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Just back from a business trip to the other side of the pond. This means movies!

New Running Man - not terrible, good production quality, Glen Powell gives a spirited performance, it it has none of the charm of Arnie’s effort.

Predator Badlands - Again, A+ for effort and the cast giving it a solid go, but it’s a weird background to try to build up a buddy movie.

The Gorge - Meetcute assassins vs cosmic horror. The cast are blatantly having a great time, effects and build up are spectacular but I felt like it gave me whiplash a time or two in there.

Ballerina - Ms John Wick (like Ms Pac-Man, but with many more people getting shot in the face). The lustre has faded for me. Exactly the same setup, tropes and general plot development, except there is a bit of character history, and the lead is a woman. In all honesty, one of the best bits about the first Wick film was that it was deliberately devoid of context, and that helped keep it tight.

So all 4 enjoyable watches, but nothing earth shattering. I think I liked The Gorge the best because it was the weirdest.

Caught The Running Man on my flight.

It’s so-so. Most of it is good fun. But the ending was lame. I dunno if it’s true to the book. But Edgar Wright just doesn’t work for me without Pegg and Frost.

 Flinty wrote:

Ballerina - Ms John Wick (like Ms Pac-Man, but with many more people getting shot in the face). The lustre has faded for me. Exactly the same setup, tropes and general plot development, except there is a bit of character history, and the lead is a woman. In all honesty, one of the best bits about the first Wick film was that it was deliberately devoid of context, and that helped keep it tight.

Yep, the first John Wick is a great example of painting just enough for the audience to fill in the gaps themselves.

Just enough little snippets to hint at a deeper world that we are just seeing the surface of.

In little snippets we see how big this assassin underworld is and it's reach. Like, Wick's local policeman responding to the shots fired report from a neighbour, and seeing the corpse on the floor behind Wick when he answers the door, and his only question is "You working again, John?" With that tiny interaction you learn that the police know, but don't interfere, without anyone needing to explicitly say it. We don't know how or why, but we don't need to.

Every film after that first has tried to cement the world into place, and just made it work less and less. Because the concept is stupid, and cannot work when you try and define the details, and won't be as good as what everyone else can come up with themselves to fill in those gaps. Which is why you shouldn't. You don't explain the noodle incident.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

Ballerina - Ms John Wick (like Ms Pac-Man, but with many more people getting shot in the face). The lustre has faded for me. Exactly the same setup, tropes and general plot development, except there is a bit of character history, and the lead is a woman. In all honesty, one of the best bits about the first Wick film was that it was deliberately devoid of context, and that helped keep it tight.

Yep, the first John Wick is a great example of painting just enough for the audience to fill in the gaps themselves.

Just enough little snippets to hint at a deeper world that we are just seeing the surface of.

In little snippets we see how big this assassin underworld is and it's reach. Like, Wick's local policeman responding to the shots fired report from a neighbour, and seeing the corpse on the floor behind Wick when he answers the door, and his only question is "You working again, John?" With that tiny interaction you learn that the police know, but don't interfere, without anyone needing to explicitly say it. We don't know how or why, but we don't need to.

Every film after that first has tried to cement the world into place, and just made it work less and less. Because the concept is stupid, and cannot work when you try and define the details, and won't be as good as what everyone else can come up with themselves to fill in those gaps. Which is why you shouldn't. You don't explain the noodle incident.

Agreed, the more they have tried to explain the larger world the more absurd it has got. To the point where im not convinced a single civilian exists in that world.

Still like the movies but stop world building you are making it worse.

Yeah the first he's an exceptional assassin who everyone in one small corner of the criminal world fears.

By the end of the film series he's one of a group of super soldier type assassins who are all exceptional; all feared and yet he's even more feared than all the others and after that it just gets all kinds of messy. Heck I recall at least one of the trailers almost hinting at him being a fantasy-style warrior at one stage.


Basically the cool idea gets a little silly and then suffers from them trying to re-hash the same idea just with ever more increased odds against him.

The fight scenes started out exciting and refreshing but part way through the second they started to get a bit ponderous and by the third i was feeling a bit numb to it all.

First two are excellent primers for Low Gen Vampires in a Masquerade Game. Where a pip in Potency, Fortitude and/or Celerity gives you a real advantage against regular humans.

Plus the whole secret layer to society and strict rules in the Hotel/Elysium.

I think Ballerina suffers for being more of the same. Four John Wicks did a good job of exhausting the original concept. In my opinion a fifth one with John Wick Light was a mistake. They should have done something with the bodyguard thing from the beginning of the movie instead. That could have added something to the franchise in a way the movie we got did not.

 Flinty wrote:
The Gorge - Meetcute assassins vs cosmic horror. The cast are blatantly having a great time, effects and build up are spectacular but I felt like it gave me whiplash a time or two in there.

