Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Hard Target has aged like fucking wine.



"Take your big-stick, and your boy-friend, and find a bus to catch."

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Fuuuuck I'm watching Hard Target again tonight

[fistfulofmetal]

Saw Civil War tonight. And it was, predictably, quite great.

[chronovore]

Deadpool. Fucking great. Maximum effort.

[Madrun Badrun]

Gonna go to CW tomorrow.  Hyped.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

if you ever watched a movie about fairy tales, and thought to yourself, "I'd like this better if it had hard violence and lots of casual nudity", well then Tale of Tales is bound to delight you. Its pretty good, but not great, but its really interesting experiment in that it really is sort of a adult-ed up series of fantastical tales, the sorts that Disney has been churning out for decades with the rough edges always sanded down. This one keeps the edges firmly intact, and then puts spikes on them. The huge leaps in character logic don't always register as well as they should, but then again, when I was a wee tyke I didn't go looking for logic from any story that had dragons in it and shit. The look of the film is anything but disappointing though, and Toby Jones is really great in this.

[VomKriege]

Midnight Special is another log on the pile of latter day works inspired by John Carpenter, a grittier, synth-scored take on the science-fiction/on the run thriller that was surprisingly prevalent in the 80's (Short Circuit, Starman, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Terminator). But this is done with more artistry, more interesting characters, better acting, and niftier science fiction then, oh, lets say Firestarter, was able to muster. Micheal Shannon is great as the strong/fragile protector of his mysterious little boy, who might be the only guy on earth with more intense eyes then his old man. Its just a really well done genre flick, with some nice commentary on parenthood and faith in general. Recommended.

Interesting, it struck me as something like early David Gordon Green(or Johnson's Looper) meets E.T/Close Encounters/A.I., but I can see Starman or Firestarter in it. Big fan of this one, I was worried after hearing so much bitching about it being too ambiguous and not answering enough questions. I was in it for Michael Shannon and the Southern family drama so that stuff was besides the point for me.

(Check out Shotgun Stories if you haven't, it's back up on Amazon Prime.)

As usual a very strong showing by Jeff Nichols. The ambiguity is perfectly fine and in fact I didn't expect the film to show us as much as it did. The main flaw is perhaps that the movie is a tad bait-and-switch with its organized religion angle which by the mid-film has been reduced to a purely mechanical expedient to get things forward. It's not too jarring when you're in it so I'll give it a pass. Overall it was very pleasant to see a film repackaging the classic supernatural beats in a straight shooting, concise & elegant, subdued film in an age of exuberant gaudy CGI.

[benjipwns]

"Captain America: Civil War" directors Joe and Anthony Russo have now confirmed that they're retitling 2018/2019's "Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and 2," as to not anger fans over releasing the third "Avengers" epic in two parts.

"The movies are two very different movies," Joe told Uproxx.

When asked how the films will be labelled, Anthony said, "It is misleading."

Joe remarked, "The intention is we will change it, we just haven’t come up with the titles yet. But, yes, we will change it. And, yes, that is a scoop: we will retitle them."

Your move, Zack.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Midnight Switch added to watchlist, thanks

[VomKriege]

Also saw for the first time Pépé Le Moko by Julien Duvivier (since French classics were discussed earlier). As you may know, Pépé Le Moko is the story of the aforementioned Pépé, a french gangster on the run who both is the ruler and the prisoner of the famous maze-like underbelly district of the Casbah in Algiers. Pépé and his band are under constant pressure of the French police and the shifty Inspector Slimane and when the story starts he is cracking under his longing for his native city of Paris. Camera work is pretty stellar as usual for Duvivier and young Jean Gabin is... well, already his own monster in charisma but beyond that it is a very strong work on all accounts, a solid crime drama with surprisingly deep characters. The exotic setting of French Algeria does a lot to provide an exciting framing to all of it and while it is clearly a French orientalist fantasy it was not nearly as tone-deaf & horrid as you could fear from a colonialist point of view in 1936.

