Re: Recent movie playlist

1201
_Marcus_ wrote:Army of the Dead - Someone needs to cancel Zack Snyders Premiere/Final Cut license right fucking NOW. 2,5 hours for the absolute dumbest zombie flick ever? Ffs. Also, the ridiculously shallow depth of field he shot some of the scenes in looked awful. Like it was filmed on an iphone or something.
Watched this last night. It was indeed dumb as fuck. Do not recommend. I hope he bounced back with something decent, but this sure isn't it.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1202
TC wrote:
_Marcus_ wrote:Army of the Dead - Someone needs to cancel Zack Snyders Premiere/Final Cut license right fucking NOW. 2,5 hours for the absolute dumbest zombie flick ever? Ffs. Also, the ridiculously shallow depth of field he shot some of the scenes in looked awful. Like it was filmed on an iphone or something.
Watched this last night. It was indeed dumb as fuck. Do not recommend. I hope he bounced back with something decent, but this sure isn't it.
Also like I mentioned, it absolutely rips whole scenes from Aliens. Not in a homage-y kind of way but straight up steals from it.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1203
_Marcus_ wrote:Also like I mentioned, it absolutely rips whole scenes from Aliens. Not in a homage-y kind of way but straight up steals from it.
like what, specifically? i didn't put that together while i was watching it. my main issues were that the writing was ok for the first half, then it felt like they all must have left completing the script for the night before filming started and had to cram it all in. secondly, at least half of the "supporting" cast was awful. i don't mean "not good", i mean fucking terrible. the idea on paper was ok, but man was this a shitshow with a back half that ruined anything the first half accomplished.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1205
Yeah they did a good job covering that. And I mean... Fine if you want to lift stuff from Aliens, it's a good movie to lift stuff from. But at least put the effort in to try to disguise it, don't just shoot the scenes exactly the same way. Fuck Snyder, he's a hack.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1207
The Tomorrow War - this was pretty cool. Yes, we’ve all seen it before - it’s very derivative of other, largely more successful films that came before. But there is some good humor, some great kills, a couple great scenes, and some intense action sequences. But go in expecting what it is - a mid-‘90s throwback that’s 30 min or so too long - and you’ll be fine. Some extremely questionable “science” at work here, characters that make completely unbelievable decisions or have totally out-of-character reactions to things, yvonne strahovski is…not great in this (and i love her), the entire thing ends up being caused by “climate change”, chris pratt’s family is the only white family of any significance in this world of next year, etc. i get it - it has some major issues if you start analyzing it. So, you know, don’t. It’s not starship troopers, in that i have no idea why i would watch this again, but it was fun.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1209
just because of the way it's dealt with in the film. "Oh, so climate change. Got it, climate change is the problem." no science or explanation, just extreme mass media generalities. Right after they spend a minute or so explaining exactly the volcano theory. it's just silly. like i said, don't start analyzing this film.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1210
TC wrote:Mythic Quest - Apple TV+ show from Rob McElhenney & Charlie Day, starting Rob. setting is a video game (online MMORPG) company. it's no Always Sunny or Silicon Valley, but it's pretty amusing. Danny Pudi and F. Murray Abraham are also in it and great supporting characters. finished S1 yesterday, looks like S2 started a few weeks ago. will start that soon.
finished the extremely odd and mostly irritating season 2 of this show. i'm assuming it was the final season. a far cry from the fun of s1. they did multiple 2-episode backstory asides in this season. they were interesting and sometimes well done, but not at all funny. this is a comedy show. just very odd choices in writing. but then again, when it got back to the actual development of the video game, that was way lacking this season as well, so i get that they had to fill space with something. Derek Waters had the best scenes in the season, and he's only in a couple episodes if that tells you anything. i'd kind of like to wipe this season from memory.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1211
The Hunt - no, not the fantastic mads mikkelsen film, the one from last year that is a heavy-handed political...satire, i guess? feels like hollywood leftist fantasy porn, but also skewers that and the "right" wins, so not sure where they're coming from. regardless of all that, this starts off VERY strong - first 15-20 min are fantastic. some unexpected kills, good effects, and general mayhem. lags deeply in the middle, then ends on a pretty strong kill bill-esque fight scene. couldn't say i'd recommend it, but if you're bored and looking for something with some decent pockets of action and kills, it's ok. ultimately, it's yet another "jane wick" wanna-be, and i don't really buy betty gilpin as the elite-level whatever she's supposed to be, but shrug.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1212
Under the Silver Lake - Been meaning to watch this for years and finally got around to it. I loved David Robert Mitchell's previous film, It Follows, and had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, it falls kind of flat. It wears its Lynchian and Hitchcockian influences on its sleeve to an absolute fault, for one thing. Throw Vertigo, Rear Window, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway in a blender, rinse all of the substance out of it and just keep the rest and you have Under the Silver Lake.

