Switch Theme:

Mini-Movie Reviews- What You Are Watching.... in Miniature  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
The Daemon Possessing Fulgrim's Body





Devon, UK

Nomadland.

I'm not one for "buzz" movies, I'll avoid even the ones that interest me at least until all the fuss has died down. But lockdown had left me short of stuff to watch and Disney+ has this available, so...

It's a remarkable movie. I can't eulogise about it unreservedly simply because it won't be for everyone, but the landscape and soundtrack are almost worth it by themselves. Then you also get the story of Fran against this backdrop and through her perspective topics like grief, loss and mortality as well as wider societal and philosophical ideas are explored.

Not one person develops superpowers, no zombies were harmed in the production. Whether that's a net positive or negative will depend on your tastes.

We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark

The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.

The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox

Ask me about
Barnstaple Slayers Club 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

The Sapphires

Aboriginal girl group goes on tour in the Vietnam War when Australia didn't even recognize aboriginal peoples as fellow humans. Based on True Events!

A solid musical bio-pic movie that sheds some light on bad things that happened in the 60's outside of America, even though those do get touched on briefly as well.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

Promising Young Woman.

A good bit different than what I was expecting.
Spoiler:
Expected female revenge serial killer, got female twisted revenge movie

Thought it was absolutely excellent. Good acting and dialogue. The comedian was surprisingly good. The only downside was that the wife guessed the ending about two thirds through.

Really liked it.

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

47 Ronin (2013)

Keanu Reeves is taken under a daimyo's wing, lives (kinda) alongside samurai. Evil clan takes over by nefarious means, throws good clan's samurai out who then become ....47 ronin and they're out for revenge. Based on a historical incident, with witches, ogres and Keanu Reeves added.

This one's kinda infamous for being bad, I think they had to reshoot portions of it on release and so on. I just read it was extremely expensive, which I found surprising, because it doesn't look very expensive. Anyway, I found it to be alright. Sure, all the Japanese/asian actors talk english with a Japanese accent, but that's okay. The CGI looks really, really bad in some places and the story kinda plays out like a stop-and-go version of Robin Hood. Keanu Reeves does things, the actual stars are all the people around him. Notably the bad guy and the evil witch. Both of whom seeming to have tons of fun with their roles, the witch especially. Oh, and there's Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, playing the Shogun. So that's an instant winner.

Visually there's several niceties across the film. Most of it really. The rest looks like studio settings.

The pacing is a bit odd. Maybe because there isn't really that much to the story actually (as far as I know). So they added a scene in which they meet some Tengu to get +1 magic weapons (man, the Tengu.... maybe that look is based on actual proper stories, but I don't know. Totally traditional looking tengus would have done it more for me. This one on the film looked like Snape(?) from the new star wars films).

Anyway, overall it was alright. A bit odd here and there, and I really liked the ending. So that's good. To be honest, I also got this thing about feudal Japanese scenery. It's just so pretty and/or interesting to look at, and I got this Feudal Japanese skirmish wargame thing on the backburner, so I always enjoy seeing terrain ideas.

Don't Watch, unless you enjoy seeing pretty pictures of Japanese scenery.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

It feels like the ridiculous, propaganda version of their story, like the 300 of Feudal Japan. The witch is the actress from Pacific Rim, and the best part of the movie.

   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

Yus, it rather comes across as something we're not really used to with our post-heroic mindset and all. I'd probably be WAY harsher on the film if it was a Chinese production.

She was the lady from Pacific Rim? Wow. Pacific Rim is a remarkable film in how much of a 180° I turned on it. Watched it at the cinema and had the time of my life. Tried to watch it on Netflix lateron twice, I was too embarassed to even watch it in full.

