A Ghost Story - Casey Affleck dies in a motor accident and comes back dressed like Charlie Brown in a Halloween special. That description alone would turn anyone off the movie, but they use this very simple imagery to tell it's story about life and just how fleeting every moment is. At first the movie starts off very slowly, to the point where there's a five minute scene where Rooney Mara has the saddest lunch of any character put to film, but it picks up, goes crazy with time travel before eventually wrapping everything up in a nice way. Not the most entertaining movie ever, but definitely one of the more thoughtful pieces with good cinematography and good acting. Even covered in a sheet, Affleck can put in a better performance than George Clooney, who knew.

Good Time - Robert Pattinson is a sociopathic criminal who strings his mentally handicapped brother along with him and helps him commits crime. One of their indiscretions results in his brother being locked up, and Pattinson has to use all his New York charm to get his brother out of jail. Like most people my age, I was dragged to my fair share of Twilight movies and was happy to find out that Pattinson knew what it was and didn't just become another headline seeking wannabe. He's honed his craft with a lot of decent supporting roles, and here he's done a pretty effective job in the lead role. This movie doesn't hold back any punches and Pattinson's character is one of the biggest pieces of shit, but there is a brilliance to his character. It's a very stylistic movie, but it never crosses that line and becomes whimsical. Think less Baby Driver and more Nightcrawler.

Brigsby Bear - Speaking of whimsical indie movies, Brigsby Bear is a movie I had heard nothing about but can attest to it being a really enjoyable indie comedy. The movie stars Kyle Mooney of SNL Fame as a 20s something recluse who loves this old 80s show, Brigsby Bear. Right as the show is about to reach it's exciting finale, it's cancelled and Kyle makes it his mission to make a movie adaptation of this show. It's a concept not too dissimilar to Be Kind Rewind, but there's more emotional depth in this film. Personally what I found enjoyable about this film is how up-beat and positive all the characters are. This could have easily been a movie that follows all the tired cliches, but the supporting cast is enamored by the imagination of the project and do everything in their power to make this loser's vision into a reality. It's got a nice supporting cast as well, with Mark Hamil playing the show's original creator and he does a great job as this wacky character. If I was to recommend one movie, this would be it.

Movies I want to see...
The Disaster Artist
Star Wars The Last Jedi
Coco
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Shape Of Water
Molly's Game
Phantom Thread
Stronger
Lady Bird
The California Project

Dec 4, 2017 0:55:45 GMT Emperor said:

Dec 4, 2017 0:21:43 GMT thereallt said:

LOL, Wonder Woman was set in WW I before the Nazis

You know, I was thinking that when the soldiers first appeared, because of their uniforms and guns, but my friends told me it was WWII so I believed them. Everything is about WWII, and I don't expect a Marvel film to be super historically accurate anyway. Well now I know. Doesn't really detract from the point, though.

Psst, Empy.. WW is DC, not Marvel.

Your point still stands, though, mate :lol:

Wonder Woman was OK, I enjoyed Gadot's take on the character, the supporting cast held their own but as far as super hero fair is concerned, it was just a middle of the road movie. I kind of feel like the movie got a ton of hype because it was directed by a female and was actually a decent DC movie. Essentially, it was just another form of 'othering', but a positive example for both gender politics and the far more gripping DC vs Marvel wars. I agree Thewlis' character was unnecessary and felt like the movie would have been better off without a villain. If the conflict had have been war and the folly of man, only for man to redeem themselves to Wonder Woman by making a noble sacrifice I think the film would have been thematically stronger. Instead it was like let's make Thewlis into the epitome of war and have Wonder Woman destroy him.

In saying that, some of the set pieces were really good. Themyscira is a dream holiday destination, imagine having your wedding there?

Good point, Big Pete. As I said, I wasn't invested at all because Wonder Woman runs through enemies like she's Super Mario with permanent star invincibility. But while she could physically defeat any number of humans, the question of how she can change human nature and stop them from permanently warring with each other was actually somewhat compelling and, as you say, thematically stronger. But of course, the film hammered home that everything will turn to gold once she defeats Ares, so Ares just had to appear for a formulaic final battle. Come to think of it, there was no reason for him to reveal himself. Why did he not just continue manipulating behind the scenes like he had been doing?

I’ve watched Sully on HBO twice now. While the story is a little thin, I really enjoyed it as quick and mostly brainless entertainment. The recreations of the plane crash are great.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe - It's hard being a horror fan sometimes because you wade through a lot of shit until you find a new movie that is really worth your while and when you hear rave reviews for something like Jane Doe you are skeptical - thankfully though this movie lived up to all the hype I was hearing in horror circles.

