Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[EchoRin]

Only God Forgives – A divisive movie in which Ryan Gosling does his “stare and glare” thing. It’s a basic revenge movie with some interesting use of lighting and colors in this dark representation of Bangkok.

Me, I’m on the thumbs down side of things here. Wouldn’t go as far to say that I hated this, but after 25 minutes I was no longer enthralled by the visual aspect of the film. Nearly all the characters are scum. Especially Gosling’s mother and his brother. Then you have a cop who seems to apply his own rules as to how to deal with crime. Nobody here is likeable except for the stripper/prostitute that Gosling seems to be interested in. On the plus side, you aren’t really all that sad when various characters get what’s coming to them.

What I did like was observing the various power dynamics in this film. How people move about in this world. The women as opposed to the men. How the white people moved around as opposed to the locals. How the police moved as opposed to regular people. I mean it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but good. It should. You know exactly the hierarchy of social power that the film presents.

The director seems to have a hard on for Alejandro Jodorowsky. Heck he even dedicated the film to him. Well if you ask me, skip Only God Forgives and go watch Jodorowsky’s El Topo. Now that is an incredible film.

Oh almost forgot. Only God Forgives is really brutal with its violence. It’s quite unsettling. A bit much for me at some points. Also, complete lack of character development. 2 out of 5 stars.

Bonus edit: Gosling yelling "TAKE IT OFF" in the one scene... how did that get through? He's screeching like some incel nerd instead of a manly booming kind of way. I think that specific scene was his worst bit of adult acting ever. Easily fixable too. Eh, whatever.

[Madrun Badrun]

Onward was pretty good.

Wait, kids don't like this?

How can they possibly not like this inclusive group of police officers if we add sparkles? 

Why do you think kids wont like this?

[Nintex]

Onward was pretty good.

Wait, kids don't like this?

How can they possibly not like this inclusive group of police officers if we add sparkles? 

Why do you think kids wont like this?

Kids like princesses, cute animals, toys, cool action heroes.
 
It kinda reminds me of Monsters Inc. but it looks far less appealing.
Not sure about todays kids but I never thought about being a slightly chubby cop with an over sized nose.

Hey kids, don't you love Jack Black and his dorky friend *checks notes* with a stick in purple land there's also gnomes and your fathers car


Swamp gas, bad for the environment, get it, swamp, haha we so clever 

Not sure what glue they were sniffing when they came up with the biker fairies. That's some disturbing shit.

[Tasty]

Is it weird I want to revisit Shrek

[EchoRin]

Is it weird I want to revisit Shrek

First one is really good. Sure they do the bullet time joke  and a dance at the end (before it was cool though)

[bluemax]

Only God Forgives – A divisive movie in which Ryan Gosling does his “stare and glare” thing. It’s a basic revenge movie with some interesting use of lighting and colors in this dark representation of Bangkok.

Me, I’m on the thumbs down side of things here. Wouldn’t go as far to say that I hated this, but after 25 minutes I was no longer enthralled by the visual aspect of the film. Nearly all the characters are scum. Especially Gosling’s mother and his brother. Then you have a cop who seems to apply his own rules as to how to deal with crime. Nobody here is likeable except for the stripper/prostitute that Gosling seems to be interested in. On the plus side, you aren’t really all that sad when various characters get what’s coming to them.

What I did like was observing the various power dynamics in this film. How people move about in this world. The women as opposed to the men. How the white people moved around as opposed to the locals. How the police moved as opposed to regular people. I mean it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but good. It should. You know exactly the hierarchy of social power that the film presents.

The director seems to have a hard on for Alejandro Jodorowsky. Heck he even dedicated the film to him. Well if you ask me, skip Only God Forgives and go watch Jodorowsky’s El Topo. Now that is an incredible film.

Oh almost forgot. Only God Forgives is really brutal with its violence. It’s quite unsettling. A bit much for me at some points. Also, complete lack of character development. 2 out of 5 stars.

Bonus edit: Gosling yelling "TAKE IT OFF" in the one scene... how did that get through? He's screeching like some incel nerd instead of a manly booming kind of way. I think that specific scene was his worst bit of adult acting ever. Easily fixable too. Eh, whatever.

