[Movies] Talk about the last movie you saw 2: Electric Threadaloo

[Shawn]

Death of a Unicorn
A semi enjoyable 148 minutes with some fun R-rated gore and even some much needed practical monster effects. I was not expecting much going in, and admittedly I didn't get blown away by the quality of the film. I think the biggest drawback of the film is that the majority of the characters are not likable nor even that realistic. So when the horror comes there doesn't feel much at stake because no one seems to be taking things seriously.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Heretic (2024)

This A24 psychological thriller really captures the horror of being stuck in a room and forced to discuss religion with a stranger.

This is effectively a one room play, and while it's tempting to point out that Hugh Grant entirely steals the show with how charmingly menacing he is, the young ladies also give brilliant performances in varying levels of fear and discomfort. My only complaint is in the ending. Halfway through I guessed an ending, and while my guess turned out to be wrong, I think it would have been cooler. But the ending it does have I think is clever and fits the themes of the film, even though I feel like it'll leave some people upset.

Enjoyed the movie, would watch again.

 

[PatrThom]

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
That disturbance you felt? It was me, finally closing the gap between II (which I saw in 2015) and IV (which I saw in 1977).
A co-worker of mine was incredulous that I'd never seen this movie (please forgive him, he's relatively new and doesn't know about my ... condition), so we did a movie swap. I gave him a movie to watch, and he had me agree to finally watch this movie, which I actually managed to do relatively unspoilt...except for all the memes, of course. Unlike Clones, this movie actually manages to have and stick to a main plot around the fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire. There's a lot less silliness in this one than either of the first two, probably because this is where everything takes a rather Sidius serious turn, and also because there are so many pieces that have to be set up onto the board and properly arranged before we can finally get into IV.
Now I know I said this is better than II, and I stand by that assertion, but "better than Clones" isn't really that high of a bar to clear. This movie has serious pacing issues. From the moment the crawl disappears, everything unfolds in order, sure, but each scene plays out like those point-and-click adventure games from the late 80's/early 90's (Torin's Passage, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc). Scene follows scene in the same order as the storyboards, but many of the scenes play out very ham-handedly. Not woodenly, just...it's as though they were being told to move from pose to pose and hold each one long enough for the audience to fully enjoy it before moving on to the next one.
The plot is decent, and I was able to follow it well enough despite my previous comments. The Sith (the authoritarian group dismissively scheming and wielding their RED lightsabers) work their behind-the-scenes campaign to sow distrust against the Jedi (the democratic group espousing restraint & cooperation and wielding BLUE lightsabers--except for Mace, of course), culminating in a coup that destroys and/or renders all the Jedi irrelevant while Padmé opines, "So this is how Liberty dies--with thunderous applause." It almost feels like there's some kind of message to be had in there, I dunno. Ian McDiarmid does a fantastic job with his speech here, btw. The only way it could be more on the nose would be if he had delivered it in black & white. In fact, somewhere between half- and two-thirds of the way through (somewhere around the time Anakin makes his big decision), this film actually starts getting surprisingly good. The cinematography dials in, the acting starts to flow much more meaningfully, the actors begin to actually ACT, and of course John-EFFING-Williams comes through with a leitmotif or three to presage what's coming.

It was a good enough movie, I suppose, but I think the movie I am going to remember going forward will be a better movie than the one I watched, by which I mean that my memory of the movie is more going to be of what I thought they were going for rather than what I actually saw on the screen.

--Patrick

 

[drawn_inward]

Heretic (2024)

This A24 psychological thriller really captures the horror of being stuck in a room and forced to discuss religion with a stranger.

This is effectively a one room play, and while it's tempting to point out that Hugh Grant entirely steals the show with how charmingly menacing he is, the young ladies also give brilliant performances in varying levels of fear and discomfort. My only complaint is in the ending. Halfway through I guessed an ending, and while my guess turned out to be wrong, I think it would have been cooler. But the ending it does have I think is clever and fits the themes of the film, even though I feel like it'll leave some people upset.

Enjoyed the movie, would watch again.

I really liked it too. I turned to my wife part way through it and said he is making very good points. She told me not to pick sides with the villain.