Just a fantastic , classic 1970's horror feeling that still feels completely original and the journey and conclusion as to what the fuck is actually happening is totally worth it. If you like good pyschological horror then I would definitely check this one out. The cast is tiny but Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox are really good in it.

Finally found an old classic from my childhood to stream, Men At Work starring Charlie Sheen and Emelio Estevez. I found this on the Roku channel on Roku, free channel with a bunch of free movies, with commercials but some good old classics, I found all 5 Kickboxer movies on there(the originals, fuck the new Batista one, I don't even count that one)! Me and my little brother grew up watching the fuck out of Men At Work, it was our favorite movie there for a little while when I was maybe 7 years old. Me and my brother used to copy all the high fives and golf clapping and shit that Sheen and Estevez do in the movie. It's not all that great of a movie watching it now, a couple of funny parts, kinda cute story, entertaining enough to watch all the way but I'm not going to pretend like it's some great movie. Still some high nostalgia power for me. Keith David definitely does make the movie though, he was great.

With this and Captain Ron(and the Steven Seagal vs Rastas movie!) the seeds for my love of reggae music were planted in my subconscious early on in my life(I didn't get into it until I was about 17 or 18 though), Men At Work has a pretty jamming soundtrack with Sly & Robbie, Ziggy, Black Uhuru, UB40, and a couple of others.

Thor 3 was great. Wife and I both ranked it as our respective second favorite Marvel movie.

Watched Die Hard 2 today for the first time. I remember seeing some of this back when my parents rented it on VHS as a brand new release, the only thing I can remember about it is the snow mobile chase scene. I honestly didn't like this very much, way too long at 2 hours and 3 minutes, a bulk of it seemed to be lame scenes in the air traffic control tower, no real tension built, no interesting characters, even John Mcclain seemed generic and boring compared to the Mclain that I know from the original and part 3. Just a bland boring action movie.

Watched Die Hard 3 for the first time in a while today, on Blu Ray on my 4K Curve big screen with my new 4K Blu Ray player I got on Black Friday sale. This is my favorite Die Hard movie, I like it better than the first Die Hard, I'd even say Die Hard 3(Die Hard With A Vengeance) is one of my favorite action movies period. Samuel Jackson is great, him and Bruce Willis together is solid gold.

And then I watched the 2007 Live Free Or Die Hard for the first time. This sucked pretty hard, didn't like it at all. Generic cash in with nothing going for it at all. Almost didn't even feel like a Die Hard movie, and the main villain was the lamest of any of the movies in the series by far, quite possibly one of the lamest action movie villains I've ever come across.  

It is a pity they had to make Die Hard 2 into the franchise before "with a Vengeance," DH and WAV are two of the greatest action movies ever made, along with WAV being one of the best buddy/cop movies ever made. Anything after with "with a Vengeance" needs to be avoided with extreme prejudice. I don't mind Die Hard 2, it just falls drastically short of the high bar of 1 and 3, but everything after that just feels like generic action movies, and not anything like Die Hard films. McClain goes from being the everyman who has to triumph over adversity, to basically the super being from Unbreakable with an attitude problem. I think I'd just take Die Hard 1, because the brother just doesn't compare to Hans Gruber, and a few of my favorite moments come from the first, but as worthy of a sequel as there is. If only the franchise consisted entirely of those two movies.

Watched Fast & Furious (the 4th film in the franchise), with the exception of the most recent, it was the only in the franchise I hadn't seen, definitely see it as the transition film from the racing flicks of 1-3 and the grand spectacle it became. I'd put only above Tokyo Drift as far as the movies go, I personally love the action extravaganza the series became with each additional film, saved them from the middle car movies that franchise had quickly become after the Point Break with Cars part 1. After bottoming out with Tokyo Drift, racing had pretty much run it's course in pop culture, so they became crazy stupid mindless fun, and I approve.

I finally saw Thor 3 today. What a weird fucking movie. Really enjoyed it, but weird as shit.

Irrelevant side note, having just used Amazon Prime on my PS4, their PS4 app sucks for fast forwarding and rewinding. The first speed, is about 20 seconds, the second speed, is the entire fucking movie.

Either way, watched Nightcrawler before Netflix drops it, entertaining flick, Jake G. is at his unhinged best, really intense. Give it a solid B+/A-.

I finally sat down with the Jim & Andy documentary on Netflix. It’s interesting but not as much as I’d hoped. Mostly just watching an actor be crazy.

Dec 10, 2017 14:55:57 GMT mikec said:

I finally sat down with the Jim & Andy documentary on Netflix. It’s interesting but not as much as I’d hoped. Mostly just watching an actor be crazy.

I've been meaning to watch it for awhile now and have heard some great things about it , but it's something I feel I'd have to be in the right mood for so I haven't gotten around to it. 