I liked The Gorge quite a bit. Good fun, that one.

On the John Wick stuff? The prequel TV series was good fun.

The Spirit (2008)

It's Superhero Noir Looney Tunes mostly in black and white, where a few weirdos try to lay their hands on artifacts from Greek mythology.

I found it tolerable. Sam Jackson and Scarlett Johansson were fun. The rest of the movie was just tedious. Especially the protagonist.

The Drama

I won't spoil what "The Drama" is, but I learned a few important life lessons from this A24 exercise in awkwardness from a pair of great actors, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson:

1. Don't ever tell people about the worst thing you ever did.... nothing good will come from it.

2. A reminder that some secrets in a relationship are A-OK!

3. Once something is said out loud, it can never be unsaid. Therefore, be careful what you say.

4. Some thoughts are so corrupting that once though about, they will forever poison you.

An entertaining movie that I am glad I saw in the cinema, but can be enjoyed at home just as easily. However, since I want a wider vriety of movies, I figured I better go see some in the theatre too.

Edit: This movie had the most audience participation of all the movies I have seen recently. I am now in a place with a decent set of movie theatres, and am taking full advantage of them. I am wracking up the rewards for sure! I love going to the movie theatre!

A couple of weeks ago I finally went and saw Project Hail Mary in the theater. And it was really good, but not at all what I was expecting. I'm not going to spoil everything, you just need to watch it. Very enjoyable movie! It's probably too late to catch it in theaters, but someone will be streaming it and it'll be out on Bluray/DVD soon enough.

You ever notice that Dances with Wolves and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimerron have the same basic plot plus/minus a score by Bryan Adams?

Random shower thought that has occurred to me.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Independence Day.

Now, technically this has been our dinner-time flick for the last week or so, which means the kids are watching it about 20 minutes at a time (I do have to turn it of so one of them actually finishes eating at a reasonable time )

It's exactly as we all remember it. Yesterday evening, we got to the president's big speech about celebrating OUR independence day. To say the kids are hooked is a bit of an understatement.

It's also funny watching their reaction to certain things. IE, when the explody bits are happening, they were like, bouncing in their seats and genuinely concerned for Boomer, the dog.

As I was when I saw it, I always get mad if something happens to the dog in movies. I just watched Kate today, and I thought it was really good. Definitely gave off John Wick vibes, and I feel like the filmmakers did some things that I would do if I were directing it. All in all, I thought it was a pretty solid film. One of the better films I've seen in a while, when compared to some of those other movies Netflix puts out today, which don't have nearly enough plot and are shot/written pretty poorly

Godzilla X Kong

It’s a modern Kaiju Movie. And a pretty much respectable one. My main criticism here is that once we’re in the Hollow Earth, and Kong is separated from smelly Hoomans? We lose all sense of scale. So when the final battle comes, it feels like the Kaiju are only ever as big as they need to be in order for a given building to be flattened. Especially with Scar, whom we’ve so far only seen next to Kong and Baby Giant Ape.

Still a very enjoyable Kaiju flick, even if not up to the “proper” Godzilla offerings.

It will forever have a place in my heart for big lizard suplexes big monkey.

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

After an eventful day at the market, farm boy Jack has magical beans in his possession that promptly sprout into a bridge to the sky kingdom of the sky giants. Throw in a runaway princess and a quippy royal guard and all the ingredients for a proper good time are there.

This is a really fun adventure movie. It's well made, looks pretty and a bunch of important characters make surprisingly sensible choices throughout. The story isn't very complicated or tries to add pointless twists, which I can appreciate. Quite a pleasure to watch.

Unlike...

This is Not a Test (2025)

Zombies happen, "teenagers" hole up in their high school, and...

Well, that's it. it's not like a zombie movie needs anything deeper. This is a bit more of a zombie movie than We Bury the Dead, but like it the zombies aren't much of a factor. It's more about the social drama.

Now I don't expect much of horror movie characters, and zombie movies frequently feature characters that are all kinds of non-functional, but the lot in this movie takes the cake. They've got to be the dumbest melon-fethers I've ever seen survive a zombie apocalypse. I'm actually insulted that everyone didn't die fifteen minutes into the movie and the rest of it is just zombies standing around and moaning in boredom.

And it's all entirely foreseeable, which makes for an extra dull time.

 Mrangryork wrote:
As I was when I saw it, I always get mad if something happens to the dog in movies. I just watched Kate today, and I thought it was really good. Definitely gave off John Wick vibes, and I feel like the filmmakers did some things that I would do if I were directing it. All in all, I thought it was a pretty solid film. One of the better films I've seen in a while, when compared to some of those other movies Netflix puts out today, which don't have nearly enough plot and are shot/written pretty poorly

Kate is one of my favorite modern movies. Such good fun.

