s much more about the hearing between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss and the outcome of that than the nuclear weaponry side of it.

Oppenheimer’s motivations are as clear as mud as the target changes,
there’s even a line about no one knows what he believes. Which makes it hard to care one way or the other for the main character. Also his chemistry with Blunt or Pugh is non-existent. Also I know the USA is a very prudish country.

SPOILER: Click to show

but the sex scenes are very mild so idk why their media made such a fuss.

There was some interesting stuff here and the test explosion doesn’t disappoint but it’s a dreary inaudible mess for it’s mammoth runtime and not something I’m interested in watching again.

Jul 20, 2023 6:20:56 GMT System said:

You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

This is an absolute epidemic these days - I heard a semi-explanation that it's because sound mixing is done for people with home cinemas but that seems absurd considering they would be an overwhelming minority. If it's no good in an actual cinema then what hope is there?

There was a recent article that said that 80% of 18-24 year olds use subtitles watching TV and while that seems extraordinary, it's not surprising considering everyone can identify with turning the volume up to try and comprehend a mumbling actor's dialogue only to have your ears blown off by the subsequent action scene.

Jul 20, 2023 22:58:24 GMT @admin said:

Jul 20, 2023 6:20:56 GMT System said:

You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

This is an absolute epidemic these days - I heard a semi-explanation that it's because sound mixing is done for people with home cinemas but that seems absurd considering they would be an overwhelming minority. If it's no good in an actual cinema then what hope is there?

There was a recent article that said that 80% of 18-24 year olds use subtitles watching TV and while that seems extraordinary, it's not surprising considering everyone can identify with turning the volume up to try and comprehend a mumbling actor's dialogue only to have your ears blown off by the subsequent action scene.

I’ve noticed the sound in older movies on VHS sounds better than streaming/discs on the set up I have, the sound is just all there and don’t have to turn up/down volume through the movie

Jul 20, 2023 22:58:24 GMT @admin said:

Jul 20, 2023 6:20:56 GMT System said:

You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

This is an absolute epidemic these days - I heard a semi-explanation that it's because sound mixing is done for people with home cinemas but that seems absurd considering they would be an overwhelming minority. If it's no good in an actual cinema then what hope is there?

There was a recent article that said that 80% of 18-24 year olds use subtitles watching TV and while that seems extraordinary, it's not surprising considering everyone can identify with turning the volume up to try and comprehend a mumbling actor's dialogue only to have your ears blown off by the subsequent action scene.

We exclusively watch TV with subtitles and have for about 15+ years. I thought it was just because we were old. Turns out we're pioneers.  Who knew? 

Jul 20, 2023 22:58:24 GMT @admin said:

Jul 20, 2023 6:20:56 GMT System said:

You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

This is an absolute epidemic these days - I heard a semi-explanation that it's because sound mixing is done for people with home cinemas but that seems absurd considering they would be an overwhelming minority. If it's no good in an actual cinema then what hope is there?

There was a recent article that said that 80% of 18-24 year olds use subtitles watching TV and while that seems extraordinary, it's not surprising considering everyone can identify with turning the volume up to try and comprehend a mumbling actor's dialogue only to have your ears blown off by the subsequent action scene.

This was intentional.  Nolan really did not care about the dialogue in parts and literally drowns it out for cinematic effect.  And it is fucking annoying and makes the film overly confusing.  Subtitles likely will not save it as it is fast paced dialogue with many people talking too.  It was just a shitty decision.

System captures my feeling on the film.  The post war stuff was purposely made confusing by showing stuff in random order it appears and swapping the thermonuclear device and hydrogen bomb interchangeably.  By the end few will really understand why Oppenheimer was made a pariah without hitting wikipedia after.  Film makes it look like his motivated shifts, but it never really does.  The film just does not really present it well.

Jul 20, 2023 22:58:24 GMT @admin said:

Jul 20, 2023 6:20:56 GMT System said:

You’d think after Tenet, Nolan would learn from the complaints but instead he doubles down and this very dialogue heavy film is drowned out by the score at almost every turn, it’s used once or twice for dramatic effect but other than that it was beyond infuriating.

This is an absolute epidemic these days - I heard a semi-explanation that it's because sound mixing is done for people with home cinemas but that seems absurd considering they would be an overwhelming minority. If it's no good in an actual cinema then what hope is there?

There was a recent article that said that 80% of 18-24 year olds use subtitles watching TV and while that seems extraordinary, it's not surprising considering everyone can identify with turning the volume up to try and comprehend a mumbling actor's dialogue only to have your ears blown off by the subsequent action scene.

It’s beyond stupid and Nolan is the king culprit. The issue is that directors want their shit to have maximum range at reference level listening. That means low lows and high highs, which is supposed to be realistic and immersive. It doesn’t work in a commercial cinema because horn-filled speakers are too big and clumsy to handle dialogue and softer sounds with any finesse. It doesn’t work in 95% of homes because it’s a surround sound mix being down-mixed to stereo to speakers or a soundbar that can’t handle the range. As you said, the only beneficiaries of this are people who’ve invested four figures into a home theatre system.