Shame the restoration was somewhat old, an HD master from early aughts : we've came a long way since then in what we can do there, although it probably doesn't help that the film is owned by StudioCanal who doesn't have the reputation to be the most concerned catalog owner on the matter.

[Mupepe]

if you ever watched a movie about fairy tales, and thought to yourself, "I'd like this better if it had hard violence and lots of casual nudity", well then Tale of Tales is bound to delight you. Its pretty good, but not great, but its really interesting experiment in that it really is sort of a adult-ed up series of fantastical tales, the sorts that Disney has been churning out for decades with the rough edges always sanded down. This one keeps the edges firmly intact, and then puts spikes on them. The huge leaps in character logic don't always register as well as they should, but then again, when I was a wee tyke I didn't go looking for logic from any story that had dragons in it and shit. The look of the film is anything but disappointing though, and Toby Jones is really great in this.

(Image removed from quote.)

Good to hear.  I've been excited about seeing this.

[toku]

Hard Target has aged like fucking wine.



"Take your big-stick, and your boy-friend, and find a bus to catch."

A great vintage Woo but Face/Off is still the champion of Woo-American wines.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Broken Arrow is shit though

[close]

[Human Snorenado]

So, Civil War... pretty much everything you can see coming from a mile away.

And you know what? Doesn't matter. It's just so well executed, from top to bottom, that it just doesn't matter. Probably the best Marvel flick yet.

[Madrun Badrun]

I mean, outside of plots in agents of shield, I don't think anything in the MCU has been unexpected. 

[Great Rumbler]

I mean, outside of plots in agents of shield, I don't think anything in the MCU has been unexpected. 

What about Guardians of the Galaxy actually being really good?

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I thought Edgar Wright bailing at the last second on a movie he spent years putting together was pretty surprising.

[Tasty]

I thought Edgar Wright bailing at the last second on a movie he spent years putting together was pretty surprising.

The movie being pretty great regardless was also unexpected.

[Madrun Badrun]

CW was absolutely amazing. 

[TakingBackSunday]

Sitting in the theater for it now

[Madrun Badrun]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I really liked how it ended on a low note like that really old movie empire strikes back.

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

question

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Does Captain America die in it?

[close]

[Madrun Badrun]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

No

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Chris Evans still has two pictures left on his deal with Marvel, which will be Avengers Infinity War Part 1 and 2.

[close]

[Rahxephon91]

Civil War was great. Easily the best Marvel movie.

[chronovore]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Chris Evans still has two pictures left on his deal with Marvel, which will be Avengers Infinity War Part 1 and 2.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wouldn't matter, though. No-one stays dead in comics. At this point, Thomas and Martha Wayne are the only two characters in DC or Marvel who have failed to return from the dead.

[close]

[D3RANG3D]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasm:_Ravager

I had no idea this was a thing, also a 4k remastering of the first movie. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

That feel when the Tall Man actor is dead. 

[close]

[Quaker]

The Nice Guys

Moment-to-moment it was really fun but once the credits started to roll it felt really...insubstantial to me. I think I ruined it by hyping myself up for something approaching Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang tier. Plus after having just watched Green Room and High Rise the visuals felt particularly flat, which is a shame considering all the effort that must have gone into doing it as a period piece(they did a live stream Q&A with the actors, Joel Silver and Shane Black where it was mentioned that they tried conceptualizing it in different time periods.) It's a neat movie and I would still recommend it, though. Crowe and Gosling are fun, the writing goes to some surprisingly dark places that you don't expect a big Hollywood production to go and the setting is really nice. Just temper your expectations beforehand. Now that my expectations are set I think I'd benefit from watching it again. I'd probably be more generous to it the second time around.

[Tasty]

Me Him Her

I'm an unrepentant fan of Max Landis, and this being his directorial debut I had to check this out. Basically, movie star realizes he's actually gay and gets his fuckup friend to fly to LA to help him through it. While the fuckup friend is there, he bangs and falls in love with a lesbian. Obviously, this movie is leaning pretty heavily on the LGBT genre, and I have to say that although it's obvious Max is a first-time director he definitely already has some style and inventiveness. It's appreciated mostly because the script itself is kinda boring, and the characters don't feel like actual people. Hard to recommend this one, but if you want some rainbow-colored popcorn fun, you could definitely do worse.

