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The Last Jedi / Rise of Skywalker

Third time wasn't the charm and our Daiz is still as planky as a boat

the social dilemma

Extended Ted talk pop science stab at the interwebs, few interesting points but way over long

Rewatched Dr Strange last night. Suffers from a weak antagonist that makes it feel a little generic or at least never breaks the origin story mold. Still visually stunning however and has me looking forward to a sequel that can hopefully focus on it more and star the more "complete" version of the character we've seen since.

 LunarSol wrote:
Rewatched Dr Strange last night. Suffers from a weak antagonist that makes it feel a little generic or at least never breaks the origin story mold. Still visually stunning however and has me looking forward to a sequel that can hopefully focus on it more and star the more "complete" version of the character we've seen since.

Watch Dr. Strangelove instead.

 Frazzled wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Rewatched Dr Strange last night. Suffers from a weak antagonist that makes it feel a little generic or at least never breaks the origin story mold. Still visually stunning however and has me looking forward to a sequel that can hopefully focus on it more and star the more "complete" version of the character we've seen since.

Watch Dr. Strangelove instead.

I mean... yes.

Two movies came up in my thread renamed "nonsense" deserve mention here. (They're so nice the deserve mention twice.)

A.P.E.X. An 80's scifi time travel film obviously slightly inspired by 'terminator" (but still notably different) that had some cool killer robots. Not as cool at the terminator endoskeleton, I admit, but still pretty damn cool.



The plot was kind of hard to follow and will have you going "Hey!" and "But how..?" "What about..?" and "WTF?!?!" a lot, plus ranges and time seem to be very inconsistent, main characters have the PC immunity write large, etc, but it's still an entertaining movie with a special guest star from a popular 70's post apocalypse scifi movie. And trust me, the robot suits alone are worth watching this for, as you can clearly see above. (Oh, yes i described this as an 80's scifi time travel apocalypse movie even tho it was released in 94. Well, that;s just part of the time paradox. )

If you want more post apocalypse killer robot scifi, help yourself to a nice serving of "hardware", you should find it quite tasty. https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/hardware-movie-anniversary

Due to legal bull hardware was unavailable until 2009 so a lot of you may not have seen it. If this is so it is a sad situation you can and should correct now.

Lastly, for a good techno thriller/crime drama/ terrorist plot type movie, look up "Juggernaut" from 1974. No scifi killer robots, but a good plot, sensible premise and great acting.

Been rewatching Harry Potter. 4 movies in and I gotta say, It is impressive to me how well these films hold up, both in the effects department and the talents of the child actors.

Also random side rewatch. A youtube video made a reference to the film Stardust (2007). So my wife immediately got out the dvd and put it on. Stardust might be one of my new favorite underdogs for "Films that should have been more successful." Every performance is great, and the characters are all charming.

Watched Snowpiercer recently. 2013 film by Bong-Joon-Ho (director of Parasite) depicting the last few hundred humans left alive after a global-warming strategy goes wrong, stuck on a train endlessly travelling around the world.

Stars Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and the late John Hurt. An odd premise but a rather chilling and very exciting film.

I never could watch snowpiercer. Basically i hear the premise and think "Uh, they're in a freezing world and their biggest issue is heat, so they.....spend energy moving a giant train around instead of just using that energy to produce heat directly?"

I know it's supposed to be a social commentary film and an allegory to modern society, but still the physics just got to me.

"Galaxina" is on Comettv this month so I've watched it.

This should have been a low budget schlocky scifi parody that was quickly forgotten except possibly for some acceptable SFX and a decent ship model.

Unfortunately it became a minor cult hit due to the particularly horrific murder of it's star, playboy centerfold and playmate of the year trying to turn actress Dorthy Stratten. Her murder was so heinous it made her only starring role film a minor cult hit that is mostly remembered for that.

Regrettably her role as an android wearing mostly a skintight leotard (and once a french maid outfit) gave her little chance to demonstrate any acting skills she may have had, focusing instead of her physical assets which playboy had already (un)covered.

On it's own galaxina is a very low brow scifi parody with fairly good sfx for a low budget movie made in 1980. Not really recommendable unless you want to see every scifi movie you can.

The main ship in it was a good model that would look pretty good in some SF games, even traveller if any GMs out there want a ship design for a game.



Yes, that ship model is arguably the best thing in the movie.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Watched Snowpiercer recently. 2013 film by Bong-Joon-Ho (director of Parasite) depicting the last few hundred humans left alive after a global-warming strategy goes wrong, stuck on a train endlessly travelling around the world.

Stars Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and the late John Hurt. An odd premise but a rather chilling and very exciting film.

Really cool film, on so many levels.





The Siege (1998)

Never seen that film before for some reason. "It's the one where's some terror attack happens in New York and the army is called in to keep the peace."

But it's so much more. Pretty visionary stuff. New York is being confronted with successively worse terror attacks (the reason for which, or the thing the terrorists ask for, is very interesting too.), FBI agent Denzel Washington and a CIA lady Anette Bening each work on discovering the terrorist cells, but don't really get results fast enough to stop more attacks in time. The interplay and rivalry between government agencies is very interesting.