Now take this an multiply by like 10 hours and you have that shitty television show he made next.

[toku]

only god forgives my favorite refn, and I love too old to die young 

[Ghoul]

Fiancé watched step up revolution and it was by far the gayest thing ive ever seen.
I dunno how they did it but god damn it was just a cringe fest and super lame.

Favourite line “become a pro dancer by the end of the summer or work with me in Cleveland”

Now this girl is basically being dance fucked in front of an audience including her dad.

[Nintex]

Sergio

A dramatization about the real life exploits of Sergio Vieira de Mello a Brazilian UN diplomat who managed to mediate in East Timor and Kosovo with success and died in a bombing in Iraq. It is based on a book by Samantha Power.
The latter part is the focus of this film but not entirely. You see Sergio meets Carolina on one of his missions, played by Ana de Armas which means 70% of the footage shot is Ana looking hot and only 30% one charismatic Wagner Moura who played Pablo so well in Narcos. As things spiral out of control in Iraq Sergio finds himself in beneath a heap of rubble and flashbacks tell the story. The movie kind of has a strange structure because of it and it would've worked better if they had just made in a chronological order with a time skip. Ana is great and so is Wagner but they made a movie about a guy mediating in civil wars surprisingly dull. The stakes never seem high. Although I guess it fits with the portrayal of Sergio as a 'dreamer' that they are going for.

Also if you don't plan on watching it anyway:

is this how it happened

not sure how accurate this movie is but.
- First Bin Laden says in a recording that no one should listen to the UN. (strange to focus on since Afghanistan is completely absent from this film).
- Then Sergio arrives in Iraq and has the security of the UN building removed because it looks like a US Military base and that isn't very welcoming to the Iraqi's.
- Sergio is pissed at the bois in Washington so he decides to write a report on the occupation and send it to the UN security council. He doesn't want to do it public because it could jeopardize early elections.
- He meets with the Ayatollah of Iraq and has a diplomatic breakthrough, Our centrist liberal hero is leading the charge and miss Power had to dry her draft as it probably got wet from excitement 
- He meets with Paul Bremer in Iraq, who plans to re-open Abu Graib, bad optics Sergio tells him because those are torture chambers. I don't care Bremer says, we need to put these people somewhere.
- Also Sergio, your diplomatic breakthrough isn't going to happen, no elections on the US watch sir, no we're staying motherfucker until we feel like leaving.
- Returning from his meeting with Bremer he assures his co-workers he will now take it public because Bremer is one bad dude with even worse ideas.
- At this point Power opens up a bottle of wine to give Bremer a kick in the nuts he won't soon forget!!
- Just as he and his GF are finishing this massive report and want to present it (which is literally presented to Ana as a massive binder full of bad things the US did)....
 -BOOM car bomb hits the compound because no troops to keep everyone safe. Screaming, panic, where's Sergio?
- Turns out Sergio is in the rubble, dying. A lone US sergeant finds him and then another comes to help. A rescue squad of two guys and no one is really responding to their calls for help, strange?
- Demello quips: "This is all the strongest army in the world can muster?"
- No worries Sergio, as a pyromaniac observing his own fire Bremer arrives to the scene to give Wolf Blitzer some live updates and promise some whoop ass on the CIA terrorists and then fuck off again.
- When day turns to night and finally help is on the way Sergio dies in the rubble. No rescue for you diplomat man.

You shed a tear for poor Ana and then you wonder, did Bremer set this whole thing up to silence the report and block the elections? 

[close]

The camera guy will have to figure out how to explain to Ben why he filmed his GF with hard nipples floating in a bay or maybe he's a giant dad? 

Movie has a 6 or so on IMDB which seems about right. Without the weird cuts, some more fleshing out of the story it could've easily gotten up to a 7.
Ana deserves a 10 as always.

fin

[Great Rumbler]

more like reassignment amirite lulz

[Transhuman]

only god forgives my favorite refn, and I love too old to die young 

OGF was alluring visually, but you didn't find it boring as shit? Not in an insulting way, but i'd be really interested in what draws you to it. I don't mind slow films, but I didn't even finish that one.