 

[GasBandit]

I really liked it too. I turned to my wife part way through it and said he is making very good points. She told me not to pick sides with the villain.

Hey, villains often are right. Magneto was right. Poison Ivy was right. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

(Haven't seen the movie, ymmv)

 

[Shawn]

Hey, villains often are right. Magneto was right. Poison Ivy was right. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

(Haven't seen the movie, ymmv)

He’s very anti-religious and makes some heavy points about how religions are just copies of each other. To be fair the heroines get some good pro-religion points in and even counter a few of his arguments.

 

[bhamv3]

My wife and I were invited to the premiere of a new Taiwanese movie called Lovesick. We got to meet the female lead as well as one of the supporting male actors.

Spoiler

In recent years, Taiwan has produced quite a few movies about schoolyard romances. The trend probably started in 2011, with the movie You Are the Apple of My Eye, which was a big hit in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. This resulted in follow-up movies trying to replicate the formula, to varying degrees of success. These movies often had the same character archetypes and storytelling tropes, such as the female lead being a model student, the male lead being a bad boy and a poor student, the two of them starting out not liking each other but gradually falling in love, the female lead helping the male lead with his schoolwork, an extra love interest or two who would need to be removed as a storytelling obstacle before the male and female leads get together, the bittersweet ending, etc.

I'm pretty sure these movies have shown up a lot because they generally can be made with rather limited budgets. They usually don't require a lot of special effects. Also, since the characters are meant to be high school students, the filmmakers can cast young actors fresh out of drama school, oftentimes in their first or second ever movie roles, and this means the filmmakers don't need to pay big bucks to established movie stars.

Of course, some of these follow-up movies tried to mix things up a bit, such as Our Times going with "What if the male lead got sick?" and Campus Confidential going with "What if there was a supernatural element to the romance, and also the male lead is a stalker?"

Lovesick's attempt to change the formula is, basically, "What if the male lead is pretending to be sick, but the female lead is actually sick?" This isn't really a spoiler, the whole storyline is basically revealed in the first scene.

Anyway, with that background out of the way, how was the movie? On the whole, pretty good. Not exactly amazing, it's almost certainly not going to win any awards, but it's a well-made and effective movie overall. The funny scenes are pleasantly amusing. The touching scenes twang your heartstrings mercilessly. Like its predecessors, Lovesick captures that feeling of young romance, all the good and bad parts of it. The cast all do well, delivering competent performances that effectively capture the essences and nuances of each character. And the storyline, though largely predictable, still manages to throw up a few surprises and play with the viewer's emotions.

I don't know if any of you will ever get to see this film, but on the whole I would recommend it.

Also the female lead is really hot, but naturally my wife is totally hotter than her in that picture up there.

 

[chris]

Lovesick's attempt to change the formula is, basically, "What if the male lead is pretending to be sick, but the female lead is actually sick?" This isn't really a spoiler, the whole storyline is basically revealed in the first scene.

Sounds also a bit like the plot of a typical german romantic movie. Back in the 2000s the male lead would be Till Schweiger and nowadays Elyas M'barek.

Romantic movies are fascinating and confusing. Maybe because I can't really understand romance.

 

[bhamv3]

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Finally got around to watching this. Overall I rather liked it. If taken purely as a fantasy adventure movie, it's perhaps a little lackluster, due to issues like meandering storylines, odd characterizations, weird deus ex machina events, etc. But when the movie is seen through the lens of a D&D game, then everything falls into place and it's a delight to watch. I consider myself only a casual fan of tabletop gaming at best (never really played a tabletop RPG in my life), but I know enough about how it works to see "behind the curtain" if you will, and determine how the events in the movie are translating into the tabletop campaign. I could tell which characters are player characters and which ones are NPCs (the paladin, for instance, is the most NPC character evar), I could see where things were going off the rails so the GM had to either throw the players a bone (the walking stick is now a teleportation staff) or get them back on the rails (the shifting arena took them exactly where they needed to go). The GM was also clearly rewarding the players for smart and creative gameplay, such as the whole party emerging from the gelatinous cube with no injuries, and the hot air balloon trick conveniently emptying the entire arena just in time.