Out come the harr-de-harr-"smoke'em out"-hardliners who call a declaration of state of emergency throughout the city and for the US army to lock down Brooklyn and search the part of the city for the terrorists. Bruce Willis, who's the army guy in Washington, makes it crystal clear that this is a bad idea, but the plan is put into place, and the army starts searching every single house for arab men, aged 17-30, take them with them and set up a detainment ....site in a big football stadium (because where else?) to keep them for questioning. This has a whole bunch of impressive scenes built up around it. All the while Washington and Bening search for the last terrorist cell.

Impressive film, that.It's like 1998 Denzel Washington being thrown into a film from 2002 or 2003 and just being aghast with the crap that's going on. Watch It. It's a film for grown-ups.





...and just for the heck of it:

Fallen (1998)

I'm sure I've written about this film before, but I just saw it again (well, the first half) on tv a few weeks ago. A supernatural crime thriller featuring Denzel Washington as a police detective. His direct colleagues are John Goodman AND James Gandolfini. That's an overkill of super-charismatic cop colleagues. Imagine having to play the lead between these two. Washington pulls it off. Hooray!

It's kinda cheesy, it's kinda silly at times, but it's just such a fun film. Whenever I think of fallen I also have to think of Ricochet (1991). My favourites from the "Denzel Washington is a successful cop, and a really, really dedicated evil is dead set in ruining his life" genre. I think I like Ricochet a tad better, but Fallen comes with the strong supernatural aspect, which is great fun.

Watch It for some light, well-acted, well-made fun.

Sounds like you might like Virtuosity, as well.

I read a bit of the synopsis on wikipedia, and I'm fairly certain I've seen this one at some point, but it must be ages ago. Dang, I wanna watch that film now. Good suggestion; I'll try to hunt it down.

There's a few musical cameos in Hardware to look out for.

Carl McCoy from Fields of the Nephilim is the scavenger that first finds the mk13. He's a mate of the director, who was also pretty well known amongst a certain sector of the music industry, too, which is how he got the other two in.

Iggy Pop the angry radio DJ Angry Bob, angry all the time.

The man, the legend that was Lemmy. The water-taxi driver.

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness.

I quit being a carpenter fanboi after his awful "Ghosts of mars" movie. I'd been losing faith in him for a while before that, and PoD was one reason why.

PoD couldn't decide what it was trying to be. A religious horror movie? I scifi horror movie? Maybe like "the thing" meets "The omen" or something?

I found it to just be a confused mess that wasn't really anything coherent or really good. It hasn't improved with age. It's not even a good halloween horror flick.

Bombshells (2019)

The Fox News/Roger Ailes/Sexual harassment story, very decent, great performances, but in the end not all that shocking. Anyone predisposed against Fox will say they're not surprised, anyone predisposed towards Fox will say no big deal. Also tonally uneven, they start with this 4th wall breaking device that I liked, but then drop it, instead doing documentary like tags to tell you who is who. I also thought Margot Robbie's composite character had a weak arc with a tacked on happy ending. And also being the only fictionalized character among real world people made her feel more forced. So decent watch but a 3-4 star film not a great one.

Pride and Prejudice

This was the Kiera Knightley version.....

Anyway, there is always such great, whip-crack, smart, shade throwing dialogue in a Jane Austen (sp?) movie. This one is no different.

Some parts I enjoyed:
1. Kiera walked dreamily through some blowing laundry, while in the background a servant cracks a goose's neck and starts plucking it.

2. Said laundry getting rained on

3. Twirling on a swing to represent the passing of time.

4. Mr. Darcy looks like he is planning on killing everyone in the room when we first meet him. Whenever I saw his glower, I said; "I'm Batman"

5. Dame Judi Dench laying the insults on Lizzie

6. The rollicking fun everyone is having while dancing at a country party.

7. How bored women must have been all the time. No wonder they had to read, draw, write, play music, and craft al the time. They were bored senseless!

8. The difference between poor, country yeoman and the actual landed gentry.

9. That Lizzie's dad was an amateur scientist

10. There were several single take tracking shots movie from room to room that were really well done.

The Ottoman Lieutenant

This movie was gorgeous to look at.... and completely by the numbers.

After the first 5 minutes, I had the entire movie figured out. It is very by the numbers.

I think it needed another go through the script editing process, and the editing is just not good.

However, fantastic costuming, set design, and cinematography. Just watch it on mute.

Also glosses over the Armenian Genocide but just skirts it enough. If people were not familiar with it, this movie would not have really clued them in on it.

The Theory of Everything

I am pretty meh about it.

However, I had forgotten how funny Stephen Hawking was!

Under the Tuscan Sun

It’s the movie Eat, Pray, Live wishes it was. Charming and often fun without being challenging. Americans love to have their preconceptions about foreigners affirmed in good humor.

