What movies have you seen recently?

[Blzer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Earth to Echo

Let's throw out the callbacks right now... E.T., Super 8... hell, even Chronicle came to mind with regard to the formed friendships and the filming style. It doesn't matter, people might not have seen these or don't care that ideas aren't really original anymore.

I thought the friendship was strong, though Emma's inclusion was somewhat forced and I'm not sure if I believed her inclusion as much. Echo was a cute little alien, and he didn't get to steal the show enough. Not that the run time needed to be longer, but with the added conspiracy in the mix there were just one too many things to give Echo more time. Good thing this was in the $5 bin at Best Buy, but I figure if I own Chronicle, why wouldn't I own this as well?

If it was original, I'm sure it would be appreciated more. Because it's not, it won't be. It also won't stand the test of time. It was one-and-done for sure, but I enjoyed it and will watch it again.

[RockinDaMike]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

The Martian

Fantastic movie, really loved it. It's tied for the best movie of the year so far with Mad Max.

Three years in a row we get a great astronaut film , keep em coming. I'm excited to see Ridley Scott back with one to remember. Matt Damon killed this role as well as the rest the cast and hope to see it again soon.

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[Blzer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Because of the Aladdin Blu-ray release, I learned that there were two sequels to that film. So I checked them out.


The Return of Jafar

Obviously many would be dismissive initially, saying: "Aladdin shouldn't have sequels!" I might agree, but I went in open-minded. Unfortunately, it didn't help very much. Running under 70 minutes, I watched something with poor animation designs, pretty generic songs, a strangely shifted focus on Iago, and although many people in the cast were the original voices, many of them sounded plenty different. However, Robin Williams was not the Genie in this, and it was apparent from the get-go that the Genie character himself just felt kind of different overall. This was not a worthy sequel, and save the Iago redemption route they went it really was forgotten pretty quickly. This should be skipped, there is nothing to see here whatsoever.


Aladdin and the King of Thieves

Okay, this was a much better sequel. I still can't say that it beats the first one (and I'm sure that's hard to say), but the animation this time was slightly better, Robin Williams did return (and Genie was funnier in this one than even the original, and I honestly don't even think it's close), and the focus was back on Aladdin, digging a bit more into his past. There was a very early plot twist that everyone here would see coming within seconds of thinking about it, but it didn't detract too much.

This one was a more epic tale, one of the songs was pretty A1-worthy with Aladdin and Jasmine, and I suppose it ended on a good note as well. I can't think of a good Disney cartoon sequel, so I suppose this one is the best of them. Still not great, and if you skip A2 this might not come by as well because of how turned off you'd be by the animation compared to A1, but if you can look past it you might be willing to give it a viewing.

Strangely enough, neither film really featured Abu all that much. I enjoyed that relationship in Aladdin, and it was kind of lost in these two sequels. The magic carpet was always kind of there, so not much was lost. However, there weren't any more tricks up their sleeves in these films. Once the magic carpet and Genie are revealed in the first film, they got to be used plenty and kind of had a nice fresh take to them. These offered nothing really new, elementally-speaking.

[Bellsprout]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Goosebumps

Once the actual Goosebumpery starts, which takes like half an hour, it's really really fun. Great nostalgia trip. Wouldn't recommend at all if you didn't read these as a kid. But I did and I loved it.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

I watched The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford the other day. Great flick, beautifully shot and with a truly great performance by Casey Affleck as Robert Ford. Great acting all around, really.

I love that movie so much. But I'm a sucker for historical dramas and westerns.

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[PhilliesFan13]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Goosebumps

Once the actual Goosebumpery starts, which takes like half an hour, it's really really fun. Great nostalgia trip. Wouldn't recommend at all if you didn't read these as a kid. But I did and I loved it.

Exactly what I was hoping to hear!

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[Cabke]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Bridge of Spies - terribly boring and much too long. Spielberg has become so vanilla, and pairing him with a vanilla actor like Tom Hanks doesn't help. I love Tom Hanks, but he hasn't really done anything interesting in 10 years. The movie drags from the beginning, and while I would say it was a good movie, it wasn't enjoyable and I don't plan on watching again.

