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

figmentPez

Staff member
The Half of It

I really enjoyed this one. It's kind of a teenage Cyrano type tale. Ellie Chu is a bookish high school senior who gets hired by a low-level jock to ghost write a love letter to a popular girl. Complications and friendship ensue. It's a cute movie with some really great character moments.
 
Saw Nobody and Wrath of Man last week.

Both were enjoyable. Both are "unexpected anti-hero" type tales, though decidedly very different in execution.
 
The Mitchells vs The Machines

Well...that was a LOT of fun. Lots of hilarious moments that had me laughing harder than I have for a new movie in awhile. And I teared up a few times (but I'm also a big softie). It felt like a return to form for Lord/Miller, feeling like Cloudy With a Chance Meatballs.

I had some criticisms. The action was at times a little too fast for me to follow. There was some breakneck fast editing, which was dizzying at times, especially when it suddenly added post-effects like Katie's videos. Which wasn't always consistent.

Maybe I'm just getting older, but a lot of the flashes made it hard to watch, too. In the robot fortress, especially, the backgrounds were glaring against the character models. There's a scene with Rich and another character near the end on a really bright blue background and it just made the scene difficult to watch.

But of course, where the movie shines is anything involving the family. Even when I saw the first trailer, I remember saying "I kinda wish this DIDN'T include the robots because the family stuff is engrossing enough." That same feeling applies here. It's not that the robot stuff isn't fun, but the wholesome family car trip story was honestly really good on its own. The best moments are the quiet ones and I would've been okay with a stylized family road trip animated movie.

Still, criticisms aside, I still had a lot of fun with it.
We just watched this movie tonight and we agree that it was a ton of fun. Lots of great laughs.

I was really skeptical with the first trailer that pushed the robot stuff to the end and it felt really tacked on. Glad the movie lead off with that, it worked a lot better.

Highly recommend it.
 
Final Girls
A personal favorite of mine. A PG-13 Horror/Comedy about a group of teens that get trapped in their favorite 80s slasher film.
A nice little meta-movie that plays with horror tropes and even tacks on the feels.
 

Dave

Staff member
The Mitchells vs The Machines

Hilarious from start to finish. Well worth the watch.
I wasn't as enamored of it as you were. In fact, it wasn't until the last act I thought it was good at all. Before that part I thought it was rather bland. The mall is where it all picks up but I still hate it when movies have FUCKING AWESOME AMAZING COINCIDENCES happening all the time. We need a really specific tool. What a coincidence! We need to know how to do this computer thing. What a coincidence that the exact person is RIGHT THERE in a cube next to him! Gotta pay them voice actors but come on, man. There are BILLIONS of cubes and they all happen to be right next to each other? *pfft*
 
I wasn't as enamored of it as you were. In fact, it wasn't until the last act I thought it was good at all. Before that part I thought it was rather bland. The mall is where it all picks up but I still hate it when movies have FUCKING AWESOME AMAZING COINCIDENCES happening all the time. We need a really specific tool. What a coincidence! We need to know how to do this computer thing. What a coincidence that the exact person is RIGHT THERE in a cube next to him! Gotta pay them voice actors but come on, man. There are BILLIONS of cubes and they all happen to be right next to each other? *pfft*
The PALphone told it's creator it was putting the Mitchells right next to him because he was "rooting for them".
Either way it's a cartoon. They were breaking the laws of physics left and right too.
 
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Dave

Staff member
The PALphone told it's creator it was putting the Mitchells right next to him because he was "rooting for them".
Either way it's a cartoon. They were breaking the laws of physics left and right too.
The message was heavy handed and the sit-com tropes were out in full force. Person X says a mean thing and is overheard by the target but really didn't mean it any more! Yes, I know it's a cartoon and yes I know the primary audience was children, but it still came across poorly to me.
 
Army of the Dead was a nice take on several tropes. I thoroughly recommend it.
*edit*
And I would have never known Tig Notoro was completely green screened in. And except for one short scene, never met any of the actors.
 
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Army of the Dead

You know, I actually had a lot of fun with this. Once again, like Dawn of the Dead, it seems the only Zack Snyder movie I legitimately enjoy is a zombie movie. I'd be down for him doing a sequel to this. There are some great shots, some pretty solid special effects (minus CG blood for the headshots, which I'm never a fan of; looking at you, John Wick).

It's not perfect. The running time is way too long. They could've easily shaved off the pre-credits opening scene and lost nothing. They could've merged a few characters in the group. And one character is motivated by not one but TWO women in his life being "fridged." (Existing only to die and motivate him).

The movie needed a script doctor to trim the fat, but as a whole, I had a lot of fun. Probably not something I'll revisit any time soon, but if you're in the mood for a solid zombie flick, you could do a lot worse than this.
 
Mitchells vs. the Machines - Absolutely hit every "kid moving away from home" cliche, and it didn't matter at all. I don't remember the last time my wife and I both repeatedly laughed out lout at a movie, and this one was a banger.

The New Mutants - Another silly superhero movie, but this one was more watchable that the last few X-Men movies. I liked the horror angle and the much smaller group to focus on..
 
Unfriended - Not as bad as I expected for a clearly low budget horror film largely made on the premise that we're all stuck at home. The entire thing takes place online from the point of view of a participant in a group chat. That is, we spend the entire movie looking at their desktop. Not one character is likable, but that's kind of the point. Sadly, it didn't quite stick the landing, but still had a couple good moments if you're a fan of cheesy horror movies.
 
Army of the Dead

What a dumb movie. If I had to grade it I give it a C-.

Right after they entered zombie infested Vegas they whole thing falls apart like a rotting corpse.
It's incredibly dumb. And the more I think about it, the more criticisms I have. (Why set up a dude having a badass power saw and not have him use it once?!) But I can't deny I was still entertained by it.
 
It's incredibly dumb. And the more I think about it, the more criticisms I have. (Why set up a dude having a badass power saw and not have him use it once?!) But I can't deny I was still entertained by it.
This is pretty much the same review Mr. Z gave when we watched it last weekend. "It's a terrible movie...but if you have 2 hours to kill, it's entertaining."
 
So yeah, Army of the Dead. The opening 10 minutes were like Montage the Movie to the point where I seriously thought it was recapping a previous film. As it got going, I was like oh cool they have an okay ratio of men and women and then I realized, oh shit they are going to kill all the women to motivate the men.... even the zombie ones. Movie was dumb and not in the good way and I think I might finally be done with trying anything Snyder does.
 
Cruella - I went to this just to go to the theater with my family, and I absolutely teared up when they did the reel before the movie with the big welcome back message. The movie was better than it had any right to be, and the soundtrack absolutely slaps.
 
I’m not sure how to answer lol, but I felt it was weirdly gross. I don’t watch a ton of zombie moves though. Operation shows don’t gross me out though.
 
A lot of zombie movies are gross, but they are trying to be... artistically gross? Like, they want to be gross in a way that's like "I ain't EVER seen something like that" instead of "Oh god, I wish I hadn't seen that." Zack Synder doesn't get this distinction.
 
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