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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hawk the Slayer is rubbish 🤣🤣🤣

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hawk the Slayer is rubbish 🤣🤣🤣


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oooh! Oooh! Maybe “The Last Starfighter”?

That’s always been a favourite of mine.

Hawk the Slayer is better than that.
I feel like it's where the atmosphere in Diablo, the first one, came from. At least they remind me of each other. To me it's wholesome in the way that the Prince Valiant comics are wholesome.
The FX's aren't amazing but they did quite a bit on a shoe string budget. It is also a little cheesy.

The last Star fighter is a fun little movie.

2hat about this. Deathstalker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8FTMs4hzZk

@Warhead01 it’s a joke from a UK comedy show called Spaced from a looooong time ago

 Flinty wrote:
@Warhead01 it’s a joke from a UK comedy show called Spaced from a looooong time ago

Ah, ok. Wouldn't have gotten that. My own game circle has trash talked Hawk the slayer off and on for years. I hadn't seen it in a longtime until a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I figured trash talking this movie was just a common thing.

 warhead01 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
@Warhead01 it’s a joke from a UK comedy show called Spaced from a looooong time ago

Ah, ok. Wouldn't have gotten that. My own game circle has trash talked Hawk the slayer off and on for years. I hadn't seen it in a longtime until a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I figured trash talking this movie was just a common thing.

Allow me

Deathstalker's not really suitable for kids. It's a bit rapey.

pgmason wrote:
Deathstalker's not really suitable for kids. It's a bit rapey.

The fact that the female lead is Lana Clarkson, murder victim of a once famous music producer, casts a grim shadow over watching this movie.

Guns Akimbo.

Ridiculous ultraviolence.

Keen to understand if Mr Radcliffe carries off his American accent well to native ears though.

Just watched Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (aka Gorkamorka The Movie) and I enjoyed it almost as much as Fury Road. It gave a compelling backstory to a totally awesome character, and there were plenty of things seen that were sort of retroactive foreshadowing (sort of an oxymoron I know but this movie is a prequel so...eh). Anyone who plays Orks in 40k will of course want to bring a notepad with them.

Furiosa is great. Also worthwhile for Gaslands players. It blends into Fury Road nicely enough that you could realistically watch it as one cataclysmic 4.5 hour long movie.

Speaking of which, I caught a bit of Fury Road on terrestrial last night and was once again reminded that not even Tom Hardy's complete lack of talent could prevent it from becoming one of the most spectacular actions movies ever made.

Hey, I love Tom Hardy! Not his Bane. But everything else I’ve enjoyed.

Time To Duel

This is…oddly spectacular. Fan made live action Yu-Gi-Oh movie.

The budget is non-existent. The acting is…endearingly awful. Because whilst they’re not good, they are trying. And it’s clearly been made with love for the source material. Also, Yugi’s wig is quite something.

If you’ve a taste for Outsider Art (thanks, years of watching Eurotrash!) at 45 minutes this is probably worth a whirl. Maybe with nerdy friends and some beers.

Spider-man: No Way Home

I was in two minds about having an evening playing Fallout 4 or breaking out the Blu-ray, only to turn on the tv and there it was, just starting. So decision made, and a very enjoyable rewatch it was too. A coda, of sorts, to Endgame and a nice party piece for all concerned. I hear that a fourth movie (Spider-man: Can't Afford a Home?) starts filming later this year....

 Graphite wrote:
Furiosa is great. Also worthwhile for Gaslands players. It blends into Fury Road nicely enough that you could realistically watch it as one cataclysmic 4.5 hour long movie.

Yeah, and one where the third act action scene is half of the runtime.

But yeah, Furiosa was a really good film. Don't go in expecting Fury Road 2. You still get some very nice vehicular based action but the pace of the film is a lot slower. It is more akin to Mad Max 1, focused on examining how this particular character reacted to and was moulded by the wasteland.