   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Decided to rewatch some oldies.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket

Always the great big ass of the franchise. This is the OVA that pointed a finger at Gundam and said "stop thinking these giant robots are so damn cool while people are dying on screen!" The moral of the story actually holds up fairly well but it's just always been hilariously on the nose for the franchise. Deserves some credit for having a child as a primary character and effectively making them act their age but not quite so annoyingly that it ruins everything. Probably has one of the franchise's darkest endings, which is saying something with Hathaway's Flash, IBO, and Victory Gundam in the running.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory

Another Gundam OVA, which I think has never gotten enough credit for how good it's animation was for 1990. The characters and action scenes are fantastic. The story suffers in the second half, mostly because you can tell the people making the OVA changed and that change came with radical shifts in plot. Mostly it's good for it's animation imo. The story gets pretty blarg toward the end when characters start making nonsensical choices.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/05 01:28:35


   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Clive Owen stars in a decent re-telling of the 47 Ronin tale, but set in a Fantasy land..... I think it is called Last Knights?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2493486/


Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

@LordofHats: Hmmyeah. I never got into watching Gundam things. Maybe I should. I love the look of 80s/early 90s anime, especially sci-fi spacey stuff.

@Easy E: So I read when I read about the story behind the film! It's at like 19% on rotten tomatoes, so I decided not to pursue that film any more. But if you say it's decent... maybe I'll run across it some time. What's the deal with Clive Owen? Everybody likes him. He's really good in good and interesting films. And yet he does a ton of bad films. Does he just like putting on armour, ride horses and be a manly man maybe?

   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

I think he has a hard time getting leading man roles, and I have no idea why. I like him as an actor, but he just never seems to break out, or gets cast in drek.....

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

Yeah. Maybe he just likes to do wildly different parts. He's the kind of guy you can put in pretty much anything and it'll work. Few years ago I watched that perfectly alright film about a British prison using gardening to resocialize inmates. He's perfectly good in any film really. Sin City, Killer Elite, some romantic comedy, one of those ones in which he's a late Roman officer, ....

   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Oxfordshire

Tenet

I'm only half an hour in and I've got a headache. Not because of the plot, that seems silly and straightforward, nothing more fanciful so far than a Brosnan era James Bond plot.

What's giving me a headache is the director's pitiful selection of camera angles and shots. There's just been a scene in a posh restaurant and it's plain bad. The scene has 68 different shots in a sequence of 167 seconds. That means the average shot lasts less than 2.5 seconds. Two and a quarter minutes of your eyes never being allowed to settle, to take in details, to appreciate any worthwhile acting going on. At the very end there a sequence of 8 shot changes where each one lasts less than half a second. If this was the director's intention to induce a sense of pace into the film then its wrecked by the fact they're talking about buying suits and getting a doggy bag from lunch.

And the scene makes it absolutely obvious the two actors were never in the same room together. A good director can mask this, but this attempt is plain awful.

Is it too much to ask that at some point this year I see at least one new movie that isn't awful?
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Henry wrote:

Is it too much to ask that at some point this year I see at least one new movie that isn't awful?



Bro. . . There's another Fast and Furious franchise movie coming, and there's Top Gun Maverick this year, theres 2 that are gonna be absolutely amazing (ok. . . sarcasm aside, the TG one has at least the slightest possibility of being not complete trash)
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Oxfordshire

To be fair, I managed to make it through to the end of Tenet and it was... acceptable. There were some interesting things (I very much liked the temporal pincer idea) and all the action sequences were good. But.. the sound mixing was terrible, the shot selection seemed to be for the deliberate purpose of causing a migraine and the plot is really weak once you see past the time gimmick (and since I worked out what was going on at the airport on the first run through, the time gimmick doesn't last long).

Overall not a terrible film, but it leaves me with no reason to recommend it or think about it at any deeper level.
   
Made in gb
Stalwart Tribune





Baelin's Route... so good.



Praise the Omnissiah

About 4k of .

Imperial Knights (Valiant, Warden & Armigers)

Some Misc. Imperium units etc. Assassins...

About 2k of  
   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch





Nice day for streaming aint it, huh huh

"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED." 
   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

yes. I just learned about Six-String Samurai and that might be the movie I'll watch tonight.

   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria

Change of plans! I watched Hard Ticket to Hawaii instead. Because why wouldn't I. An infamous classic of the erotic tough island police ladies vs. drug farmer's diamonds vs. contagious giant snake martial arts action comedy genre. I watch it every few years and then kinda forget about it again.

