Movies You've Seen Recently Thread

[Blarghagh]

Dr Strange was enjoyable. Solid entertainment but don't expect a smart film - it's Marvel's tried and true origin story formula just done very competently and with some interesting special effects. The villain was rather forgettable but serviceable, just random servant A of overarching evil force. I'd rate it somewhere lower than Guardians of the Galaxy, but higher than Ant-Man. It was surprisingly self-contained too, with only a few mentions of larger MCU happenings. Well...

 

Other than the revelation at the end that one of the magical artifacts was an Infinity Stone all along, but that's almost a throwaway line. But it does mean 5 out of 6 are now accounted for.

 

 

Supposedly the mid credits scene teases the next villain.

 

Post-credits very clearly shows it. Mid-credits is a larger MCU thing featuring an Avenger and the best pint I've ever seen.

Edited October 29, 2016 by TrueNeutral

[Hurlshort]

Mr. Right - Surprising quirky little movie, had that whole Grosse Point Blanke feel to it.  Sam Rockman was fantastic, and the development of Steve probably made the movie for me.  I guess it's a romcom, but more com than rom.

[Oerwinde]

RIPD. Fun movie, definitely reminiscent of Men in Black, but I liked Jeff Bridges' Roy better than Tommy Lee Jones' K. Very predictable but some fun action and Kevin Bacon does some great scenery chewing.

[Rosbjerg]

As for the forgetable villain in Dr Strange. Mikkelsen did a rather indepth interview here (in Danish) on how a good portion of his scenes didn't make it to the final cut. Especially the scenes where his character had time to develop. He added though that he thought it was a fair comprimise as the movie didn't really need a strong villain.

[Blarghagh]

That seems like a pattern. Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy said most of his scenes were cut, and Christopher Eccleston said the same thing aboud Malekith the Accursed in Thor: The Dark World.

[Rosbjerg]

Must suck with makeup heavy roles, seems like a waste to go through then..

[melkathi]

Started watching skylanders season 1 on Netflix

[sorophx]

As near as I can tell (not being Russian and having to rely on translators) that link is to Mosfilms' official youtube site.  So it appears the production company/copyright owner posted it.

indeed, but one thing to note: the video is unlisted, so it could be used internally for something, and the link simply got leaked?

[Amentep]

Lets see...

 

THE NIGHT STALKER (1972) - First TV film to feature Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, newspaper writer.  In this one he's attempting to rehabilitate his career after being drummed out of the major newspaper cities in Las Vegas when he's assigned to cover a series of murders.  The more facts he gets, the more convinced he is that a vampire is killing people - but no one will believe him.  He's proven right but kicked out of town by the government who refuses to admit what happened.  This is a fun 70s horror tv movie, with all the hallmarks of the classic Dan Curtis productions.  Skorzeny's rampage escape through a hospital after he's caught stealing blood is an exciting highlight.

 

THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973) - Kolchak returns, this time in Seattle, trying to get a new job as a super strong murderer starts killing women.  Kolchak manages to get a job (thanks to horror vet John Carridine in a small role) and once assigned to the case begins finding connections to other murders that happen every 21 years.  Seatle is a big star (and its underground).  Jo Ann Pflug is a good foil to McGavin's always working the angles Kolchak (better, IMO, than Carol Lynley in the first film).  Richard Anderson, as the killer, gets more acting time than Barry Atwater did as Skorzeny.

 

VOODOO MAN (1944) - Bela Lugosi is a doctor experimenting with black magic to bring his wife back from a "living dead" state.  To do so he tries to transfer the life force of kidnapped young women to his wife, but each failure leaves both the wife and young women in zombified states. Wanda McKay and Tod Andrew's characters investigate when McKay's characters cousin goes missing.  Typical programmer from Monogram it moves fast and the cast (McKay, Andrews, Lugosi, John Carridine and George Zucco) enliven the proceedings.

 

THE LOST CONTINENT (1968) - Hammer went on a spree adapting Dennis Wheatley novels.  This one, adapted from a 1934 novel, involves a ship that runs afoul of an area of monsters and entrapped ships ruled over by the descendants of the survivors of a ship from the Spanish Inquisition.  It starts a bit like a disaster film, spending a lot of the time with the characters and their mini dramas, then everything goes to pot in a bit hurricane which acts like the climax of a disaster film.  When the survivors end up stranded in their mysterious, monster filled Sargasso Sea-like area the film jumps into hyperdrive, making it feel like the move realized it had 20 minute to adapt the last half of a book.  Its not bad, but the ending is abrupt and a lot of questions are left unanswered by the end,

Edited November 1, 2016 by Amentep

[Malcador]

Second Nature with Alec Baldwin. Kind of like a crappy Bourne movie. But it was free on Youtube

[ShadySands]

George Romero says Brad Pitt and The Walking Dead killed zombies

 

...according to Romero, big-budget fare like The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt’s World War Z ruined zombies for everyone else. “I think really Brad Pitt killed it,” Romero said when asked about the future of his Dead franchise in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. And no, he doesn’t mean Pitt slayed. He means he jammed a hacksaw right through the zombie genre. “The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt just sort of killed it all,” he added.

 

Romero doubled down, spewing some relentless World War Z hate: “along comes Brad Pitt and he spends $400 million or whatever the hell to do World War Z. [World War Z author] Max Brooks is a friend of mine, and I thought the film was not at all representative what the book was and the zombies were, I don’t know, ants crawling over the wall in Israel. Army ants. You might as well make The Naked Jungle.” There you have it: a rather succinct review of World War Z, a.k.a. Army Ants.

[Amentep]

In other news, Romero tell kids to "get off my lawn".