2 / 5


Mr. Right

Continuing on the Max Landis train (though he just provided the script this time), Mr. Right is about a kooky assassin and the girl who falls in love with him, who also might have assassin-y powers. Right off the bat, any movie with Sam Rockwell gets an automatic +1 handicap from me. He plays the titular "Mr. Right" so well it's kinda spooky, like you might think he's only playing himself the same way RDJ does with Tony Stark. The running joke for the first half of the movie is that Rockwell keeps outright saying he's been killing people only for Anna Kendrick to laugh it off... right up until he murders a dude right in front of her. Don't want to spoil much, but the movie is a fresh Bourne Identity-oriented twist on the standard rom-com.

3 / 5


Macbeth (2015)

Solid, artsy adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play. It has the bare minimum of dialog and leans on the slow-mo quite a bit, but I knew what to expect going in so I didn't mind so much. Polanski's version held the crown, but like Duncan it has been stolen by this new upstart named Macbeth.

4 / 5


Captain America: The First Avenger

The first two Iron Man movies were the only first wave MCU flicks I bothered to see, but the excitement for Civil War and random praise this movie gets on the web eventually got to me. I'm so glad it did though, because this was a well-crafted movie filled with some really good performances. Shoutouts to Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving, two of my favorite actors ever. It also gave me a lot more context for Bucky's significance in Winter Soldier. Overall, if you avoided this movie because it's a "period piece" (barely feels like it), but enjoy the MCU and want more context for Civil War, definitely give this a shot.

4 / 5


Steve Jobs

Was it too late? Yes. Does Fassbender even remotely resemble Steve Jobs? No. Does it matter? Also no. Aaron Sorkin is a love-him-or-hate-him screenwriter, often given to preposterously flowery and fiery one-on-one dialog and monologues, but it absolutely works for the type of person Steve Jobs was. Director Danny Boyle is more universally loved and his direction is excellent. The montage/exchange with Jeff Daniels at the end of the second act was absolutely masterful and some of the most compelling filmmaking I've seen in years. Due to the subject matter, dialog similarities, and high quality, I consider this a pseudo-sequel to The Social Network, and I can offer no higher praise.

5 / 5


Trumbo

I'm a sucker for anything about the early days of Hollywood and especially the McCarthy era, so this pushed all the right buttons. Bryan Cranston does a great Trumbo accent, but I couldn't not see Bryan Cranston. The overall movie is pretty good but vaguely aimless, which makes sense since it's sort of a documentary. Secondary highlight was Louis CK.

3 / 5


High-Rise

Tom Hiddleston stars as a new tenant in an ultra-modernist 70s high-rise, opposite its architect Jeremy Irons. I'm not familiar with director Ben Wheatley, but the movie is basically Lord of the Flies through the lens of films like Trance or Filth. Expect a lot of musical montages, long periods of no dialog, meandering story, slow-mo, and monologues. Also expect a lot of violence and debauchery. If that's your kind of thing, this movie will hit all the right spots and trip you out pretty good. I might bump this up on a rewatch because I feel like there's a lot I missed.

3 / 5

[helios]

Saw Civil War. It was great. The airport fight is the best ever. Hands down.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What I loved about the fight is that even though they're fighting each other, they aren't trying to kill each other. Some are pulling punches. They sometimes still have pleasant conversations. Vision is trying to get into Wanda's pants. It just showed me that they didn't want to fight, but they HAVE to fight.

Some reviewers were down on Zemo, but I really liked him. He was an effective villain. I would compare him with Lex since they're both third parties manipulating two sides, but where Lex's motivation is weak and creates the conflict with lies, Zemo is kind of sympathetic and he creates the conflict between Stark, Buckey and Cap with the truth.

