Movie Reviews 2.0

[eloic]

I also like Opera, by the way. It's really not the same thing, though.

I didn't say it was the same... but they obviously share some common traits: a visual story with music, where their characters sing.
----
Yesterday I watched Brave. The story was just fine, nothing extraordinary about it, but man, those "graphics". The movie was beautiful and it looked just real sometimes.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Hidden Figures
The story in itself is mighty interesting and it's a very nice thing that it finally came to light. NASA and the Mercury program (and even a lot of the later ones) had contributions from a lot more people that what the public were told about for decades. This one tells the story - with some artistic liberties, that however are quite acceptable - of three African-American mathematicians and engineers, who were also women, and who had some pretty significant roles in the US space program. So, again, this would already be good, even as a documentary.
But the movie works really well beyond that, too. It's a really good mix of drama and comedy (with some romance), that manages to avoid quite a lot of clichés common to such stories. It has great acting and looks nice, and the music is outstanding as well. We sort of randomly picked this for a movie night (was the most interesting one playing at the time), but were pleasantly surprised , it's really worth watching and makes for a lot of good reading afterwards.
It also made me a bit disappointed in Tom Wolfe's docu-novel The Right Stuff (also highly recommended), as there was no mention of these women at all, even though John Glenn in particular was really appreciative of their work (he actually requested Katherine Johnson to personally re-check his flight calculations before launch).

Split
This is the new Shyamalan movie, a sort of psycho-thriller, about a person suffering from multiple personalities disorder (I know it's actually called dissociative identity disorder but that's not descriptive enough . Think about Tyler Durden or The Fifth Sally.
I haven't really watched anything from the director after Signs and as far as I know I haven't really missed anything. Well, it's hard to say a lot about this one without ruining the experience, but I'd say it's probably better than the last few. But it's only really worth watching for the performance(s) of James McAvoy, he's really good but the rest is mostly just average. Oh and of course there's a bit of a surprise at the end, too...

 

[Davros]

I know it's actually called dissociative identity disorder

We used to have that

 

[eloic]

... as far as I know I haven't really missed anything.

IMHO, you missed The Village; although a bit flawed, the movie was beautiful: interesting story, exquisite photography and amazing soundtrack. Great actors, as well, and impressive debut of Bryce Dallas Howard.

 

[BRiT]

The Villiage is not worth anyone's time. Skip it if you haven't seen it already.

 

[eloic]

I stand corrected. True, what a big POS that movie was.

Please, don't waste your time. If you're still on time to ignore my previous recommendation, please avoid this movie. If you're not, I'm truly sorry and I hope you can forgive me.

Peace.

 

[BRiT]

Lately a lot of movies have become too predictable, so any movie from a director/producer that is known for twists I go into it thinking what the twist could be. Typically within minutes from the beginning I predict the twist so when it's revealed I feel it's been dragged on for too long and almost feel insulted it wasn't revealed earlier. Then there are writers who write really boring stories where there is very little excitement to the series of events they unfold. Then there are other directors which just can't direct or produce so you get pale performances out of the actors and actresses. The worst of the mix is one that is known for plot twists, can't direct, and tell boring stories. Mr Shyamalan falls into this worst mix of everything for me.

With that said, I really did enjoy and like The Arrival. I didn't expect there to be any twists so I wasn't looking for any. When the plot twist was revealed I really enjoyed the moment as everything just clicked and caused me to re-evaluate the earlier scenes.

 

[Malo]

Really enjoyed Arrival as well. With promotion on again for streaming, it's continued to be advertised as alien action movie with brains from the shorts. The real movie is a deliberately slow-paced emotional drama taking you through the protagonists experiences through the alien landing and why they're here. I enjoyed every moment of it and as a father even cried at the end.

Truly glad sometimes these types of movies can be highly successful and get the attention they deserve, even though likely many went into it expecting something else.

 

[Malo]

I haven't really watched anything from the director after Signs and as far as I know I haven't really missed anything. Well, it's hard to say a lot about this one without ruining the experience, but I'd say it's probably better than the last few.

I quite enjoyed The Visit actually. Don't know if I'm alone on this one but I thought it had just the right amount if creepy with the usual twist he loves.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Passengers.
On his interstellar trip to a new world, unlucky passenger James Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes up early from Hypersleep. A whoppin' 90 years early in fact. There's no way for him to get back to sleep either. Seems like he's destined to die on the way.

