Jul 29, 2022 8:42:43 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Jul 28, 2022 11:02:25 GMT iNCY said:

Has anyone seen Gray Man? It keeps popping up in my recommendations, but I don't have high confidence in Netflix when it comes to movies.

It's one of the okayiest movies I've watched recently, if you've seen other Netflix actioners you know about what to expect, just this one has Chris Evans chewing scenery. Not really bad by any stretch,  just a decent "shut off your brain and watch things go boom" watch.  Fairly solid action, cast is pretty solid top to bottom, there's worse ways to spend 2 hours.

Thank you,it was exactly the sort of semi-mindless violence I was looking for.
I enjoyed Evans as the bad guy, have you ever seen Commando with Arnie? Evans was giving off the same vibes as the protagonist in that film

The Batman

I loved the grit, I loved the tone and loved the fact, Gotham felt incredibly weathered, and almost dated. Very little gave away it was a modern tale outside of Wayne's technology. Both Wanye and Kyle ride retro-styled bikes, and The Batmobile itself is an amalgamation of classic muscle car design, and of course the Brucemobile is a '63 Corvette - all in all, a massive departure from the very contemporary Nolan films.

From the trailer alone, I assumed it was to be set in the early 1990s due to the inclusion of the Nirvana song, and part of me wished, it was a surprise sequel to Joker and that would be the big reveal at the end.

The Juggalos on the Subway give me hope it is.

The detective aspect is obviously the highlight, as is the violence. And the cast was exceptional.

And overall the police resistance to a vigilante and the community distrust or disillusion in the Wayne name really encapsulates what the DKR was alluding to. Batman isn't a folk hero here, and Bruce isn't exactly a contributor to society, where he could be. An isolated man on both fronts, adds to his character.

If it were 30 minutes shorter, or paced differently it may hit the mark higher. 3 hours is a long time, especially when much of it is Batman standing in the dark. It's good, but you need a solid commitment to watching it to really enjoy it.

To me, this is the 'Begins' piece in hopefully a strong franchise, of course the main event is Batman v Joker in the next film.

Soul (Pixar, 2020)

I stopped watching when the protagonist dies five minutes into the movie.

Pixar hit another home run. The animation is gorgeous, great humour, a wonderful universe, and it has something to say about life and mental health. Honestly I did leave Soul feeling an added motivation to live life to the fullest, to embrace every moment. Alas, that motivation may die down pretty quickly, but maybe it has a larger positive impact on children, as intended.

Was The Mummy & The Mummy Returns even, revolutionary for their times
From a technical standpoint
Like integrating CGI with practical?

Jul 30, 2022 22:37:14 GMT Emperor said:

Soul (Pixar, 2020)

I stopped watching when the protagonist dies five minutes into the movie.

Pixar hit another home run. The animation is gorgeous, great humour, a wonderful universe, and it has something to say about life and mental health. Honestly I did leave Soul feeling an added motivation to live life to the fullest, to embrace every moment. Alas, that motivation may die down pretty quickly, but maybe it has a larger positive impact on children, as intended.

Is this review legit based on only 5 minutes?

Speaking of setpieces

The Mummy should be in everyone's Top 100 favorite films

It's so good

Seen the original... fuck thread time.

Jul 31, 2022 1:56:21 GMT 🤯 said:

Jul 30, 2022 22:37:14 GMT Emperor said:

Soul (Pixar, 2020)

I stopped watching when the protagonist dies five minutes into the movie.

Pixar hit another home run. The animation is gorgeous, great humour, a wonderful universe, and it has something to say about life and mental health. Honestly I did leave Soul feeling an added motivation to live life to the fullest, to embrace every moment. Alas, that motivation may die down pretty quickly, but maybe it has a larger positive impact on children, as intended.

Is this review legit based on only 5 minutes?

Nah that was a joke. I watched the whole thing.

Jul 31, 2022 9:17:39 GMT Emperor said:

Jul 31, 2022 1:56:21 GMT 🤯 said:

Is this review legit based on only 5 minutes?

Nah that was a joke. I watched the whole thing.

I think I owe it a re-watch. I feel like I recall loving everything, but then felt like the ending felt abrupt and flat. You seemed to be a fan of the ending, so I'm now presuming I must've just missed something that made it complete.

