What movies have you seen recently?

[Armor and Sword]

[QUOTE=Majingir;n26857944]This movie didn't really stand out to me. Didn't feel to attached to any character so much and if they did a sequel of this one with a whole new cast again, I wouldn't really mind it either. This just felt like 2 movies going on at once. Not that I think it needs a sequel, but it'll probably get one if it hasn't already been announced.[/QUOTE/}


Huge JP original Trilogy fan.

JW trilogy was a mess for after the first JW (which I thought was great). The last two JW films were so disjointed and I don't care to ever revisit them. I have tried with the second JW film but it's silly. And the last one was just.....bizarre. Unmemorable in every way.

I am waiting for this new one to hit a streaming service for my first watch. But I think this series had run out of gas a long time ago after the original JW.

[Blzer]

The Long Walk

I'm not currently in a place to leave a full review, but I wanted to get it out there... this might be my favorite film this year, or at least close to it. It is incredible, and has moving performances by the boys. It is very bleak and uncompromising. It hit me emotionally in more than one way.

There are a few characters I think has a little more antagonizing potential, and I did wait for a few things to potentially happen that never did when it came to working around the rules, but I think that would've defeated some of the movie's thematic drive.

It's a bit of The Hunger Games meets Stand By Me, and is right up there with The Life of Chuck (another Stephen King adaptation) as some of the best cinema this year.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Ghost World, and Igby Goes Down.
Both are well over 20 years old but they were well out of my radar, as I had neve heard of either. I enjoyed both, satisfying watches, all except for both endings.

[Blzer]

Twilight

The film saga is re-releasing in theaters one day at a time. The first film was out tonight, and man it was packed. I hadn't seen them before, so I thought I'd give this one a shot and see if I'd marathon the rest.

Man, this was rough to get through. There was so much cringe on screen, but it felt like the actors were totally game. I think I was with a crowd that has clearly seen these movies before, as they were giggling, wooing, etc. at certain moments and appearances. The camera work was a character of its own, and it was horrendous. Any otherworldly movements were laughable.

I didn't know that this was essentially a romance film. Like, I thought there was a plot and then there was teen-crushing on the side. The last half hour or so finally gave some sense of "story," but before that it was clearly a film not made for me during any part of my life, even as I've become more critic-centric in just taking a film for how it's presented.

It wasn't all bad, but most of it was. Do the other ones improve in some places that I stated above which just made me laugh? Seeing this with a full audience is fun, but there wasn't much movement to the story. I think my favorite aspect was their spin on the vampire lore, breaking from tradition in several ways (including how they react to the sun).

All that said, I do like that it was shot on film (I'm sure some of the later ones aren't), and if Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were nominated for best kiss at the MTV Movie Awards, they would've gotten my vote.

[Armor and Sword]

Twilight

The film saga is re-releasing in theaters one day at a time. The first film was out tonight, and man it was packed. I hadn't seen them before, so I thought I'd give this one a shot and see if I'd marathon the rest.

Man, this was rough to get through. There was so much cringe on screen, but it felt like the actors were totally game. I think I was with a crowd that has clearly seen these movies before, as they were giggling, wooing, etc. at certain moments and appearances. The camera work was a character of its own, and it was horrendous. Any otherworldly movements were laughable.

I didn't know that this was essentially a romance film. Like, I thought there was a plot and then there was teen-crushing on the side. The last half hour or so finally gave some sense of "story," but before that it was clearly a film not made for me during any part of my life, even as I've become more critic-centric in just taking a film for how it's presented.

It wasn't all bad, but most of it was. Do the other ones improve in some places that I stated above which just made me laugh? Seeing this with a full audience is fun, but there wasn't much movement to the story. I think my favorite aspect was their spin on the vampire lore, breaking from tradition in several ways (including how they react to the sun).

All that said, I do like that it was shot on film (I'm sure some of the later ones aren't), and if Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were nominated for best kiss at the MTV Movie Awards, they would've gotten my vote.

It get's worse LOL. Pure teen romance love triangle CW stuff.

[KSUowls]

Twilight

The film saga is re-releasing in theaters one day at a time. The first film was out tonight, and man it was packed. I hadn't seen them before, so I thought I'd give this one a shot and see if I'd marathon the rest.

Man, this was rough to get through. There was so much cringe on screen, but it felt like the actors were totally game. I think I was with a crowd that has clearly seen these movies before, as they were giggling, wooing, etc. at certain moments and appearances. The camera work was a character of its own, and it was horrendous. Any otherworldly movements were laughable.

I didn't know that this was essentially a romance film. Like, I thought there was a plot and then there was teen-crushing on the side. The last half hour or so finally gave some sense of "story," but before that it was clearly a film not made for me during any part of my life, even as I've become more critic-centric in just taking a film for how it's presented.

