I was really disappointed by Incredibles 2. To make it worse before it aired they played some scenes with the actors putting it over and saying it'll be worth the wait. Once the credits rolled I was thinking... was it? Something was missing.

I just saw Wreck it Ralph for the first time in anticpation for the one that's about to come out... now that was awesome. Really surprised at seeing so many characters making cameos and such. Guess Disney bitchslaps copyrights with all that Marvel money.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

As a diehard Harry Potter fan I found the first Fantastic Beasts film to be a fun little romp but also a fairly harmless cashgrab. Now that it has become a five-film franchise, they need a strong story as its backbone, and so far this story has failed to impress me. Quite the opposite.

My main problem with the second Fantastic Beasts film is that I had no idea what was going on for almost its entirety. Part of the reason is that the film heavily relied on knowing the plot from the first film. It gave almost no exposition or reference for people with bad memories like me to be able to catch up. But even if I had that knowledge going in, I would still have got lost pretty quickly once the plot got moving. New characters are thrown in with almost no rhyme or reason. Plot revelations are convoluted and rapidly-presented, provoking no reaction other than utter perplexity. Character's actions and events exist solely to make the paper thin plot work, rather than being a product of the plot. The special effects were incredible, but with a complete mess of a story, they lacked any meaning.

Another problem is that the next few films are clearly going to primarily focus on Dumbledore vs Grindelwald, but the franchise star is Newt Scamander, so they are going to have to shoehorn a whole load of bullshit irrelevant to Dumbledore vs Grindelwald to support that. Thrown-together romance plotlines, and lots of magical creatures. In fact this has already happened, with creature schemes whose absurdity would be a perfect fit for an Arnie film, and Newt repeatedly saving the day with a remarkably specific property of some arbitrary magical creature that just happens to show up at exactly the right moment and which he captures and befriends with ease like some master Pokemon trainer. In the first film it was the Thunderbird that had the perfect ability to erase exactly the right memories (and nothing more) of the entire population of New York after the city was destroyed. In the second film it's some weird giant cat dragon thing that happens to be the perfect beast to get Newt and his buddies out of a scramble. Might as well rename the franchise "Fantastic Deus Ex Machinas and where to find them".

Perhaps my most serious problem is that the story is now encroaching on that of the original Harry Potter books, and I feel it will hurt their legacy. I speak mainly about the big twist of the film, revealed in the final scene. I won't say what it is, but if the twist turns out to be exactly as presented, then it contradicts established canon. But I'm willing to give JK Rowling the benefit of the doubt here, that she's seen this through. To be fair, there are some nice Easter eggs for Potterheads like myself, and the backstory of some of the main series' characters is intriguing (and very dark in one case).

Do I have anything positive to say? Well, some aspects of the plot were good, in particular the backstory of Newt and Leta Lestrange. The acting is generally of a high standard, especially Eddie Redmayne's autistic good-hearted hero and Johnny Depp's placid but cunning and evil Grindelwald. Jude Law's young Dumbledore is a hard role to pull off, but he did an adequate job.

After missing our flight this morning, we had time on our hands to knock out Incredibles 2 in the terminal. Thought it was great. Loved all the Jack Jack parts. I assume there will eventually be a third and fourth a la Toy Story.

Pumped out The Spy Who Dumped Me Last Night.

While it wasn't outright bad per se, and did get Wife and I to laugh in places, it wasn't good either. Not sure if it was too long, or what. At certain points, I had a theory that maybe the action scenes and violence were just too much. It was weird. Like the action scenes were actually pretty decent and creative, I thought. And the violence could be a bit gruesome at times. But then it wasn't done or tested it a way that parodied it. So by the end, I was starting to wonder if I'd misread the whole movie: instead of being a comedy with action movie elements, was this supposed to be an action movie with a few comic relief spots? If so, True Lies this was not.

Also, pinning down an antagonist besides the mere concept of improbable action heroes not knowing who to trust felt like a challenge for this movie. IMO, their best villains didn't get enough screen time or proper treatment.