Now that you mention it, the ending was a bit weak.

It was on its way to a potent ending. The Jazz guy sacrifices his chance at life (or rebirth) as he managed to live his peak moment at the jazz concert, giving up his life to 22, the secondary protagonist who was searchng for meaning throughout the whole film and found it when she lived through Jazz guy's soul. That would have been powerful, then it was immediately undermined by Jazz being given a second chance at life (instead of passing into the great beyond, as was his destiny from the beginning) with a throwaway gag where the relentless counter of souls is tricked.

The Black Phone - such a fantastic thriller/horror movie. Even got me to jump a few times which is very rare.
Such amazing performances, the cast was so young and the first movies they've really done before and they were fantastic. 
It would be really cool if they did a prequel to show more about the Grabber's past/other crimes he committed etc. Ethan Hawke was great as well. Can't wait to watch it again.

Purple Hearts - Random movie I came across on Netflix, a corny and predictable love story but I really enjoyed the movie a lot. Went for 2 hours and honestly didn't feel that long, the songs were super fun, the chemistry was believable - could definitely watch it again and enjoy it just as much as the first time. 

DC League of Super Pets - this one was good. If you see it stay to the end if the credits.

The Black Phone:

The daughter was the highlight of the film, thought it was going to be more like Escape Room or Saw with much more about “the game” they were playing but was still enjoyable.

Latest I’ve seen a film (release date wise) while it’s still been in theatres as it wasn’t showing in Vietnam but that probably put my expectations a bit too high.

I was about to complain about the similarities to It until I saw it’s based on a Joe Hill book :lol:

Hill writes just like he dad did. Some differences, but the meat and potatoes of his stories is so based on pops.

///

Just watched Nope. Had no interest but was watching a stream of someone at Unversival Park and the tour guide said what was the main influence for the monster and had to see it.

Peele took the world for a fucking ride with this film. Spoiled his own damn movie in the fucking promo posters (red one), but no one realizes it until you see the film. Keeping mum on the inspiration for the film was a genius move as well, as once you know the basis for the film it ruins the twist.

For those who do not care about spoilers:

SPOILER: Click to show

The UFO is actually a creature based on the angels of Neon Genesis Evangelion, particularly influenced by Sahaquiel, the 10th angel, from the OG series. This is not speculation either, Peele straight out confirmed it. It is basically a giant form changing flying jellyfish that condenses down to a UFO looking form to feed. The red poster shows some several of the forms it changes into that look like just random art deco shapes.

Caught Prey, it's alright, not the worst Predator movie, not with the best.

I watched "What Is A Woman?" last night. Interesting takeaway angle on transgender reassignment surgeries is the lifetime cost of the drugs, both hormone and fighting infections. Guy said over a lifetime, the lift to big pharma could be over a million dollars.

He also said he had 6 inch hairs in his urethra. So there is that too.

I watched Morbius and it was simply morbtastic.

It's Morbin' time!!!

That dancing scene is pretty great though.

I actually really liked the movie in general. Obviously I'd seen all the memes and how the whole thing had just become a huge laughing stock, but it was...far better than I expected.

I've got no clue how faithful any of it is to the comic characters, because Morbius has always been in the category of "I know who he is but I really really really couldn't care less" (along with Namor and Kraven The Hunter) - either way, the story kept me interested and I think the casting was good (Jared Leto and Matt Smith both seem weird and their characters were weird.

It took the premise (weird Jared Leto has experimented on himself and become a weird vampire man) seriously, which is pretty refreshing for these kinds of movies. If this was in the MCU, I'm sure someone would have been saying stuff like "Hey Count Chocula!" or making Hotel Transylvania/Twilight references - there are a couple of one liners, but the whole thing is mostly played straight. It never gets too dark or depressing though.

Obviously none of it is really outstanding or groundbreaking. The story is decent, the effects are good and it's only about 90 minutes long. There are better things you could watch, but there are far worse!

I think Sony should give it another release. Third time's the charm!

Uncharted was decently entertaining, had it actually cast someone even remotely right for Victor god damn Sullivan, I wouldn’t have much issue with it, I could buy Holland as a young Nate…Marky Mark just ain’t it for even a young Sully though. Good dumb fun though, some really good action.

