Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)
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ShaolinAce
Ninja Combat Warrior
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For whatever reason he has a serious hate on for bruce lee. But besides that controversy the movie was pretty damn excellent. Im pretty sure much prefer that rewrite of history.
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I don't think that's the case. I think he just bought into the possibly apocryphal stories from actual stuntmen of Bruce Lee being an asshole on set, then got defensive about it when people complained. But there are a number of interviews with different people who were around the filming of Green Hornet who back this idea up. Given the era, it's impossible to know how much was actually Lee being an asshole compared to how much it was asshole white guys born in the 1940s hating a Chinese guy being so much better than them on principle. But it's not an idea Tarantino pulled out of nowhere.
I'm not sure why the idea Bruce Lee could have been an actual human with flaws and everything rather than the mythical perfect being we like to think of him as is so offensive to some in the first place.
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Bruce Lee earned every right to be an asshole. And he could Temple Of Doom anyone who wanted to try to ruin his day over it.
One movie that sucks big cock though is "Dragon: The Story of Bruce Lee", what a piece of shit. I remember liking it when I was a kid and I saw it on cable, because Bruce Lee was a hero of mine. But rewatching it as an adult is pretty disappointing and dare I say probably a very inaccurate depiction/retelling of the dude's life.
One movie that sucks big cock though is "Dragon: The Story of Bruce Lee", what a piece of shit. I remember liking it when I was a kid and I saw it on cable, because Bruce Lee was a hero of mine. But rewatching it as an adult is pretty disappointing and dare I say probably a very inaccurate depiction/retelling of the dude's life.
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The thing that I hated about the way that movie mythologized him (and I saw it in the theater) was how theyhad him agree to die in order to protect his kids from the "curse". What a load of superstitious bullshit. And then not long after that movie came out, Brandon Lee died on the set of The Crow anyway. What a stupid fucking movie that Dragon was. Dude didn't even look or sound anything like Bruce Lee.
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Come on, man. Halloween Kills isn't better than anything.
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I enjoyed Last Night in Soho. Halloween Kills straight up sucked. The 2018 movie was a fluke and the writers and director should be banned from recycling any more franchises. Haven't seen the other two.
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Haha, I really liked it. Works off of Halloween 2. I put that disclaimer in there though, I know it's not a widely held opinion so i'll just put it down to one of those things you can't help liking (like the smell of horse manure)
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I can jive with this, no qualms, personal taste is just that.
My point is that Peele is overestemeed, his work is ok, just not this masterful ouevre with sophisticated underpinnings and paradigmatic social commentary. Would much rather watch The Underground Railroad or something directed by Steve McQueen than the abomination that is Candyman 2021.
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Buried Alive- 90s late night cable thriller directed by Frank Darabont, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and William Atherton. Bored, slutty housewife and her lover poison her husband so they can steal his money and ride off into the sunset except she bungles the poisoning and he gets (dun dun dun...) buried alive!. He crawls out of his grave and Instead of just killing them he traps them in an elaborate maze and pits them against each other. Deliciously trashy.
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I watched the movie Boss Level on an airplane earlier this week. It is like Groundhog Day but with guns. They say the title during the movie
But I wonder what type of game they are talking about. He wants to play the boss level. You mean the level that just has a bunch of scenery to run past and then the boss is there? The games they show the guy playing in the arcade don't even have boss levels. He plays Galaga and SFII, and certainly not any game that has a boss rush in it.
Also not enough blood is used in the SFX.
You can recreate the soundtrak with 8 tracks if you wanted.
Neat but glad it was free on the plane otherwise I wouldn't buy it.
But I wonder what type of game they are talking about. He wants to play the boss level. You mean the level that just has a bunch of scenery to run past and then the boss is there? The games they show the guy playing in the arcade don't even have boss levels. He plays Galaga and SFII, and certainly not any game that has a boss rush in it.
Also not enough blood is used in the SFX.
You can recreate the soundtrak with 8 tracks if you wanted.