It wasn't all bad, but most of it was. Do the other ones improve in some places that I stated above which just made me laugh? Seeing this with a full audience is fun, but there wasn't much movement to the story. I think my favorite aspect was their spin on the vampire lore, breaking from tradition in several ways (including how they react to the sun).

All that said, I do like that it was shot on film (I'm sure some of the later ones aren't), and if Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were nominated for best kiss at the MTV Movie Awards, they would've gotten my vote.

When the first movie came out I was dating this girl who was super into the books, and she told me how awesome the books were. I was like "hey I like vampires, sure I'll go see it". So we saw it...

Maybe that's why we broke up. Serious trust issues.

I think my favorite aspect was their spin on the vampire lore, breaking from tradition in several ways (including how they react to the sun).

You mean Tinkerbell's cousin? 🤣

[Blzer]

Haha, I meant instead of killing them it revealed them, but yeah that was a weird effect (and scene in general).

I also didn't notice the black vampire dude was Mr. Terrific until he started talking. I otherwise only know him from Season 4 of House.

[Blzer]

The Intern

I just saw this for the first time. I thought it was cute, and perhaps harmless to a fault. It felt very feel-good with little plot conflict in the way. Sure, Jules had some decisions to make, but we weren't hanging on by a thread to discover their outcomes.

In fact, I feel there were other things that felt a bit unresolved, or abandoned altogether. If this was an episode of House, I feel like it ended by House just telling his team of his epiphany on the patient's diagnosis, and what was left out was the treatment plan, the scenes that show them being treated and the thanks for it, the theming surrounding that patient of the week, the B-storyline wrap-up, and the season storyline interlude. I'm not saying it felt like a medical show, I just think there was that much more ending material we could have explored.

I suppose there's a take-home message where Ben entered and positively affected many people's lives that he touched and we can simply infer the rest, but the fun in a film's resolution is to see a lot of it play out, even in a "one year later" kind of way. Not really a big spoiler or anything, but even small things like "Will she ever sit in the front seat?" aren't addressed.

Anne Hathaway is gorgeous, and I look forward to her roles in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey next year. Enough said for me there.

[Blzer]

Sisu: Road to Revenge

This was the Monday Mystery Movie, so I went into this without having seen the original (as I didn't know this would play). I knew nothing about the original, other than it was during wartime and "The dog lives in the end" was a bit of a commercial tagline that I had heard.

This thing was bonkers. Action, and then more action, both bloody and comedic. Honestly, I feel like most of it had a 90s feel to it but with modern filmmaking techniques at play (for better or worse, including close-up shaky cam and CGI). The chapter layout really made this go at a brisk pace, and kept you ready for the next sequence at hand. Jorma Tommila utters no words during the runtime and gives a very ocular performance, and he is easy to root for. Stephen Lang, as always, plays a marvelous antagonist, and he is very respecting of our unspeaking hero.

The more this movie progressed though, the more ridiculous it got. I accepted early on that we can through believability out the window in terms of Aatami's survival factor (including his fortunes of enemies not just pulling the trigger when they have the chance), but the amount of moments that went over the top did make for things to become a bit silly. There was also seemingly a strong correlation with ridiculousness and CGI amount. I didn't hate the movie for it, but it ramped up more as it went along and was fine without it beforehand, and I wondered if the original film did this.

So, I found it on Tubi and popped it on last night. This one was a lot slower (the chapters still helped with its sense of pace), and strangely does not cover the action that I expected based on the Stephen Lang arc introduced in Road to Revenge (meaning you can see the sequel without seeing the original, and you won't be lost at all). Despite maintaining that suspension of disbelief from a survival standpoint, it never teeters toward the sequel's ridiculousness factor until Chapter 6, which by no coincidence is also when some CGI elements are introduced. So I feel like the director thought that chapter broke the door open to allow it throughout the sequel.

Needless to say, I loved both films and am now a fan of the Sisu Saga. The creativity/improvisation as a moment slowly approaches is something the audience can play with, the dog has an adorable, loyal presence, and you feel his motivation without needing to say anything. The time flies in the sequel, and you won't ever be bored. Lots to laugh about, in fact.

It seems they keep these budgets very responsible at $6 million for the original and $12 million for the sequel. Hopefully this does well enough and they find a way to wiggle out a third film. This is good counterprogramming to the likes of Wicked: For Good and Rental Family. Go check it out!

[KSUowls]

I didn't want to bring any negativity into the Christmas thread.

I finally saw 2018's The Grinch, and what a painfully mediocre movie. The animations were good, but that is where my compliments end. It was such a deviation from the nearly 70 year old story that I kind of hated it. The rhymes were different. The Grinch himself just seemed odd. And they didn't even play The Grinch song (except a remixed version shortly at the beginning). I would have have disliked it less if it wasn't The Grinch, but I also thought that the rhymes were just not that good. Part of that was probably Pharrell's delivery as the narrator though which came off as completely flat.