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

[terry.330]

I'll check it out, I think it's on Prime.

Armor of God- Jackie Chan's attempt at doing a sort of modern Indiana Jones thing. It's a mess but it's an ambitious mess. The stunt work in wild as fuck (this is the movie where he almost died) but the plot is borderline nonsensical, the bad guys are flat out comical and all the stuff in-between the action scenes is all over the place, there's bad comedy, a travel montage set to a Chinese version of Loralei, lots of cringe stereotypes, even cross dressing and blackface.

I get the feeling that Jackie basically had carte blanche at this point and there was no-one to keep him in check. The end fight with the 4 black chicks is insane partly because of the stunt work but also because it's so incredibly obvious that it's just 4 guys from his stunt team in drag. The hot air ballon escape at the end is one of the most half-baked stunts ever put on film. Not only does he not seem to know how hot air balloons work but the editing is downright embarrassing. All in all though it's just such a bizarre spectacle with so much going on it's hard not to be entertained. Looking forward to watching the sequel, I heard that one is even crazier.

 

[SouthtownKid]

His acting is the least of that movies problems.

I don't know, it was up there. He was awful. Like Keanu Reeves in Dracula awful.

 

[terry.330]

Black X-Mas- The one from 2006 where Mary Elizabeth Winstead has a terrible southern accent. It's pretty standard for the horror remakes being pumped out around that time. It's dumber, more violent and gory. They add a backstory to the killer and went way overboard with it which eats up a lot of screen time. It's definitely not a good movie but it's leagues better than the painfully bad second remake a decade later. This one at least had the decency to not actually call itself Black Christmas.

 

[terry.330]

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood- So many dirty feet, great movie though. Incredible attention to detail and an amazing but unobtrusive soundtrack. Pitt and DiCaprio really work well together and the supporting cast is awesome. The scene between Leo and timothy Olyphant might be the best performance of Leo's career.

Streets of Fire- Leave it to Walter Hill to make a hyper stylized retro, musical, adventure set in some bizarro version of the 50's. A real one of a kind movie. Bonus points for Willem Defoe in Armani leather waders. Plus now the opening song is going to be stuck in my head for the next week.

 

[rarehero]

Streets of Fire- Leave it Walter Hill to make a hyper stylized retro, musical, adventure set in some bizarro version of the 50's. A real one of a kind movie. Bonus points for Willem Defoe in Armani leather waders. Plus now the opening song is going to be stuck in my head for the next wee.

The streets of fire soundtrack is great. Some of the songs were written by meatloaf's songwriter and you can tell, they definitely have that kind of sound. I watched it on a recommendation about it probably inspiring some things in final fight. It probably isn't a 5 star movie for me, but definitely worth the watch.

 

[terry.330]

Armor of God II: Operation Condor- Here we go, this fixes everything that was wrong with the first one and then cranks it all up to 11. A nearly perfect mix of comedy and action, good pacing, locations and supporting cast. The stunt work is all incredible with some amazing set pieces. Most of all though it feels like a real movie, not some cheap wanna be. This is easily one of Jackie's best.

 

[lithy]

We bought some sushi from Sam's Club and watched fish/sushi related stuff. *ooooh, she fancy.gif* First flick with the kids, then just mom and dad for the double feature.

Ponyo - Eh...this was going alright until the final choice of ultimate love was literally just asking Sosuke. Action speaks louder than words. Plus, ultimate love, but they're 5...hm. The magic could have used a short explainer somewhere, it got a little goofy, why exactly did she look like a chicken sometimes? This may have been the first Ghibli movie I've watched, overall, it moved along nicely and the kids were laughing several times. 6.5/10

Jiro Dreams of Sushi - This is on Tubi if anyone is interested. Documentary about an 85-year-old perfectionist sushi man, head chef at a 3 star Michelin place in a train station in Tokyo. Featuring a food critic/writer, a former apprentice, two sons (the younger has started a second location while the elder is waiting in the wings for his 85 year old father to finally retire), and a couple of the support staff. Has some interesting things to say about the value of work, the pros and cons of perfectionism and expectations, and maybe says something about Japanese culture (specifically a more traditional culture) but I will not claim to be versed enough in this to adjudicate its accuracy. A fun watch, a couple fun moments, got a couple interesting discussions going for my wife and I. I was envious of the sushi. 7.5/10

 

[famicommander]

Ponyo is the first Ghibli movie you've watched?

The hell are you even doing?

Get to some Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies... Ponyo would be in the bottom 5 if you were to list the Ghibli movies best to worse.