Watched The Big Sick last night as I really wanted to get it in there before the countdown and happy I did as it's going to feature prominently on my list and hopefully the overall list. I'll save any deeper review for the actual countdown but it is a great movie I implore anyone to watch. 

The Human Contract:
Lame. I like the cast. Jason Clark, Idris Elba, Paz Vega...but it just didn't click with me at all. Maybe I was just sleepy so nothing hit me like it normally would but I just had zero interest halfway into this thing. I will give it bonus points for Paz Vega's sexiness so for that I will give it D-

Lake Mungo:
I had heard some good things about this movie. That it was a smart horror flick. It did have a creepy vibe throughout but in the end I felt pretty underwhelmed with it. Nothing I'd bother with watching a second time. C-

The Killing Jar:
Seen this movie at least 6 times but damn it, it's just so much fun. I don't even really know why. It's nothing ground breaking in the traditional sense but everybody just knocks it out of the park. Plus I love it when a movie is set entirely in a diner. Something about a diner just feels right. Just a violent and fun thriller mixed with some mystery. A+

Lady And The Tramp
The film poster is iconic, and for good reason. But nobody talks about Lady And The Tramp apart from that scene. The inadvertent spaghetti kiss has eclipsed the film, to the point that it's the only thing a lot of people know about it. Myself included. I watched the film, and now I understand why. It's a story that covers too much ground in not enough time. The film doesn't even reach 80 minutes. At least 10 minutes of that is dedicated to musical interludes. Technically, the film is as good as any other Disney animation. The plot is where it fails to match the likes of Snow White, Cinderella, Lion King, and so on. The ~70 minutes of story time is a mish mash of themes and social commentaries, almost all of which are briefly touched upon and forgotten about.

Every other character besides the main two is a one-dimensional stereotype. I didn't feel the building romance between Lady and Tramp. I had no desire to see them unite. Not because they are dislikeable characters, but because they had no chemistry. The back alley Italian spaghetti kiss dinner was engaging, but only because I was awaiting the iconic scene. It isn't the climactic romantic moment the poster would have you believe. It's very much an accidental kiss. Their lips meet, Lady pulls away immediately. All that hype for not very much. If I didn't know it was coming, upon seeing it I'd probably think "that's pretty clever, but they are still building to the moment", and that would be that. In the end, there is no real "moment". After some adventured, Tramp is saved from the dog pound, not even by Lady, and it cuts to the next scene where they're together in rich couple's house with a bunch of babies. Not very satisfying. There's even a faux death of one of the side characters to initiate the tears, only for him to appear moments later in the final scene with a bandaged leg. A cheap ploy, but to be honest, I felt more warmth towards the "twist" of him being alive than anything else in the film.

Most Disney films are primarily aimed at kids, but are suitable for all ages. Lady And The Tramp is only suitable for a younger audience. It's not deep enough for a more mature audience to fully engage with. It's not a bad film. It's adequate. But there's a reason nobody talks about it anymore.

Finally caught the Hunger Games Mockingjay parts 1 and 2, wasn't bothering with the first until the both were out. I really enjoyed the first Hunger Games, Catching Fire was alright, Mockingjay part 1 was okay, but the whole thing fell apart with part 2. Each movie was just a little bit worse than the previous, and the ending was too "meh" to ever care about watching any of them again.

Saw the Hitman's Bodyguard, really had fun with this one, Reynolds and Jackson work great together, some really well done frenetic action. Nothing amazing, but one I wouldn't remind revisting every now and then. Just good fun.

Also watched Baywatch, eh, cast did great, had it's share of laughs, nothing to write home about. Wasn't terrible.

Just got back from The Disaster Artist. Absolutely LOVED it. James Franco absolutely NAILS every Tommy Wiseau mannerism, and the film itself is both hilarious and poignant at the same time. I never expected a film about an absolutely shitty movie to be so enjoyable.

Wife and I just finished The Night Before. Entertaining spin on the Christmas Carol. Wish I'd known about this and watched it before sending in my xmas movie list. Oh well. Not sure if it's any more of a xmas movie than Die Hard (with a Vengeance) though...

Also watched the Night Before...good for some laughs, cast worked great together, not the most memorable, but enough funny moments throughout.

Just got through Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, it's a classic for a reason, Newman and Redford are great together (makes sense, since they're great apart). Just the charisma of the two leads perfectly carries the movie, solid story, and a timeless ending. Could watch that regularly.

Dec 22, 2017 9:02:14 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Also watched the Night Before...good for some laughs, cast worked great together, not the most memorable, but enough funny moments throughout.