The Babysitter

Schlocky 80s horror throwback, predictable but daft fun

Humans

Wildly uneven and probably best it ended when it did, although the effort put into Synth 'acting' was interesting (with terrible child acting actually coming in handy)

1917

This is free on 'Prime' at the moment (in the UK). I so, so wish I had gone to the cinema to see it - although it possibly might have been too intense!

One of the best war films I have ever seen. Very well paced, a simple and exciting premise, spectacularly filmed (I had to watch a 'making of' immediately afterwards just to see how they had done some of it).

Well acted and the 'names' in it (there are a few) blend in to the setting rather than dominate it.

Would thoroughly recommend.

 Matt Swain wrote:
John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness.

I quit being a carpenter fanboi after his awful "Ghosts of mars" movie. I'd been losing faith in him for a while before that, and PoD was one reason why.

PoD couldn't decide what it was trying to be. A religious horror movie? I scifi horror movie? Maybe like "the thing" meets "The omen" or something?

I found it to just be a confused mess that wasn't really anything coherent or really good. It hasn't improved with age. It's not even a good halloween horror flick.

Watched this as a kid and was absolutely terrified by it!

But saw it again not long ago and like you said it is really bad, laughably so in some places.

Definitely don't think it can be recommended alongside most of Carpenter's other films.

Overlord. or

Saving Private Ryan and Zombies.

Deeply by the numbers. Nazi Zombies has been done better, either by Dead Snow if you want over the top, Evil Dead style gore and humour, or The Outpost if you want something bleaker and more horrific.

The only things this has over either of those is a higher production budget (it's made by JJ Abrams' Bad Robot) and the chap who played Euon Greyjoy demonstrating he could have, in fact, chewed the scenery even harder in GoT if he hadn't shown some restraint.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Overlord. or

Saving Private Ryan and Zombies.

Deeply by the numbers. Nazi Zombies has been done better, either by Dead Snow if you want over the top, Evil Dead style gore and humour, or The Outpost if you want something bleaker and more horrific.

The only things this has over either of those is a higher production budget (it's made by JJ Abrams' Bad Robot) and the chap who played Euon Greyjoy demonstrating he could have, in fact, chewed the scenery even harder in GoT if he hadn't shown some restraint.

That's a shame, was hoping for some raising the ghoulies jiggery pokery, preferably involving a kraut with a monocle

Babysitter; Killer Queen

Outside of spooky season horror isn't really ones jam and couldn't quite figure if this was sequel clever shenanigans or rushed sequel boswellox

Once more with feeling

Nowt more terrifying the musicals, well maybe bunnies...

Upgrade

Watching this on Netflix, and it’s really rather good!

Shades and hints of Robocop, Iron Man and John Wick, wonderfully blended together. Heck, even a slice of Venom is in there!

Defo give it a whirl!

Circuitry man. 1990.

The era from the mid 80's to the mid 90's brought us a wave of low budget, cyberpunkish, post apocalypse scifi movies.

Many were just terminator ripoffs, and at least one of those, "Hardware", was a fairly decent movie on its own merits.

Then there's circuitry man.

CM is a pretty good low budget cyberpunk/mad max road warrior mashup. Starring the late, great vernon wells it's about a post apocalypse world where neural interfaces are common and VR chips are the drug of choice. Oh, and intelligent, very human looking "fully functional" androids are a thing too.

Basically a hawt badass courier is hired to transport a shipment of vr drug chips across a wasteland with unbreathable air. She takes an android gigolo as her companion . They are pursued by Plughead, a psychopath who's bald pate is covered with neural interface ports.

One of the great lines in the movie is when a crime lord says of plughead "He used to be my psychotherapist before he went legit and became an honest crook."

The other great line is when plughead asks "Like I always say: Why xxxx xxx, when you can....jack in?"

Still worth a watch despite obviously dated graphics and a low budget. Vernon Wells turns in a great performance as the charming and sinister plughead. With the hype about the upcoming cyberpunk game coming, people might want to give this a view.

Have a free demo, chiphead.

That looks like a TV movie made by the USA network on the leftover sets of Tekwar with the props from Cherry 2000. I think I need to see this.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That looks like a TV movie made by the USA network on the leftover sets of Tekwar with the props from Cherry 2000. I think I need to see this.

I can't say the first sentence in the above statement is very accurate. The second one is completely true.

Definitely, Maybe

It is Halloween and now is the time to indulge in Horror. So, I decided to watch this Rom-Com starring Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fischer, and Ryan Reynolds.

Reynolds is getting a divorce. His daughter is sad, and demands to know how Reynolds and her Mom met. He proceeds to tell her the story, but it is a "Who Dunnit" as there are three potential women in the story! Not a bad idea for a movie..... It almost feels like.... a sitcom I have heard about......

Overall, it is pretty forgettable and a tad bit depressing. Not really the kind of movie I would want to bring a date too, and what good is a Rom-Com if not for a date movie?

Contagion

This is a film made before COVID about a hypothetical outbreak of a bat-carried disease from China, and it’s just so ...bittersweet? The pandemic team are treated with respect, the government is mostly competent, medical care is fully funded. It feels almost like wishful thinking.

I feel like we need a "Nelson Laughing" gif now in this thread.....