Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Don Rumata]

I'm no Tarantino fan, but that looks fun.
EDIT: Fuck i wasn't trying to rhyme or anything.

[chronovore]

I'm no Tarantino fan, but that looks fun.
EDIT: Fuck i wasn't trying to rhyme or anything.

It's only a visual rhyme. I still read everything out loud, so you're good.

[EightBitNate]

Glad to see Tarantino back in a modern era, but the trailer surprisingly doesn’t do anything for me. Will watch anyway because Tarantino and the cast is stacked.

[team filler]

tried to watch wrinkle in time with mum. about 15 mins in she basically says this shid stupid af, put something else on. giant juggalo oprah gave us both a good laugh 

[demi]

"Us" movie spoiler

http://themoviespoiler.com/movies/us/

Sounds stupid. Meh

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Captain Marvel is... fine. Just, really okay. The Samuel L Jackson effects are cool as hell (didn't work quite as well for Agent Coulsen tho), but its got the same weaknesses as lots of other MCU films with not quite enough mitigating factors to make it more than... well than just being fine.

saw another movie yesterday that I enjoyed significantly more. The quite clever, heartfelt, wry and sometimes thrilling Woman at War. Its about a middle-aged Icelandic lady (stout of character and slightly of build) who's technically an eco-terrorist, but like the friendliest one possible. I enjoyed this film immensely, it works as a character study of an unconventional cinematic character (middle-aged women doing anything really, especially of a criminal nature), its got lots of small and understated touches that build the character and the plot, its also just flat out entertaining. I appreciated real life villains Rio Tinto graciously portraying themselves in the film, and for a movie that's about blowing up power lines its a lot less hectoring than I thought it was gonna be. Just a delightful film with well measured doses of levity and gravity.

[Joe Molotov]

Free Solo (2018)

Actually, literally just a crazy person. Screw this dude, screw the gf that puts up with him, screw the wannabe snuff filmmakers that made this movie. I'm suing all of them for the three heart-attacks I had watching it.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually part that got me the most was when they were talking about everyone's that died free soloing, and then they showed a guy slipping off a cliff and falling a few thousand feet and for a second I'm like "wait wtf, did they literally just show this guy dying" but then he pops a parachute. And after he lands safely, the movie is like "oh btw, he's dead now too". 

[close]

The last act of the movie, where he's actually doing the cliff was some white-knuckle shit, but the rest of the movie was kinda depressing tbh. This guy is extremely autismed up, and climbing is not only the only thing he has, it's the only thing he wants to have. He basically ignores his gf and sends all his money to charity and just lives in a van (down by the river) while eating canned chili. I guess he's happy, but... 

[Joe Molotov]

The part where he's like "it's bullshit how people say they care for other people, it's so dumb when girlfriends have told me they'd be sad if I died, they'd just find somebody else" was like, umbro. There were several scenes like that where he would say something wtf and then it would pan over to his girlfriend and she'd just kinda be like 

[thisismyusername]

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Hopefully it's better than the second one. I really didn't like how they ended that one (and the gunfights in public was a bit stupid, IMO. Nobody fleeing around their silent gunshots in the metro, really?), but this trailer is looking slick and seems to build on the consequences of that one.

[Joe Molotov]

Us (2019)

The more I think about this movie, the movie I think that you’re not supposed to think about it very much because it doesn’t make sense. Yeah, okay “hurr durr it’s social commentary, you just didn’t get it”. Look, I’m just here for a good horror movie, and I think it was but with some caveats. First half of the movie, great. Second half, ehhhhh. I can appreciate the movie taking a turn for the apocalyptic, but it just doesn’t pull it off as well as the home invasion parts.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The twist ending was almost The Village levels of unnecessary twists that made everything else stupid. Why didn’t the real Adelaide just leave? It didn’t seem like there was anything keeping them there, they were just sort of animalistic and didn’t have a drive to leave. And also, if the tethered were abandoned for decades, why are new ones still being created? Their kids are just automatically tethered? That makes almost as much sense as (((someone))) (jk, no filler) making 300,000,000 clones and then just abandoning them all underground because they didn’t work. (You think they’d test a few to see if they worked before making 300,000,000 of them).

