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

[Yoshimickster]

Everything Everywhere all at once

FANTASTIC film, wish I saw it in theaters.

Ghost in the Shell

Uh...hm. I don't want to say this was over hyped, but there couldve been way more action and less sets of establishing shots that go on for 2 to 5 minutes. THAT and like many of Mamoru Oshii's works it will often have long scenes of characters expositing psychological and philosophical claptrap in lieu of real character exploration.

Like, it's not bad, 8 out of 10 but I expected better.

Maximum Overdrive

This film was weirdly a good pallet cleanser after Ghost in the Shell, whereas the former was intellectual but too slow, this was just a fun dumb movie about the Green Goblin's trucksona fucking everybody up! Also-WE MADE YOU!

 

[GasBandit]

Ghost in the Shell

Uh...hm. I don't want to say this was over hyped, but there couldve been way more action and less sets of establishing shots that go on for 2 to 5 minutes. THAT and like many of Mamoru Oshii's works it will often have long scenes of characters expositing psychological and philosophical claptrap in lieu of real character exploration.

Like, it's not bad, 8 out of 10 but I expected better.

I am assuming you're talking about the original animated work and not the ScarJo remake here, but yeah, as with a lot of early 90s anime movies, they were mostly trying to go for the "Wow this artwork is pretty" factor because people had never seen pretty cartoons before and they were trying to establish themselves as "we're real legitimate artists, take us seriously" with lots of arthouse highbrow stuff rather than summer movie bow-pang-zoom crowd appeal.

The TV series (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) is MUCH better.

 

[Yoshimickster]

I am assuming you're talking about the original animated work and not the ScarJo remake here, but yeah, as with a lot of early 90s anime movies, they were mostly trying to go for the "Wow this artwork is pretty" factor because people had never seen pretty cartoons before and they were trying to establish themselves as "we're real legitimate artists, take us seriously" with lots of arthouse highbrow stuff rather than summer movie bow-pang-zoom crowd appeal.

The TV series (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) is MUCH better.

Yeah I remember it being pretty good, been meaning to check it out again, that and more of the original manga.

I've heard the second movie wasn't very good, considering Major Kusaragi wasn't even in it I'm not surprised.

 

[GasBandit]

Yeah I remember it being pretty good, been meaning to check it out again, that and more of the original manga.

I've heard the second movie wasn't very good, considering Major Kusaragi wasn't even in it I'm not surprised.

Solid State Society? I won't say any spoilers, but I will say that yeah, it wasn't as good as GITS:SAC's series proper.

 

[Yoshimickster]

Demon City Shinjuku

Just...just the MOST late eightiest animation I've ever seen, like dear god, like it was pretty fun but also wicked mad generic, and the 90s dub didn't do it ANY favors sweet Jesus so dumb I loved it.

 

[Shawn]

Alien: Romulus
A pretty enjoyable film that is overall a lovely hybrid of the first two Alien films. They kept the 80’s janky Sci-Fi look from those films which just made me very happy overall. The movie expects you’ve seen an alien movie before so it does its best to surprise you in new and inventive ways. Not everything about this film is five stars.

Spoiler

the human/alien hybrid at the end there wasn’t a great design or overall good idea

But it did the job and I was well entertained for two hours.

 

[figmentPez]

Theater Camp

I had never heard of this one before I saw it on a list of movies leaving Hulu. It's about a summer/theater camp that is going to be bought-out and shut down by a big company, so the camp decides to put on a fundraiser show to save it. Very cliched plot, but it's a lot of fun.

 

[@Li3n]

Alien: Romulus

Spoiler

the human/alien hybrid at the end there wasn’t a great design or overall good idea

Well, it looked better then last time, but yeah, they need to stop trying to make it happen, it's just not going to happen.

 

[mikerc]

Alien: Romulus.

Or should that be Alien: Callbacks? There was I don't know how many scenes where I felt the movie was jostling my arm & going "you remember this from previous movies right? Look at it, look at how we're referencing it". You know what, I do remember this from the earlier movies. Doesn't mean it needed to be in this movie. Particularly the whole final act, where the movie has reached a natural stopping point only to introduce a sudden new threat just so it could call back to a bad plot point from a bad movie, even if this movie did do that better. And then there's what I felt was the worst part of the movie.

Rook.

Ian Holm's face badly CG'ed onto someone else's head & an (admittedly quite good) soundalike switching between exposition & quoting lines from the first film. If you absolutely had to have a previous Android model back you should have hired Lance Henriksen or Michael Fassbender, this just felt uncomfortable to me.

Don't get me wrong, this was still easily the 3rd best Alien film, the subplot with Andy was great & David Jonsson did a fantastic job of playing that character. But if you've seen all the previous movies, I think you've seen 90% of this one.

 

[@Li3n]

Well, to be fair, what can a new movie do that wasn't already done by the first 2 ?

Hell, the 2nd one only worked by making it into an action horror instead of just a horror film.

But what i don't get is why the GG face looked so bad in some scenes, but not in others. Like, we have people steaming live with someone elses face, you'd think a million dollar budget would at least make it as good even in the worse looking scenes.

