What movies have you seen recently?

[Lieutenant Dan]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

"Dunkirk"


Finally watched this the other night, because my wife loves me and got the Nolan 4k collection box for me as a gift!

It's an interesting film! The style and music were very much like the last third of "Interstellar" which turned out to be intentional on Nolan's part (the snowball effect). Minimal dialogue and character development, but it's more a look at what was happening on the beach, sea and air and the convergence of those elements in the story to show the event itself, rather than an emotional story like "Interstellar".

For what it did, it did very well.

I do recommend watching 'Darkest Hour' first, and then 'Dunkirk' as one literally leads right into the other perfectly and makes for an over-arcing epic about the event.

[SeaTownGamer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Just my opinion about Thor Ragnarok. I just felt that it was a really bad movie. It’s my opinion I don’t care if a lot of people like it. I didn’t.


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[Hammerhunker]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

"Dunkirk"


Finally watched this the other night, because my wife loves me and got the Nolan 4k collection box for me as a gift!

It's an interesting film! The style and music were very much like the last third of "Interstellar" which turned out to be intentional on Nolan's part (the snowball effect). Minimal dialogue and character development, but it's more a look at what was happening on the beach, sea and air and the convergence of those elements in the story to show the event itself, rather than an emotional story like "Interstellar".

For what it did, it did very well.

I do recommend watching 'Darkest Hour' first, and then 'Dunkirk' as one literally leads right into the other perfectly and makes for an over-arcing epic about the event.

You threw a tantrum until your wife had no choice, huh?

Excellent recommendation about pairing Darkest Hour with Dunkirk. I had gone into Dunkirk refamiliarizing myself with the event, but still had a tough time grasping nuances needed to understand completely. I haven't seen Darkest Hour yet and my wife hasn't seen Dunkirk so I am going to give that a go.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

You threw a tantrum until your wife had no choice, huh?

Excellent recommendation about pairing Darkest Hour with Dunkirk. I had gone into Dunkirk refamiliarizing myself with the event, but still had a tough time grasping nuances needed to understand completely. I haven't seen Darkest Hour yet and my wife hasn't seen Dunkirk so I am going to give that a go.

LOL, not exactly. We were at Best Buy and she was in the mood to buy...she saw me pick it up and put it back again (like I always do, with a wistful look) and then said, "If you want that, give it to me and I'll get it" .

As DeNiro would say, "I did not hesitate. Not even for a second."

Yes, do try that double-feature w/DH and Dunkirk, it sounds like you'll both get a good movie experience out of it!

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Sleepless. Probably the best Jamie Foxx movie ever. I was highly surprised.

[Scott]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Anybody seen Upgrade yet?

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[Cheese2121]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Just saw the new Han Solo movie. Loved it!

[Blzer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Ocean's Eight

I left impressions in its thread:

https://forums.operationsports.com/forums/entertainment-technology/902186-oceans-eight-reboot-all-female-cast.html#post2049378728

Here is my tl;dr version:

A soft reboot that doesn't live up to the witty or clever writing of its predecessors, though still feels enough like home being in the same universe (including the score). Like O12 however, removing it from Vegas takes away a "character" in the film and the tangible luxury of the caper at hand. In fact, the plot and deliverance shared semblances similar to that of Tower Heist and Logan Lucky.

This is female-driven from head to toe, from the actresses in it to the themes that play out. If you're into fashion and high society, you certainly won't be lost in this one. The redeeming qualities were the acting of one low-key Sandra Bullock and the extremely delectable Anne Hathaway, who I loved in this film. They all looked like they had a great time filming, and that is a staple of the Ocean's films that I am glad remained.

Ranked at the bottom of the series, but I can also say that I left the theater more pleased than not.

The Good Dinosaur

It seems like this film's downfall was a product of bad release timing. It came just mere months after Inside Out, and it made me believe it was a film that I wasn't the target for as a result. I avoided it despite the track record that Pixar has (and for the record, for me to this day their only duds are Brave and Finding Dory).

It started off without any sort of real hook which bothered me a little bit, but it felt to be building the characters for what the rest of the story was going to serve as, and once it picked up it became a nice little film. I actually quite liked it, or at least I did much more than I expected to. Unlike the majority of Disney or Pixar films that can get a little zany or antsy with its characters, this stayed relatively mellow. The little boy wasn't exactly a Donnie Thornberry unlike what I expected, and our main dino Arlo had enough weaknesses to serve the plot of the story.

As always, Pixar finds a way to magically tug at my heartstrings several times in their films. This was no different. There were three moments that it really did, all focused around the same element each time. Pixar never really fails with this. What complemented all of these scenes well though was the slow pace of this film, and I want to hit at that again because this is probably the finest point of TGD that most other animated films fail to do. There were also some legitimate laugh-out-loud moments, not really done by the characters so much but just their experiences. Otherwise it was a simple film that I just let play its course.