[close]

[mormapope]

Wandered into the foreign section on netflix, craving some asian cinema, nothing in particular. What I got was a surprising and bizarre double feature. First one was a random picking, second one was from research. I'm doing a full plot synopsis because both movies were amazing. 

First movie:


Gun Woman

First ten minutes feels like some weird Tarantino mutant that was created in the early 90's but came out in the 2010's. Fake mustache assassin tells his driver assassin a story about "The Mastermind."

The Mastermind is a surgeon. His wife was raped and killed in front of him. The person that did it snapped her neck and then a shot showing cum splattering her leg. He then beats and pisses on The Mastermind's face.

Flash forward, The Mastermind buys a Japanese hooker (the actress being a JAV star in real life). His goal is to train this Japanese hooker how to be an assassin, which results in a 30-40 minute training montage. Not all at once, but an hour of the movie is dedicated to training footage.

His plan is to sneak her into a nuclear waste disposal facility, where a necrophilia club is located, called "The Room." The Room is a squeaky clean, bright white area where no weapons can be brought in. The main antagonist was shown fucking and eating a blonde woman's body.

The plan for this female assassin? Hide a USP pistol by disassembling it into parts, and then putting the parts inside the Japanese prostitute's body, when shes inside, she has to rip out the parts, assemble the gun, and kill everyone inside. Of course The Mastermind puts the weapon's magazine in her pussy. She has 22 minutes before she bleeds out to complete this mission and earn her freedom.

Highly entertaining, lots of nudity and gore. Directed by a Japanese man.

Second movie:


Moebius

South Korean movie with no spoken dialog. A mom catches her husband cheating on her, tries to cut off his dick. Dad wakes up, stops her. So she instead cuts off her son's dick and eats it. Son is dickless, father is regretting cheating on his wife, and wants his son to have a dick again.

Long story short, the kid gets a dick transplant from the father, and the dick only gets hard and creams when the mother is acting seductive. This causes a rift.

Highly entertaining, worth watching.

[Mupepe]

High Rise was pretty entertaining but it seems to float between too heavy handed and too vague on what's going on unless you've read the book.  The breakdown happens way too quickly IMO and it's a bit jarring.  But I still thought it was really great.  Something about watching it makes you feel gross similar to how you feel when you watch Requiem for a Dream. 

The Truman Show aged a lot better than I'd remembered it.  It's pretty dark and it's amazing how much more relevant it is today compared to when it actually came out. 

[Madrun Badrun]

I'm very disappointed with this forums lack of civil war discussion.  Be advised, I am disappointed.  I suggest you all fix this by seeing the movie.     

[Crash Dummy]

not only have i seen it, i've also seen the half in the bag review/discussion on it!

also, i finally got around to watching whiplash and fuck me was this good, really regret not having watched it last year

[Madrun Badrun]

Wolverine 3 will be R rated. 

[Tasty]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/x_men_apocalypse/

I've been betrayed.

Still gonna see it but this sounds like a letdown.

At least Civil War was great.

[toku]

[benjipwns]

Apocalypse isn't quite a dog. But it is a movie with way too much of everything except the things that should matter the most -- novelty, creativity, and fun.

oh, that's all?

Plays more like an overblown episode of the 1990s cartoon series than anything else, and I wouldn't consider that a compliment.

Fuck, I would.

The issue with X-Men: Apocalypse is that Bryan Singer suggests so many possible directions to go in and still chooses the least interesting one.

But seriously tho, that's like every Singer superhero film.

The continuity in X-Men: Apocalypse is even more of a nightmare than the continuity in X-Men comics.

Now I have to see it.

[Yeti]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/x_men_apocalypse/

I've been betrayed.

Still gonna see it but this sounds like a letdown.

At least Civil War was great.

I'm sorry, you've been hyping this movie almost as much as you've been hyping Hillary Clinton. 

[Great Rumbler]

It's about time that pedo finally got his comeuppance.