Paint

The part Owen Wilson was born to play!

A "Bob Ross-esque" PBS TV painter in Vermont has his world shaken when the station brings in a new rival.

This is billed as a comedy, but the comedy is all in the set-up for the most part. The characters themselves are a bit quirky, but play it straight. This is not set-up then punchline style comedy. It is pretty low-key and my fellow watchers felt it more of a drama about a man slowly coming apart and re-building themselves after set backs.

The film is set in Vermont but it felt VERY Mid-western. The way Fargo (the movie) is very Mid-western. The whole premise and the way the characters react to situations reminded me of home.


Next Goal Wins

A sports-underdog-comedy from some hot-stuff-young director that is very loosely based on some stuff that actually happened to the American Samoa international soccer team.

Pretty much what it says on the tin, but with a few solid moments. I can see why it never went to the cinema, but straight to streaming.

A fine enough way to pass the time after a tiring or rough day.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Rarely have I been so disappointed. I loved Fury Road. I mistakenly dragged various family members with me on Sunday, in one case the first time they had been to the cinema since Covid. The film basically was boring, with each chapter being reminiscent of a webisode, not part of a film. Making the wasteland dull and slow is a curious choice. Most of the audience were checking phones at the end, and for the credits they basically show you a better film you could have watched instead...

 Flinty wrote:
Guns Akimbo.

Ridiculous ultraviolence.

Keen to understand if Mr Radcliffe carries off his American accent well to native ears though.

it's proportional to the rest of the film's quality

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Rarely have I been so disappointed. I loved Fury Road. I mistakenly dragged various family members with me on Sunday, in one case the first time they had been to the cinema since Covid. The film basically was boring, with each chapter being reminiscent of a webisode, not part of a film. Making the wasteland dull and slow is a curious choice. Most of the audience were checking phones at the end, and for the credits they basically show you a better film you could have watched instead...

I'm not sure I'd call it boring, but no, you're right, Fury Road it's not....

The main thought I had all throughout it was: "HOW have these ultra-violent morons managed to survive all this time past the fall of civilization?? HOW??"
I mean, Dementis is so stupid that he can't find the land of abundance. It's not that hard. You know the range of the bikes they were riding. Tank full of gas + what, 2 Jerry cans of extra fuel each? Your underling morons could only have gone out so far.... Do a search. Maybe aim towards rocky hills on the horizon/perimeter because you know it isn't out here in the sand with you - otherwise you'd have come across it already as you crisscross the wastes in your {somehow} still functioning vehicles.
This idiot then takes over a refinery city & holds it for years....

If you watch a Mad Max movie expecting realism, you're missing the point entirely. That would be like watching a p*rno movie for the plot. Personally I liked Dementus as a villain, he was over-the-top enough to be entertaining, and deranged enough to come off as threatening. Chris Hemsworth did a pretty good job really. And it was nice getting a close up look at Gastown and the Bullet Farm, places that were basically only mentioned in Fury Road.

The lack of constant action was okay in Furiosa. We got to see her backstory, and it worked well in telling how even though she was stuck in horrible situations with horrible people, she still retained her humanity and basic desire to do good, leading up to her actions in Fury Road. All in all, a competent bit of storytelling, with enough action interspersed throughout to remind you that you were indeed watching a Mad Max movie.

Also, the point was that Dementus was not a good leader. He had some cunning but basically no leadership beyond that, as seen by the events of the film whenever he got his hands on something resembling power over more than his horde.

Dementus and his group was a horde of locusts, they destroy anything they touch, with no regard for the future, only consuming the here and now.

Immortan Joe and his brothers, for all of their many, many faults, understood the limits of the civilizations they were in charge of. They knew what level of production they could maintain in the Citadel, they kept their populations under control despite their tyranny. They still needed to die, but until then it is better to live under them than a mad dog like Dementus.

