NOW CLOSED ; List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,975
7,892
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uh .. the new, famously praised by everyone, Peter Jackson's LOTR? The film phenomenon of the last 20 years?

i consider myself a detractor, and even i would give it 7/10.

Wasn't really "my thing" either. At this point I can't remember anything about it other than it was very long, and the use of accents struck me as classist, but the scenery and visuals were very nice (a good advert for the New Zealand tourist board!).

I far preferred Game of Thrones, as far as that sort of genre goes. Though that seems to have a lot of haters also (so many people I know hate it for the, admittedly slightly gratuitous, sexual content in particular), I just thought it had an interesting, and fairly realistic, take on politics and political conflicts.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
21,004
19,446
136
If you read LOTR books, then the Peter Jackson movies were great, except the ending of the last one was a bit drawn out.

If you just caught GOT without reading the GOT books, they were just so good, I can see how it would draw people in stronger vs LOTR if you hadn't read the Tolkein books. I would be in the same boat.

Looking forward to both Amazon's LOTR series coming out 9/2 and HBO's GOT spinoff coming out any day now.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
Looking forward to both Amazon's LOTR series
reeeeally ?

eh, you know what, they may still be good. Still, can't ignore the controversy. See, it appears that the Amazon team that wrote them, took some fairly unnecessary liberties with the books, going so far as to fire the specially-appointed Tolkien-lore advisor, and while that on its own doesn't necessarily make them BAD, it does raise a red flag.

- i take it you have the "bring back the dislike button" extension?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
Wasn't really "my thing" either. At this point I can't remember anything about it other than it was very long, and the use of accents struck me as classist, but the scenery and visuals were very nice (a good advert for the New Zealand tourist board!).

I far preferred Game of Thrones, as far as that sort of genre goes. Though that seems to have a lot of haters also (so many people I know hate it for the, admittedly slightly gratuitous, sexual content in particular), I just thought it had an interesting, and fairly realistic, take on politics and political conflicts.

well, i did say this before, i found that the films are very weak when it comes to both acting, and actor's direction. Peter Jackson does *not* know how do that.

But that's the end of my criticism. This is a major thing for me, so the films don't move me as much as the next guy, but i recognize that
1. the production is spectacular
2. it's very faithful to the books; for me, i'm happy if there is a deviation from the books, as long as it improves the film, or if i recognize that some parts of the book are unfilmable.
Again this loops back to (1), because it's mental that someone just said "yeah, i'm gonna make a 1:1 repro of LOTR with an army of orcs all in plate mail" and then went and did it.
3. the photography is very nice
4. the casting is good; it's a shame that Jackson couldn't go more with those actors.
5. and of course the story is really solid.
I absolutely detest Gollum and will always fast-forward through most of part 2 because i just can't stand the OVER-EMPHASIZED delivery of Serkis' lines, but, you know, decent film.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
21,004
19,446
136
reeeeally ?

eh, you know what, they may still be good. Still, can't ignore the controversy. See, it appears that the Amazon team that wrote them, took some fairly unnecessary liberties with the books, going so far as to fire the specially-appointed Tolkien-lore advisor, and while that on its own doesn't necessarily make them BAD, it does raise a red flag.

- i take it you have the "bring back the dislike button" extension?
I read about that. Some of those guys can be insufferable so the jury is still out on whether that affected the production poorly at that point. Bezos himself is a big fan of the LOTR universe and has stated a main goal is to remain true to the author and to the material and make a quality show first and foremost.

There is no way I'm not watching this series and then making a judgment.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
by the way, i forgot to review

Leningrad Cowboys Go America - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097728/reference/

one that @zinfamous would like.

Black and white, and all in Finnish - the way it's meant to be, with subtitles - it is the story of a group of Finnish musician, who go america. But i am getting ahead of myself.
This 1989 comedy starts in the Finnish countryside, with the band playing in a barn for a local music agent. The music agent is disgusted and therefore professes "you guys suck - go to America, they will buy anything there".
The band looks like a discount Blues Brothers, all wearing black, with pointed shoes and massive Pompadour hair spikes. It's implied that they aren't great musicians either.

So they set forth, with no money.
UGH this film is SO HARD to review.

It's surreal.
It's meant to be about an unlikable band of idiots on a road trip. The B&W, and the foreign language w/ subs, works FOR the film, instead of against. It's mean to put you in a particular state of mind, and when it does, you will start rooting for this bunch of hopeless losers who you can't even understand.

Close stylistically to Dead Man, it's defo an experience. You may love it, you may hate it. You may scratch your head and think "what the fuck am i watching".

All in all, an experience worth recommending. 7/10
 

stargazr

Diamond Member
Jun 13, 2010
3,813
3,126
136
I liked Harrison Ford's Witness (1985), mainly coz it served as my first introduction to Amish culture/community. Really worth watching and be amazed that a community still lives the way they did hundreds of years ago. It's inspiring. I'm not saying that they are perfect but I think this is one of the best examples of a tight-knit community ever.

Another recommended movie starring Jesse Eisenberg is The Hummingbird Project. There's Amish in there again but they are not the main focus.
I liked the part where they all got together and put up a barn for one of the families in the community. In one day, sort of.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,515
29,100
146
jfc with the tolkein amazon nonsense.


just settle down and see if it works or not.

If it doesn't: whatever. So it's a thing that sucks as much as the original source. So fucking what?

