What movie did you just watch, and how was it? (expect some spoilers but try not to post any!)

Forums › Off topic › What movie did you just watch, and how was it? (expect some spoilers but try not to post any!)

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#3117988 19-Aug-2023 16:54

SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods (2023) iTunes Rental 6/10

I'm not a big fan of superhero movies, but I do enjoy watching some of the CGI, which usually produces a great surround sound experience. This film delivered in heaps.

Its an easy scenario to understand. The Daughters of Atlas come to Earth to cause as much trouble as they can. Billy Batson and his foster family of Shazamers set out to stop them, and its CGI madness from then on.

I must admit that the latest batch of superhero films are beginning to become a little boring. Plenty of eye candy, with a lack of substance. Still, it passed a couple of hours.

I hear that the latest addition to the superhero genre; Blue Beetle, is getting good reviews with an audience score on Rotten Tomatoes of 91%. Early days though.

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#3118705 21-Aug-2023 17:12

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017) 4K Ultra HD Disc 9/10

Musicals; Love 'em or hate 'em. Personally I love 'em, and in my opinion this is one of the best modern musicals out there.

Hugh Jackman shows his versatility, by going from his very different role in Wolverine to P. T. Barnham, (who went on to create the Barnham & Bailey and Ringling Bros. circus') with his show full of human misfits and oddities. Songs such as "A Million Dreams", "This Is Me" and the wonderful "Never Enough" had me totally in their grasp.

The highlight of the film for me is when Barnham introduces "The Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind played by a stunning Rebecca Ferguson as she goes into her rendition of "Never Enough" (actually sung by Loren Allred). I was spellbound throughout the song, and I rewound it twice so that I could enjoy it again.

The film is based loosely on Barnham's family life and his early years in show biz, and it entertained me throughout, as the music and dancing kept on coming. Its a "feel good" film, with a memorable cast.

Handsomedan

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#3118963 22-Aug-2023 11:49

We watched Vacation Friends on [insert streaming platform here]

It's a comedy. It's stupid and it passed a couple of hours fairly successfully on a Saturday night.

Stars John Cena. 5/10

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.
Handsome Dan needs to stop adding three dots to every sentence...

Handsome Dan does not currently have a side hustle as the mascot for Yale

*Gladly accepting donations...

freitasm

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#3118964 22-Aug-2023 11:53

gehenna:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Aside from the tinnitus I got from watching this at The Embassy (jk - but it WAS loud!) I really enjoyed this. It was completely over the top like all Indy movies. The stunts and action sequences were very impressive. Harrison Ford can clearly still kick some arse! I was pleasantly surprised by this considering my apprehension for the last few months leading up to it. It's a great action-adventure. I just hope it's the last one.

Funny to see the first post in this thread was about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull... @gehenna said "Harrison Ford can clearly still kick some arse!" and 15 years later we are still seeing Indiana Jones in theatres...

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#3118965 22-Aug-2023 11:54

Strays - R16 - Cinema

If you like dogs, with potty mouths, then this is the movie for you.

Its mindless fun for adults. My wife is still giggling at it, and we saw it Sunday.

7/10 (as above, its mindless, the rating is for the fun)

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#3118966 22-Aug-2023 11:55

freitasm:

gehenna:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Aside from the tinnitus I got from watching this at The Embassy (jk - but it WAS loud!) I really enjoyed this. It was completely over the top like all Indy movies. The stunts and action sequences were very impressive. Harrison Ford can clearly still kick some arse! I was pleasantly surprised by this considering my apprehension for the last few months leading up to it. It's a great action-adventure. I just hope it's the last one.

Funny to see the first post in this thread was about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull... @gehenna said "Harrison Ford can clearly still kick some arse!" and 15 years later we are still seeing Indiana Jones in theatres...

And scarily, I'd rate that movie above the latest...

(shudder)

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#3118967 22-Aug-2023 11:56

Also, @gehenna this is the oldest thread still running - more than 15 years on, followed by Epic YouTube Videos (2010) and The headphones thread (2012).

