Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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ian
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by ian »

So recently Skynet asked me: What is democracy? What is democracy? after I made it my steam name a while back.
So I decided to watch the 1971 movie Johnny Got His Gun again. This is of course the movie featured in Metallica's One video. (Perfect holiday viewing right?)
I'd not seen the movie since high school and I remembered it being sad as a 14ish year old, My older brother had been trying for a few years to convince me to watch it and that Metallica were good, and as this was before St. Anger existed they were good.
As an adult though, this movie is absolutely gut wrenching.

A couple of scenes are a bit drawn out, but I think the movie holds up.
The real life scenes in black and white work really well, but the colour memories and dreams vary in their effectiveness. Some hit their mark perfectly, and others seem needless in the context of the film. And I noticed a detail that I missed on my first viewing which is you can see Joe's hair growing as the movie progresses which is not something I'd usually miss.

I honestly couldn't suggest anyone watch this movie. Why would you do that to yourself? Watch something happy... I'm going back to comedies. If you want to enjoy this movie, just watch One. It makes the movie less tragic and you can do some headbanging and air guitar and get the gist of the whole film.

This movie is so depressing you could watch 1988's Grave of the Fireflies to cheer yourself up. That's what I did.
Grave of the Fireflies is also a great movie I couldn't suggest anyone watch but at least has a happy ending when compared to Johnny Got His Gun.

I'm gonna check out the movie Zoidberg watched. Moving Violations, that seems like fun.
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Bandit »

I only got through half of it before it was just too bleak. It's very good, though. But the scenes in "One" are more than enough.

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Skynet »

I thought we had that metallica conversation like 6+ months ago :olol:

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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watched American Siege last night & while it killed 90 minutes if I knew what I was gonna get I wouldnt have bothered, yes Bruce Willis is in it but lately he seems to be making films just for the paycheque & not caring if they are any good or not, once more he doesnt do a huge amount in this one really. If it seems intereding to see how far he's fallen I'm sure you'll find it somewhere but I wouldnt bother until it come on telly for free & even then if you have a better alternative watch that instead

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by pixel »

Hawq wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:19 am watched American Siege last night & while it killed 90 minutes if I knew what I was gonna get I wouldnt have bothered, yes Bruce Willis is in it but lately he seems to be making films just for the paycheque & not caring if they are any good or not, once more he doesnt do a huge amount in this one really. If it seems intereding to see how far he's fallen I'm sure you'll find it somewhere but I wouldnt bother until it come on telly for free & even then if you have a better alternative watch that instead
Holy crap, look at his IMDb page. Looks like someone wants to upgrade his retirement villa:
Image
Image

Speaking of dumb movies, we watched Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City last night. Sounds like it's similar to American Siege, a perfectly cromulent way to waste time if you're a fan.

Resident Evil was definitely bad, but it was an okay watch for folks who liked the cheesiness of the first game. The dialog was hot garbage, Donal Logue shows up for a while, and there's some decently scary zombie stuff. (Also don't spend any money on this either).

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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Bandit wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 3:35 pm I only got through half of it before it was just too bleak. It's very good, though. But the scenes in "One" are more than enough.
Where the nurse is writing on his chest? or didn't you make it that far?
The scene where the nurse first communicates with him properly is probably the most powerful scene in the movie... But that scene that sends chills down my spine is followed by probably the biggest and dare I say ONLY complete waste of time in the whole movie...
Skynet wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 7:59 pm I thought we had that metallica conversation like 6+ months ago :olol:
I thought it was more like 3 months or less. :olol:
But with pandemic time, it may have been 6 months to 2 years ago.

Recent for me is 2018. So even 6 months ago would be recent in my mind, but it was a lot more recent than that... I think...
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Skynet »

The last ~2 years are one big blur :olol:

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Skynet »

On the weekend I watched Ghostbusters Afterlife. I watched it again today, to see if I still felt the same way about the movie as I did on first viewing.

Parts of it were pretty obvious where it was heading and it didn't do much to push the franchise forward, but I didn't care. I enjoyed it both times around and will probably watch it again sometime soon.
Spoiler
The reunion at the end made me somewhat tear up the first time around. The second time more than the first. I know deepfaking dead celebrities into movies can be tacky, but I actually liked what they did with Egon at the end, as well as the brief interaction with the surviving 3 Ghostbusters. I miss Harold Ramis :ocry:

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Hawq »

A quick one:
Watched Eternals last night, god thats around 2 & a half hours(ish) that I aint getting back, like Moeman I'd just waste them but in a much more fun way, the film feels at leats 30 minutes too long with obvious padding shots to make the runtime that are just not needed & it sets up a sequel to see what happens to some of the charecters. Personally I dont think its gonna get a sequel so any plans will probably be folded into the next big mcu event if at all, as for the mcu they reference the snap so its is that continuity yet at no point during or after the end is there any sign of S.H.E.I.L.D (or anyone else) turning up to investigate. For the time we had to wait for this one its not good, if anyones mad keen on Eternals I guess it could be fine but I've never met anyone that is

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by pixel »

I'll probably watch Eternals in the background. It's a cool concept that sounds like wasn't done right. Without seeing it, the trailers remind me when Marvel movies were boring melodramatic slogs like Thor. I have to be careful with my time, 2 1/2 hours is like eight classic Simpsons or Seinfeld episodes that I could watch instead.

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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Skynet wrote: Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:41 pm On the weekend I watched Ghostbusters Afterlife. I watched it again today, to see if I still felt the same way about the movie as I did on first viewing.