Neat but glad it was free on the plane otherwise I wouldn't buy it.
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He has a screenplay credit along with Nia DeCosta (who directed) and Win Rosenfeld (no clue). The kill scenes and the unique nature of how you can or can't see CM felt, to me at least, like Peele's type of thing.
@DevilRedeemed - did you like Us? Just curious. I know Get Out is widely considered the better movie (and I'd cede that it probably is, tbh), but I actually like Us better.
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imo Us starts out slow, grinds a little but the last third it goes on full blast and I found it to be quite satisfying. It's the same deal with Get Out where the whole thing was alright but towards the end it becomes a proper exploitation type action horror film (brain surgery by candlelight).
I actually liked Us more than Get Out, I just found it to be more brooding and bleaker.
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Dead and Buried- Small town sheriff investigates a series of suspiciously grizzly murders that are being committed by the entire town unbeknownst to him. This one seems to be held in fairly high regard and I can see why but didn't actually find it that interesting and quite predictable. Also some fairly weird choices by the director really detract from any of the genuine creepiness that it manages to build. Still somewhat enjoyable.
Edge of the Axe- This one is really weird it seems to be a Canadian and Mexican or Spanish co-production. Fairly standard slasher set in a small rural town but it has a lot of early home computing stuff in it which is really weird and seems completely out of place. Also some downright terrible acting, and casting. I actually had trouble getting through this one.
Edge of the Axe- This one is really weird it seems to be a Canadian and Mexican or Spanish co-production. Fairly standard slasher set in a small rural town but it has a lot of early home computing stuff in it which is really weird and seems completely out of place. Also some downright terrible acting, and casting. I actually had trouble getting through this one.
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If you haven't seen it yet, let me recommend Crawl to you. It keeps you on the edge of your seat almost all the way through
oliverclaude
General Morden's Aide
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I recently rewatched a couple of older films to see if my opinion about them changed and one of them was Weir's Dead Poets Society. Hmm... nothing changed here, I still wonder how this Touchstone production could generate 235 millions in ticket sales. The most obvious flaw in my opinion is Schulman's script, which favors an episodic structure and makes the whole movie look like a compilation of a second rate television series. Instead of interesting dialogue we get corny catchphrases about love, passion & poetry and here and there some mildly entertaining stand-up comedy from Williams.
Schulman himself attended the Montgomery Bell Academy, a prep-school in Nashville, Tennessee but it was a day school. His made-up Welton Academy however is a boarding-school, something Schulman obviously knows nothing about. Needles to say, the whole picture seriously lacks authenticity. The only reason to watch it is the cool house it was filmed in. Its old floors, walls and lighting, the whole atmosphere, perfectly captured by John Seale's camera, is a real looker. The rest is absolutely forgettable, even the SNL parody is shit. I should've never watched anything from Weir after Mosquito Coast.
Schulman himself attended the Montgomery Bell Academy, a prep-school in Nashville, Tennessee but it was a day school. His made-up Welton Academy however is a boarding-school, something Schulman obviously knows nothing about. Needles to say, the whole picture seriously lacks authenticity. The only reason to watch it is the cool house it was filmed in. Its old floors, walls and lighting, the whole atmosphere, perfectly captured by John Seale's camera, is a real looker. The rest is absolutely forgettable, even the SNL parody is shit. I should've never watched anything from Weir after Mosquito Coast.
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Don't Let Them In - weird Irish sort-of home invasion thriller that leans heavily into cult stuff than anything else. It's marketed as being similar to The Purge and You're Next, but it really isn't anywhere close to being on the same level as either of those. Couple of genuinely nasty death scenes and the end twist was okay, but overall completely average.
A Perfect Enemy - surprisingly good and incredibly odd little story where an architect misses his flight due to a chatty woman who won't shut up and proceeds to tell him some bizarre stories and basically acts more and more unhinged right up to the end that I definitely did not see coming. Honestly one of the better indie thriller endings I've seen in a while, surprising yet still fits very well.