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#3118974 22-Aug-2023 12:06

Tetris (AppleTV+)

Enjoyed it, I think reasonably accurate for the telling of a true story (executive producers include Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers). Who doesn't love those damn bricks?

I enjoyed it - 7/10

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#3118977 22-Aug-2023 12:18

freitasm:

Also, @gehenna this is the oldest thread still running - more than 15 years on, followed by Epic YouTube Videos (2010) and The headphones thread (2012).

Hah i did wonder that recently! Also, interesting to see how my views on Crystal Skull have deteriorated over the years

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#3119651 24-Aug-2023 09:08

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 (Silky Otter Cinemas) - 3/10

I'm a fan of Mission Impossible. I've watched the original TV series, after discovering the 80s version as a kid, and I was delighted by the Brian de Palma film released in the 90s, and then thrilled to the subsequent releases. I've bored my partner with "fun facts" and my knowledge of the franchise. But due to a range of factors I've only just got around to watching the latest installment. And it's so disappointing. How? Let me count the ways...

Firstly, it's not very "Mission Impossible". This manifests in so many ways. To begin with, the overall feel is so generically "action movie", you could change the character names and it doesn't stand out as a Mission Impossible film. The way I explained it to my (amazingly patient) partner post-film was to compare to another long-running franchise with which I am all-too familiar with - Bond. For over 40 years that franchise leaned heavily on the tropes that made it iconic, before it decided to jettison a lot of that stuff and reinvent itself. When it's done consciously and deliberately it can work. But with MI:DR (1) it feels accidental or an oversight. Mission Impossible has several iconic elements - the Lalo Schifrin theme music, the complicated plans pulled off magificently, the mission briefing: for six movies they have honoured these elements and incorporated them in modern ways. But this film kind of breezes past all of them, and it feels like they just forgot they were making a Mission Impossible film. The theme music never really makes itself known, there is a mission briefing but it's just a huge info dump (way more than normal, and it's more about the character's history than the mission), and there's no complex "heist." Just a series of largely generic action set pieces.

Secondly, I realised towards the end that I had already watched the film before. It was released by Marvel Studios and it's called Avengers: Infinity War. There's a treasure hunt (infinity stones vs key, which even has glowing gem stones to really make the connection blatant); there's a single-minded figure pursuing his ideological goal righteously. Given this is part 1 of 2, I half expected the film to end with the villain winning (spoiler, I'm afraid, he doesn't quite win). But even that was a sore point for me. Whereas a film like Avengers: Infinity War provided an ending (with a thread for the new film to pick up), this film just cuts out, like a broken transmission. It's unsatisfying (but it was unsatisfying throughout the film), almost like someone hit pause and left the room.

Thirdly, I'm not a fan of the retcon they are trying to pull off. Mild spoiler here - the Impossible Mission Force is an intelligence agency like the CIA. That's how it was in the TV show, and in each of the successive films. But now, it seems, the IMF is some kind of monastic cult where noble warriors wait for a "message to be left", whereupon they are invited to "make the choice." This isn't just some throw-away line from the writers, it's brought up continuously. There's a scene with Benji, Luther and the new character played by Hayley Atwell where they solemnly explain how they each made "the choice." It's like some writer heard about the line "should you choose to accept it" and elevated it into some mystical concept: "they always have the right to say no..." ooooh, mysterious! No, it's just ridiculous.

Related to point three is the re-introduction of Secretary Kitteridge, played by Henry Czerny. I geeked out to my partner about this element when the trailers were released, because fans will recognise him from the first film. What does this mean? Is there going to be some cool secret history revealed here? No. Not at all. If anything, it just passively retcons the previous films where the IMF already had a secretary that wasn't Kitteridge (Hunly, played by Alec Baldwin, is introduced at the end of Rogue Nation by Jeremy Renner as "Mr Secretary." While never mentioned as such, Laurence Fishburne and Anthony Hopkins have all played similar figures) If Kitteridge has been Secretary all this time, who were those other guys? But even more frustrating is that Henry Czerny re-enters the franchise and adds...nothing. His connection to the first film is completely ignored, a huge lost opportunity to create some cool internal connection. His role could have been played by anyone, if they weren't going to make anything of his history with Hunt.