And then there's the Kate McKinnon issue. I just don't know... Hopefully this tanks her attempt at a starring movie career. She's no Zach Galifianakis, and even he really shouldn't be much more than sideshow characters in funny movies. (Due Date being an exception for capitalizing perfectly at the right time on the same exact character from Hangover, and Masterminds being an unexpected surprise that probably didn't do well commercially.) I don't know what it is about her, but I think her schtick has run dry with me... especially when it's overpushed, which it kinda was in this movie. Granted, she's not straight-up pure unwatchable like Leslie Jones, but man is she rubbing me more the wrong way lately than the right way.

But Mila Kunis was looking good, so that did help to offset. Plus, you got to see a decently hung naked dude (because I think maybe Kunis and McKinnon were trying to flip the paradigm of expected and accepted onscreen nudity in this film?)... So there's that. Just be forewarned if to do decide to watch, it's LONG.

I got around to Ant Man & The Wasp on the weekend. It wasn't bad but I think definitely the weakest/most passable from MCU Phase 3. I might be remembering it better in hindsight but I remember the original Ant Man being a lot funnier (needed more Luis!), and I don't feel a great deal of chemistry between Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly.

Creed 2

It's amazing how these later stories in the franchise look laughable on paper but turn out to be gems once fully realized on screen. Creed 2 was no exception with an eye rolling synopsis when I first heard about it not long after the first Creed was released. They did a great job of grounding this story and not going off the rails with a straight revenge movie. Adonis follows Rocky's arc basically from II and III dealing with new family challenges while also coping with being on top of the boxing world. Ivan and Viktor Drago's story is also handled fairly well (more on that see the spoiler.) I love the little twist they did with them early in the movie which resulted in some iconic shots to add to the franchise lore. Rocky takes a step back in this movie and mirrors Mickey's role in Rocky III as the voice of self preservation early on. He still has some memorable lines and offers Adonis more life and boxing wisdom. I love how in the early stages of the final fight it plays more like a chess match between Rocky and Ivan as they offer up great strategy for both of their charges. It is a fantastic match which of course becomes a blood and guts test of courage for both Adonis and Viktor with a very fitting ending. Tessa Thompson is great as well plus we get a bigger role from Phylicia Rashad which was welcome to see.

My one gripe is

SPOILER: Click to show

they could have added more drama between Ivan, Viktor and the surprise return of Ludmilla. Ludmilla and the rest of Russia had shunned Ivan after his loss to Rocky but once Viktor gets a shot at Adonis Ivan and Ludmilla are on good terms again much to Viktor's disapproval. I thought they had a real opportunity to add that to Ivan and Viktor's dynamic during their training scenes. It was great and again a massive surprise to see Bridgette Nielsen back. Good on Stallone for bringing her back after the sorted history they had surrounding Rocky IV and its aftermath.

This may have tipped the sympathy scale too much in the Drago's favour however so I can see why they didn't go that far with that aspect of their story.

Overall a fitting continuation of this universe which, coming from where this franchise was at the dawn of the 2000's, seems like a minor miracle. Plus the irons are hot for a third Creed movie. I'll be looking forward to where they take it next. 8.75/10

New rankings or stages as I like to view it.

Rocky
Rocky II

Rocky Balboa
Creed
Creed 2 (still fits well in this "passing the torch" bracket)

Rocky III
Rocky IV

Rocky V

Saw Fantastic Beasts last night with Wife. I think I maybe liked it more than she did. I think I benefited from hearing about how much people hated it, how bad it was, etc. I had a really low bar of expectations going in.

From a gags and laughs standpoint, it didn't do anything better or even as well as the first. And from a plot standpoint, I think they got a little too carried away with convoluting some things... led to some pretty gaping plotholes that will take a lot of effort to address/close in later films. But I tried to give it as much slack as possible. I understood that this was more of a seed-sowing movie, world/character exploration, than much of a narrative... if that makes sense.

What do they have, 3-5 more movies in this leg of the franchise? I think it's really only fair to rate this stuff once the whole deal is out and can be considered together. Some of the Harry Potters are much weaker on their own, but all together combine for an awesome experience. While I think FB won't be able to hold up to HP, I think the same kind of stance will apply... the whole will be greater than the sum of the pieces.

