Movies You've Seen Recently Thread

[Amentep]

Quatermass and the Pit is a favorite (both the TV version and the movie version).  Quatermass Conclusion is...depressing.

 

Jonah Hex both wasn't a great film AND it was a terrible version of Jonah Hex.

[Hurlshort]

The Gambler with Mark Wahlberg - I thought it would be a good pre-Vegas movie, but it was lame and made me want to stay away form the tables completely.  The main character just has money fall into his lap, repeatedly squanders it, puts people around him in terrible positions, and then walks away scott-free.  Possible one of the least rewarding payoffs in recent movie history for me.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Jonah Hex both wasn't a great film AND it was a terrible version of Jonah Hex.

 

Now that I think about it. Joe R. Lansdale and Timothy Truman's version of Jonah Hex was excellent and the movie version of him was terrible.

[Lexx]

Just seen End of Watch. Very intense movie, I liked it a lot.

[ManifestedISO]

Please be good, please be good, please be good.

 

 

 

[Blarghagh]

Look at all that color.

[Lexx]

They really like their orange / blue contrast. :>

[Blarghagh]

Which is better than Zack Snyder's unneccesary Dark City approach.

[Raithe]

For the utterly random movie related snerkage. From a bit about actors who have hated their own movies..

 

 

Shortly after the success of Conan the Barbarian, two productions in the same heroic fantasy genre were released: Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja. Both are still holding records in mediocrity – Red Sonja perhaps leading the way.Truth be told, the movie is so bad that Schwarzenegger said it could be used to punish his kids. He said in an interview: “when my kids get out of line, they’re sent to their room and forced to watch Red Sonja ten times. I never have too much trouble with them.”

[Raithe]

I juggled between putting this piece here or in the Military thread...
 
WashingtonPost - This might be our community's Rocky Horror Picture Show, How a zombie movie made by veterans became a hit with troops
 
 

It will not be on the marquee at your local multiplex, but ‘Range 15,’ a zombie apocalypse comedy made by veterans with no previous Hollywood experience, is this summer’s underground hit with military audiences.

 

Since its mid-June debut in the U.S., the comedy has brought in close to $700,000 at the box office in fan-sponsored screenings across the country. One of those screenings was late last month at Ashburn’s Alamo Drafthouse, selling out a 135-seat theater in a day. It was at that Virginia theater that Nick Palmisciano, a West Point grad and one of the movie’s stars and producers, began to wonder if the movie had hit a nerve.

 

Predictably, most of the audience had military ties but, to Palmisciano’s surprise, about a third of the crowd had already seen earlier screenings. As the jokes and gore ratcheted up, he sat stunned as fans began to shout out dialogue.

"I’m getting the vibe this might be our community’s ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’" he said.

The audience included groups from across the military spectrum, from Pentagon staffers to local SWAT teams to active-duty soldiers fresh off Afghanistan deployments with Arlington National Cemetery’s "Old Guard" 3rd Infantry Regiment, plus a mix of veterans now working as civilians. The event, Palmisciano said, felt "as much about getting together with everybody and celebrating our shared background as it is the movie itself."

 

The movie will be released on DVD and online in August, but some deployed troops will get a chance to see it before then. Three of the creators — Palmisciano, former Army Ranger Mat Best and Air Force veteran Jarred Taylor – are in Iraq to put on screenings in the region this month.

 

"Range 15″ features several established Hollywood actors, including William Shatner, Sean Astin, Keith David and Danny "Machete" Trejo. But, uniquely, it also showcases well-known service members, such as Medal of Honor recipients Leroy Petry and Clint Romesha, former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell and Special Forces soldier-turned-MMA fighter Tim Kennedy.

Connecting with veterans and military members, Palmisciano said, was always the goal of the film, which was the brainchild of Palmisciano and four veteran business partners, Best, Taylor, Army veteran Vincent "Rocco" Vargas and former Marine Jack Mandaville. If those are unfamiliar names, you almost certainly have not served in the military during the Afghan/Iraq era. The men in the group have gained a wide following in military and young veteran circles through their T-shirt businesses and online videos.