 

[terry.330]

While it's certainly not one of their best movies it's still a solid movie and leagues better than most western animated movies in the last 20 years.

But yeah you gotta watch the others, they're on another level compared to Ponyo.

 

[LoneSage]

Let's get real, ladies. At lithy's age, all you really need is Porco Rosso.

 

[lithy]

It is possible that I would have seen Princess Mononoke at some point in high school. But I can't be certain until I try to watch it again and it starts to seem familiar. I'll put some of them on the list to watch with the kids. Only got reminded about them recently because of The Boy and The Heron release.

Let's get real, ladies. At lithy's age, all you really need is Porco Rosso.

I don't get it.

 

[LoneSage]

What I mean is Porco Rosso is "Real Cool" and the only Ghibli film you'll get into. Because I know you.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

Your kids will be sad as fuck if you watch Grave of the Fireflies with them.

 

[Average Joe]

Oppenheimer

I tend to avoid most films that are three plus hours long unless they're Seven Samurai, but if enough people are raving about a film then I'll have at it and this was worth the time investment for sure.

This might be the shortest feeling movie with its lengthy runtime that I've ever seen... it jumps from scene-to-scene often at a breakneck pace, but without making it jarring or having you feel like you missed out on any pivotal information. I do take a bit of issue with how they kind of gloss over Oppenheimer's sexual relationships with a few women as the film makes it seem important despite very little time devoted to it, but it doesn't suffer for it either so I guess it's moot.

Visual and sound design are some of Nolan's strongest elements and those definitely shine during key moments in the film here. Even though we know how the testing of the first bomb went, it was still an incredibly tense scene particularly due to how he imployed the use of sound and lack of sound--it was quite chilling and impactful.

It still loses out to Poor Things as my film of the year, but as someone who tends to think Nolan is a tad overrated, I would not question the praise this film earned for a second.

 

[terry.330]

Hopefully Nolan will make more movies that don't rely on some ridiculous gimmick that he thinks is far more clever than it actually is.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

Inception is so deep. No it's only a dumbed down Paprika remake. But it's still better than most other Hollywood remakes.

 

[SouthtownKid]

I didn't know Inception was supposed to be deep. I thought it was just meant to be fun. Have I been watching Nolan movies wrong?

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

You should watch Paprika instead of Inception and work on your sarcasm detection.

 

[SouthtownKid]

You should watch Paprika instead of Inception and work on your sarcasm detection.

I've seen Paprika. I'm just saying I wasn't aware Nolan intended Inception to be deep to begin with.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

You're a dumbed down Hollywood remake.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Finally got around to watching Wakanda Forever. I liked this reimagining of Namor (although feathers on their clothes underwater is stupid as shit), but overall, this movie dragged. 2 3/4 hours and it felt like 5. This is absolutely my final Marvel movie, and I mean it this time. No more of this shit.

On the other end of the ledger, I finally watched Tron Legacy for the first time, too, and absolutely loved it. Almost zero story, and what story they had was utterly predictable. But the atmosphere, design and score were so strong, I enjoyed every minute. I know they intended to make a third, but actually, I think it's a good thing it didn't happen. Almost any kind of continuation from this point would end up being a letdown so bad it would make the Matrix sequels look like must-see masterpieces.

One thing I kept wondering while watching, though. Was there anyone at Disney in 2012 -- even one person -- who recognized the irony of making a John Carter movie when they had already made Tron Legacy two years earlier?

 

[SouthtownKid]

You're a dumbed down Hollywood remake.

Of what?

 

[terry.330]

Have I been watching Nolan movies wrong?

According to his vocal hardcore fans yes. According to them they're masterpieces that only a handful people are able to truly comprehend. You know such exceptionally deep things like "What if you could go into somebody else's dream?" or "What if you could rewind time while everything still goes forward?". You know totally not the kind of goofy shit that some stoned guy might say level deep.

And yeah Tron Legacy is dope. It took me a second viewing to warm up to it but then I realized that's all I really need from it. It looks and sounds fucking awesome. End of line.

 

[famicommander]

Tron Legacy is the definition of a cool movie as opposed to a good/great movie. I wish they'd made a direct sequel but it sounds like we're getting some weird ass Jared Leto shit instead.

 

[terry.330]

Tron Legacy is the definition of a cool movie as opposed to a good/great movie. I wish they'd made a direct sequel but it sounds like we're getting some weird ass Jared Leto shit instead.

At least we got that animated show Tron Uprising. It didn't have much of a budget but the art direction and soundtrack were killer. Robert Valley's designs were perfect.