[close]

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Transit takes the bold move of being a WWII refugee drama (with just a dash of noir flavoring) by being larded up with deliberate anachronisms. I really liked it. Is it done to move the plot out of history, or to comment on any contemporary refugee crisis? I can't quite say. I am fully qualified to say how much I enjoyed this thoughtful and subtle melodrama (yes, a subtle melodrama, they exist), how good the performances were (the main guy might as well be the Germanic Joaquin Phoenix), how I enjoyed the unwinding of the plot, and just how much filmic energy is spent on what it is to be without a country. Its a movie about displaced, desperate people trying to keep a lid on their situations and attempt to live some kind of normal life despie how many bureaucratic or dangerous obstacles are in their way, a story that remains timeless no matter how many offhand refrences there are to Dawn of the Dead (the extremely cheeky choice of song on the credits puts almost a too fine of point on it).

[EightBitNate]

Us (2019)

The more I think about this movie, the movie I think that you’re not supposed to think about it very much because it doesn’t make sense. Yeah, okay “hurr durr it’s social commentary, you just didn’t get it”. Look, I’m just here for a good horror movie, and I think it was but with some caveats. First half of the movie, great. Second half, ehhhhh. I can appreciate the movie taking a turn for the apocalyptic, but it just doesn’t pull it off as well as the home invasion parts.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The twist ending was almost The Village levels of unnecessary twists that made everything else stupid. Why didn’t the real Adelaide just leave? It didn’t seem like there was anything keeping them there, they were just sort of animalistic and didn’t have a drive to leave. And also, if the tethered were abandoned for decades, why are new ones still being created? Their kids are just automatically tethered? That makes almost as much sense as (((someone))) (jk, no filler) making 300,000,000 clones and then just abandoning them all underground because they didn’t work. (You think they’d test a few to see if they worked before making 300,000,000 of them).

[close]

I agree. Us was very disappointing. The visuals were neat but the commentary was badly done.

[TVC15]

I wish I liked Us more.

[BlueTsunami]

I was also cold on 'Us'. Felt like it could have been a brilliant movie if it played the doppelganger horror straight. Peel's penchant for humor just undercut everything and that ending was exposition city.

[TVC15]

There was a lot to like, especially in the performances, but the script felt like it needed more time to cook. Parts of it were too slow and there was a big exposition dump at the end. I’m cool with leaving things unanswered or up in the air, but I think the movie needed to give us at least a little more info. And not in another exposition dump.

[tiesto]

Saw Us tonight, was expecting it to have a bit more/more original social commentary... I did like Get Out but this one left me pretty cold. Lots of symbolism that didn't go anywhere (the rabbits, I Got 5 On It song).

[Dickie Dee]

Finally saw Aquaman - didn't have high hopes but was expecting a fun couple hours. This was not good. This was bad in the way that pre-Xmen comic book movies were bad, but with a huge budget that still resulted in some shockingly cheap looking scenes.

The tone was weird and all over the place and absolutely none of the humour landed. It felt like a movie mired in production issues with multiple filmakers involved but as far as I'm aware that isn't the case (?). Some of the lines felt like community theater reads.

I did appreciate that they unbashedly *went* with the Aquaman/Atlantis mythos - just wished it didn't all suck.

[Dickie Dee]

Shazam! is at 97% fresh (32 reviews so far) - who would've thought? It looked like hot trash.

[Rahxephon91]

It looked like trash? I never thought it looked great, but the trailers had some fun jokes. I’m not surprised it’s reviewing well, it looked like it had its heart in the right place.

[Madrun Badrun]

Shazam looked great - glad it is reviewing well. 

[Dickie Dee]

It looked like trash? I never thought it looked great, but the trailers had some fun jokes. I’m not surprised it’s reviewing well, it looked like it had its heart in the right place.

I just didn't know where they were going with the (what lookd like a cheap) foam muscle suit and were going for dumb and ironic or were actually leaning into the kid fantasy thing.

[Madrun Badrun]

what foam muscle suit?

[Rahxephon91]

Shazam to me looked like the Superhero version of The Last Action Hero. So the corny elements fit.