In terms of visuals, the landscaping was beautiful. Straight-up gorgeous. Pretty much photorealistic. Unfortunately I had already been provided this glory in Cars 3, so it's not the first time that I have seen it. The animation was also superb, but to my dismay the character models were a bit lackluster and out of place. The dinosaurs had a very cartoonish feel to them, and it didn't blend well with the amazing backdrops. It's strange that this seems to happen with these films, everything looking top-notch except the main characters themselves. I don't know what they can do to address this kind of thing in the future.

The only other drag was that Arlo and Spot's encounters with other characters weren't that special to me. There is one that was more crucial to the plot and one they could have done without, but frankly I think both were also victimized to the character models being more like in a cartoon than anything else. Maybe if they just focused more on the relationship between man and dinosaur or found another decent encounter, I would have been more for what I saw. Besides that, it was just alright.

I will give this a recommendation to watch if you decided to skip it like I had for a few years now. I'm glad I saw it, for sure.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Anybody seen Upgrade yet?

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Yep. It was a fun ride--some pretty graphic violence. I should have guessed the 'twist' at the end.

[Majingir]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

What did people think of movies like Ready Player One and Rampage? Haven't seen either yet, but I see Ready Player One got good review(7.8/10 on IMDB) and Rampage not so much(6.5/10), but I remember the old video game, and the movie does star Dwayne Johnson.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

What did people think of movies like Ready Player One and Rampage? Haven't seen either yet, but I see Ready Player One got good review(7.8/10 on IMDB) and Rampage not so much(6.5/10), but I remember the old video game, and the movie does star Dwayne Johnson.

Big fan of Ready Player One. Full of pop culture and video game references. It was visual overload and super fast paced. In a lot of ways it felt like 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'.

Rampage was the typical summer CGI filled popcorn flick. It did have a few funny moments. It was decent but not one I'd be upset that I never got to watch.

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Adrift

Just saw this tonight with the wife. She wanted to see it way more then I did but I have to say I really enjoyed it. Shailene Woodley is a much better actress then I knew. I hadn't really seen her in much other then the Divergent movies. She did a great job with her role.

She was really good in the HBO series, Big Little Lies. And that is a series that is definitely worth checking out if you have HBO.

[Blzer]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Avengers: Infinity War

Left too minor of impressions in its own thread. I'll be spoiler-free for my lengthy post here (more to come on that, actually). I know I'm extremely late to the party, but I waited for a time to sync up and see it with a friend (we both have too many obligations in the education realm), plus I had to see Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok beforehand.

Now before I leave any impressions, know that my experience was dampened by students with a moronic goal of sabotage by deciding to blurt out anything about the film they knew that I wouldn't want to know. I mean... what can I do to them in retaliation? Fail them? Strike them down with the hammer of Thor? Nothing, they're untouchable and they know it. It's sad, and I thought I've taught them to be better than that. Unfortunately, that select few is out there and always will be. I've waited nearly thirty years of my life for a film of this impactful magnitude to come out in its respectful genre, and individuals half of my age decide to play the card of indecency upon me and essentially impede on the level of my viewing experience. If anyone knows my gear-grinders of life, spoilers may be at the very, very top. Don't be a spoiler; it's not going to win you over with anybody, ever. I once warned people on Facebook not to state anything about an NBA Finals game a couple of years back when I was trying to find out how to access a playback of it, and threatened that if they did I would remove them as friends on Facebook. I mean it's seriously no joke with me. Don't think I wouldn't do that in a heartbeat.

All that being said... it was a very good film, even better than I liked it (the problem was the spoilers). In fact, if I were to list negatives for this film, it would really just be all in one lump-sum bullet point regarding the lack of grounded material: a lot of space related stuff, nanotechnology (and I really don't like the Iron Spider compared to regular ol' Spider-Man), whims of inexplicable magic sources, levels of seemingly unbeatable friends and foes where I don't understand the devastation of a punch or explosion onto the individual taking the blow, and the recurring MCU element of death not necessarily being a finality for characters' ends.

Conversely, there were many things that I really appreciated about the film. The first thing I would like to mention was the balance of everything, starting with the balance of characters and their moments. I thought this was going to be a massive issue going into this film, where it would just be one endless action battle and people wouldn't be able to serve their parts correctly, or they would only serve aspects as a moment of convenience to further the plot. Instead, where everyone was at during any moment seemed very natural to the overall MCU progression of items, and interactions that were had (on top of some that have yet to occur, lying in wait for the fourth Avengers film) were nicely played out. Villain encounters even appeared late in the film, which is kind of nice so that the legend looms larger as the movie goes on instead of playing beats such as: "We need three fights between hero and villain, so let's spread them out." Even characters who are physically inferior weren't just suitably matched up with other characters of that nature, and instead they found a way to possibly hold their own or team up to make things equal enough so that the fights could be anywhere with anyone. None of this works just in script alone; this was done by the hands of great directing. The Russo Bros have found a way to serve this great kind of balance for two straight films, though in Civil War it really felt a little more like: "Let's force the issue and get everyone on screen at once, even in a bit of a friendlier brawl." Admittedly some characters miss the boat of even appearing in the film, but it was few and far between, and they are explained away where frankly it worked just fine.