Just got through Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, it's a classic for a reason, Newman and Redford are great together (makes sense, since they're great apart). Just the charisma of the two leads perfectly carries the movie, solid story, and a timeless ending. Could watch that regularly.

Butch & Kid is a major favorite.

Finally bought my first 4k blu ray, War For The Planet Apes. I really loved it, great finale for a great trilogy, also sets up/ ties into the original Planet of the apes nicely. Good stuff.

Nice little coincidence that didnt even hit me until about halfway through the movie, the first dvd we ever bought/saw was the Mark Wahlberg Planet Of The Apes back 17 years ago when we got a PS2 for Christmas. Time marches on...

Life:
What a pleasant little surprise this movie turned out to be. I kind of expected it to be horrible after I didn't see a single trailer for it after it hit theaters and pretty much nobody talked about it which with such a solid cast usually isn't a good sign for the movie. But I thought this was great. It clearly took its inspiration from the original Alien but I actually felt this had some more tense moments in it than alien did. Jake Gyllenhaal is great as always and Ryan Reynolds is pretty much their to be a less over the top version of himself. It's pacing to me was perfect, the alien was truly menacing and scary, and I thought the film makers took some chances that others probably wouldn't have...I don't want to give anything away but there were two really shocking moments in this where I was just like "damn" can't believe they did that. I believe those moments made the movie better though.I give Life an A+

Just watched Bright and it was perfectly enjoyable. Critics tore it apart, but it was great. Big divide between them and the audience.

Atomic Blonde - 3.5/5

I didn't understand much of what was going on but I liked the action sequences, and it does have some nice imagery plus a solid soundtrack.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle - 3/5

It was okay but I liked the first Kingsman much more. Still, this wasn't bad though but I was much more entertained by the first film.

Caught Life (2017)-Nice little sci-fi horror, yeah, does nothing new, but does fantastically with the suspense. One of the better horror/sci-fi of recent years. 4/5

Passengers-It was okay, pretty much just a creepy story that somehow led to love. No reason to ever watch it again. 3/5

Underworld: Blood Wars-I'm a fan of the series, it's not high art or anything, but I enjoy them. That being said, this was the worst of the bunch. Conflict seems the most hollow, same with the resolution. Some cool action, that's about it. 2/5

Hell or High Water-Great little movie about 2 brothers and a series of bank robberies. It's simple, to the point, with some entertaining performances. 4/5

Caught a couple movies over the last few days. Watched American Made with Tom Cruise, was really surprised by how good this was. Great performance by Cruise and great story/setting.

Also somebody randomly loaded up Body Parts on HBO Go. This was like 1991 or 1992 movie starring Jeff Fahey about a guy who loses his arm in an auto accident. They replace his arm with one from a serial killer who was set for execution, the arm ends up taking over his psyche. I think I rented this once when I was a kid or watched it on Fox at some point in the 90's but I remember nothing about it. This was a pretty solid damn movie that holds up well watching it 25 years after it came out, it has Brad Dourif in a minor role, dude is always solid gold in everything he's in. I really enjoyed this one.

Mother starring Jennifer Lawrence

Weird as he'll. I didn't like it. The twist at the end was underwhelming

Detroit:
Another "white people are assholes" movie. The motel scene was intense and really tension filled. The police officers in the middle of this were just awful scum. I did feel like after that though the movie still has about an hour left and it just didn't have my attention as much after the motel scene. I give Detroit a C+ .

Lady Bird - I'm not sure if I'm feeling the Oscar buzz for this movie, but it was a good coming of age movie all the same. It reminded me a lot of Richard Linklater in that the dialogue felt improvised and there were a lot of loose ends in the movie. Going in, I expected the movie to be really quirky, but outside of the main character rejecting her birth-name and calling herself 'Lady Bird' it didn't go over-board with stylistic choices. At the heart of the movie, it's a story about a mother and daughter failing to come to terms with one another and the complexities surrounding the relationship. What could have been incredibly wrought and over-bearing was actually handled really well. One moment they'd be at each other's throats and the next they'd be each other's best friends - which seems pretty normal. If you enjoy your coming of age fair, it's worth a watch. I would have had it around #5 on my end of year list.

Logan - I like the idea of using the R-rating and instead of going down the raunchy comedy route like Deadpool, you go the gritty action route with high levels of gore and dark themes. This has to be the most depressing superhero movie of all-time, just about every X-Men is dead, Charlies has dementia and has these seizures that can kill thousands of people and Wolverine is dying a slow painful death. The only gripe with the movie is that it was 30 minutes too long and some of the action scenes seemed poorly laid out. So many of the 'cool' Wolverine moments hinged on the cyborgs being complete dummies and not responding at all. I can cut it some slack though and would consider it one of the better super-hero movie flicks, maybe THE best.