[team filler]

best part of aquaman was mr worlwide rapping over africa by toto 


should have been used more to save the movie imo 

[Madrun Badrun]

I mean Shazam is basically what if Superman was a kid - it's not high art like avengers. 

[Bebpo]

Just got back from Us and feel the same as you all for the same reasons. Like the music was GREAT, acting was great, directing and cinematography was solid tense thriller horror, but the story was...kinda dumb. I'm not good at "turn your brain off and not think about the plot they are telling you" and so thinking about it and how it basically doesn't work or make any sense if you think about it basically soured the film for me as I was watching it because yeah it was a well directed thriller, but how can I be scared when it's so silly and nonsense.

It's still a "good" horror movie if you turn your brain off, but the plot is weak. Get Out was definitely better written and more on point even if it was this middleground between horror and comedy without being really strong on either.

At the end of the day Us just feels like a middle-tier Twilight Zone ep expanded to a 2 hour runtime. Which makes me feel Peele is perfect for the Twilight Zone reboot, but maybe Us would've been better as an episode of the new twilight zone instead of a full length movie. Hopefully his next movie is a little better. Not sure how involved he is in Lovecraft Country, but that could be good since I hear the source material is solid and the only weak link in Us was the story (the dialogue/script was good imo, just the plot concept isn't great).

[Bebpo]

Saw Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien. Never watched it at the time. Interesting seeing it now after Roma and how similar the two films are both stylistically (with Roma being much more refined) and on a socio-economic/political commentary level where they're still covering a lot of the same ground (but Roma does it better thanks to Cuaron growing as a filmmaker in the last 18 years).

Anyhow, was good. At first I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it because the two guys were kinda annoying early on, but I ended up liking all three and was a good road trip film.

*edit* also looking up Diego Luna on imdb, that kid really grew up lol, I didn't even recognize him as the younger version of himself who would be in stuff like Rogue One. I mean Gael Garcia Bernal still looks pretty much the same just a little taller.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Captain Marvel I'm confused why an obvious DC movie has a Marvel name attached.

[Dickie Dee]

Captain Marvel I'm confused why an obvious DC movie has a Marvel name attached.

How so? Curious here, haven't seen it yet.

I've been cold on Captain Marvel despite being pretty enthused with Marvel movies in general.

[Transhuman]

Just watched Heat in theatre for the first time. The Insider isn't my favourite Michael Mann film anymore. Turns out I bought that fucking The Insider poster for nothing.

Anyway, Heat was/is incredible and it's you can see how influential it was in terms of other director's echoing it's many themes. The study of the relationship between a criminal and their spouse (Widows), the understanding between two men on the opposite sides of the law (Hell or Highwater, Catch Me if You Can), men addicted to the high-octane work of successful robbery (Point Break, The Town). The Heat did them all first, and better.

[Great Rumbler]

Heat is such an incredible movie, so many amazing scenes. And that soundtrack absolutely slaps:

[VomKriege]

Point Break is older than Heat.

[Joe Molotov]

Point Break is older than Heat.

And yet Kathryn Bigelow gets no respect from these "gotta see Captain Marvel cuz grrrl power, down with the patriarchy". Have these cowards even seen Blue Steel?

[Transhuman]

Point Break is older than Heat.

Nooooo.

Anyway Heat is so good i'm gonna smash my copy of Point Break.

[BlueTsunami]

Whos watching Beach Bum this weekend?

[I'm a Puppy!]

Captain Marvel I'm confused why an obvious DC movie has a Marvel name attached.

How so? Curious here, haven't seen it yet.

I've been cold on Captain Marvel despite being pretty enthused with Marvel movies in general.

Well, not DC in that it's "dark and broody" but DC in that it's at best "okay".
As I told a friend Captain Marvel is the okayest Marvel movie.

It doesn't find its legs until towards the end. Further, it's very "Superman-y" meaning she's practically invulnerable so it doesn't feel like she's ever in danger, further she has no flaws and therefore no real struggle.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Point Break is like the best movie ever that should be terrible. I mean, c'mon, it's non-official (The Fast and the Furious) and official remakes are pretty shite and if we're being honest 1991's Keanu and Swayze are only actors in the technical sense. But its not shite, its a sun-drenched dreamy haze mood of a film that's often punctured by hard-hitting violence. It perhaps demonstrates why Kathryn Bigalow is a great director more so than her respectable later films because she was so well able to turn this potential schlock into art.