Nov 29, 2018 13:40:08 GMT 🤯 said:

What do they have, 3-5 more movies in this leg of the franchise? I think it's really only fair to rate this stuff once the whole deal is out and can be considered together. Some of the Harry Potters are much weaker on their own, but all together combine for an awesome experience. While I think FB won't be able to hold up to HP, I think the same kind of stance will apply... the whole will be greater than the sum of the pieces.

Disagree. It's absolutely fair to rate these movies as they come out. It could still be a better film in restrospect, when the whole plot is revealed, but right now they are telling the story very poorly. For the record, I don't think any of the Harry Potter films are bad. None of them are amazing, but they are all good films and faithful retellings of the source material that capture the spirit of the story and its characters.

Nov 29, 2018 16:56:29 GMT Emperor said:

Nov 29, 2018 13:40:08 GMT 🤯 said:

What do they have, 3-5 more movies in this leg of the franchise? I think it's really only fair to rate this stuff once the whole deal is out and can be considered together. Some of the Harry Potters are much weaker on their own, but all together combine for an awesome experience. While I think FB won't be able to hold up to HP, I think the same kind of stance will apply... the whole will be greater than the sum of the pieces.

Disagree. It's absolutely fair to rate these movies as they come out. It could still be a better film in restrospect, when the whole plot is revealed, but right now they are telling the story very poorly. For the record, I don't think any of the Harry Potter films are bad. None of them are amazing, but they are all good films and faithful retellings of the source material that capture the spirit of the story and its characters.

Touche. Fair wasn't the right word.

I think I more meant I expect its standing to improve a bit in retrospect (hopefully) once all the other films are out.

Last night I really tried to just embrace the visual aspects, the individual performances and interactions between characters... I dunno. Essentially I came away pleased enough with it to put it on the TV as background noise during the holiday season. But maybe that isn't the greatest compliment to pay a film. :lol:

Shallow Hal - Just flicked it onto the movie channel and this popped on. I remember somewhat liking it when it came out, but it seemed like many see it as the Farrelly Brothers fall from grace. I was expecting it to be pretty bad, but it's actually a pretty decent drama with a surprisingly good soundtrack. Cake, Phoenix, PJ Harvey and of course Edison Lighthouse. Further the movie has a ton of heart, I'm a sucker for the Caydence reveal, it hits me like a truck even though it's such a manipulative scene. The movie is little light on laughs, I wasn't a fan of the Black and Alexander dynamic, but there's enough here to make it completely watchable.

North by Northwest - I remember having to write an assignment on North by Northwest, but have absolutely zero recollection what the assignment was about. Everything else I wrote about like Vertigo, Easy Rider, Two Hands, Don't Look Now etc. I can recall to some degree, but absolutely nothing about North By Northwest other than I wrote about it. It makes me presume this was one of those ill-fated assignments I had completely forgotten about until the day it was due and proceeded to write 2000 words of complete fluff. Elective classes, am I right? Anyways the recent review was thrilling, the movie does an excellent job of putting you in a state of pure paranoia as nobody is who they say they are. Thornhill maybe one of the best audience surrogates in film history as we share his utter bafflement, his embarrassment, his betrayal and eventually his redemption as the movie proceeds. The movie has an excellent cast - Cary Grant as the suave Roger Thornhill, Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, the overcompensating blonde bombshell, James Mason as the smooth and mysterious nameless antagonist and Martin Landau as his right hand man.

While I was watching the movie, I was trying to figure out what I would have written about. With Vertigo, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt etc. the themes are ever-present where as NBN feels more like pure spectacle. I presume it would have been about identity and how easy it is to assume a role, even if it's deceptive towards our true nature. Some mumbo jumbo because lord knows they would let me talk about how silly Thornhill was to take the knife out of the senator's back and implicate himself in the murder or just how awesome the crop duster scene is.

Couple of points about Hitchcock, his movies always feel a little long winded. It's not a big problem because I'm enthralled with the stories he presents, but 90 or so minutes into the picture I was surprised we were only just entering the third act and had any real sense of what was happening. The other is that in all the Hitchcock movies I've seen - Birds, Marnie, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho etc. the ending always feels cheesy or just a massive letdown. This was no different, with Eve hanging off the edge of Mt. Rushmore as Roger Thornhill desperately tries to rescue her to a smash cut of them on the train as we get this cheesy image of their sexual conquest (a train entering a tunnel). I won't go on a tirade spoiling all the other movies, but I always find myself kind of laughing at the abruptness of Rear Window and Vertigo.