 

I kid, I kid; Romero's entitled to his opinion, and its got to be a bitter pill to swallow to see the obvious descendants of your work transcend same.  But if all the really lousy zombie pictures (and good ones) that plagued the drive-in and multiplex in the wake of NotLD didn't kill zombies, its highly doubtful any new iteration will.   The sub-genre might take a sabbatical, but it won't be dead-dead.

[Pidesco]

I´d say the genre is kind of dead right now of overexposure? World War Z and Walking Dead would be the pinnacle of said overexposure.

[Blarghagh]

Overexposure? So the genre is dead because there's too much of it?

 

The Walking Dead is still running and still extremely popular and zombie games and movies still come out all the time. I saw Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse last week. Isn't another Resident Evil movie coming out this week or so? I recently played a great game that was Lemmings with Zombies called Zombie Night Terror. When's Dead Island 2 slated for, I think it's pretty soon?

 

Not sure if that means the genre is dead. Most of it is terrible (Sturgeon's law and all that), but the genre is still going strong and still pretty mainstream. Not flying as high as during that pinnacle, but calling it dead is a stretch, no?

[Amentep]

There are 4 current zombie TV shows I can think of off the top of my head (and excluding Ash vs The Evil Dead since Deadites are really their own thing) -

 

Walking Dead

Fear the Walking Dead

iZombie

ZNation

 

There were, I think, 14 zombie movies released last year; this year TRAIN TO BUSAN has almost made $100 million worldwide.  Besides the last RE installment, there's still plans to do World War Z 2.

 

Doesn't seem dead to me...

[ShadySands]

Well, one thing is for sure, he just really hates World War Z

 

I'd love to see a more traditional zombie movie with Haitian slaves or even voodoo

Edited November 2, 2016 by ShadySands

[Gfted1]

Well, one thing is for sure, he just really hates World War Z

 

I'd love to see a more traditional zombie movie with either Haitian slaves or even voodoo

If you haven't already seen it, The Serpent and the Rainbow fits that criteria.

[Labadal]

Kill Bill. People were watching it in the house, so I watched it while also playing Morrowind.

[algroth]

Star Trek Beyond is the last I watched. I was on two minds about the film: I enjoyed some of the banter between the characters, some of the set-pieces are alright, Idris Elba is charismatic as ever even behind a wall of cosmetics... But frankly I had a very hard time following the action, I feel no time was given at all to set each scene and location. It felt like the film was rushing through action set-pieces at the expense of pace and the actual sensation of space exploration and adventure. What few interesting shots and compositions there were got lost when the editors decided to let a meatgrinder do their jobs.

 

This aside, I recently acquired some blu-rays, which I'll surely be getting to watch soon: A Brighter Summer Day, Paris Belongs to Us, The American Friend, Don't Look Now, Emigrants and The New Land. Of these I have only seen A Brighter Summer Day in a very low-quality online copy so I'm looking forward to rewatching it in a cleaner, more proper remaster instead.

Edited November 3, 2016 by algroth

[Bartimaeus]

Brazil (1985). First time watching it, had been planning on it for years and years, and finally did it. I liked it, though it had its flaws, and I think 12 Monkeys, also from Terry Gilliam, was better. First half of the movie was pretty great, but the second half fell a little flat because of how poorly the movie integrated Jill into having screen time (barely spoke, kind of nonsensical actions and dialogue for what was there). If anything, it's the opposite of 12 Monkeys - a somewhat slow and perhaps confusing beginning that slowly ramped up into a more and more incredible and concise, I felt, experience as the movie went on. Brazil instead started off both direct and focused as well crazy...but ended with mostly just the crazy. Still good, though.

[algroth]

Brazil's an all-time top 5 for me. I personally enjoyed the descent to madness the film goes through during its second half, I'm a sucker in general for Kafkian nightmares and this paired alongside Gilliam's usual mastery for visuals as well as his very sardonic sense of humour just makes it a film I love returning to time and time again, and one of those watershed viewings when I was a teen. Glad you enjoyed it, if with some reservations.

[Amentep]

Curious as to which version you watched, Bartimaeus?  There's a 142 minute, a 132 minute, and a 94 minute cut of the film.  Notoriously meddled with back in the day by Embassy International and Universal (I think the 132 min version is the only one out on Blu).

[algroth]

I think Criterion's most recent Blu-Ray release of Brazil has both 142 and 132 minute cuts actually. At the very least the former 142-minute Director's Cut is in it.

 

https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil

[Bartimaeus]

Yep, I have the Criterion Collection BluRay algroth just linked, so I watched the 142 minute cut. I read about the controversy in advance, so I made sure to get the "best" version available.

 

I loved the madness and Monty Python-esque nature of the movie...I just think that how the director used Jill (or rather, didn't use Jill) really bogged down the film for a while. Like, in 12 Monkeys, Kathryn starts out off as just a minor character, very besides the point...but as the film goes on, she becomes more and more central to the film, and an increasingly strong and essential part of each scene. Here, in Brazil, it's the opposite: she starts off strongly, clearly important to the film and Sam by way of her constant reappearances in his dreams and in the real world as she just keeps barely getting away from Sam in ridiculous sets of circumstances...and then finally, after Sam actually gets to her, she just kinda mostly disappears character-wise beyond the very initial scene of her kicking him to the curb, which kinda had the effect of making scenes involving her fall a bit flat for me. The film doesn't really pick up again for me again until their capture, which is basically just the ending scene (admittedly it's a very long one) anyways. But yeah, besides that, I thought the film was pretty great.

[Amentep]

Ah, somehow the Criterion Blu ray passed me by....