Ready or Not - One of the many films during the last few years that deal with rich people hunting poor people for some weird reason. This was ok I guess, some heavy handed social commentary but I have loved Samara Weaving in everything I've seen her in so far. She has carved out a nice niche for herself in the modern alt action/thriller pulp cinema.

Werewolves Within - People said this was good but I just don't get why? Some absolutely AWFUL over acting, a wafer thing script and scenes that really needed an editor to go to work. Meh.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1214
yeah, i really want to see that.

Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar - i don't even really know how to describe this movie. it's for sure a comedy, but it's also sort of a spy thriller? there's a whole evil genius/revenge on a town plot that ends up being sort of beside the point of the film, as far as i can tell, even though on paper it's the central plot. it's not exactly airplane or caddyshack, but there are for sure some LOL moments and scenes in it. they are just surrounded by a lot of lag too. i would suggest drugs and subtitles when watching, as the northern state accents and pitch of the voices of the titular characters sometimes makes it hard to understand, and with the pace they talk you will miss jokes. there's even a couple music videos sandwiched in, complete with pretty hilarious lyrics, that felt like lonely island shorts. i mean, it was entertaining, but don't see why i'd watch it again. and if you hate wiig, you will hate this.

Lisey's Story - yes, i was feeling masochistic and decided to give yet another stephen king property yet another shot. but this time, i have zero familiarity with the source material. i knew nothing about this going into the show, which i guess is more of a "limited series" as it's finite. first few episodes are really cool, some great visuals and good acting. michael pitt is a fucking treasure. then of course there is the ending, really the last two episodes, where all of that kind of goes away, replacing any interesting things with the obvious thing that was going to happen. but it wasn't nearly as ham-fisted as just about every other king property, where i want to smash my tv at the end of it. which is weird, considering he wrote the screenplay for every episode of this. anyway, i was pretty stoked on how weird the first few episodes were but didn't want to talk about it on here until i saw the ending, as i was sure it was going to funnel. but really, i wouldn't say it funneled, i just generally think king has no ending for anything and just throws something together. or maybe i have it completely backwards, and the ending is the starting point, and i just enjoy all the filler he imagines. anyway, it is a pretty tense, mostly well-acted series with some interesting ideas. and of course, it's essentially about grief, so of course i liked it.

Re: Recent movie playlist

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Kill List - I've liked Ben Whetleys recent stuff quite a lot but managed to avoid this for some reason? Anyway, it's a really solid thriller with a twist that's extremely well written and acted. Also heads up
for some of the violence. It's intense to say the least.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1216
It's going to be tough to forgive you for that awful Pig movie! We were waiting and waiting for Cage to kick ass and
he never does. Although he does get his ass handed to him at one point, for reasons that are quite opaque.
A most tiresome 90 minutes...

Re: Recent movie playlist

1217
Life On Mars [BBC] - don’t know how i missed this show when it came out, or at least since. I seem to remember hearing good things, but then i must have checked out an episode of the american version and bailed immediately. Someone recently told me the original was great, so i checked it out. Just finished the whole thing (2 seasons) two days ago. Took a few episodes to get into the rhythm and what was happening, but i loved it. It was really great, and a fantastic soundtrack. No clue how they afforded all those songs - maybe BBC gets some home-country discount? Pretty nuts when you look at all the music throughout. Ending was terrific too - i mean the very last scene. Just loved it. Then the same person told me there was a sequel series called Ashes to Ashes, which I just started last night. First episode was pretty cool, but this one lasted three seasons. Will report back. Apparently they are now making a third series too?

Re: Recent movie playlist

1218
klimov wrote:It's going to be tough to forgive you for that awful Pig movie! We were waiting and waiting for Cage to kick ass and
he never does. Although he does get his ass handed to him at one point, for reasons that are quite opaque.
A most tiresome 90 minutes...
If you thought Pig was about Nic Cage kicking ass, you obviously didn't know anything about the movie at all and had prepreconceived notions going into it based on... things? Maybe based on the fact that Cage these days just chooses the scripts that are interesting to him, no matter what kind of movie it ends up being. I think it's a great movie, acted brilliantly by Cage, shot beautifully and delivered tightly from a directing standpoint.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1219
The whole movie revolves around the tiresome idea of bucking expectation, ie. the audience fully expects Cage to kick ass to retrieve his pig and then...
he doesn't.
Wow. Well done folks. Good job. :clap: Sure, if the quality of the filmmaking/writing rose above the level of your standard actioner then it might have something going for it - but it doesn't. The performance is serviceable, but it's not enough. Should've fed the movie to the pig.

Re: Recent movie playlist

1220
No, it absolutely does not. It's YOUR expectations for a film starring Nicolas Cage, not what the film set out to do. It's not a story about bucking expectation or anything like it, rather a story about forgiveness, dealing with your inner demons and loss.