So I got Sling TV back whenever the Texans vs Titans Monday Night Football game was so I could watch that without hooking my laptop up to the TV. On one of the on demand sections for one of the channels I stumbled across a fucking true classic from my childhood and watched it for the first time since I was probably 6 or 7 yesterday:



Ninja III: The Domination, and OH MY GOD this is easily one of the greatest b-rated cheese 80's action movies you will EVER fucking see. The first opening minutes is non-stop pedal to the metal explicit ninja violence, from there the cheese factor goes into overdrive. The story is about a 1980's aerobics instructor being possessed by an evil ninja spirit. This is EPIC fucking Cannon Films shit right here, and it's SO fucking 80's I really can't believe it. Nostalgia overload, I had a flashback or two while watching this. Most of the music sounds like it was taken straight out of a Sega Shinobi game. Amazing.



GOAT Ninja movie

I watched Ant Man with my daughter over the course of a week. In Marvel terms I thought it was pretty good, because I generally think their movies are awful. As a movie I’d give it a solid 3/5.

We also watched the original Tobey Spider-Man movie. Still fun. I watched the third one alone last night for the first time, pretty bad but not as bad as I expected.

Happy Time Murders: Entertain enough, but take out the puppets, it's an incredibly generic mystery movie. Still, some solid laughs to be had, just not hilarious.

Also watched Death of Superman: Definitely much better than the first adaptation, but not much content to dig into. A little bit of set up, then mostly just the epic throwdown; were very well designed sequence of action pieces. Decent watch on it's own, but is really gonna depend on how the follow up delivers on how it stands up.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

A classic Western starring my favorite actor James Stewart and the legendary John Wayne...in the same film! I finally got around to watching this and it did not disappoint. John Ford has been one of my favorite directors ever since I watched Stagecoach back in university at the school theater. I enjoyed the clashing styles of John Wayne's "man's man" character performance with the human performance of James Stewart. The movie plays to this difference in the story conflict between them. This isn't the kind of movie with any epic or complicated plot though. It's just a simple story that is played out well.

The overbearing "America is great" propaganda thrown in was a bit tough to swallow, just like in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but that is forgivable considering how great the acting of the two lead men is. Plus there is something somewhat endearing about it considering you know James Stewart really does wish the country were as great as it could be. I always feel like he isn't really acting, just being himself in every movie. Anyway, that's not really the point. It's a Western! The sophisticated city easterner meets wild west town theme was strong and I really enjoyed the tale overall and the comedic villainy of Liberty Valance with some fun gunslinging play thrown in.

The film kept you worried about what would happen throughout and had a solid ending that wrapped up the story quite nicely. Combine that with strong acting, cinematography, and direction and you have yourself a fantastic movie! Getting the basics right is the most important thing after all!

Into the Spiderverse is certainly a contender for one of the best Spidey films. Better than either Amazing. Dunno if I like it over Homecoming though.

I love it better than Homecoming and I though Homecoming was fantastic. The movie for me is the best animated and the best comic film this year, and here I thought Black Panther would run away with it. I'm watching this film again in 3D.

I’m sitting in the theater for Aquaman. Let’s see what happens.

So Aquaman, way better than I expected it to be, probably my second favorite movie in the DCEU, only behind Wonder Woman. There is definitely a lot of inspiration from the New 52 Aquaman series, which isn't a bad thing, as Geoff Johns acruelly made the character interesting. Jason Mpmoa continues to be awesome as Arthur Curry/Aquaman, and Amber Heard was pretty decent as Mera.

Aquaman, man if only Roman's character was like that. Just a fun, likeable guy you wanna root for.

Pretty fun movie. Dunno if I liked it better than WW, but man if they could just focus on these solo adventures where everything is loosely in the same universe maybe a shared movie in the distant future would actually work. Ya know, the formula that works.

Bandersnatch.