Parts of it were pretty obvious where it was heading and it didn't do much to push the franchise forward, but I didn't care. I enjoyed it both times around and will probably watch it again sometime soon.
Spoiler
The reunion at the end made me somewhat tear up the first time around. The second time more than the first. I know deepfaking dead celebrities into movies can be tacky, but I actually liked what they did with Egon at the end, as well as the brief interaction with the surviving 3 Ghostbusters. I miss Harold Ramis :ocry:
Finally watched this over the weekend. I've had a love-hate relationship with Ghostbusters, so I was a little grouchy going into Afterlife. I though, "Gee, how original? Cribbing Stranger Things for your new sequel?" So I thought, this will be a schlocky love letter for all the fans.

And it definitely was that, but it was much better than I thought it'd be. I'd say the child actors might have been the best part to me. The comedy bits were pretty damn good, I think the movie suffered with some of the more dramatic story beats.
Spoiler
I teared up at the end too, while my wife is a cold-hearted wrench who didn't like the ending. :olol: We agreed that maybe they leaned a little too heavily on the deepfaked Egon, but it was awesome when he first showed up. I could've used maybe a fourth of his screen time and an actual ending with the Ghostbusters having cocoa in the kitchen.

And then there's the end credit scene with Peter and Dana. That was awesome too, could've used more of that in the movie too!
My personal grading scale puts Aftermath at a solid B behind Ghostbusters (A) and Ghostbusters II (A+).

Sidenote: I rewatched both original movies in the past month, I like the second one more than the original. I don't know where the consensus is these days, but that'd be blasphemous in the past. I'd need to rewatch Ghostbusters (2016), but I had it around a C back then. Anything higher than an F- would also be blasphemous :olol:

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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That grading for 2 is surprising. I know most people don't rate it higher than the first. I rewatched both before I watched Afterlife. I think I've watched the 2016 version about 1.5 times, I just couldn't do a complete second watch of it :olol:

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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I might feel differently about I and II in the future. Right now, I think II is more fun because of the better ensemble cast, especially Peter MacNicol and Rick Moranis. And the soundtrack has Bobby Brown and New Edition 👌

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by pixel »

This sums up Aftermath pretty well :rofl:
Spoiler

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by ian »

Keeping up with the world, I finally saw Afterlife.
And aside from having less jokes than even the 2016 movie, The whole thing just worked because it never feels like it's trying to be good, it actually is good.
I had a very good time watching it, and will watch it again, and probably get it on 4K bluray.

I, like others did get misty eyed at the end. You can tell this was written by someone who understands Ghostbusters, and this film is actually deserving of the Ghostbusters title, unlike 2016's Spectresmashers which entirely relied upon the name Ghostbusters.

Well cast, and a good story, but probably could have benefited from dialing back the fan service JUST A LITTLE BIT. The marshmallow minions scenes could have been at most 8 seconds of screen time and worked exactly the same.
Only thing missing from the callback fanservice tour was Rick Moranis running up and saying "Am I late" before the credits role and the theme tune started.
I'd watch another one if they made another one with this cast, but it feels fairly self contained.


I also watched The Adam Project recently. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great.
As a film... well, It's Ryan Reynolds playing Ryan Reynolds and the only reason you're watching is because it has Ryan Reynolds, much like a lot of his recent films. Detective Pikachu, 6 Underground, Free Guy and Red Notice spring to mind.
Outside of Deadpool, I feel he's quickly becoming the Ed Sheeran of Acting. YES, there's a lot of much worse, and also a lot better.. They have the distinction of existing. At least he's super hot, and makes that work for him.
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by 2dr »

Gotta got Afterlife. Surprised I haven’t gone back to buy it yet.

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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

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I watched Sonic 2.
I liked it, but they've done something to his eyes and he just looks slightly off.
It's like the edges of his eyes have a sharper line around them than in the first movie. The sharper lines make him look slightly odd, and tails having eyelashes was just weird. I'm not going to rant about the visuals, just that I don't like that they've made all the characters more... Furry? Still not as bad as the first time they showed the first movie off, but not much better.

As an entertainment product it was a good movie, I had more fun watching it than playing a sonic game made in the past 20 years, but as a kids movie the runtime of over 2 hours was surprising.
Each time a scene went away from sonic to go to the non sonic/robotnik/knuckles scenes I just kept thinking GET BACK TO SONIC! but fortunately the non sonic/sonic character scenes usually cut just at the point they get boring.

Ben Schwartz once again delivers. But I seriously hope Jim Carrey doesn't retire and keeps doing them.
He's done such a great job, I could see and hear Carrey as being robotnik in every single sonic thing he appears in. If the 3rd has Carrey, it's another early viewing. If not, I'm not so sure I need more sonic movies.
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by pixel »

Everything Everywhere All At Once: I really liked it, but it was a bit too long. If you pick one martial arts-family dramedy to watch this summer, pick this one.

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I had a friend tell me to check that out a few weeks back, and I'm still umming and ahhing over whether to go to the cinema, go to uncle torrences house or just wait and get it on Bluray.

Your review hasn't helped me to decide. Because I am not sure I would pick a martial arts family dramedy to watch at all. But in a way it has helped me eliminate a seeing it in the cinema, because you say I have to watch it this summer, and since it's only hit winter today. (Hot snow falls up) I have a good few months to get around to downloading it or picking up the Bluray/4K cheap.
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Re: Movie Thoughts/Reviews Thread

Post by Hawq »

watched Jaclass 4ever last week & laughed my tits off, say 4.5 the other night & while its got a fair bit of background type stuff it has ernough new stunts in to also be worth watching, 4ever for non-stop Jackass fun though

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