[EchoRin]

only god forgives my favorite refn, and I love too old to die young 

OGF was alluring visually, but you didn't find it boring as shit? Not in an insulting way, but i'd be really interested in what draws you to it. I don't mind slow films, but I didn't even finish that one.

I can understand tapping out because I felt the same way before the movie picks up again. I think when I mentioned that I was over the visuals at the 25 minute mark it's because I started to get bored. But I told myself it's only an hour and half movie. It gets going again with the main revenge plot about 15 minutes later again.

---------

Taxi Driver – Lazy meme take: I’m the Joker baby!

Actual thoughts: The descent of a man who spends too much time in his own head dreams of a cleaner NYC. Things start off innocent enough where our main man Travis joins a cab company where he works long shifts. He’s an odd fellow who seems to have issues with sleeping. Doesn’t seem to have any friends, not the easiest guy to talk to. There is something quite spot on about the one lady he tries to court saying that he’s a “walking contradiction” or something like that. The way that relationship plays out pretty much sums up what she said. It all goes downhill once Travis decides he’s going to become a man of action and change. Noble. Sure. His way of going about it? Well, god dammit Travis it ain’t what you’re doing. The whole gun fascination and fetishism is neat in a disturbing way. His sense of preparation for whatever may come. Building a little slider to move a gun down his arm under his coat. WTF mate.

I like the various symbolism with how he’s obsessed with cleaning up the city and you have the shots of the fire hydrants in poor neighborhoods going off. The 20 dollar bill he gets from the pimp also acting like a sort of lingering stench reminding him of the city’s darkness. His talk with the politician isn’t symbolic, but I like how he once again brings up the whole “we need to clean it up” talk which kinda veers into unsettling territory and the politician can sense it. Part of that goes along with Travis’ racism. He isn’t overt about it, but it’s always there. Mainly shown to us through the camera’s view of various people.

It’s amusing how things pan out for him in the end. A bit of good luck. I guess he was able to do a little bit of his own “cleaning up” of the city. His righteousness paid off for one character at least. What about next time though? We see how he takes care of business. Thinking too much ain’t part of it. Though he definitely thinks too much and spends too much time in his head. Isolated. Thinking up stupid little thoughts. Things could have really turned out differently at the rally scene for example.

So you lucked out Travis. Your heart may be in the right place for some things, but you’re a loose cannon. You need some help mate.

[Momo]

Wow you guys are really down on Dune, I can't be friends with any of you anymore

[VomKriege]

Wow you guys are really down on Dune, I can't be friends with any of you anymore

The salt must flow !

[Nintex]

Wow you guys are really down on Dune, I can't be friends with any of you anymore

I for one can't wait for Dune by the master Villeneuve 

[Momo]

Excuse me while I turn into a sandworm, fall into water and split my contiousnous between thousands of scurrying bottom feeder worms

[Great Rumbler]

Wow you guys are really down on Dune, I can't be friends with any of you anymore

spoiler (click to show/hide)

But I'm also super-hyped for the new one.

[close]

[ToxicAdam]

I normally steer clear of all sequels because they disappoint 99 percent of the time, but made an exception for Jumanji The Next Level because I loved the first one so much. Also, because I ran out of newer movies to watch.

It is such a threadbare, sad excuse for a movie I can hardly believe it was created by the same people. All the humor is flat and lifeless, the new cast adds zero to the movie and they completely recycle every beat of the original. Then they want you to get excited for a third one at the end? Yeah, I’ll pass on that.

[naff]

weird double header of the sacrifice and spider-man (2002) a few nights back. barely flinched by the end of the former, though it was a heavy watch especially given the current climate, it was beautiful in it's starkness. classic tarkovsky. the latter had me almost in tears numerous times. not really sure why, sure dunst and mcguire are cute af, but it is also just such a perfect, fun movie that reminded me so deeply of the age i was when i first watched it and how much hope i felt surrounded by. quarantine got me fucked up

[naff]

the hunt is available now 



might watch tomorrow. watched raimis spidey 2 tonight. very good still, but im more partial to the first. 