[Tasty]

At least it sounds like Quicksilver and Nightcrawler are the highlights, which is all I really wanted to see. So glad we got Evolutions-Nightcrawler on screen, best X-Man ever and possibly my fave Marvel character.



Also seems to setup a series of 90s X-Men movies sans Jennifer Lawrence. Which is pretty cool.

[Rahxephon91]

I mean I always thought it looked terrible. Just give everything to Marvel honestly.

[Tasty]

I mean I always thought it looked terrible. Just give everything to Marvel honestly.

There has yet to be a Marvel movie outside maybe TWS that's as good as X2 and DOFP.

[benjipwns]

I mean I always thought it looked terrible. Just give everything to Marvel honestly.

no no no no no i figure if they keep trying enough i might get to make a fantastic four movie

[Joe Molotov]

X-Men movies are all pretty shit tbh.

[Tasty]

X-Men movies are all pretty shit tbh.

[benjipwns]

in my version, dr. doom is a woman, and is trying to take over the world with a mega corporate-state called Galactus

and the cosmic radiation, instead of turning him into The Thing has turned Bernie Grimm into a 74 year old man who communicates with birds, and the Fantastic Four are an underground socialist cell

see, it's really a political allegory for the Bolivarian Revolution, and i think it will do well in key demos by speaking to them on an intellectual level

also it will be about four hours long, oh and dr. doom, she wants to blow up a building she was hired to design because the builders altered the design for being structurally unsound

and i will film from inside a cardboard box, tents are for high priced suits

[Phoenix Dark]

Literally the only great things about the X-Men films in general are the first and last scenes of the first movie.

[Tasty]

Literally the only great things about the X-Men films in general are the first and last scenes of the first movie.

OK breh.

[Rahxephon91]

I mean I always thought it looked terrible. Just give everything to Marvel honestly.

There has yet to be a Marvel movie outside maybe TWS that's as good as X2 and DOFP.

Pretty much all of them.

Guradians, Iron Man 3, Civil War, Avengers, Avengers 2, Ant Man, and so on are all better then those two terrible movies. I'm sorry DOFP is shit, I'll never see why people like it. It has terrible action(was there any?) and it's entire point is to fix a continuity that apparently is still crap. No one is enjoyable because fuck the people you came to see all just sit around and die, waiting for the eventual conclusion of we fixed everything anyway. All anchored by a terrible performance from JLaw and the people crying around her, for her.

And the simple reason the X-men movies are crap is because at the end of the day unless your Wolverine, Fox has been unable to actually craft a story or character that people like.

Does anyone like or give a shit about Storm, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Havoc, or whatever? Maybe they do about Professor X and Magneto, but these movies really like to hammer on that constant argument of "Please Mags, I know you've killed millions but there's still some good left". They begin and end at that when it comes to those two characters.  Also the one time they were able to show their friendship it was about 10 mins of them being pals.

Meanwhile in Civil War you've got people talking about how much they liked Black Panther, Spider-man, Falcon and Winter Soldiers New Best Friend Vs Old Best Friend bits, how they either are on Cap or Iron Man's side, how it was nice to see a send off for a small character like Agent Carter, how there should be a Black Widow movie, and so on. Marvel has actually created a cast of characters people like, want to see interact, and what to know what happens to them.

Iron Man 3 was about Tony being conflicted about being Iron Man. I ate it up because I actually give a shit about him as a character. And now I'm interested in why he's not with Pepper anymore. I understand even why he's the way he in Civil War because has actually crafted a character throughout these movies. What has Fox done with the X-men?

Wolvie is a loner who is unsure about being on a team. Wow thats been his arc for like 5 movies now.
Prof X and Mag use to be friends. Wow thats been the story for like every movie.

Everyone else dosen't matter.

No one knew shit about Ant-Man, now people love him interacting with Captain America. People love the Guardians and their little corner of the universe.

No one would give a shit if Cyclops teamed up with Captain America. Just wolverine.