@aaron agreed that Morbius is nowhere near as bad as the memes make it out to be (though a lot are just based on no one having actually seen it EG: Morbin’ time) but I feel like if someone rented from Blockbuster back in the day they would be happy


Bullet Train:

Probably the most violent mainstream film I’ve seen in years, was refreshing to see after so many studios play it safe now. It has a lot of exposition and coincidences but it’s a really fun action film. If you like Guy Ritchie films check this out as I thought it was one until the end credits rolled :lol:. Definitely go in blind for this and you’ll have a great experience.

Also I had those fish shaped ice cream biscuits in Vietnam, taste as peculiar as they look :lol:




Where the Crawdads Sing:

This was a fantastic film, it has the same cliches a lot of romance films based on novels have but the main actress was incredible in this.
They did a great job of making you feel sad for her situation while also envious of the freedom she had and made you understand why she lived in the marsh.

A lot of the supporting cast felt like caricatures but nothing too bad to take me out of the film overall.

EDIT: very surprised people are saying this looks like a TV movie, it looked gorgeous on the big screen

Saw Bullet Train with my Dad. Absolutely bat shit crazy insane movie. I loved every single second of it. The cast was amazing, especially my baby Brad Pitt 😍 could definitely listen to Sandra Bullock talk all day. I also thought Joey King was fantastic, don’t understand why she was coping any hate for it.

The movie was hilarious, and I laughed through the entire thing causing my Dad to comment he needs to watch it again so he can actually hear it. Will absolutely buy this on DVD so I can watch it again!

Wasn't planning to watch Bullet Train, trailers didn't really grab me, but I might have to change my mind on that...

Last week the kid and I went to see DC Super Pets which was ok, Hotel Transylvania: Tranformania which was worse. I wouldn’t give big enthusiastic reviews to either, very middle of the road cartoon movies.

Tried to watch Paddington the other night and what I saw I loved, but sleepy mikec also loved watching the back of his eyelids. Kiddo loved it too.

Aug 9, 2022 17:59:06 GMT mikec said:

Tried to watch Paddington the other night and what I saw I loved, but sleepy mikec also loved watching the back of his eyelids. Kiddo loved it too.

I've only seen Paddington 2, which is delightful.

Both Paddingtons are delightful, but I'm more partial to the first one because Nicole Kidman is an awesome villain.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)

There's a lot to unpack in this review. I'll start with the basics. The Shining is a Stephen King book, which Stanley Kubrick made into a very famous horror film. Over three decades later, Stephen King wrote a sequel called Doctor Sleep. It follows the adult life of Dan Torrance, also known as Jack Torrance's son Danny Torrance from the original. I finished the book two days ago. It's great. Several years after that book was written, Mike Flanagan made a film adaptation, which I am reviewing with these very words.

What makes this interesting is that Kubrick deliberately changed the ending and general tone of The Shining, a decision which King completely disapproved of. But it happened anyway, because Kubrick did not give a single fuck about what the author of the work he was adapting thought. So we have:

- Book universe The Shining
- Film universe The Shining
- Book universe Doctor Sleep

I assumed Doctor Sleep would be a straight adaptation of the book, and this is what Doctor Sleep started as. But Flanagan came up with an idea to merge these universes. It was a brilliant idea that was approved by Stephen King. I'll leave Wikipedia's description to fill in the gap.

While the film Doctor Sleep is intended to be a direct adaptation of the 2013 sequel novel, director Mike Flanagan said Doctor Sleep still "acknowledges Kubrick's The Shining in some way". Flanagan said, "It is an adaptation of the novel Doctor Sleep, which is Stephen King's sequel to his novel, The Shining. But this also exists very much in the same cinematic universe that Kubrick established in his adaptation of The Shining." He explained working with all the sources, "Reconciling those three, at times very different, sources has been kind of the most challenging and thrilling part of this creatively for us." He first read the novel, and then had a conversation with King to work out adapting all the sources. As part of the process, Flanagan recreated scenes from The Shining to use in flashbacks. Same as The Shining, Flanagan also avoided the horror film trope of jump scares.[16]

On why he wanted to present the film as a continuation of Kubrick's film, Flanagan expressed, "The Shining is so ubiquitous and has burned itself into the collective imagination of people who love cinema in a way that so few movies have. There’s no other language to tell that story in. If you say ‘Overlook Hotel,’ I see something. It lives right up in my brain because of Stanley Kubrick. You can't pretend that isn't the case". King initially rejected Flanagan's pitch of bringing back the Overlook as seen in Kubrick's film, but changed his mind after Flanagan pitched a scene within the hotel towards the end of the film that served as his reason to bring back the Overlook.[18] Upon reading the script, King was so satisfied with the result that he said, "Everything that I ever disliked about the Kubrick version of The Shining is redeemed for me here."