 

"I always say, you could be Justin Bieber with a million screaming little girl fans," said Best. "Or you could be us with maybe a few hundred thousand awesome supporters who are the baddest people on earth."

 

The group connected after launching similar small businesses. Palmisciano attended business school at Duke University, then quit a corporate job in 2006 to form Ranger Up, a military-themed T-shirt and apparel retailer in Durham, N.C. Best, who left 2nd Ranger Battalion in 2008, worked for several years as a security contractor before founding Art 15 Clothing with Taylor and Vargas in El Paso, patterned in large part after Ranger Up.

"Ranger Up are the godfathers of the military-apparel clothing space," Best said.

Both companies sell T-shirts, apparel and collectibles that carry strong military and law enforcement themes and slogan, ranging from wry humor ("Medium Speed, Some Drag") to bold lifestyle slogans ("Unapologetically American").

 

By early 2015, both companies had built large followings through online videos, which tended to feature some mix of R-rated humor, authentic military themes and gear, and lots of fake blood. Among their biggest hits were a Palmisciano video, mimicking a well-known meme, of things "veterans don’t say" ("Where’s the light beer?"), while Best produced several insult-filled battle-raps comparing SEALs, Rangers, MARSOC and other elite units. Many of the jokes from those videos now echo in military circles as widely as lines from "Top Gun" and "Full Metal Jacket" did in previous generations.

 

But unlike those films, which created a Hollywood version of military life for civilian audiences, Palmisciano and Best say they always intended to connect directly with active-duty fans.
"This movie was a way of showing the community, really, anything is possible," Palmisciano said. "If we can do this, anybody coming out of the military can do anything."
While there has never been a shortage of mass-produced military-themed movies and books, few are developed wholly by veterans. But "Range 15″ falls into an emerging trend of young veterans pushing into arts and media. Former Marine Phil Klay won the National Book Award in 2014 for "Redeployment," a collection of short stories, while another former Marine, Maximilian Uriarte, recently published a graphic novel, "The White Donkey," based on his experience in and after Iraq. Online, a string of websites like Task & Purpose, War on the Rocks and SOFREP have emerged in recent years, recruiting veteran writers to reflect authentic military experiences.

Keith Jeffreys, whose nonprofit, United States Veterans’ Artists Alliance, runs workshops and provides studio space to veteran artists in Los Angeles, thinks "Range 15″ represents a breakthrough for authentic veteran voices in film and the greater arts world.

 

"Actors, directors, poets, novelists, cartoonists — everyone will express their experience in a different way," said Jeffreys. "There are a lot of organizations that are not veteran-centric, that take projects that involved veterans and turn them into products, whether a gallery exhibit or a film. ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ or ‘Hurt Locker’ are examples. Those weren’t a veteran’s story.

"What’s interesting about ‘Range 15′ is the model they chose. Self-produced, self-written, released independent of studios, taking a real entrepreneurial approach."
The film won the GI Choice Award at the GI Film Festival in Washington in May against a number of films produced by civilians. Despite the topics, said Best, most films at the festival lacked an authentic military voice.

 

"Civilians or others with very little military experience were bringing products that were either glorifying the military or super negative," he said. With "Range 15," Best hopes veterans will be encouraged to pursue artistic instincts that the military might have little use for.
"In the military, it’s cool to see there are so many creative dudes around you that can sing or draw or write," said Best. "We want to say, ‘If you can use those skills and those you were just taught, you can be very successful in a business sense.’"

 

During filming, said Palmisciano, the crew’s military instincts helped make up for their total lack of Hollywood experience.
"Even right now I could probably stand on this table and recite the entire movie," said Palmisciano. "Every character, every single line. All of us among the five principal actors, we know the movie."

 

The movie filmed in just over two weeks, a blistering pace for a full-length film.
"Our director told us, the script that you guys want, with all these special effects and fights, it cannot be shot on our budget," recalled Palmisciano. "You can either outperform every Hollywood actor I’ve ever seen, or we can cut."