If it's gold: then Congratulations. you didn't waste your fucking life being so invested in stupid shit.

and now interesting people are suddenly interested in your thing. CONGRATUFUCKINGLATIONS, because your parties are about TO BE LIT! (for the next 1 year...sorry, that's the time window for this sort of dork success.)
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,380
146
Finally got to watch the Better Call Saul series finale this evening.

For the whole episode I was kind of torn if he was finally the price for his past actions, or if he was going to have some plan to wiggle out of trouble once again. While it wasn't the strongest episode of this season when judged on the surface, the unexpected ending did kind of pay off and was a fitting ending to the journey that Saul / Jimmy and Kim took.

Even though Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were obviously linked with many, if not most characters who were on both shows at times, overall I liked the Better Call Saul series more than I liked the Breaking Bad one. Obviously Breaking Bad was great as well, but we just got to know/understand a lot more characters and what drove them in Better Call Saul.
 
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Charmonium

Diamond Member
May 15, 2015
8,787
2,297
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Even though Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were obviously linked with many, if not most characters who were on both shows at times, overall I liked the Better Call Saul series more than I liked the Breaking Bad one. Obviously Breaking Bad was great as well, but we just got to know/understand a lot more characters and what drove them in Better Call Saul.
I think BCS was probably a much more mature show than Breaking Bad. But to be fair, each had their own set of priorities. I've often criticized it as being overly self-aware and, at least by comparison, much, much slower. Right now I'm missing some important shit in the second half of episode 9. I have one of those server oriented DVRs. Normally, if we forget about what can be event horizon-like lag times, that's a very good thing. But in cases where the server tosses it's cookies, less so.
=============================================================
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005) - 7/10

If you don't have any issues with child actors per se, I thought it was a damned decent story. The fact of the steampunk vibe and a fairly cute Kristen Stewart were important pluses. I'm still not sure why she was ever one of my celeb crushes. It's hard to believe it's the same woman as in DareDevil.

Some aspects of the ending just did not compute, but that's fine. If I ever start to be compensated for being a film critic, I will work on being more critical.

The best I can say about the 2 prepubescent boys is that they didn't annoy me. They also make it harder to legitimately hyperventilate for parts being pretty silly - especially since 'silly' is part of its pedigree.

Your first impulse is going to be to compare it Jumanji. IDK, never saw that one and probably won't. Things I liked where how the physical game and the story worked together. There were also several scenes that unfolded in a way that I don't think could have been predicted. And several others where you kind of saw where they were going, but you were still surprised. It was also a good object lesson regarding sibling rivalry. That's all I've got at the moment.
 
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Charmonium

Diamond Member
May 15, 2015
8,787
2,297
136
Why won't you see it? It's got Robin Williams in it and it's pretty funny. Jumanji reboot is also pretty good. The sequel, not that much.
IDK. I just remember seeing the trailers way back when and thinking, ok, this is seriously stupid. I probably misjudged it and would probably be a lot more open to the idea today. But now we run into a different problem - when the color pallet is so old that, just from that, you can guess the approx release date.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,246
10,748
136
I think BCS was probably a much more mature show than Breaking Bad. But to be fair, each had their own set of priorities. I've often criticized it as being overly self-aware and, at least by comparison, much, much slower. Right now I'm missing some important shit in the second half of episode 9. I have one of those server oriented DVRs. Normally, if we forget about what can be event horizon-like lag times, that's a very good thing. But in cases where the server tosses it's cookies, less so.
=============================================================
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005) - 7/10

If you don't have any issues with child actors per se, I thought it was a damned decent story. The fact of the steampunk vibe and a fairly cute Kristen Stewart were important pluses. I'm still not sure why she was ever one of my celeb crushes. It's hard to believe it's the same woman as in DareDevil.

Some aspects of the ending just did not compute, but that's fine. If I ever start to be compensated for being a film critic, I will work on being more critical.

The best I can say about the 2 prepubescent boys is that they didn't annoy me. They also make it harder to legitimately hyperventilate for parts being pretty silly - especially since 'silly' is part of its pedigree.

Your first impulse is going to be to compare it Jumanji. IDK, never saw that one and probably won't. Things I liked where how the physical game and the story worked together. There were also several scenes that unfolded in a way that I don't think could have been predicted. And several others where you kind of saw where they were going, but you were still surprised. It was also a good object lesson regarding sibling rivalry. That's all I've got at the moment.


Wait..... You never saw the original Jumanji ??? :oops:


You now officially have Redbox-homework for this weekend!
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
30,160
3,300
126
IDK. I just remember seeing the trailers way back when and thinking, ok, this is seriously stupid.
yeah, thought the same when Jumanji came out in theaters.
when Jumanji 2 came out ~20 years later, it got me to watch the original.

the sequel is more geared towards today's millennial kids.
and the movie actually depicts this by magically changing the board game of the original into a video game when the teen wasnt interested in playing when he saw it. :eek:

the 3rd movie in this new trilogy (Jumanji 4, still in development) seems stupid.
The real world is now the game.
 
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Charmonium

Diamond Member
May 15, 2015
8,787
2,297
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I finally got around to watching the series finale.\

All I'm going to say is, IMHO, it ws the absolutely perfect denouement
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
I finally got around to watching the series finale.\

All I'm going to say is, IMHO, it ws the absolutely perfect denouement
is this Better Call Saul?

I never found either BCS or BB to be .. great. They were not bad by any means, but i found them, how can i say .. mild? Not-trying-to-impress. I like best to just watch snippets on YouTube, because people cherry-pick the best scenes, but when i try to watch a whole episode, erm, it doesn't capture my interest.

For example; the "Mesa Verde" tricks are cool;
but the rest of the stuff is .. less entertaining.
 
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