That's really all I wanna say about the plot here. You probably shouldn't watch the trailers either. They somehow manage to be spoilerific and misleading all at once.
Either way, I enjoyed this thing a great deal. Great acting, fantastic visuals, snappy pacing, and for the first time since Gravity, I felt like the silly 3d really added a little something. Once again no idea where all the criticisms are coming from. I believe it's currently sitting at the 20-something percentage mark on Rottentomatoes. Sure, there's a massive ethical dilemma at the center of the plot, but I felt the film handled it quite well. And to all the high-and-mighty virtue-signallers out there: You would have acted the exact same way as the main character did in a situation like that. Bloody hypocrits. The last act was admittedly straight up Hollywood in blockbuster mode, and I can see how directors like Verhoeven or Kubrick may have taken this film into different, more challenging and/or messed-up directions, but it's not like the ending we got came out of nowhere either. The film built towards it right from the start.

I highly recommend it.

 

[3dilettante]

We used to have that

If that were the true diagnosis, you wouldn't know of the others.

 

[3dilettante]

If that were the true diagnosis, you wouldn't know of the others.

I agree with this point.

 

[Davros]

you wouldn't know of the others

You not heard of facebook

 

[wco81]

Not in a hurry to see Passengers but I remembered the commercial featured Jennifer Lawrence in tank tops and other tight-fitting clothes so I'll check it out when it hits cable.

 

[Mize]

Recently watched The Lobster. Insanely weird but quite good nonetheless.

Not a movie but enjoying season 2 of The Expanse . Good sci-fi is so hard to come by. Recently rewatched Firefly and Serenity just to scratch that itch.

 

[WhiningKhan]

The Lego Batman Movie. Enjoyed it more than the Lego Movie - a bit closer to format of the "Real" lego animated movies, but maintaining the attitude. But, trailer for upcoming Ninjago movie in the same vein starts to smell of milking it too much.
Good fun anyway, more so than any other film in a long while.

 

[London Geezer]

Saw Logan last night. Wow. Fucking brutal (sorry for swearing but there's a lot of that in the movie) and completely on a different level to all X-men movies before it. Brilliant, hilarious at times, shocking, intense all the way through. Amazing.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Got my Logan tickets for Saturday. Super stoaked about it. Thank god Disney hasn't gotten all their Marvel licenses back yet. They would never have made something like Logan or Deadpool. Heck, I'd say even the comparatively kid-friendly X-Men movies were a tad too dark for the Marvel cinematic universe.

Speaking of movie violence, I saw Resident Evil: The Final Chapter yesterday. To my defense, I never would have gone if it wasn't for the free tickets I got for it. I've seen four of these movies, thought 2 were sort of okay while the other were just dreadful. Imagine my suprise when I actually found myself enjoying it somewhat. Sure, it was hella stOOpid, but enthusiastically so. The director clearly wanted to make this thing. I also gotta hand it to him: this is a film that's edited all the way to hell. There's like 10 cuts per second during your average fight scene, and said fight scenes make up around a 100 of its 107 minutes running time. Yet despite all that, they actually remained somewhat visually cohesive. That is more than I can say for the awful action sequences in most Christopher Nolan films. Batman Begins in particular had terrible action scenes.
My expectations were insanely low, though.

 

[Rys]

Saw Logan last night too. Totally passed me by that it was going to be much more adult than normal. Swearing, ultra violent, gore (really a lot of gore), brutal, angry, tense, sad, and with healthy helpings of relevant and referential politics. If you're expecting a happy colourful explodey superhero movie, Logan is not even close to being that. The funny parts are all awkward to laugh at because something terrible happened in the middle of each one. Wow, loved the heck out of it. What a surprise, how did I miss it was going to be adult?

Talking about the plot too much will spoiler it, so I'll stay away from that other than to say just go watch it if you're in any way invested in the X-Men stuff.

As an aside, I saw it as an IMAX 2D digital projection and man, I wish I hadn't. Don't know whether it's the digital projection system or content's fault, but it looked obviously low res and pixelated in places. When I buy an IMAX ticket I don't want to notice any of that. Working in graphics has its downsides when watching stuff, but that aspect is super annoying. Great sound though!

 

[Malo]

The first shorts I saw of Logan came across as a gritty adult take on the series, I knew immediately then I wanted to see it as it wasn't going to be standard Marvel shit. Going Saturday night.