Another great form of balance was in the light versus dark emotional moments. I have been on Marvel for having too many lighthearted moments in their films, or really too much levity for the sake of entertaining the crowd on their first viewing of a film. They really pushed the envelope with Thor: Ragnarok, and honestly I was not appreciative of it. They needed to find a way to strike the right balance of when to say what and what surface level of comedy they need to inject during the characters given the moments, but most importantly every light moment needs to be balanced with a dark moment for emotions to hit the right heartstrings. Infinity War does exactly that. I wasn't eye-rolling when they injected humor, and only one or two comedic bits were out of place for the moment they were in. That is a fair price to pay for the overall structure. They had enough characters to find those moments with in the 160-minute running time, and for once they didn't have the villain(s) either be demoted to that same level of yuck-yucks nor did they subject them to another character's comedic relief as a way to actually victimize them.

This is a great time to transition to this film's villain: Thanos. I have had my quips with MCU villains being rather underserved in scope compared to that of the larger picture at play, like where they may be more of a pawn so the rest of the chessboard could do its thing. Thanos, however, appears as the king of this universe's chessboard. He was the main character in this film, and probably had the most screen time. He was not just a villain seeking ultimate domination of everything for the sake of it, he has his own goals and purposes in an attempt to restore a harmonious balance (there is that world again) for all species. It was not only believable, but it was also sympathetic. He shows remorse for his [attempted] actions, he shows mercy to those who beg for it so long as they aid in furthering his cause, and he speaks with a level head in a way that if we haven't already had eighteen other MCU films liking our heroes so much that we would actually root for the bad guy here. Definitely the best served comic book villain in a decade, if not right alongside the Joker for 'overall' status. Granted, Heath Ledger has given us the performance of a lifetime, though that character is very one-dimensional (and really good at that dimension, no doubt). Thanos really surprised me that he was more than just a large purple alien wanting "MOAR."

I want to give the directors credit for making an extremely long running time feel extremely short. I don't know if I'm sitting here saying that I'd like to watch a whole 'nother hour of the film, but they hit the right beats and paced it so evenly that they really made time fly by in a manner that other films really can't speak for in the same vein. For all the movies I own on Blu-ray, I sometimes stop short of watching something that runs this long because I tell myself: "This is a long film man, you are going to be devoting a lot of time to this." I don't think I'll be saying that about Infinity War. If I were to show this to a friend who hadn't seen it yet, I wouldn't be warning them about the duration of it nor would I fear they would be looking at their watch every fifteen minutes wondering when it would end. The more you get into the film, the more you lean forward on the edge of your seat. Yes, sometimes they do cut away from characters to get to others because they have to, but you never forget your place where others are at and you aren't dismayed at the next grouping's story line. It all worked so very, very well.

I'll cap this off with one thing that wasn't as strong as I hoped it would be, and it was in the movie's action. There was nothing wrong with it, but outside of some last-act battles I wasn't ever really wowed by anything either. All visual effects were top-notch, though (ehem, Ragarok was not good here too). I do think I'm putting this on a relative scale though, because it's interesting that I say that looking back at the whole picture that I think the moments outside of the action were actually better than the action points themselves, not in terms of entertainment but just in overall value. That's a good thing too, so now you're not just sitting around waiting to be getting your money's worth again. This jumps back to how the film's length is not a concern. No action scene overstays its welcome either, or it has enough dynamic elements and cross-cutting that it fits properly (again, jumping back to Civil War, that airport scene was just way too contrived... this doesn't have that). Age of Ultron was much more of a popcorn flick for me that I really do enjoy, and The Avengers has all of its lasting appeal in the final third of the film when they all assemble together, so I think I can say this one is the most consistently put together.

Overall, I would say that my experience was definitely a great one and it is likely hitting near the Top 3 of all the MCU films (The Winter Soldier still wins). I'm not ready to officially rank it just yet and I still have a lot of questions about what I saw in this one, but again that's a good thing about this film's natural depth where I'll have to watch it more than once to understand and appreciate those items. I really think the thing that brings this movie down a notch was my experience because of spoilers beforehand, and I didn't want to believe many of them to be true but unfortunately many were. This is a movie that I even avoided watching trailers for. Any knowledge about an event I am already interested in does not help ramp up the hype by me learning more about it. Shame on them for doing that to my theatrical viewing, but thankfully this film did not only rely on its spoiler-bound moments to be as good as it was. It was very ambitious, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next because I really have no idea where they want to go from here.

[jake44np]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Oceans 8
Saying I had no desire to see this movie is a huge understatement!
I thought the previews looked cheesy and figured this movie would be horrible.
My GF loves Anne Hathaway and drug me to see this yesterday.
Again she had to drag me to see it and I complained all the way to the theatre.

I was wrong, this movie was actually pretty damn good!
I must say I really enjoyed it. I was highly surprised at the plot and Anne Hathaway was really good.

[DJ]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Can you retroactively fail those kids, Blzer? LOL

Sorry that happened, man.