Heck, you could practically tell where one session ends and the next one begins, for example the first session or first few sessions were just with Ed and Holga's players, and then Simon and Doric's players joined in the next session.

The movie's storyline went off the rails in a few places but overall it was good. The visuals were also fine, no complaints there. The jokes all landed for me. The characters were generally all memorable and well-acted, with the possible exception of Simon, though that might be because I've always considered Justice Smith to be a bit of an empty costume, like he just doesn't deliver convincing or memorable performances for me. Maybe I just haven't watched him in the right roles, I dunno.

Anyway, this was a fun movie to watch, and I hope they make more.

Also Holga and Doric are really hot.

 

[@Li3n]

the paladin, for instance, is the most NPC character evar),

Nah, he was clearly a case of DMPC introduced to get things back on track, but the DM couldn't help themselves to show off how well made the character was.

 

[GasBandit]

Nah, he was clearly a case of DMPC introduced to get things back on track, but the DM couldn't help themselves to show off how well made the character was.

I have to agree, especially given than when the DM decided he was done railroading them, the Paladin fucked off in literally the straightest line possible, even if it meant walking over large boulders instead of around them.

 

[@Li3n]

even if it meant walking over large boulders instead of around them.

Just in case anyone didn't get it yet...

 

[ThatNickGuy]

I have to agree, especially given than when the DM decided he was done railroading them, the Paladin fucked off in literally the straightest line possible, even if it meant walking over large boulders instead of around them.

Fun fact: that bit with the rock was ad-libbed by the actor and they kept it in.

 

[bhamv3]

What's the difference between an NPC and a DMPC? It felt like the paladin was just there to bring them to where they needed to go, deliver exposition (the explanation for the bridge puzzle was 100% the GM talking), fight a few enemies that were giving the party trouble, and then disappear. That's why he felt like an NPC to me.

 

[Tinwhistler]

What's the difference between an NPC and a DMPC? It felt like the paladin was just there to bring them to where they needed to go, deliver exposition (the explanation for the bridge puzzle was 100% the GM talking), fight a few enemies that were giving the party trouble, and then disappear. That's why he felt like an NPC to me.

NPC are people the players meet and interact with and then the party moves on. A DMPC is an NPC integrated into the party acting as one of the players, but run by the DM.

I'm running a campaign where all the players chose non-healing classes at the outset, even though I strongly hinted that having a cleric of some kind really made a huge difference in how easily fights were survivable.

After a couple of months and several near party wipes, I introduced a cleric as a DMPC. I hate running DMPCs though, so eventually we found someone to take over the character.

 

[GasBandit]

I think the main difference is a DMPC might actually have a character sheet, and is actually "played" with rolls and such... whereas NPC actions will be just scripted without rolls or stat checks.

 

[@Li3n]

DnD NPC's are also usually stated like monsters in 5e: https://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/monsters-foes/npc/

Or in 3.5, have their own simplified classes: https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/npcClasses.html

 

[figmentPez]

Excited to own this one on Blu-ray. I've only ever seen it in VHS quality, or worse.

 

[PatrThom]