[toku]

That goblin fight at the end of 1 still the high water mark for cape shit final fights to me.

Actual Sets
Practical FX
Stunt men being throwing around

[Great Rumbler]

got 'em

[EchoRin]

From wikipedia:

The Assignment (also known as Tomboy, and formerly known as (Re) Assignment and Tomboy: A Revenger's Tale)[4]

[Joe Molotov]

also formerly also known as Revengers of Vengeance.

[Nintex]

Better Call Saul, what a great season. 

Brainfart, what if Homeland but Saul from BCS and what if BCS with Saul from Homeland 

[Don Rumata]

Better Call Saul, what a great season. 

Brainfart, what if Homeland but Saul from BCS and what if BCS with Saul from Homeland 

Yeah, i thought Season 4 was boring, but this one was great, ended too soon.  :'(

[shosta]

I recommend everyone watch Good Boys. Especially if you have children

[team filler]

kim is such an amazing gf   

lalo da gawd  want this to be alternate universe where he wins and eventually takes over the world 

[Transhuman]

Kim is gonna wind up dead or in pris

[team filler]

ok, howard 

[Don Rumata]

Last season is the last, so despite them setting up Kim as a darker character, they don't have time for her to go fully "bad", when it took Walter White 5 seasons to do so.
Definitely a more interesting development than simply setting her up as the moral compass for Jimmy and leave her like that.

Also Lalo is thought to be alive in BB, so he still may end this show with some clout, considering the Salamanca still boss people around in BB. 

[stufte]

Kim is gonna wind up dead or in pris

I'm 30% leaning dead, 70% leaning she gets disbarred and moves back to her home town in Nebraska, and the show will end with Jimmy meeting back up with her and living happily ever after.

[paprikastaude]

They better shot the last season before Corona, because almost the entire cast looks about to hit the grave any time now.  Mike  Even the Don looks a 100 years older than in BB.

[Don Rumata]

Last season is the last, so despite them setting up Kim as a darker character, they don't have time for her to go fully "bad", when it took Walter White 5 seasons to do so.
Definitely a more interesting development than simply setting her up as the moral compass for Jimmy and leave her like that.

Also Lalo is thought to be alive in BB, so he still may end this show with some clout, considering the Salamanca still boss people around in BB. 

Walt is a meth dealing murderer in Season 1 lol

Also Kim's "breaking bad" has happened the entire series (although I think that's always a rather reductive view of BB/BCS either way.) 

Loved this season.

I mean it's true, he's technically dealing meth and has killed, but he only kills two people in (more or less) self defence, a far cry from all he does after that, when his reasoning to hurt others is essentially entirely ego.
Not to justify his early decisions, but the metamorphosis of Walt's persona happens through his internal interpretation & rationalization of his amoral actions, more than just the actions themselves, which necessarily took much longer than one season.

As for them setting up Kim to go "bad" from the start, while Walt's direction was incredibly obvious from the beginning, i think hers has been very ambivalent, up to the latter half of this season.
Yes, she has been craving Jimmy's lure for misbehavior, but her catalyst for exploding into that part of herself, wasn't really there like it was for Walt (with his cancer excuse).
Arguably any character (or person) has potential to end up on both sides of the line, but Kim's trajectory has never been that obvious or straight, in my opinion.

She's not mentioned in BB, so of course there's only so many ways you can get rid of her, but if she did go to prison for something like what they're planning to do to Howard, it wouldn't have been a "Saul never talkes to her again" bad moment.
Although maybe she's in some federal prison, and Saul did talk to her on the phone off screen. 

Short of killing her, i'm not sure how you can break the two, now that she's down in the dirt with Jimmy, and you can't just rely on the classic "never talk to me again" thing. 

[Nintex]

What if Kim takes off with a guy that's even more of a trickster than Jimmy.
Maybe she hooks up with Lalo 

[Nintex]

It is established pretty early on that Kim is hella smart.
So either she didn't see all the things Jimmy pulled or choose to ignore it.
Or she knew all along and it didn't bother her as much.