He always was the person that Furiosa faced in their final confrontation. It is just that earlier in the film we were seeing him through the eyes of a child, and it is easy to appear threatening and powerful to a child.

Nothing in Irate Maxwell passes the fridge logic test. There is just no way a world that desolate could keep so many cars and trucks and bikes fueled and working.

Oh you have Gastown and the Bullet Farm you say?

Great where's Rubber Plantation World, Iron Smeltington, Machine Toolopolis and all the other places a fleet of cars fighting off road need?

You get the idea, there's enough realism to be disturbing, but not so much it's 2 hours of people scrounging for food and watching their teeth fall out.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Guns Akimbo.

Ridiculous ultraviolence.

Keen to understand if Mr Radcliffe carries off his American accent well to native ears though.

it's proportional to the rest of the film's quality

Soooo... it's excellent?

Also got to remember that the Mad Max movies are myths within the Mad Max universe itself.

Mad Max is sort of it's own thing, really, but you can see it being the sort of tale MFP guys in other precincts tell over a couple of beers about a guy who went completely off the rails.

Mad Max II is told as "I remember the Road Warrior" by the feral kid who ends up leading a tribe out east.

Beyond Thunderdome is the recollection of the kids who already talk about The Before Time as half remembered civilisation.

Fury Road is again about seeking a myth from childhood. The Warboys look for a mythical Valhalla. Is there any way at all that human society can have gone that weird in a time interval where Max is a former cop?

In Furiosa the Wasteland is vast, and empty, and it's all there is. So where did Dementus come from? Somewhere else. Doesn't matter. Not to the myths that people are telling each other around campfires decades, maybe centuries, later.

And Dementus is not only a bad leader. It seems that he's actively sabotaging himself.

Boss Level

Frank Grillo (The guy who plays Crossbones in The Winter Soldier) stars with Naomi Watts in this action movie version of Groundhog's Day.

At first, the movie's show don't tell approach to setting up the plot was really causing me to grind-my-teeth. Second, the main character was not that likeable. Third, there is a lot of stream-of-consciousness exposition. All three of these things had me discounting the movie.

However, by the end, I found myself enjoying it for what it was. They humanize the main character as part of his character arc. They tone down the Noir style narrations, but do not eliminate it. They reduce exposition bombing, to more of a distant thudding.

Honestly, the exposition bombing was not really needed. Any half-way intelligent audience would be able to figure it out, but that is the problem with a lot of movies now-a-days. They have 0 faith that an audience can figure anything out.

Judging by the "analysis" I read and watch online.... the makers are right to think this. Most viewers can not figure things out on their own and absolutely need all ambiguity explained to them. They want (and need) the exposition dumped on them. If you don't, the audience feels like the film-maker failed. Subtlety in films is dead.

Anyway, not a terrible movie, and actually kind of fun. Nothing new here per se, but it delivers where it needs to competently. I think this is a HULU original.... whatever that means..... and would not go out of my way to see it. Sorry HULU, you can't make Frank Grillo happen!

Dune

The one wot Lynch wrote and directed.

God I love this film.

I appreciate it takes pretty big libs with the source material.

But Lawks. For its era? This is the “one and done” sci-fi epic to rule them all. Much more plot dense than its contemporaries, with a stylistic impact which heavily influenced that of the artists and creatives who’d go on to create 40K.

And talk about a cast.

One day, I hope to see this on the Big Screen.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Dune

The one wot Lynch wrote and directed.

God I love this film.

I appreciate it takes pretty big libs with the source material.

But Lawks. For its era? This is the “one and done” sci-fi epic to rule them all. Much more plot dense than its contemporaries, with a stylistic impact which heavily influenced that of the artists and creatives who’d go on to create 40K.

And talk about a cast.

One day, I hope to see this on the Big Screen.

I'd argue Lynch's adaptation does some really masterful things that are very rare to get.