A Minecraft Movie (2025)
Just got back from seeing this at a matinée with the fam. This movie wastes no time, throwing you into Steve's story immediately and lays out what would've otherwise been an entire prequel within the first 10min or so, even throwing in a bit of a Close Encounters reference. As seen in the trailers™, Steve enters into the Overworld, develops his skillz, and then gets trapped there after getting "tricked" into opening a portal to the Nether. The fabulous foursome gets pulled in some years later (but not until after we get some short vignettes that set up each of their characters). There is a side plot involving Jennifer Coolidge's character, but that's not important right now.
Garrett and Henry and Natalie and Dawn get caught up in Steve's postponed struggle to keep the Orb of Dominance (seen here transmuted from its usual pink lemonade Starburst color into the movie's more cinema-friendly glowing cyan hue) out of the hands of the film's antagonist (voiced by Rachel House doing her best to channel Suzanne Pleshette's Zira) through a series of rational-thought-defying This-Movie-Is-Definitely-Not-Jumanji-We-Swear-esque adventures, stunts, and cameos. The boys and girls get separated for a while, but the isolation helps them to each work out some of their issues, with Natalie discovering some talents she didn't know she had, and Steve and Garrett getting out of a tight spot by putting their heads between each others legs and squeezing until they both smell like gorgonzola cheese...and I swear I am not making that up.
Throughout the movie, we meet skeletons, creepers, skeleton jockeys, chicken jockeys, villagers, illagers, piglins, iron golems, zombified piglins, pandas, sheep, chickens, llamas, wolves, and ghasts (sorta). We get to see a little redstone action, and we even get another movie-exclusive mob or two thanks to the Rule of Cool. The actors do the right thing and never take themselves seriously, by which I mean that they play every moment (yes, even the Scooby-Doo-ish Sax-A-Boom bit) completely straight and in-character regardless of how ridiculous their character might be acting. This is to be expected of Jack Black and Jason Momoa, but it goes double for Jennifer Coolidge. The animation and pixilation are absolutely top-notch, which you would expect when you sign Wētā Workshop to do your film.
This movie is incredibly silly and at times formulaic and an incessant by-the-numbers stream of tropes...and yet none of that detracts at all from just how FUN it is. I'm not kidding. For me, watching this movie was a bit like watching the Katamari Damacy intro--it's a level of silly that transcends silliness and lets you know that the best way to enjoy what you're about to experience is to just let it all wash over you and not to try and think about it too hard. If you can do that, let yourself go and just soak up the movie, you won't care about plot holes, you won't care about whether it deviates from canon or actual game mechanics, you'll just leave the movie (and credits) with a big, stupid smile on your face.
Also Dennis should've gotten a credit under "Best Boy."

--Patrick

 

[Ravenpoe]

A Minecraft Movie (2025)
Just got back from seeing this at a matinée with the fam. This movie wastes no time, throwing you into Steve's story immediately and lays out what would've otherwise been an entire prequel within the first 10min or so, even throwing in a bit of a Close Encounters reference. As seen in the trailers™, Steve enters into the Overworld, develops his skillz, and then gets trapped there after getting "tricked" into opening a portal to the Nether. The fabulous foursome gets pulled in some years later (but not until after we get some short vignettes that set up each of their characters). There is a side plot involving Jennifer Coolidge's character, but that's not important right now.
Garrett and Henry and Natalie and Dawn get caught up in Steve's postponed struggle to keep the Orb of Dominance (seen here transmuted from its usual pink lemonade Starburst color into the movie's more cinema-friendly glowing cyan hue) out of the hands of the film's antagonist (voiced by Rachel House doing her best to channel Suzanne Pleshette's Zira) through a series of rational-thought-defying This-Movie-Is-Definitely-Not-Jumanji-We-Swear-esque adventures, stunts, and cameos. The boys and girls get separated for a while, but the isolation helps them to each work out some of their issues, with Natalie discovering some talents she didn't know she had, and Steve and Garrett getting out of a tight spot by putting their heads between each others legs and squeezing until they both smell like gorgonzola cheese...and I swear I am not making that up.
Throughout the movie, we meet skeletons, creepers, skeleton jockeys, chicken jockeys, villagers, illagers, piglins, iron golems, zombified piglins, pandas, sheep, chickens, llamas, wolves, and ghasts (sorta). We get to see a little redstone action, and we even get another movie-exclusive mob or two thanks to the Rule of Cool. The actors do the right thing and never take themselves seriously, by which I mean that they play every moment (yes, even the Scooby-Doo-ish Sax-A-Boom bit) completely straight and in-character regardless of how ridiculous their character might be acting. This is to be expected of Jack Black and Jason Momoa, but it goes double for Jennifer Coolidge. The animation and pixilation are absolutely top-notch, which you would expect when you sign Wētā Workshop to do your film.
This movie is incredibly silly and at times formulaic and an incessant by-the-numbers stream of tropes...and yet none of that detracts at all from just how FUN it is. I'm not kidding. For me, watching this movie was a bit like watching the Katamari Damacy intro--it's a level of silly that transcends silliness and lets you know that the best way to enjoy what you're about to experience is to just let it all wash over you and not to try and think about it too hard. If you can do that, let yourself go and just soak up the movie, you won't care about plot holes, you won't care about whether it deviates from canon or actual game mechanics, you'll just leave the movie (and credits) with a big, stupid smile on your face.
Also Dennis should've gotten a credit under "Best Boy."