It pops up on youtube pretty regularly, but with computers and alghorithms making our lives more and more annoying the version I watched last night had the music cut out and of course nudits/sex scenes. And the gore was cut as well. This is NOT the way to watch that film. If one's inclined to do so. There are some famous bits in there (like the frisbee scene, the casual introduction of nunchucks to the film, the weird dialogue between the male protagonists, some meta talk about another film by the same director [if I remember correctly]), but overall I think it's mostly a nostalgia thing. People of a certain age would have seen this one constantly on cable tv late at night, so I was told. Maybe I saw it once on tv years and years ago, but I probably can't remember.

I do like the opening credits scene a lot though. It's got a neatness to it.

   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

 Sigur wrote:
yes. I just learned about Six-String Samurai and that might be the movie I'll watch tonight.


It has a strong premise, and good idea, and some decent execution..... but it can't quite pull it all off in a satisfactory way.


Chef

Jon Favreau takes some of his Iron Man money and connections and uses it to make a Food Porn movie. So many loving shot sof food being made... so many. The plot and story is the basic "Man finds what is important in life after a career break down".

As the "former" owner of a bakery and cafe..... this induced a lot of PTSD. Also, food trucks and licensing for food trucks would stop this movie about half way through.

It is a solid film.... but man, I had a tough time watching due to my own psychological baggage.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

The director made a lot of movies like that. I can’t remember the name of the film he made where Al Leong flies a helicopter, but that’s the one I’d most want to revisit.

   
Made in us
Member of the Ethereal Council






Mitchells vs The Machines.
Most movies I will say to myself "that was funny" and just kinda have the same blank expression kinda on me, even if I'm enjoying it.
I smiled so much during this movie, for like all of it. Which is better than just a few laughs.
Unlike other studios that try to get the internet and humor and internet culture, this one does Soo much.
Not to mention a heartwarming story that doesn't take sides, once you learn a bit more of the father, how he acts makes sense. Everyone is a little wrong(except the son, he is right 100% of the time, I don't care if he sounds like a full grown man)
Just so fun.

5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
 
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Without Remorse

I almost don't want to bash this movie because some blatantly racist gaks are review bombing it over the actor, but I guess I just can't bring myself to care? Without Remorse is the only Tom Clancy book I think I actually like and while I could give less of a damn that John Kelly is played a black actor, it's the deviations from the primary story that really irk me. John Kelly's quest for revenge against great big donkey-caves who murdered a woman he barely knew but who made him feel alive again was a compelling story. A bit like John Wick actually, in that the injustice of this woman's life and death is more what drives John than his actual relationship with her. His relationship with her is simply his personal connection. The original book (to be fair I haven't read it in a long time) treats that connection as happenstance and its what was done to her that drove his roaring rampage of revenge more than who she was to him.

The movie takes that and turns it into something much more more generic and in turn produces a very run of the mill film that lacks all the book's down to earth strife and struggle. Instead we get another banal experience of idiot black ops operatives who are too stupid to be black ops operatives getting in on a dumb conspiracy to achieve some dumb end and dumbly getting themselves killed by going after a guy they had no reason to go after. They took a surprisingly nuanced and compassionate story that set a man on a road of violence and made you wonder how much better he was than the men he was killing, and made a slice of 'Murica pie out of it. And I just can't get over how that's so much worse than what the film could have been.

It's just not a good movie, and it's a horrible adaptation of what should have been Clancy's most readily adaptable novel (or at least, the parts of that novel that were good, half of it is a Vietnam POW's plot that I guess was topical in the late 80s early 90s but has aged poorly now and just isn't nearly as good as the revenge drama).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/11 02:24:33


   
Made in at
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!





Vienna, Austria


...

Chef

Jon Favreau takes some of his Iron Man money and connections and uses it to make a Food Porn movie. So many loving shot sof food being made... so many. The plot and story is the basic "Man finds what is important in life after a career break down".

As the "former" owner of a bakery and cafe..... this induced a lot of PTSD. Also, food trucks and licensing for food trucks would stop this movie about half way through.

It is a solid film.... but man, I had a tough time watching due to my own psychological baggage.