The primary difference between the book and film is that in the book, The Overlook Hotel is burned into oblivion, while in the film, it is not. Flanagan observed that the climax of Doctor Sleep takes place on the ground where the Overlook was, and came up with the genius idea of setting the film Doctor Sleep in the Kubrick universe, which gives him the ability to use the Overlook itself instead of just the ground it stood on. With that he gets all the Shining nostalgia goodness that comes with it. Furthermore, but he devised an ingenious way of having Dan Torrance blow up the Overlook hotel, thus gifting to the world, and to Stephen King, the true ending to The Shining on the big screen.

When the climax of the Doctor Sleep film unfolded before my eyes, I couldn't help but admire the genius of the writing. I will say that some of the scenes in the Overlook hotel came across as a bit cringey and fan servicey (particularly the actor who had the impossible tack of reprising Jack Nicholson's role), but the meat of it was great. It was especially satisfying because the finale is the weakest part of the book.

Now that I've got that out of my system, let's talk about the film itself. Ewan McGregor plays the lead role Dan Torrance, and he does a phenomenal job. At the start of the story Dan is a deadbeat alcoholic, and the way McGregor portrays this is phenomenal. He's almost unrecognisable, a truly pathetic figure but with a good heart. He carries the film tremendously. I don't know any of the names in the supporting cast, none of them shine like McGregor but they all do a pretty good job. Rebecca Ferguson plays the primary villain Rose the Hat. It's a difficult role because I think she is a pretty weak villain, but Ferguson comes into her own particularly in the second half. Her right-hand man Crow Daddy, a far better villain with a far better name, is well-played by Zahn McClarnon. The other principal character is the child Abra Stone, played by Kyliegh Curran, a girl who has a significantly more powerful version of the shining than Dan or anyone in this universe.

Apart from the vast improvement of the finale, the other major difference from the book is that the stakes are raised higher, as there are two major fatalities among the good guys, while in the book there are zero. Besides that it's a pretty fair adaptation of the book, dropping some characters and plot points out of necessity, but keeping the core narrative and themes and treating them with respect. I do question some decisions, such as introducing the John Dalton in a throwaway three minute scene and never use him again, when he is a major character in the book. Why bother including him at all?

I could nitpick more, but on the whole it more than succeeds as a faithful adaptation of the book, in fact having some of the most brilliant writing I've ever seen. Even if you watch this film cold, without knowing anything about the universe, it's well above average dramatic thriller story with touches of horror. But I do feel I got the best experience having read both books and watched The Shining. Top marks.

The Peanut Butter Falcon:

This was fantastic, even though it’s not the focal point it’s a plus that pro wrestling is part of the story. Had heard people praise this for awhile and it’s well deserved.

Not to put myself over but I had a friend who was legally blind (he’d have to sit directly in front of TV) & we had to help him put eye drops in once. my mum made a huge deal over it that I should become a support worker because i was cool with hanging out with him. He was just my friend from school I didn’t think anything else of it :/, so related to Tyler’s frustration in the film.


Nope:

I enjoyed Get Out and I loved Us but I was bored out of my mind from this, I know a “Nope” explained video is coming that will point out a lot I missed but just on the surface I couldn’t get invested at all even if I picked up on the deeper meaning in a lot of scenes. It reminded me of an an M Night Shyamalan film and that’s more The Happening than Unbreakable.

Hated the letterbox formatting too, probably much better in IMAX but the one in Sydney has been under renovation for years.

c

SPOILER: Click to show

Coincidentally I was watching Neon Genesis Evangelion the night before with no idea it had any conception to Nope :lol:

I also got spoiled before it that had some reference to Akira, obviously the motorbike slide being the main one.

Yeah the connection in Nope is so far out that no one really picks it up.

Think the film was genius in the marketing, but yeah, will not watch it again. The characters gave no reason to invest in them.