Heat is maybe my favorite film of the 90's btw. Just stunningly good.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

The Expendables franchise was always a lot more fun in concept then in execution, but thankfully the much lower budget/profile Triple Threat finally makes good on the promise of an action all star movie. Featuring a multi-national cast of ass kickers and the flimsiest pretense of reasons for them to fight, this gang of terrible shooters but highly skilled punchers collide for 100 entertaining minutes. Scott Adkins scowls Britishly, Tony Jaa elbows faces more than he emotes, Tiger Chen gets the most dialogue I think, and Iko Uwais once again gets to be awesome. Its dumb, junky fun. With more thick accents and supposed acting then explosions, and there's lot of explosions.

Its actually more analogous to the better quality Direct-To-Streaming action flicks that Scott Adkins pumps out on the regular. So if you've ever had any love in your heart for Ninja: Shadow of a Tear or perhaps Savage Dog this will just make your day. Realistically, I expect to see better action movies in 2019, but I honestly don't think I'll see too many that are better than this modern day B movie with the soul of a scrappy golden era Hong Kong potboiler.

[VomKriege]

The Expendables really was 10-15 years late, but you couldn't have made it at that time, all the major names had to be on the decline to accept the project. Does not live up to its premise at all.

Adkins I think I've only seen Undisputed 2 (my interest in action films sort of waned in those years) and it was a romper, especially for such an improbable sequel to the Water Hill film. Much better fights and choreography than most of the Hollywood A films then and now.

[Joe Molotov]

MFKZ (Mutafukaz) (2017)

A French-Japanese anime that answers the pressing question of "What if Tekkonkinkreet was They Live but also Joe's Apartment?" The story is about a cueball-headed kid named Angelino and his skeleton friend Vinz that looks like chibi Ghost Rider, and an annoying catboy named Willy that they sort of tolerate. Angelino hits his head and then starts to see disguised aliens everywhere, is branded a terrorist, and soon is being chased all over town by MIBs and secret police. Gang wars and random Luchador encounters ensue. It's not Shakespeare (except for the random gang banger that quotes Shakespeare for no reason), but it's worth seeing for the great animation, the over-the-top violence, and the spectacle of it all.

[shosta]

Kagemusha <<<< Ran. That's all I have to say.

[VomKriege]

Kagemusha <<<< Ran. That's all I have to say.

I think they're both lesser works in AK's career. It's relative of course, they're both excellent films with tremendous cinematography.

[shosta]

I only compared them because they're both big, expensive warlord epics. I'll admit a lot of Kurosawa films are better than both, like Rashomon.

[Joe Molotov]

Whos watching Beach Bum this weekend?

I would, but my local theater is showing R-rated fetus snuff film Unplanned instead. Live in a red state, brehs.

[BlueTsunami]

Whos watching Beach Bum this weekend?

I would, but my local theater is showing R-rated fetus snuff film Unplanned instead. Live in a red state, brehs.

The name Unplanned makes much more sense now

[kingv]

Captain Marvel I'm confused why an obvious DC movie has a Marvel name attached.

How so? Curious here, haven't seen it yet.

I've been cold on Captain Marvel despite being pretty enthused with Marvel movies in general.

Well, not DC in that it's "dark and broody" but DC in that it's at best "okay".
As I told a friend Captain Marvel is the okayest Marvel movie.

It doesn't find its legs until towards the end. Further, it's very "Superman-y" meaning she's practically invulnerable so it doesn't feel like she's ever in danger, further she has no flaws and therefore no real struggle.

Also the most comic accurate then.

[ToxicAdam]

Captain Marvel is just a mcguffin. A device used to tell more interesting stories about cosmic Marvel. That's where the real interest is, in the alien races and villains.

[Joe Molotov]

Watching The Stuff to celebrate Larry Cohen(pbuh).

“Don’t you wanna wash your hands or something? I put in a new towel.”