Sod it. Whole Monsterverse movie series, from the top.

Superman

I bought the DVD, and what to say. Maybe... whelmed. The best bits were hearing the John Williams theme (to the point where i was expecting Can You Read My Mind at the final kiss) and the homage to the Christopher Reeves opening credits with the closing credits. And Krypto. I guess Lex was okay and Nathen Fillion was enjoyable as douchebag Green Lantern, but I felt there was a lot of stuff that viewers were supposed to know from the get-go, and the action scenes were 'meh'. I was going to see Supergirl at the cinema, but I'm reconsidering that decision....

Godzilla 2014.

The first entry in what would become the Monsterverse.

It’s so-so. The plot is quite boring, being focussed more on the scurrying smelly Hoomans, but at least the acting and script are enjoyable enough.

Whilst not an expert, I’m not sure if the villain Kaiju are meant to be an established one. They’re only referred to as MUTO.

But the effects, which let’s face are the main draw, are superb. Good use of dim lighting and overall pacing. Also you get a good impression of the sheer pants filling terror of their size and resilience.

As a film on its own? I’d say just a bit above average, on account of too much smelly Hoomans. But as the opener in a franchise and getting across “the world doesn’t really know what is going on” for later entries? This does deliver.

Overall? I’d say a comfortable 6.5/10.

The kaiju in Godzilla 2014 are new and not from any previous film. MUTO stands for Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism, which is basically a kaiju version of UFO but also is used to identify those two kaiju specifically so as to cause confusion and anger. Apparently they are thinking of having Eborah in season 3 of Monarch Legacy, who is a giant lobster, which is nice.

Kong; Skull Island

Better. Much much better. More gribblies, less smelly Hoomans drama. Basically more of what we’re all here for.

Also the smelly Hoomans drama feels like it matters more. Fish out of water, where our precious precious guns do essentially nothing.

It’s still building on Godzilla though in a satisfying and mutually enhancing way.

Godzilla 2014 was a great Godzilla movie…for about fifteen minutes.

I actually like Godzilla 2014 and appreciate how hard it is to make a Horror/Disaster Movie about Big G anymore. Way better than some efforts out there.

However, doesn't hold a candle to Minus One.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Godzilla 2014 was a great Godzilla movie…for about fifteen minutes.

If it makes you feel better 2014 has more Godzilla than the original and many of the other films, coming in at 22 out of 32* films. The highest amount of screen time was Godzilla vs Mechgodzilla II with twenty seven minutes out of a hundred and forty seven minute film. Godzilla Minus One seems to be about twelve minutes but the number seem to vary, and Shin Godzilla around seventeen.


*2019 King of the Monsters was added later and would have been 23 with nine minutes and fifty three seconds, three seconds less that 2014.

That maybe technically true, but it misses the impact of the movie. In the original Godzilla, his presence was felt through most of the movie, and when it wasn’t we had interesting characters. In Godzilla 2014, when he was onscreen his presence still felt like it was miss g from the movie and we were stuck watching uninteresting characters (until the very end). At least King of the Monsters 2019 had the good grace to be cheesy as balls.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That maybe technically true, but it misses the impact of the movie. In the original Godzilla, his presence was felt through most of the movie, and when it wasn’t we had interesting characters.

At no point did I make any qualifiers about how you are anyone else should feel about the films just elucidating that Godzilla isn't actually on screen all the much throughout the franchise, not just 2014. "His presence is felt all the time" is a different position than "he isn't on screen much and there is to much time with hoomans" and I can only refer to the one that was made not the one that was meant.

2014 feels like they went down the Bay Transformers path a bit. Not far enough to make the film suck, but sufficient to have too much smelly Hoomans.

I do like the general feel of it though. And it’s certainly superior to the Matthew Broderick one.

Other criticism is the MUTOs just look naff, and not at all like they could give the big guy any bother whatsoever.

But, the important thing is it very much seems lessons were learned. Because Kong Skull Island is greatly improved, as is the next one…Godzilla, King of Monsters

Again the smelly Hooman bits feel like they’re important, as we see a world still adapting to “blimey there are a lot of honking great monsters”

More Godzilla. More Mothra. More King Ghidorah. More Rodan. More silliness.

The story line at the Nuclear Reactor in Japan was riveting..... it was all the US Military Hoorah stuff..... that was kinda meh.

 Easy E wrote:
The story line at the Nuclear Reactor in Japan was riveting..... it was all the US Military Hoorah stuff..... that was kinda meh.

Yep, Cranston's character was good, whereas his son just didn't have any character at all beyond "generic US soldier in movie"