For example his take on the Wyrding way and the modules as weapons - its not in the book.
It's not in the book at all

But its so well done that its easily accepted that it was in the book. It fits so well.

I'd also agree it paces itself and establishes its characters better. The new Dune (at least the first) feels like we have very important, very impactful events shown but they are like snippets. The tiny bits that link them together. The unimportant "Walking from room A to B" kind of stuff that knits a story as a single thing; are missing. So it feels like we get the headline event from every chapter without the stuff around it that makes it a story. It's not alone in this, I feel like there's a good few films that suffer from this, though sometimes its just one or two scenes not multiple.

But yeah Lyche created a visual style for Dune that has lasted the test of time. Much like how the Lord of the Rings films have very firmly created a visual style for LotR

They Live

The one that’s here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and it’s all out of bubble gum.

Nada is a down on his luck construction worker who stumbles onto the horrible, horrible truth: capitalism, consumerism and exploitation walk among us. They Live is a classic that will ever be a movie that’s More Relevant Now Than Ever. So, yeah, it holds up.

If that doesn’t appeal, here are two other reasons to watch it:

1. The memes.
2. The never-ending alley fight.

Watch it. Buy it. Buy the t-shirt. Buy the Ultra-4k Special Edition.
Consume.

never much cared for They Live. in the modern day, it all feels a bit too proto-qanon. the scene in the bank in particular is so reminiscent of a public shooting that it becomes uncomfortable. and i know Carpenter has said that wasn't the intent, and i believe he didn't mean it that way, but the whole thing comes across as unsettlingly antisemitic

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
never much cared for They Live. in the modern day, it all feels a bit too proto-qanon. the scene in the bank in particular is so reminiscent of a public shooting that it becomes uncomfortable. and i know Carpenter has said that wasn't the intent, and i believe he didn't mean it that way, but the whole thing comes across as unsettlingly antisemitic

True. It’s hard to argue a movie where all the financiers, the powerful and the celebrities are part of an invasive force seeking to usurp and enslave every nation doesn’t sound like an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on celluloid in the era of QAnon. But it doesn’t feel like that is the intention, and a few lines later in the film about Them treating us how we treat the Third World show the kind of satire Carpenter was going for.

Unfortunately, antisemitic conspiracy theories are so prevalent they can be read into almost any story about infiltrating aliens. For example, my favorite GW villains are Genestealers. But if I try to describe them…a human-looking invasive species with alien religious ideas that seeks to infiltrate society’s pillars of power and weaken them in the face of an incoming horde of aliens by seducing and impregnating the innocent, diluting the human race, and by starting unions… oof.

Furiosa was ok. Not as good as Fury Road but it was fine. The weakest part of the movie, for me, was Furiosa. I just didn't find her that engaging and she had almost no real character arc. She was a foolhardy hyper competent child and at the end of the film was a foolhardy hyper competent adult. I've liked ATJ in what I have seen but I didn't buy her as a younger version of the same character from Fury Road. She didn't have the same energy and just came across as someone trying to be badass instead of someone who was badass. The younger version did fine. I did roll my eyes when someone said she was the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. It did not remotely feel earned yet and even if they had stopped in one of the other MM films and had someone audibly refer to Max (or Furiosa in Fury Road) as "death, destroyer of wastelands" or something similar it would also have been groan worthy. Being a myth doesn't excuse bad writing or gak narrative elements. Speaking of the myth angle the other films felt like stories being told around a campfire while this is more like a priest reading from a Bible. Just a very different approach and attitude toward the material; it was less organic and more dogmatic. You're just supposed to accept out of the gate how super awesome this character is and not question it.


Now if you move away from Furiosa everything else is really interesting and engaging. The world building was great and the performances were good. The whole Praetorian Jack element felt a bit undercooked. Overall, not a bad movie, but just disappointing in a lot of places, which may be worse than being bad. It is going to be a very divisive film it seems. We'll have to wait ten years or so and see how it shakes out.