Finally (I could go on, but I really need to get on with my life), the "stakes" are really lazy. It's a "rogue sentient AI." I barely need explain on a geek forum how overused the "evil AI" trope is. Terminator did it really well, and countless other films before and since have picked up the ball and run with it. It feels quite "relevant" given some of the (in my opinion) overblown hysteria about ChatGPT, but also incredibly lazy. The first film in the franchise was about a list of deep cover agents being sold on the black market. Since then we've had deadly viruses, nuclear weapons, and my favourite - the literal Macguffin so literal they never even revealed what it was, just called it the Rabbit's Foot. This feels like the inevitable "escalation" of threats - we have to find something even bigger and scarier than nuclear weapons; I know, evil AI is going to take over the world. Cue eye rolls. It's so damn lazy, I felt incredibly irked.

I'm so incredibly disappointed by this film. Tom Cruise and (more latterly) Christopher McQuarrie have been the driving force behind this franchise - they should know better. I suspect part 2 will be the "end" of the franchise, and part of me is pleased because they really have killed it. But part of me is sad because the previous films have been so much fun to watch, they've kind of tainted the whole barrel with this stinker.

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#3119952 24-Aug-2023 23:14

READY PLAYER ONE (2018) 4K Ultra HD Disc 9.5/10

In the year 2045, the real world is a harsh place. The only time Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) truly feels alive is when he escapes to the OASIS, an immersive virtual universe where most of humanity spends their days. In the OASIS, you can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone--the only limits are your own imagination. The OASIS was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who left his immense fortune and total control of the Oasis to the winner of a three-part contest he designed to find a worthy heir. When Wade conquers the first challenge of the reality-bending treasure hunt, he and his friends--The High Five--are hurled into a fantastical universe of discovery and danger to save the OASIS.

This was my third viewing of Ready Player One, but the first time on 4K Ultra HD disc in my Man Cave. I have always thought that it was a grossly underrated film. The special effects are marvellous, and the action in the "OASIS" is 4K HDR at its best. The real world scenes are not as sparkling, but I expect that was the director's intent. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is amazing. Lots of nods to other films, and it was fun picking them out. Absolutely a must have disc as I rebuild my 4K Ultra HD collection. Great stuff!

I also had a fun time rewatching TOY STORY (1995) on Blu-ray Disc. The Toy Story series of films is Pixar at its best in my opinion, a delightful story of what toys get up to when their owners are not around. 9/10

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#3120111 25-Aug-2023 14:13

Ahh Crap!

All because they can't fly stars around the world for the gaudy promotionals and a marathon of 5 minute sit downs...

“Dune: Part Two” has been delayed to 2024.

The story of Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet, will be continued on March 15.

...

As part of the shift, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” — which was previously dated for March 14 — is getting pushed back one month to April 12. The film is also produced by Legendary and Warner Bros. and is the latest entry in the Monsterverse franchise.

..
The “Dune” delay comes as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to drag on. Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, actors may not do press for any struck films, which would have meant the star-studded “Dune” cast would not have been on the press circuit for the big-budget film.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/dune-2-delayed-2024-strikes-1235703991/

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#3120344 25-Aug-2023 23:43

It does make a huge difference to the initial box office if they do the press. You can see the box office impact of not doing it on the movies coming out currently.

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#3121071 28-Aug-2023 10:09

Oppenheimer. Very long, quite involved, well-acted (some excellent performances!). I enjoyed it, but found some of the speech hard to hear despite some parts of the movie being VERY loud!

If anyone else who watched the movie understood the sheets thing, could you PM me please?

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#3121073 28-Aug-2023 10:11

Movieman:

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017) 4K Ultra HD Disc 9/10

Musicals; Love 'em or hate 'em. Personally I love 'em, and in my opinion this is one of the best modern musicals out there.

This one one of my favourite movies of 2017. I am not really into musicals, though enjoyed Annie, and the sound of music. This soundtrack stayed on my rotation for quite a while.

Agree with your rating, an excellent film.

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