--Patrick

You left out an important part: Jack Black and Jason Momoa flirt with and fondle each other a lot. I know some people who made it through this movie on the back of that alone.

 

[PatrThom]

I in fact did not leave that out.
But I did leave out that the movie carries an actual message, which is that creativity is important, and that suppressing/denying it leads to very bad things. I also left out the post-credit scene, that there are no cats nor phantoms in the movie, and that we never venture to the End. Maybe those are all being saved for the sequel.

--Patrick

 

[Shawn]

Sinners
If you enjoy it when Michael B Jordan and Ryan Coogler conspire to make a film together than you'll definitely like Sinners. It has Coogler's signature direction and double the Jordan since he plays twins in the film.
It isn't spoiling anything that the marketing hasn't already shared, but the film is a supernatural horror. However it is also a slow burn period piece set in the 1930s when two gangster brothers Smoke and Stack (Jordan) return to their small home town to start a business.
The movie focuses a lot on music of the time period and the supernatural connection that it has with evil forces. It is a beautiful film with some clever writing, with that slow burn I mentioned making us very empathetic to the group of characters so that we can really feel something when they are besieged by this film's creatures. While the threat doesn't come out of nowhere like From Dusk Till Dawn, don't expect much of the horror until a bit past the halfway point.
I had a good time with this one. I hope the rest of you do too.
Also, be sure to stay for the mid-credits scene. It is more the ending of the film than what occurs before the credits.

 

[GasBandit]

A Working Man (2025)

Remember when they cast Timothy Olyphant as 47 in the Hitman movie, and I got butthurt about it? Remember how I said "They should have just put Jason Statham in it?"

Well now they did, and it's this movie. Good flick.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Ehhhhhh, it's...fine? The actors all seem like they're having a good time (especially Michael Keaton and William DaFoe). I appreciated the copious amounts of on-location shooting and practical effects.

But it's kind of uneven. As kooky as it was, it didn't really get any laughs out of me. The sub-plot with Beetlejuice's ex-wife could've been completely removed without missing a thing. It felt SHOULD have been an important plot point, but ultimately culminated to nothing. It felt like there were too many spinning plates without any real emotional connection. It desperately needed a stronger emotional connection like the Maitlands in the first movie. Here, it was just sort of all over the place, with several characters vying to be the main character and it just doesn't work.

While this had quite a few callbacks, I didn't think they got in the way of the plot itself.

They tried REALLY hard to replicate the fun of the original "Day-O" dance, but it just fell flat.

Overall, I don't regret watching it, but I'm glad I didn't pay money to see it. And I doubt I'll revisit it any time soon.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Ehhhhhh, it's...fine? The actors all seem like they're having a good time (especially Michael Keaton and William DaFoe). I appreciated the copious amounts of on-location shooting and practical effects.

But it's kind of uneven. As kooky as it was, it didn't really get any laughs out of me. The sub-plot with Beetlejuice's ex-wife could've been completely removed without missing a thing. It felt SHOULD have been an important plot point, but ultimately culminated to nothing. It felt like there were too many spinning plates without any real emotional connection. It desperately needed a stronger emotional connection like the Maitlands in the first movie. Here, it was just sort of all over the place, with several characters vying to be the main character and it just doesn't work.

While this had quite a few callbacks, I didn't think they got in the way of the plot itself.

They tried REALLY hard to replicate the fun of the original "Day-O" dance, but it just fell flat.

Overall, I don't regret watching it, but I'm glad I didn't pay money to see it. And I doubt I'll revisit it any time soon.

I find this movie kinda fascinating because it feels like every plot point could have been cut, and definitely some of them should have been.