 

[AshburnerX]

Well, to be fair, what can a new movie do that wasn't already done by the first 2 ?

Hell, the 2nd one only worked by making it into an action horror instead of just a horror film.

But what i don't get is why the GG face looked so bad in some scenes, but not in others. Like, we have people steaming live with someone elses face, you'd think a million dollar budget would at least make it as good even in the worse looking scenes.

It's weird that the video game Alien: Isolation is genuinely a better followup to the series than any of the movies since Aliens... which is probably why they took stuff from it for Alien: Romulus.

 

[Ravenpoe]

But what i don't get is why the GG face looked so bad in some scenes, but not in others.

It's time. The reason for all bad cgi in big budget movies is time. All of the production studios are so overworked that they can barely get anything done.

 

[@Li3n]

It's weird that the video game Alien: Isolation is genuinely a better followup to the series than any of the movies since Aliens... which is probably why they took stuff from it for Alien: Romulus.

Hey, the 1st 2 AvP's where pretty good...

It's time. The reason for all bad cgi in big budget movies is time. All of the production studios are so overworked that they can barely get anything done.

Yeah, but like i said, we have LIVE streams with that shit right now...

 

[Shawn]

Bad CGI rarely bothers me unless it’s really bad. Someone is making something exist that’s not really there and I’m prepared to give them some slack on it.
CGI Ian Holmes face replacement seemed fine to me. There was no confusion who he was supposed to be. If I can still love the CGI of The Last Starfighter then I can absolutely give any modern day decent try a pass.

 

[PatrThom]

I can forgive a great many technical sins so long as it effectively furthers the story.

--Patrick

 

[IronBrig4]

Trap

I agree with Nick for the most part. It's an enjoyable movie and I'm glad to see that Josh Hartnett can act even though he's aged out of the heartthrob phase. I also like that they used an actual 14-year-old to play the daughter. So many studios cast twenty-somethings to play teenagers in order to avoid child labor laws and stage moms.

 

[@Li3n]

CGI Ian Holmes face replacement seemed fine to me. There was no confusion who he was supposed to be. If I can still love the CGI of The Last Starfighter then I can absolutely give any modern day decent try a pass.

The issue for me was that it looked fine in some scenes, perfect even, but not in others, and it really took me out of it. IMO it would have been better is it was crappy all the time, at least it would have been consistent.

 

[Yoshimickster]

The Amazing Spider-man

PRETTY good but I feel Captain Stacy's character was a little too much like JJJ.

 

[Shawn]

Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice
I appreciate that this is a film that Tim Burton really got to have fun with. It's trippy, kooky, and maybe just goes a bit too far in some scenes. The use of practical effects and sets are very enjoyable.
Story-wise I'd just say it's ok. Every problem that comes up just ends up having a very quick and only semi-satisfying solution. In fact there are a few mysteries in this film that have pretty underwhelming answers.
I'm sure that Michael Keaton gets more time as Beetlejuice in this film than he did in the original film (17.5 minutes of screen time) but he's still oddly absent from most of the film.

 

[Yoshimickster]

Jules

Damn charming scifi dramedy that tackles the concept of mortality, letting go, and moving on.

 

[bhamv3]

Godzilla Minus One

Finally got around to watching this. I liked it, it's much more story-oriented and character-oriented than Hollywood's Godzilla films, and is a much stronger movie for it. The characters are all interesting and get good development, and the cast do marvelously. The special effects were also quite impressive, considering I heard that this movie was made on a shoestring budget compared to Hollywood budgets.

Also Minami Hamabe is really hot.

 

[bhamv3]

Jung Kook: I Am Still

Ostensibly a documentary about Jung Kook, a member of the Kpop group BTS, but more like a clip show of interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and concert performances. My wife's developed a bit of an interest in BTS and a particular passion for Jung Kook over the last year or so, to the point where we refer to Jung Kook as her Korean husband, so she wanted to see this in theaters, and I went with her because I'm a good husband. I fell asleep around halfway through the runtime, but by all accounts my wife enjoyed it.

Also, the theater was around half to two-thirds full, and I counted only 3 dudes in the whole audience, including me. Everyone else was a woman who also considered Jung Kook their Korean husband, so I guess my wife's got some competition on her hands.

Anywho, if you're a fan of Jung Kook I guess this could be an interesting glimpse into what goes on backstage, though I doubt it can be considered a "real" view of what his life's like outside of performing. This documentary is also part of the BTS industrial behemoth, where they're releasing pre-recorded stuff to keep audiences interested while BTS's members are serving their mandatory conscription. Aside from this documentary, there's also a series on D+ about Jung Kook traveling the world, for example.

Also, Jung Kook's interpreter in one of his recording sessions was hot.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Jung Kook: I Am Still

Ostensibly a documentary about Jung Kook, a member of the Kpop group BTS, but more like a clip show of interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and concert performances. My wife's developed a bit of an interest in BTS and a particular passion for Jung Kook over the last year or so, to the point where we refer to Jung Kook as her Korean husband, so she wanted to see this in theaters, and I went with her because I'm a good husband. I fell asleep around halfway through the runtime, but by all accounts my wife enjoyed it.