 

At one point, the group even enlisted fans to solve a vehicle issue that would have left most civilians helpless.
"Our Humvee went down two hours into the first day of shooting," Palmisciano said. "We needed a slave cable [a military-grade jumper cable]. We put it out on our social media, and some Marines from a local base grabbed a toolkit on their own volition during a workday."
"We lost about 2½ hours instead of a whole day because some Marines were like, ‘You know what, we’re coming,’" he said. He would not say what base the Marines responded from since they had left post without permission.

 

Fans like those Marines, said Best, were what motivated the movie from its inception. "When you get to meet a young soldier who is, like, 20 and is like, ‘Dude, I watch your stuff all the time,’ I say, ‘Man, you just got back from Afghanistan doing direct-action raids. You’re the badass.’"

Edited July 23, 2016 by Raithe

[ManifestedISO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gglkYMGRYlE

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lGoQhFb4NM

[Lexx]

I think both trailers are good looking. Ofc people in the comments are hating on it again, just as always.

[Volourn]

I am a sexist because I hate the new GB (or so I'm told) but I am looking forward to the obvious womanhating WW. :0

 

btw, Look at those utube thumbs up  versus thumbs down for that WW trailer. Man, those woman haters  are REALLY sleeping on the job. LMAO

Edited July 23, 2016 by Volourn

[Gfted1]

Wow! Dug them both but WW was better than I was expecting.

[Oerwinde]

OK, I haven't been excited about a DC movie since Dark Knight, but WW looks fantastic. JL I'm a little more reserved on. Zack Snyder has shown so far that he just doesn't get the DC characters. I like that they gave Aquaman the dye job, so he has semi-blonde hair, kinda wish they had done the same with Barry. I don't hate Ezra Miller as much as I thought I would so thats good though. I don't know what I think of Cyborg. He just looks odd. The Flash costume looks ass too.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Oerwinde

[Raithe]

It looks like they're actually embracing the Marvel idea that comic book movies should have an element of fun and not be totally broody angst breakdowns of superhero mythos.

Plus of course, colour other than monochrome shades.

[Oerwinde]

 

I am excite.

[Raithe]

Well, that's a very.. Guy Ritchie take on the legend..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0CsoPAlGlg

[Hurlshort]

That King Arthur clip was super confusing.  But it did look entertaining.  It looks really light on any historical connection to Britain.  I named my cat after the lady Guinevere, so I might be a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the legend.  

 

Edit:  Although to be fair, the King Arthur with Clive Owen tried to be somewhat realistic with setting and history, and it turned out pretty bland.  So maybe this direction will work out.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Hurlshot

[Raithe]

Remember, half of the "legend" of King Arthur was a French invention during the late middle ages and after.

Part of why so many of the attempts to get back at the roots of the myth end up stripping the Lancelot out and doing the "end of the Roman Empire" and Arthur being some remnant Roman centurion or the like stuck in Briton and dealing with Saxon invaders during the 400ad era.

[Oerwinde]

I just wish that Excalibur remake Warren Ellis wrote saw the light of day. Excalibur is still my favourite Arthur movie, followed by Merlin.

[ManifestedISO]

Ungodly heat and humidity this weekend, couldn't detract from the coolest DC Comics Comic-Con in recent memory. Such a good buzz, Sunday we binge-watched BvS Ultimate Edition, Man of Steel, and Superman, 1978, Expanded Edition, 4K upscale. Seems clear now, the main problem with modern Metropolis movies is the lack of phone booths.

[Gfted1]

Ghostbusters

 

Yikes, that was a stinker. I even wanted to like it but about 3/4 of the way through I looked over at my wife and said "this is ass", to which she nodded agreement.

[Amentep]

STAR TREK BEYOND - I liked it quite a bit, at least as much as the first reboot Trek.

 

Gfted - what didn't you like about Ghostbusters?

[Lexx]

Ghostbusters

 

Yikes, that was a stinker. I even wanted to like it but about 3/4 of the way through I looked over at my wife and said "this is ass", to which she nodded agreement.

 

It's probably because you are sexist.