Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

NeoSneth

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Hocus Pocus 2 - can't really comment on the movie because I pretty much tuned out after I noticed Sarah Jessica Parker covered up her bosom in this one.

I joined my wife for the second one after she rewatched the first. This movie is awful everything. Bette Midler is doing great for her age, as are all the witches. That's all the good stuff I can say.

It rides the nostalgia train right off a cliff. Everything from the first movie makes another appearance whether it makes sense or not.
 

terry.330

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I'm pretty sure he's joking. God I hope he's joking.

The GVS Psycho is so weird and pointless. I have actually watched it a couple of times, for one I like Julianne Moore and will watch just about anything she's in but also trying to figure out if there is actually a reason for it to exist. Like maybe there was something I missed or I don't know just something, anything to justify it's existence. There's not.
 

SouthtownKid

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Read something better, like anything by Clarke, Asimov, Banks, Crichton, or that bigot Card.
When I was a kid, like 5th or 6th grade, my favorite sf writer was Larry Niven. No idea if his books hold up at all now, though. And as big as he appeared to be at the time, I never seem to see his name listed alongside the big guys anymore. But meanwhile, Chrichton perserveres? That's kind of sad. He belongs on the popular hack list with Tom Clancy and the Da Vinci Code guy.
 

HornheaDD

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Niven's books are... ok. Hes a great world builder. The Ringworld novels are a good read if a bit slow here and there. I like the ideas behind the aliens, specifically the Pierson's Puppeteers, and whatnot. I feel like Niven is Vernor Vinge-lite. Good world builder, just not as good as Vinge.

Chriton was a fun writer, and I don't mean Jurassic Park. I really liked The Andromeda Strain, Sphere (there is no Sphere movie) and Terminal Man.
 

famicommander

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Card isn't a very good writer either. He built a cool world but his characters and story are as basic as can be, and his prose is like a high school kid's.
 

HornheaDD

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Card isn't a very good writer either. He built a cool world but his characters and story are as basic as can be, and his prose is like a high school kid's.
I like almost all of the Ender books, more specifically the first and the Shadow books.

He recently (as in the last year) finished the Ender-verse with the last book. It was absolute, incontrovertible SHIT.

I wont go into much detail because to complain about how shitty the last book is would take a lot of references to stuff in the series that is never answered. But I will say this - Anyone who thought the ending would be resolved, it wasn't. All we got were talking birds that like to shit on shaved monkeys that figured out eugenics, and space travel but couldn't figure out pants.
 

Lagduf

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Niven's books are... ok. Hes a great world builder. The Ringworld novels are a good read if a bit slow here and there. I like the ideas behind the aliens, specifically the Pierson's Puppeteers, and whatnot. I feel like Niven is Vernor Vinge-lite. Good world builder, just not as good as Vinge.

Chriton was a fun writer, and I don't mean Jurassic Park. I really liked The Andromeda Strain, Sphere (there is no Sphere movie) and Terminal Man.

I read Ringworld within the last year. Lot of neat stuff but the story was a struggle for me to get through. I decided not to read the rest of the series.
 

Ralfakick

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I just watched the Northman. I’ve actually been watching Vikings with a friend, but I was over my parents house and my Father wanted to watch a movie. It had a somewhat similar gritty tone about it, kinda Vikings meets The Revenant to me.

I was afraid from the trailers it was going to be too artsy for him, which might also equal boring, but both he and I really liked it. My Father and Brother are into our Swedish roots, so I’m sure that played a role, but taking that away it was a good revenge tale with a somewhat revenge twist in the end.
 

HornheaDD

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The Northman.

Watched it with the wife because she loses her shit for Skarsgaard. It's essentially Hamlet. Dudes name is even "Amleth" lol. I looked it up afterward and was like that HAS to be what they were doing. And I read somewhere that the director or writer said it was in no way a reimagining of Hamlet.

uh huh. Sure. Just like O Brother Where Art Thou isn't a remagining of the Odyssey.
 

SouthtownKid

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Watched it with the wife because she loses her shit for Skarsgaard. It's essentially Hamlet. Dudes name is even "Amleth" lol. I looked it up afterward and was like that HAS to be what they were doing. And I read somewhere that the director or writer said it was in no way a reimagining of Hamlet.

uh huh. Sure. Just like O Brother Where Art Thou isn't a remagining of the Odyssey.
They were pretty up front about that, though, weren't they? The one that always gets me is there being no mention in the press, interviews or any review by anyone ever pointing out how the Bill Pullman/Ben Stiller movie Zero Effect (I know, nobody remembers or cares) was a reimagining of A Scandal in Bohemia.
 

fake

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Watched it with the wife because she loses her shit for Skarsgaard. It's essentially Hamlet. Dudes name is even "Amleth" lol. I looked it up afterward and was like that HAS to be what they were doing. And I read somewhere that the director or writer said it was in no way a reimagining of Hamlet.

uh huh. Sure. Just like O Brother Where Art Thou isn't a remagining of the Odyssey.
What? "It's definitely Viking Hamlet." - Robert Eggers

Amleth is a character from the story that Hamlet itself is based on.
 

terry.330

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What's wrong with Chris Pratt
He's everywhere all the time in everything. He's virtually inescapable.