It was her idea to get married when he fucked up.
The characters on the show assume that Jimmy has a bad influence on Kim but the more you look at recent events it is more the other way around.

So yeah, she runs away with someone else or the Sand Piper thing goes bad and she lands in jail for a significant amount of time because of it.
(which would explain why Jimmy is still out there Saul Goodmannin' on his own in Breaking Bad)

[Tasty]

Just saw Top Secret, was literally laughing my ass off every two minutes. I was gasping for air at some points. I can only imagine this movie with a group. Best part is I know I can rewatch it and laugh just as hard, it's so fucking packed with great gags.

5 / 5

[Don Rumata]

I think Howard's words will click for her at some point (that Chuck knew Jimmy better than anyone).
When she was shitting on Howard to Jimmy, at the hotel, i feel like she was trying to convince herself more than him, i think she'll come around on that.

[Joe Molotov]

Better Call Saul is not a movie.

[Don Rumata]

Better Call Saul is not a movie.

It's all part of the El Camino cinematic universe.

[chronovore]

From wikipedia:

The Assignment (also known as Tomboy, and formerly known as (Re) Assignment and Tomboy: A Revenger's Tale)[4]

In Japan it's something like "Mister Lady" or "Agent Lady" or something. I'll revisit once I find it. But leave it to Japan to put a twee "Mr. Mom"-like comedy title on a revenge flick

[EchoRin]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Does it get much better than this? Hot damn. This movie is stupendously good. Love the main 3 anti-heroes. Tuco is especially a great lowlife. I don’t even feel like writing about it. This movie rips. The Morricone soundtrack is stellar. The building up of suspense countless times is great. Maybe the bridge section of the movie was a little lesser (I mean what nobody saw them? Eh ok.) the final act of this movie is one of the best I have ever seen. “If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working.” Damn good line. This movie has instantly shot up into my undefined top 20.

[Tasty]

Dream Child might be my least favorite ANOES.

[Tasty]

You might be my least favorite meat

That's OK, not everyone has good Taste.

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

Learned about this movie through Chapo. Can’t wait to watch it tonight.

https://m.

[Thirty-Ought-Six]

Parasite

Awesome.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Even though she's rich, she's nice." All the class warfare, eat-the-rich takes on this movie seem to me like they are missing some of the point. The rich family came across as likeable to me, with the exception of the dad, and that's mainly because of his weird answer about whether he loves his wife (also the only scene that felt off, I don't think he would have said that to a driver). And if you take the movie at face value, the ending supports and legitimizes the idea of rich family nepotism and social barriers... their mistake was getting fooled, not in trying to maintain a barrier. I don't see any reason rich people wouldn't like this movie, and I expect they did.

The Kim family and the basement family both admire the rich in their own ways. The Kim family son desperately wants to fit in with them, to the point that he copies the words and mannerisms of his rich friend, but still feels like he doesn't belong. The basement guy has undergone the worst trauma of anyone, losing everything, but rather than anger it has instead caused him to worship the rich.

The only exception is the Kim family daughter. She is the only one who has enough sense of intrinsic self worth that the aura of the rich has no effect on her. Which is why she is the only one who looks like she belongs in that world.

The violence in the movie is mostly poor on poor. The Kim family screws a bunch of other working people out of their jobs. The fact that I was laughing, and that I couldn't help rooting for them, is part of the point. I even laughed when the mom murdered the housekeeper by kicking her down the stairs.

A lot of the movie is just about showing us how we really feel about the rich, and what we really want. If I can't help but laugh at the murder of a poor woman in the hopes of keeping a job serving the rich, what do I really want? It is honestly far more critical of the Kim family and people who identify with them than of the rich family. I think it is saying that political change isn't even on the table until we deal with what we WANT.

[close]

[shosta]

Right, I think the point of the movie was that we can also turn ourselves into monsters if we let our hate get the best of us. Really, we're all parasites.

[Tasty]

After reviewing some material, I suppose Dream Child scrapes by on the backs of worser movies in the franchise.