What a piece of shit. It weird for the sake of being nuts, at the expense of a decent story and/or multiple outcomes. It's almost ironic, and a celebration of what is really a revolution in television. The concept is good, the execution is far too gimmicky to be anything more than to generate a weeks worth of hashtags and memes. And it's 'netflix' ending, pretty much sums up everything wrong with this entire thing.

Interstellar sucked!

I saw a heap of movies lately so I could do my films of the year list for 2018

My gf and I saw all of these at the cinema in one day 😂:

Aquaman: Like the ocean, it looks gorgeous but is filled with garbage.
Bumblebee: Pretty good for its target audience, the high school girl parts were pure cringe but the rest surprisingly dumb fun.
Vice: loved it, Christian Bale is a phenom.
Ralph Breaks the Internet: Was good, Monster was gross.
Holmes & Watson: It’s a dumb Will Ferrell comedy, it’s ok not as bad as critics claim.

5/5 movies in a day.



———-
Mandy: Masterpiece! Only Nicolas Cage could pull this one of.
You Were Never Really Here: Pretty good, Joaquin Phoenix great as usual.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Fantastic! Great even for people who only really know Spider-Man from the movies like me.
Black Panther: Avoided this film because i was told it was racist trash.
It is. I’m sure dudes consumed with white guilt are going to go crazy when this gets Oscar noms though.

How are white people “colonisers” if Wakanda was cut off from civilisation? Also everything Killmonger (the villain) is for, BP is for at the end with no explanation?
—-

Saw Mary Poppins Returns tonight, was as good as a soulless cash grab of a film can be.

In prep for Glass I decided to watch Unbreakable. Pretty great stuff and kinda interesting it came out in 2000 right around the time of the first X-Men movie. Hopefully Split is just as good. Course thanks to all the post-credit comic stuff it's gonna be kinda disappointing if I don't see McAvoy meeting Glass in the psych ward...

Unbreakable is great. Split is, well, not bad, but not great either.

Escape Room. Meh. It was alright. Totally unrealistic though. Ending sucked.

Aquaman was fantastic, I'd put it as the best DC movie since the Dark Knight, since it also had a worthwhile villain and climax, where Wonder Woman somewhat fell apart in the final act. It was visually stunning, and action pieces were well put together. It was definitely a HUGE step in the right direction, if SHAZAM delivers, they might just be back in decent shape.


Into the Spider-Verse was maybe the best Spider-Man film to date, between it and Homecoming, pretty much everything landed near perfect. Phenomenal visuals, great character interactions, big laughs throughout. The after credits scene was completely worthwhile to wait around for, one of my favorites.

I don’t get the Aquaman love at all, it’s visually stunning but the dialogue was dubbed anime levels of bad.

Just felt like some poorly written fan fiction by a Marvel fanboy
(Just be DC and not Marvel-lite)



The selfie scene was awful, and trying to take “the ocean master” seriously was a huge stretch. The opening scene felt like something out of The Days of our Lives.

Finally got around to seeing what all the hype was about in Bird Box last night , and I'm still not 100% certain why it was so hyped. The movie was fine and had it's moments and the people you expected to be great (Sandy B and Malkovich) were really good but overall the movie felt really bloated and heavy handed. They could have cut 20 minutes from it easily and had a much better movie.

Either way though it was an interesting take on an apocalyptic movie , I wouldn't put it ahead of Hush as far as Netflix releases though but it was certainly more ambitious. Probably too ambitious.

UT, it was on Netflix, so for a lot of people, it's like NJPW in the Tokyo Dome for Big Dave. *******

It's not like there are a glut of particularly well received Netflix movies so I'm not sure where that's come from. The popularity seems much more linked to the meme rather than the idea that it's some sort of cinematic masterpiece. I thought it was a fun movie for what it's worth.

Jan 8, 2019 10:34:39 GMT nath45.47 said:

UT, it was on Netflix, so for a lot of people, it's like NJPW in the Tokyo Dome for Big Dave. *******

That’s literally not true. Tons of stuff on Netflix sucks and everyone knows it. You’re being ridiculous.

Bird Box could have been released by anyone and I wold have liked it. We just watched it and Bird Box was dope. I’m super picky with horror movies and this one did it for me. Acting was great, story was great, overall it was great. 8/10.