The Mario movie trailer came out today and when I heard his voice I physically winced and not just because it was Chris Pratt doing his own voice with a comically bad Italian accent.

I liked him well enough in Parks and Rec and I thought good for him when Guardians was a big hit as well as a fairly good movie. Now it's just total over saturation, like The Rock and Margot Robbie. You've got the same 10 people in 75% of all the big movies coming in a single year for multiple years in a row. Hollywood needs to widen their casting pool.

Jack Black is also in the Mario movie (perfectly cast) and the same thing happened to him but he did go away for quite a while and became more selective with his roles. Now I'm happy to see him again when he pops up in things.
 
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jro

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Cabin in the Woods- Not exactly a modern classic but close, highly enjoyable all around. I think it succeeds because it's so far beyond the suspension of disbelief, it just keeps getting crazier. It plays off the cliches of the usual dumb teens on vacation getting slaughtered and twists them to great effect. I was worried it wouldn't hold up on repeat viewing but I think it does. There's just so many references and quick jokes plus it's so fast paced that there's a of stuff you don't catch the first time. The ending is solid as well, it subverts the final girl cliche and just says "fuck it". Recommended.
I still adore CitW. Fran Kranz just consistently slays it, Nemo man you got to get your shit together, I should go for a walk, etc. Movie is enjoyable on its face and then takes on a whole different vibe when you get what the meta idea is. I also really like Hemsworth's lack of ego in his role.

Anyway, I watched

The Town That Dreaded Sundown: more interesting in its approach to the fourth wall and storytelling than anything regarding the actual movie. Not terrible but certainly not recommended.

Goodnight Mommy: apparently the original Aussie pic is pretty great. This was not. Decent concept done very poorly, kinda surprised Naomi Watts wanted to make this.
 
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terry.330

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The Town That Dreaded Sundown: more interesting in its approach to the fourth wall and storytelling than anything regarding the actual movie. Not terrible but certainly not recommended.
I tried watching this earlier today and turned it off after about half an hour.
 
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terry.330

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The Blair Witch Project- I was having a discussion about found footage horror with a friend and he brought this up as one of his favorite and that surprised me. I told him how much I disliked it and he convinced me to re-watch it. I absolutely hated it when it came out, everything about from the cast to the marketing. Upon re-watching it my opinion hasn't changed in fact I disliked it even more. Everything about it is annoying, the cast, the characters, the dialogue, the scares, the ending. Everything. The premise is solid enough but everything is just so dumb and poorly executed. It's also to blame for ushering in an entire era of shitty found footage and shot on video dreck that studios use as excuse to make huge profits off of idiots like Paranormal Activity. I honestly had a hard time sitting through it. I think that woman might be one of my most hated characters in any movie ever.

I will give it credit for a couple things; it's nice to see a found footage movie where the camera filming follows a realistic set of rules. Some of that is obviously budgetary but it's nice to never wonder who exactly is supposed to holding the camera or how did the camera manage to get an unrealistic angle. Also for managing to be so successful on such an incredibly small budget and simple concept even though it didn't deserve it as far as the actual quality of the film is concerned.
 

100proof

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I was actually just having an argument with someone the other day about Paranormal Activity. This person said it was the scariest movie they ever saw and I had to know why. To each their own, of course, but that movie was 100% marketing hype. It was a fun communal theater going experience but it's barely a movie. It's 80 minutes of absolutely nothing happening (either through watching literal security footage of nothing happening or boring, poorly improvised domestic patter) and 10 minutes of the most cheap, manipulative jump scares this side of a cat jumping on a piano. It's the equivalent of those videos from the early days of the internet where you'd watch a shot of something boring for 15 seconds and then it would blow out your headphones with a loud noise.

Those movies are the most cynical, lowest common denominator garbo to possibly ever grace a movie screen.

Blair Witch at least has a through-line and things actually happen in it. Plus it has the line "FUCK YOU, LOG!" which makes me chuckle every time.
 

wyo

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You guys don't like any movies or shows with the found footage gimmick? Yes, most of the genre is trash but there are a few found footage hidden gems like V/H/S, The Visit, Archive 81, Hellhouse LLC, Creep.
 

terry.330

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I like some of the VHS segments, Archive 81 and a couple others. It's not the found footage gimmick that I don't like I just find BWP as a movie awful and Paranormal Activity insulting on multiple levels which BWP is directly responsible for. It's a great way for indie filmmakers to do really creative stuff on a low budget but all of the studio backed ones are beyond lazy not to mention greedy. Paranormal Activity cost $15k and grossed $200 million. The studio bought it for like $300k, the entire franchise has made close to $1 billion. That's honestly kind of disgusting.
 

Lagduf

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Holy shit, sounds like the people who made paranormal Activity got absolutely fucked.
 
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terry.330

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Holy shit, sounds like the people who made paranormal Activity got absolutely fucked.
Who knows what kind of backend deal they got, not to mention the exposure and guaranteed future work for the filmmakers and cast. Plus I don't think anyone involved was expecting it to do as well as it actually did. I would say it was a fluke but there's so many sequels, people just keep going back and I can't fathom why.
 
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