For a franchisee all about it's cast, their interactions, their back stories, their drama, their family relationship. Fox at every move has shown they don't get the X-men. Whats great about the X-men is all these personalities moving together and the saga it creates. Almost more-so then the Avengers because for most of their history, the big stuff happen in a character's solo book. For the X-men it happen to them as a whole.

Yet the cast of the X-men movies have never been strong and the stories have never felt worthwhile. Unless you're Wolverine of course.

X-2 was only interesting if you cared about Wolverine.
X-3 which is about the Phoenix is only interesting if you care about Wolverine and his relationship with Jean. Hell half the movie is about Wolvie learning how to work as a team.

First Class I just disliked.

Then DOFP puts emphasis on Mystique who is terrible in these movies and nothing like the cold, confident, go getter she is in the comics and in the first 3 movies.

Who then somehow becomes the leader of the X-men in DOFP.

These movies just suck.

[Tasty]

[TakingBackSunday]

I mean I always thought it looked terrible. Just give everything to Marvel honestly.

There has yet to be a Marvel movie outside maybe TWS that's as good as X2 and DOFP.

Lol wut

[benjipwns]

also dr. doom and the media never call them "the fantastic four" in the movie, they're always referred to as the/a "gang of four"

[benjipwns]

get it?

[chronovore]

(snip)
These movies just suck.

I liked reading your opinions, even though I disagree with many of them.

The first two X-movies were groundbreaking. You could see the characters interacting with each other through them, and it was the majority of the story. Hell, you could argue that they set precedent for The Avengers ensemble hero movies. X-Men 3 is garbage, no need to really beat that dead horse.

Wolverine's movies have been crazily inconsistent, not just from one to the next, but even within each movie.

I've liked J-Law in her role consistently, but I suspect she's getting tired of spending 6-8 hours from 3AM every morning to be painted blue while wearing a thong.

[benjipwns]

One thing that messes with her in the movies is she was cast as Mystique before The Hunger Games, and I assume they'd rather have cast her as like Jean Grey or something in retrospect. Now they almost have to plaster her all over the trailers/posters at minimum if only because nobody recognizes anyone else in the movies with the younger casts.

[ToxicAdam]

X2 is still my favorite comic book movie. It's just that the payoff in X3 was so bad, it kind of diminishes the movie as a whole.



Early reviews for the new X-men look pretty mixed. Usually a bad sign for a comic book movie.

[Quaker]

Cool, now I don't feel like a complete dumbass for finding the particulars of High Rise to be almost impenetrable. Absolutely gorgeous film though and if you're a particular kind of music nerd it's pretty much worth seeing for Portishead's *incredible* cover of Abba's SOS.

[Tasty]

Cool, now I don't feel like a complete dumbass for finding the particulars of High Rise to be almost impenetrable. Absolutely gorgeous film though and if you're a particular kind of music nerd it's pretty much worth seeing for Portishead's *incredible* cover of Abba's SOS.

Caught myself humming it yesterday and I didn't even know who sang it or what it was called. It's amazing.

[bork]

Saw Avengers Captain America Civil War last night.  Last time I checked, it was getting overwhelmingly-positive reviews.  And while I didn't hate it or anything, I gotta say...I thought the movie was just 'OK' overall.  This film is a follow-up to both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and a direct sequel to Avengers: Age Of Ultron.  If you haven't seen those two movies, don't see this until you do. 

There are two main problems that I have with this movie: The weak villain and that it feels like two separate movies were made and sandwiched together to make this one.  The first part of the movie is what I would call the Civil War part and ends with an awesome fight scene.  Spider-Man is only briefly in the film but is a part of this fight and it's amazing.  Easily the highlight of the movie.  After that, the film becomes a Captain America mini-movie and just goes downhill.  The Winter Soldier was much, much better than this. 

As for the villain, Zemo, he's just sort of there.  Nothing like his comic book counterpart at all and can best be described as "just some soldier dude who has more sense than everybody else" and fools them all with stupid trickery. 

The best characters were Black Panther, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man easily.  None of the main ones. 

[Tasty]

Ant-Man stole the show and was surprisingly awesome, basically like his movie last year.