[team filler]

[BlueTsunami]

The Beach Bum was insane. The spectacle of watching Matthew Mcconaughey ham it up in that hedonism was simply amazing. It was no Spring Breakers but entertaining as fuck. The best parts of the film are when the film gets serious and poignant in some ridiculous scenario. Also Zac Effron in JNKO jeans.

[BlueTsunami]

 

[Joe Molotov]

Whos watching Beach Bum this weekend?

I would, but my local theater is showing R-rated fetus snuff film Unplanned instead. Live in a red state, brehs.

The name Unplanned makes much more sense now

Apparently Unplanned features the line “Do you know how fast food restaurants make money? It’s not making hamburgers, they only break even on those. They make money selling fries and drinks. Abortions are our fries and drinks.”

[BlueTsunami]

Sounds like its so bad its good oh my god

[Great Rumbler]

[Transhuman]

Weird to think that the director got banned from Letterman because he got caught trying to steal shit from Meryl Streep's purse.

Say no to drugs : (

[TVC15]

The Beach Bum. Harmony improbably delivers. Again.

[shosta]

[benjipwns]

Sometimes I watch the late night silent movies on TCM because they can be goofy nonsense. The Mysterious Lady with Greta Garbo was surprising in that it's actually a pretty well plotted (until the ending) thriller. But all the dialogue is over the top hilarious. Amplified by the fact that it's on cutaway cards.

So like she gets caught by her boss and they do a dramatic close up on her face, and then on him as he says some long lecture because I guess it was filmed in Russian or whatever. Then the dialogue card comes up and it says "I taught you all you know... but I didn't teach you all I know!" and like every single line for 45 minutes is some epic "gotcha!" like this only the actors are saying things with no emotion behind them and/or way too much fake emotion. You couldn't do it with actual dialogue because it would be too absurd. Or The Naked Gun.

The silent films that are like this sorta remind me of seeing Volver with Penelope Cruz. I guess there were two translations for it, the first perhaps being an accident, and me and a friend saw one with a more literal translation so it was funny the shit they were saying in the situation happening. And then it had a redone and rewritten English translation and it wasn't funny at all when our roommate rented it a year later, it was depressing and dramatic. Which I guess is how it was supposed to be.

[Great Rumbler]

On a similar note, I watched a lot of Hong Kong movies by Stephen Chow during a stretch of years back in the day. Most of them had really bad translation, as was common in those days for cheapo releases of HK movies, and the awkward writing helped to amplify the absurdity of the movies and make them more funny.

[Joe Molotov]

Terror Train (1980)

An okayish attempt to cash in on Halloween. And because you couldn't make a slasher movie in the early 80's that wasn't holiday-themed, this one takes place on New Years Eve, although that's barely even mentioned. The primary novelty here is that it takes place on a train, which does at least explain why they don't leave the house. The other memorable thing about this movie is that it has David Copperfield in it in a fairly major role. When I saw his name in the credits, I assumed he just stopped by for a quick cameo. He's actually in it for a good 10-15 minutes of screen time, which is as much as any of the other actors that aren't Jamie Lee Curtis. He doesn't really do much acting, he's mostly just performing his stage illusions for the guests and padding out the run time, but still.

Once you peel away the extra bits, the core of the movie is pretty standard. A frat full of med students pranked one of their members into thinking he was about to bang Jamie Lee but instead they trick him into getting in bed with a cadaver. He freaks out and ends up in an insane asylum. Three years later, he breaks out and stows away on their party train to stab everyone involved. They get picked off one by one until finally it's just Jamie Lee left for a final confrontation. (She's the only one left of the core group anyway, there are like 50 other people on the train, but she keeps ending up in secluded sections of the train that are dimly lit for reasons. ) Cue the final TVC-approved plot twist.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The killer is a crazy transperson. Okay not really, but he has been cross-dressing as a woman to avoid being detected. Jamie Lee thinks that David Copperfield was the killer because the crazy dude was into magic before he got put away, but in the end, it was his female assistant. He forces Jamie Lee to kiss him and that causes him to have an incel spaz attack, during which the conductor rushes in and hits him with a shovel and knocks him out of the train and into a frozen river.

[close]