My absolute biggest bugbear is Blu-Rays and UHD Discs, which are supposed to be the best way to watch at home, don’t encode a stereo track onto the discs anymore. So whether you like it or not, you’re sending a full surround mix with a massive range to your tiny TV speakers or soundbar and you’ll be spending the whole movie turning the dialogue up and the explosions down.

It’s pure arrogance.

I never buy Blu-Rays anymore for this reason. I hate overly dynamic sound mixing where I basically end up watching the film nearly on mute with subtitles to not wake the entirely apartment block. Oddly enough, bootleg streams due to the insane compression needed to be placed on video and audio, crunches the audio back to together and almost never has the problem that HD streams or blu-rays have.

Falling Down one of my favorite films ever made just hits way harder on VHS because of the sound and music, I'm ok with a slightly imperfect picture, it works for an older film, but of all the DVD and Blu Ray and streaming versions of the film the scene where he picks up the bag of guns when the music drops, just hits harder on VHS. Plus it works as a cool living room clock haha.

Just rewatched Abyss. What a movie. Perhaps one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever told. I cannot believe James Cameron wrote it himself and alone. For me it is right up there with the Space Odyssey saga. Like the Abyss story to me is right up there with 2010 and 2061.

I really do wonder if his own trip to the depths of the trench was to see if there was novel life down there or not. He been obsessed with this theme since he was in high schools I heard.

Jul 26, 2023 6:33:03 GMT c said:

Just rewatched Abyss. What a movie. Perhaps one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever told. I cannot believe James Cameron wrote it himself and alone. For me it is right up there with the Space Odyssey saga. Like the Abyss story to me is right up there with 2010 and 2061.

I really do wonder if his own trip to the depths of the trench was to see if there was novel life down there or not. He been obsessed with this theme since he was in high schools I heard.

I broke out my Abyss DVD when the titanic sub stuff was all over my news feed and it really hit the spot. 

Talk to Me:

Fantastic Australian horror film, sound design was awesome and very full frontal at times.

Since I was watching the Clone Wars, I ended up doing a full Star Wars binge, for the movies, I have 'em like this.

11. Attack of the Clones
10. Phantom Menace
9. Rise of Skywalker
8. Last Jedi
7. Solo
6. Force Awakens
5. Revenge of the Sith
4. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
2. Empire Strikes Back
1. Rogue One


Yep, ended up enjoying Rogue One the most, the others just had more stuff that didn't work quite as well for me. Rogue One told a consistent story with a poignant ending. Easily the best Disney Star Wars movie, but also just preferred it all around.

Gotta say, it was really dumb that the next movie after Return of the Jedi was not in a world where the Jedi had returned, almost always the best part of Star Wars. Force Awakens showed so much promise for that potential to be squandered in the sequels...still better than the first two prequels though, oof.

Rogue One is probably my second favorite Star Wars movie after ESB. As you said just well done all the way around. I appreciated how they didn't try to overdo the effects that hadn't been available at the time of the originals and actually worked to give it that same feel. Far more impressive than any of the prequels or postquels.

Talk to Me has a lot of the normal horror spirits let loose tropes, but in a really fun package. Terrific 90 minutes in the theater.

Gran Turismo:

Take a shot every time you hear “gaming” “gamers” or “Nissan” in this film and you’d be dead. The dialogue at the start seems so outdated like they ripped dialogue from a bully in a 80s high school film. Especially when it’s really trying to sell you on buying Gran Turismo rather than a celebration for those who already play it while I understand that real races have logos everywhere you can legitimately not go a full minute of this film without seeing product placement in some form.

Negatives aside, the actual racing was fun and it got a lot better in the second and third act. Overall it’s ok as a 2+ hour commercial.

Dracula Voyage of the Demeter
(Aka the last voyage of the Demeter)

This was really good and caught me by surprise. Even though I’ve read Dracula it was still an odd choice to reveal the fate of all the people on board the Demeter which cut into the tension a bit but this still worked really well as a contained horror. Also despite the film being set at night a lot, the scenes were well lit were needed.

Dracula was almost always obscured by rain or night/shadows etc but the only shot of him through the telescope looked like a cheap rubber mask :lol:. Still I’ve seen worse CGI in Marvel films so it was somewhat excusable.

Other than that no real complains, really good contained horror

So weird that Australia got Last Voyage with the Dracula name.

The reason that CGI looked like a rubber mask as it was a latex mask and not CGI. Main complaint I see is that the CGI was bad, but they used practical effects mostly for Dracula.

The Gran Turismo concept just sounds stupid.

So instead of pretending the competition is a real thing, like La Mans and telling a story (say the race component of FVF) they went with " gamers driving supercars " instead...

Street Fighter should follow this same concept... " you've played the game, now... fight! He's running away... why? "