ANOES >= Dream Warriors > New Nightmare > Freddy's Revenge > The Dream Master > The Dream Child > Freddy's Dead >= Remake

At least that downward trend was pretty consistent, F13 and the Halloween sequels are much more scattershot in comparison.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Freddy vs. Jason is slightly under New Nightmare.

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

Learned about this movie through Chapo. Can’t wait to watch it tonight.

https://m.

[Tasty]

Yeah I remember a lot of the setpieces from 4. With 5 I pretty much just remember the lame ending, but at least I remember it. I really racked my brain trying to remember shit from 6 but had to resort to Wikipedia. Like oh yeah, it's the one with Freddy exploding into worms at the end.

FvJ is a guilty pleasure and it treats the F13 material better than it treats the ANOES stuff and that's the direction I would have taken too.

[Tasty]

Not going to pretend it's high art, but through the lens of versus movies it actually does pretty well I feel... ah well, like I said, guilty pleasure and not worth arguing over.

[Tasty]

More desperate/lazy: Freddy's Dead or Halloween Resurrection?

"Happy father's day" vs "TRICK OR TREAT... MOTHAFUCKA!"

[Tasty]

Fairly typical tab load.

[Tasty]

I'm keeping it here.

[Tasty]

Wrath explain your thoughts on Nightmare 2 plz

[VomKriege]

I watched Inferno, the late and latest adaptation of Dan Brown shitty novels by Ron Howard and man it was a huge letdown. Granted we weren't exactly following it religiously but the script is a needlessly convoluted mess and the tone is all over the place... It begins like an horror movie ? Then is nakedly trying to ape Mission : Impossible, Bourne (A LOT) and a ton of other things with the camera work being obnoxious as fuck. Tom Hanks Langdon suffers from movie amnesia so you don't even get the hilarious lectures. It's made even worse because the plot is about a billionaire engineering a pandemic to prevent a Malthusian catastrophe. All the stupid pomp of Church is replaced by battling the most middle management evil agencies ever and Tom Hanks being chased by Italian drones. It's not even a good showcase for the tourism offices of Firenze and Venezia, the only cool location is the Hagia Sophia.

Angels & Demons was hilarious, this is just grating.

The only good thing I can say about it is that the romantic interest of Tom Hanks is played by a woman "only" 12 years younger than him.

[Nintex]

Watched Miss Sloane, it starts a bit slow but when it gets going it really grabs you.
Great performance by Jessica Chastain and a very compelling story with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Great ending too.
Soundtrack also deserves a shout out. Overall I'm impressed.

If I had to nitpick I would say a lot of other characters are underutilized which is a shame considering a cast with the likes of Michael Stuhlbarg and Mark Strong.

[Tasty]

Not to much to say other than I saw it to "believe" it. As it's probably the gayest movie of the era that isn't on some fringe scene or indie work. I hated it when I first saw mostly because it couldn't live up to the first movie but I remember liking Freddy's use in the movie though it was limited.

As for the homoeroticism and nearly explicit queer coding (I think that's the phrase to use?) it's what kept me fascinated with it. Especially how nearly everyone on production still maintain they never meant for it to come off the way it did, it feels like such an easy lie to make about your brand always being ground breaking. Yet that's still the narrative they're sticking with. It makes it all the more interesting to me how it read so explicitly yet no one on set realized it somehow. It's a natural at it, too. Doesn't come off as pandering or baiting in any off color way (though I can see some referring to the BDSM scene as somewhat offensive).

I've made three different people watch it. All didn't believe anything I said about the movie till they saw it for themselves, with it now being a favorite for one of them. Because it's legitimately an interesting movie and checks all the boxes people tend to look for in transgressive works of art. I legitimately don't care for the movie in comparison to what came directly before and after it for different reasons. But I do appreciate it for what it is and what it aims to do, unintentionally or not.

Nice. I thought it was a decent ANOES and certainly no worse than 5 or 6 in that dept... The homo stuff is absolutely hilarious and fascinating, agreed.

[Tasty]

A wild Wrath hot take appears

Tell us more about Dream Warriors...

[Tasty]

Totally disagree with stro on some of these points but overall makes a strong case for his opinion on each movie

Horror series discussions with people who know their shit