Baskin - that mention in the horror movie thread turned me on to this, and holy shit it was out there. Turkish horror movie that goes for it and then some. A little nebulous on some of the plot elements but it pulls off utter craziness so well I can look past that with no problems. Not for the squeamish, but recommended to anyone looking for something a bit outside the box.
A Perfect Enemy - surprisingly good and incredibly odd little story where an architect misses his flight due to a chatty woman who won't shut up and proceeds to tell him some bizarre stories and basically acts more and more unhinged right up to the end that I definitely did not see coming. Honestly one of the better indie thriller endings I've seen in a while, surprising yet still fits very well.
Baskin - that mention in the horror movie thread turned me on to this, and holy shit it was out there. Turkish horror movie that goes for it and then some. A little nebulous on some of the plot elements but it pulls off utter craziness so well I can look past that with no problems. Not for the squeamish, but recommended to anyone looking for something a bit outside the box.
oliverclaude
General Morden's Aide
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How interesting that you mentioned an Amélie Nothomb film adaptation. Another film made after her book is Fear and Trembling from 2003 and belongs to my most favorite films about Japan, the country she spend some years in when she was a child and later on, when she returned to work there. The Alain Corneau film is excellent and Sylvie Testud in the main part spectacular. I skipped A Perfect Enemy, because it tinkers with the source material changing too much for my taste, yet, after your favorable review I may still give it a chance. Though I bet, that the quality of that "odd little story" as you call it, definitely comes from the book, not the film makers. Nothomb is a mistress of odd and surprising stories.
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The Howling- A lot weirder than I remember, that's for sure. The effects are certainly impressive at times but they're also equally awkward and often nonsensical but that's okay considering how much there are and sometimes it actually adds to the effectiveness. Except for the animated sex scene lol. I really dug the opening at the porn shop, that was genuinely creepy and a real time capsule of the era. Performances are all over the place but the casting is mostly solid. While it's not as well written or directed as AWIL it's a nice companion piece and would be a great double feature.
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Never Say Never Again - This movie was always at the back of my mind since it's a huge Connery middle finger to the guys that produce James Bond movies, and also because seemingly everyone says it sucks ass, it's bad, has incoherent plot, etc. etc. Hey, turns out it's an ok Bond movie, who knew?
Yeah it doesn't have the heckin gunbarrelino and the classic theme and the score is of questionable value, and the plot does seem a bit incidental and throwaway, but it all works perfectly fine and chad Connery makes this all work as if it were any other Bond film. It was a fun watch, I just wish they emphasized more the "bond is OLD" angle in the story.
Maybe this compares unfavourably to Thunderball, I dunno. Didn't watch and probably won't for a long time...
Yeah it doesn't have the heckin gunbarrelino and the classic theme and the score is of questionable value, and the plot does seem a bit incidental and throwaway, but it all works perfectly fine and chad Connery makes this all work as if it were any other Bond film. It was a fun watch, I just wish they emphasized more the "bond is OLD" angle in the story.
Maybe this compares unfavourably to Thunderball, I dunno. Didn't watch and probably won't for a long time...
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Thunderball is a billion times better. Bitter ass McClory at one point said he was going to do twenty different retellings of Thunderball, since it is the one Bond story he has any rights to. Thank goodness that never happened. Anyway, this was McClory's middle finger to the guys who produce the Bond films, not Connery's. Connery didn't care one way or the other. He did it because United Artists agreed to then back two movies of his in the future. That's all he cared about.
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You're absolutely correct.
I decided to do a double session and watch Goldfinger and the difference in quality is night and day, even with the weird ass Guy Hamilton footage speed ups throughout the movie.
Now I must watch Thunderball. Should have watched NSNA with an actual good movie in recent memory.
I decided to do a double session and watch Goldfinger and the difference in quality is night and day, even with the weird ass Guy Hamilton footage speed ups throughout the movie.
Now I must watch Thunderball. Should have watched NSNA with an actual good movie in recent memory.