Also, the theater was around half to two-thirds full, and I counted only 3 dudes in the whole audience, including me. Everyone else was a woman who also considered Jung Kook their Korean husband, so I guess my wife's got some competition on her hands.

Anywho, if you're a fan of Jung Kook I guess this could be an interesting glimpse into what goes on backstage, though I doubt it can be considered a "real" view of what his life's like outside of performing. This documentary is also part of the BTS industrial behemoth, where they're releasing pre-recorded stuff to keep audiences interested while BTS's members are serving their mandatory conscription. Aside from this documentary, there's also a series on D+ about Jung Kook traveling the world, for example.

Also, Jung Kook's interpreter in one of his recording sessions was hot.

Did this guy die? That's the only reason I can think of as to why anyone would watch an interview clip show of a single person in a band in a theater.

I do not understand kpop

 

[Vrii]

Did this guy die? That's the only reason I can think of as to why anyone would watch an interview clip show of a single person in a band in a theater.

I do not understand kpop

It's all the elements that made the Backstreet Boys or *Nsync or the Spice Girls huge, combined with the wildly unhealthy encouragement of parasocial relationships with the members. I'm absolutely not surprised that it works as well as it does, though I wouldn't have guessed it'd be kpop that would explode this way.

 

[chris]

It's all the elements that made the Backstreet Boys or *Nsync or the Spice Girls huge, combined with the wildly unhealthy encouragement of parasocial relationships with the members. I'm absolutely not surprised that it works as well as it does, though I wouldn't have guessed it'd be kpop that would explode this way.

But with them it was the whole group. Why did Jung Kook get a whole movie?

 

[bhamv3]

But with them it was the whole group. Why did Jung Kook get a whole movie?

As far as I'm aware, Jung Kook is the most popular member of the band due to being one of the lead singers, the youngest one, and (subjectively) the most attractive one. So, basically, they made a movie for the youngest, hottest, and most talented BTS member.

But my perspective might be skewed because I'm living with my wife and she's very much a Jung Kook fan.

 

[Vrii]

But with them it was the whole group. Why did Jung Kook get a whole movie?

I was in middle school for the big Backstreet Boys/*Nsync craze, and I promise you that teenage girls (and boys!) were very much aware of and interested in individual members as well as the group as a whole. If we'd had the culture and technology to support terminally-online efforts to "follow" (stalk) them separately from the band I'm very confident we'd have been seeing a lot of the same stuff then as we are now.

 

[chris]

I was in middle school for the big Backstreet Boys/*Nsync craze, and I promise you that teenage girls (and boys!) were very much aware of and interested in individual members as well as the group as a whole. If we'd had the culture and technology to support terminally-online efforts to "follow" (stalk) them separately from the band I'm very confident we'd have been seeing a lot of the same stuff then as we are now.

Oh absolutely. There were fights between the fans who was hotter and everyone had their favourite. But I don't know if they would have released a movie just about Justin Timberlake during that time.

 

[Vrii]

Right, and that's what I mean about the culture/technology shift - at that point the information about the groups and the members was limited to what, monthly magazines and maybe a spot here and there on whatever entertainment TV programs might have wanted it? There just wasn't room for the individuals to get the spotlight like they can now with streaming, videos, twitter, fansites, etc. I don't think it's a reflection of something shifting in the amount of interest there was/is in individual members - I could still tell you who the favourite Spice Girl of some of my friends at the time was! - but rather an increase in the amount of information, ease of access to it, and general acceptance of parasocial behaviour making it *seem* like people are doing things they wouldn't have wanted to before.

Maybe that's splitting hairs though.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Transformers One

Meant to post this sooner, as I saw it on Sunday.

I really liked it! It's funny, has great animation, great voice work. It's fun watching the characters evolve into who we know them as. It's clear the filmmakers have a deep love for the franchise, even if they take a few liberties with the original lore.

I don't know where I'd put it in my rankings, but certainly top 3 along with the original 1986 movie, and Bumblebee.

But yeah, if you're a Transformers fan, this is definitely one to go see.

 

[mikerc]

It's clear the filmmakers have a deep love for the franchise, even if they take a few liberties with the original lore.

If there's any franchise where you do not need to feel beholden to the original lore it's Transformers. I mean if you wanted to keep the original G1 history of the Constructicons then according to the cartoon they had to be:
A) Evil robots back on Cybertron that originally built Megatron.
B) Peaceful robots back on Cybertron that Megatron had reprogrammed into evil.
C) Evil robots that Megatron ordered built on Earth.

 

[MindDetective]

Oh absolutely. There were fights between the fans who was hotter and everyone had their favourite. But I don't know if they would have released a movie just about Justin Timberlake during that time.

That basically goes back to the Beatles.

 

[PatrThom]

That basically goes back to the Beatles.

It probably goes all the way back to Thag & Dave.

--Patrick

 

[Bubble181]

It probably goes all the way back to Thag & Dave.

--Patrick

Thag left the band too soon, which is a shame, because he was the funny one of the group.

 

[bhamv3]

Thag left the band too soon, which is a shame, because he was the funny one of the group.

Actually, he didn't leave the band, he tragically died in a thagomizer incident.