I've also seen several others lately.

The Martian - a ton of fun, well made and well acted. They left some of my favorite stuff out of the book, but if you've never read it, you won't notice anything missing. One of my favorites this year.

Sicario - Holy ****, this movie was great. Loved it from beginning to end. Emily Blunt was great and while some of her character motivations became murky and somewhat bothersome, it didn't take away from the movie all that much.

Anatomy of a Murder - one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies. It was very risqué for its time, and you can see they were trying to break down some barriers in the movie business. I got to see this at the oldest, still active, theater in New Orleans which made the experience even better.

Everest - well made and enjoyable. It went a little long for my taste, but the acting was superb and I really enjoyed the story. I'd definitely see it again.

[daflyboys]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Hanks in Captain Phillips was pretty good. Waiting to see Sicario.

[PhilliesFan13]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Hanks in Captain Phillips was pretty good. Waiting to see Sicario.

Tom Hanks in anything is pretty good. My favorite actor.

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[SPTO]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Tom Hanks in anything is pretty good. My favorite actor.

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Tom Hanks = Jimmy Stewart

The every man who can be relate-able to everyone in the theatre.

[Mabster]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Free HBO / skinamax preview this weekend and I've already set the dvr to grab a few that slipped through the net.

The Maze Runner.
I'm a sucker for dystopian sci-fi. Gave me a Lord of the Flies type feel from the beginning. Small spoiler,

Spoiler

since everyone has amnesia

there's pretty much zero character development from the beginning and the movie kicks right off with you learning about this new place right along with the main character.

Next up is probably Jupiter Ascending. Dvr should have got it last night.

[LambertandHam]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

TCM had the original Village of the Damned on last night. The actor who played "David", Martin Stephens was the creepiest thing about the movie. Young kid at the time, but a really good performance.

[daflyboys]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Free HBO / skinamax preview this weekend and I've already set the dvr to grab a few that slipped through the net.

The Maze Runner.
I'm a sucker for dystopian sci-fi. Gave me a Lord of the Flies type feel from the beginning. Small spoiler,

Spoiler

since everyone has amnesia

there's pretty much zero character development from the beginning and the movie kicks right off with you learning about this new place right along with the main character.

Next up is probably Jupiter Ascending. Dvr should have got it last night.

Ya...neither did much for me in their own way. Divergence has probably been my favorite of the dystopian films in the recent lot, though Insurgence fell behind it. I guess there's only so much "the future sucks" I can take.

[Blzer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

The Ma____

Got about halfway through Matt Damon's flick on the ol' red planet until a power outage occurred. I don't know when I'll be able to continue it, but I guess it will happen some time within the next week or two.

I liked what I saw so far. In fact, it really left me at a cliffhanger moment (and it was actually a really strange coincidence that the power went out at the same time that something happened in the film, almost as if it made the outage happen haha). I could tell that it was going at a very brisk pace, and I don't really think it was going to let up anytime soon. The film had this strangely good balance of telling us everything that it needs to for us to make sense of the science, yet left a lot of the story elements to unfolding in front of us before we were told. Very smart writing, and a very witty film so far as well.

Never knew this was a 3D release, though I was watching the 2D I think it would be very cool to see how they made everything appear the way it did (shooting it to make it look like he's actually on Mars, etc.). I'm looking forward to going back and finishing it out, though I feel like I won't need to re-watch the first half again to make it happen, so maybe I'll jump right in the middle of a screening to catch the last half.

[daflyboys]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Mr. Holmes

This just got better and better as it went along. Was good to see Ian McKellen in other than a super-hero type fantasy role. I need to check out prior work. This was a bit slow at first, but stay with it. Nice integrated story that examines the "true life" of Sherlock Holmes (honestly, McKellen was so convincing that I started to question if Holmes was real or not) at the end of his career and what led to his retirement. His young co-star, played by Milo Parker, was highly authentic and grew more endearing as the movie progressed. Great drama that was well worth the watch.

According to IMDB, Parker will be in the upcoming Tim Burton movie, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.