That's the food truck one in which he's married to Sofia Vergara, right?
Yeah, that one was absolutely alright and very inoffensive. Maybe I didn't watch it very astutely, but it struck me as a bit too inoffensive and unproblematic. Also of course: To me Jon Favreau will always be "the richest guy in the world who conquered the financial world and strifes to conquer the physical world by becoming the ultimate fighting champion".


Last night I watched Firestorm (1998), starring someone who looks a tiny bit like Favreau, William Forsythe.
Prison inmates are used to help put out a forest fire (because having a huge, free workforce of slaves at the ready is really handy, I assume), but evil mastermind inmate William Forsythe and his mates (including Berry Pepper, sporting a Dumb and Dumber hairdo. Btw, if you wanna see a weird picture of him, go to his wikipedia page) escape and steal the outfits of Canadian firefighters.

There's a lot of stuff going on. The female lead is an ex-marine-turned-ornithologist, Forsythe's killing off his buddies one by one because there's some sort of money stash he doesn't want to share, there's a square-jawed firefighter/park sherriff, and the big fire of course.

This feels like a very cheap film. Was to be produced by a company who actually got Stallone to star in it, but the company went under before they started shooting. Then 20th century Fox took over, cut the budget, and the result is a rather made-for-tv looking film. There's one pretty exciting action scene including a parachute, but that's it really. Given how there's a raging forest fire and escaped murderers and all of that it's pretty boring. At least the fire effects look mostly nice. If that film had been made just a few years later we'd have gotten horrible made-for-tv forest fire effects, and that would have been even more painful.

Don't Watch.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/13 10:15:20


   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Paper Tigers

This is a hilarious movie. It's basically a dad comedy about 3 out of practice kung fu disciples in middle age, getting caught up in events after the death of their master. It's a simple formula, and it's a very funny movie and incredibly wholesome in the best ways.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Is Paper Tigers streaming? Where did you see it?

   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is Paper Tigers streaming? Where did you see it?


I rented it on iTunes. I think I saw an ad for it on Amazon Prime too. Just checked its a rent/buy.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Thanks. The ads make it seem like it could be enjoyed by the whole family. How old do you feel a child would need to be to see the movie?

   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Thanks. The ads make it seem like it could be enjoyed by the whole family. How old do you feel a child would need to be to see the movie?


Off the top of my head, there's some cursing (I know 'gak' and 'son of a bitch' are both uttered but the movie isn't excessive), no sex jokes I can recall, there's violence but it's not particularly graphic pretty general Kung fu movie violence. There is one time the movie makes a drug joke but no actual drugs and one case of the n-bomb being dropped. It's rated PG-13. Honestly, the morals of the film are pretty wholesome. Brotherhood, family, learning to apologize and be the bigger person. So I guess it depends on what the attitudes in your family are. I know some parents are super sensitive about cursing and others are less so. That's really the only red flag that really stands out for me on this movie and kids.

A lot of the humor and small moment feel like something only someone into their thirties will appreciate though. Stuff like how you just don't move like you used to, regrets about how we maybe didn't appreciate our mentor figures enough when we could have, the difficulty of living up to our promises. I can see a kid enjoying the movie's goofier moments and humor in a 'haha old people kind of way' but for me at least what kept making me smile and chuckle are the 'yeah I feel that' moments now that I'm getting to that age myself.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/05/14 00:14:55


   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Thank you. I’m going to try to get the family to see this this weekend.

   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Oxfordshire

Bad Boys for Life

Hallelujah, I've seen something this year that is actually good! It doesn't always meet the slick writing of its predecessors and the resolution of the plot is rediculous (it makes no sense however you look at it). And the kill count for innocent bystanders must be through the roof - but it's Bad Boys, they're forgiven.

Everything is made worthwhile by the moments when the brotherhood of Mike and Marcus gets to shine. The motorcycle scene arguing about being an instrument of god had me giggling for a good while. There's some pretty good technical camera directing going on which complements the emotional parts too, but I won't bore you with the details.

I don't think this is one to watch again, unlike the first, but it raised more than a smile with me.
   
 
Forum Index » Geek Media
Go to: