Topic: "What Movies Have You Seen Lately?" Thread

[Cobra951]

Haha!  Yes, those are nice.  But that pic obscures her best features.  Anyone can buy good boobs in Hollywood.   

[Quemaqua]

Can't agree with you there. If you have to buy the boobs, they aren't going to be that great.

[W7RE]

I was going to watch Insidious 2 on Netflix, but I didn't remember much of Insidious 1. So I found a 4 minute recap of the first movie on YouTube. Now that I've been reminded of how dumb Insidious was, I don't know if I want to watch the sequel.

[idolminds]

Another free month of netflix, time for more movies to catch up on.

John Wick: A charming tale about a man and his dog. I enjoyed it.

Kingsman: It was enjoyable, though some parts went so over the top that I kinda groaned (the..."fireworks" at the end). I hear the church scene was originally 7 minutes long. I want to see that cut.

Ex Machina: Really good. I was not expecting that ending.

[Cobra951]

Didn't expect it; didn't like it.  It's too easy to go that route in sci-fi, and too often comes across as cheap shock value.  I thought the movie was smarter than that until then.  I did enjoy the ride, even if it ended up crashing with me in it.

I understand what some will say as retort, to which I'll respond that conceiving and executing those actions requires much of our lifetime, to amass the knowledge of human behaviors, and lose the naivete of childhood.  In that tiny constricted environment, and short time, no way in hell.  It's not a question of intelligence, or speed of processing, but of experience.

[idolminds]

It worked ok for me considering she had basically the entire internets worth of knowledge to work from. Or at least considering how much disbelief I was already suspending to make the movie work that it wasn't a challenge to just roll with it.

[Cobra951]

Maybe so.  I still think it's too far-fetched, but maybe so is the premise of the whole thing.  Whatever.  Good flick overall.  Smarter than most of what passes for sci-fi these days.

I liked John Wick for what it was.  Kingsman was hilarious in spots.  It was also weird.

Here is the best way to watch Pixels:  Skip all the plot, and just watch all the classic 80s arcade games brought to life.  See how many you can identify in the mayhem.  It was quite entertaining.

[scottws]

Maybe so.  I still think it's too far-fetched, but maybe so is the premise of the whole thing.  Whatever.  Good flick overall.  Smarter than most of what passes for sci-fi these days.

I liked John Wick for what it was.  Kingsman was hilarious in spots.  It was also weird.

Here is the best way to watch Pixels:  Skip all the plot, and just watch all the classic 80s arcade games brought to life.  See how many you can identify in the mayhem.  It was quite entertaining.

I haven't seen Pixels, so take that for what you will; however, I have seen the trailer and it is a movie clearly marketed towards a younger crowd. What kid knows knows anything about Centipede or Galaga? Kind of weird.

[ender]

Saw Crimson Peak. A dud, but with some really beautiful sets and camera work. Very generic and languid storytelling.

[scottws]

I saw The Martian last night.  I didn't love the book, but went into it for the wonder of Ridley Scott's direction and set pieces.  Essentially, I was hoping to see something like the visuals of Prometheus.

It was just okay.  The visuals were very good, but not really stunning like in Prometheus and they somehow made Mark Whatney's survival on Mars seem far less challenging than it was in the book.

[Cools!]

I watched Jupiter Ascending a few days ago because it was on TV and I had nothing else to do. Sigh...

[idolminds]

Had another Netflix sub that let me catch up on a few movies. John Wick, Dredd, and Kingsman were all pretty fun movies for different reasons. Also watched The Raid which was pretty cool (and has a similar setup to Dredd, funny enough). I want to say its from thailand originally? The fighting reminded me of Tony Jaa movies. I got the sequel here I will watch soon.

[Pugnate]

Bridge of Spies is worth a watch. Good film by Spielberg.

[W7RE]

Tremors - still holds up. Inventive and silly.

Tremors 2: Aftershocks - A giant step down from the first, but still watchable. Fred Ward (Earl) returns with a new sidekick, and Michael Gross returns as well (Burt the gun nut from the first movie)

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection - Wow these got bad. Michael Gross is back again and is the main star, along with a few small parts from people that were in the first movie. The creatures get more ridiculous, and the effects work is at its worst.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins - This one goes back to 1889 where Michael Gross plays his own ancestor and helps defeat the graboids. The whole beginning and middle of the movie was really boring, but it sort of picks up at the end. The gunslinger character was particularly bad.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines - This one was actually a step of from the previous few. Michael Gross is again hunting the graboids, this time in South Africa. The effects work are actually not bad in this one, but the existence of Jamie Kennedy sort of dragged the whole thing down for me.

Creep - Found footage movie about a guy who hires an amature cameraman to film a diary type video for him. It was pretty average, nothing really special about it, but wasn't terrible either.

The Human Centipede 3: The Final Sequence - First I just want to say that I thought the first two movies in this series were alright. They weren't amazing, but they weren't as appalling to me as they seem to be for most people. This one, however, was so bad in so many ways. A Texas prison warden can't keep his inmates in line and nothing works. So he decides to turn them all into the first human prison centipede. It stars the doctor from the first movie, and the killer from the second movie, as the warden and his assistant. The warden's secretary is portrayed by pornstar Bree Olson, and he abuses her physically and sexually throughout the movie. Some of the low points, for those who don't care about spoilers:

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The warden castrates an inmate with a pocket knife (you see it all), and has the cook prepare them so he can eat them. The warden has a jar of human clitorises he imported from Africa and snacks on. At one point he has a dream of a prisoner shanking him in the side, then raping the hole. He forces his secretary to give him oral sex in his office, in front of his assistant. He rapes his secretary after she's been beaten into a coma ("the sight of a beaten woman makes me so hard", he says), and then he sticks her into the human centipede just for the hell of it.

Somehow the first 2 movies didn't bother me, but this one just comes across as a pathetic attempt to top them.

[scottws]

I love the original Tremors movie.  I didn't see all of the rest, but the ones I did see were bad.

[Cobra951]

Same here.  I've so far avoided the latest one.

[scottws]

I saw Spectre a few days ago.  I surprised myself with my desire to see it because I absolutely hated pretty much every last thing about Skyfall.  I ended up liking this one, but still prefer the first two films with Craig in the lead.  I think Spectre struck a nice balance between those two films and Skyfall in terms of its homage to Bond cliches.  It didn't flush down the cliches like Casino Royale and it didn't kiss the feet of them like Skyfall did either.  I also preferred the villain here and the plot actually made some sense this time.

I also watched Focus and found it thoroughly boring and dumb, so boring and dumb that I remember almost nothing about it even though I watched it a just a couple of weeks ago.  Don't bother.

[Cools!]

I agree on Focus. I stopped watching it after the first 15 minutes.

[W7RE]

I'd previously only seen  the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies. I recently watched the first 3 Daniel Craig ones and was surprised how much I liked them. Skyfall was a bit more forgettable than the other two, but still good.

Spoilers for Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall:

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I'm really surprised at how disposable the women are though. It's not the way Bond treats them, but the way they all seem to die. I could be wrong but I seem to recall the Brosnan movies ending with a girl in his arms a lot, and then they are never back for the next movie. Casino Royale actually did it really well, integrating the romance into Bond's character and then him devolving because of her betrayal and death. In Skyfall though, for example, he meets a woman who is basically a sex slave, vows to save her from her master, joins her in the shower, and then she dies. It really felt like that was going somewhere, but instead it's just a mechanism for trying to prove to the audience that the villain is an ass.

[Cobra951]

After watching every Bond over decades, I see a pattern: one girl gets screwed and dies, then another girl gets screwed and lives.  Not always, but often.

[MysterD]

The Gift [2015] - Twisted movie with lots of intrigue + very good acting; oh, and Jason Bateman playing a serious role. With plot-twists, turns, and a jaw-dropping conclusion....this film turned out to be quite good.

Terminator: Genisys - Popcorn flick plays a lot of nods to Terminator 1 and especially to T2. Emilia Clarke + Arnold steal the show in their roles, as well as the special effects + action sequences. Way more fun than the few previous Terminator movies, loaded w/ one-liners galore (especially from Arnold)...though, this film's story + plot at times can get quite convoluted & ridiculous. But, it's still entertaining and one of the better Terminator movies of late - but still, nowhere in the world as T1 + T2.

Mr. Holmes - A great plot, story, acting, setting, and sets....almost gets RUINED by absolutely horribly slow pacing. What could've been a great movie turns out to be only decent b/c the pacing is often extremely unnecessarily slow and long-winded.

San Andreas [movie] - Terrible. Waste of a decent cast (Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti, "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson) to put butts in seats at theatres or to get people to see this train-wreck of a movie on DVD, BR, whatever. The special effects are absolutely incredible, when they happen - kudos to that team for making some of the best destruction that I've even seen on screen. But, too much crap in-between. But, ultra-predictable plot & story as most disaster-movies; predictable plot-lines + unnecessary sub-plots; and poor pacing make this film a poor rental even. Seriously, go see something else.

[scottws]

I saw The Big Short on Sunday. I enjoyed this movie immensely! The acting is top-notch through and through and the movie is shot and edited in a very creative manner. The actual story (which is mostly accurate telling about some of the goings-on leading up to and during the U.S. housing crisis and subsequent global economic collapse) is gripping as well.

I highly recommend seeing this one.

[Cobra951]

I just watched that myself.  I almost stopped watching because of a perceived lack of production quality, but I'm glad I didn't.  It is fantastic (in a good way).  It does the best job of explaining what happened, with focus on the whole subprime and CDO nonsense.  Breaking the 4th wall works well for this subject matter.  I didn't even know about second or third CDOs, basically bets on the bets.  Crazy stuff.

And

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Margot Robbie in a bubble bath

.  Haha!  That was awesome.  Explanations too boring?  Here you go!

[W7RE]

Deep Dark - I don't really recommend it. It's about a struggling artist who moves into an apartment that has a sentient hole in the wall, which promises him success.

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She (the hole) ends up requiring his time and affection (including him fucking the hole), and in return she spits up fleshy things he attaches to his artwork, which makes people love it.

[Cobra951]

Room.  Extraordinary.  Totally unexpected how I got pulled into it.  Don't read too much about it.  That would only spoil it.

[MysterD]

Room.  Extraordinary.  Totally unexpected how I got pulled into it.  Don't read too much about it.  That would only spoil it.

Just watched it.
It was really good, to say the least.

[Xessive]

I just watched Kubo and the Two Strings, an animated film from Laika (the studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls) and it was pretty sweet.

Here's the trailer:

If you like claymation I highly recommend this one.

[scottws]

I have seen tons of movies, I just haven't been posting them here.  Here are a few that stick out:

I originally avoided Batman v. Superman because I was kind of burnt out on comic book movies and the subsequent complaints and poor reviews soured me on it.  I ended up watching it on a long flight and actually found it pretty enjoyable.  It wasn't anything amazing, but I definitely feel that it's worth a watch.

I haven't made my way all the way through Nice Guys yet, but the movie is absolutely hilarious so far.

[Ace_O_Spades]

I saw Moana, it was a good Disney movie. The songs are catchy as fuck and I thought the story was, while predictable, still enjoyable.

[Cobra951]

I liked Moana too.  The sequence with the exploring, sailing people ended up getting used to help calibrate my screen for movies and games on my new PC.  Haha!  It's gorgeous, and goes through every conceivable environmental color combination and ambient lighting, all inside a couple of minutes.

I watched The Great Wall.  Sorry, I loved it.  I know it got a lot of negativity, but I don't care.  It's spectacular, spectacularly made, and had me glued to the screen all the way through.  I read nothing about it beforehand, so it had that From Dusk Till Dawn moment that threw me for a loop.

Edit:  Logan--ugh!  Everything I hate about taking established universes and trashing them for shock effect.  This one does a meticulously thorough job.  JJ Abrams would be proud.

[PyroMenace]

I liked Moana too.  The sequence with the exploring, sailing people ended up getting used to help calibrate my screen for movies and games on my new PC.  Haha!  It's gorgeous, and goes through every conceivable environmental color combination and ambient lighting, all inside a couple of minutes.

I watched The Great Wall.  Sorry, I loved it.  I know it got a lot of negativity, but I don't care.  It's spectacular, spectacularly made, and had me glued to the screen all the way through.  I read nothing about it beforehand, so it had that From Dusk Till Dawn moment that threw me for a loop.

Edit:  Logan--ugh!  Everything I hate about taking established universes and trashing them for shock effect.  This one does a meticulously thorough job.  JJ Abrams would be proud.

I'll have to check out The Great Wall, I'm still curious about it.

As for Logan, I wouldn't really take Fox's Xmen franchise of movies of being established at this point since they have shit on it a bit after the the first two Xmen movies. I mostly dismissed Logan as trying to be too "grounded and edgy" when I saw it, but I will admit Johnny Cash serenading that trailer had something to it. I will disagree with you on it being something other than shock effect, in fact, I would recommend if anyone wanted to watch the Xman saga, I would say Xmen 1, 2, First Class, Days of Future Past, and Logan. You could honestly skip everything else without losing anything.

[MysterD]

Watched last night Live By Night.

Good gangster flick, but a bit short of reaching greatness.
Some of the sub-plots + characters could've been better developed and all.

One of the few times I could say, "Maybe this film should've been a bit longer to flesh some stuff out."

Still, I liked it. One of Ben Affleck's better flicks of late; especially since Batman v. Superman was so "Meh."

[scottws]

The Arrival.  It is very much worth a watch.  Very good sci-fi.  I liked Passengers too.

[Xessive]

The Arrival.  It is very much worth a watch.  Very good sci-fi.  I liked Passengers too.

I enjoyed Passengers but I couldn't get into The Arrival at all. It felt like Contact all over again.

[Quemaqua]

Finally got around to seeing DOPE, which has been on my Netflix list for fucking forever. Thought it was awesome. Very entertaining, funny, and some great characters. Amazing soundtrack too.

And to go as hard in the opposite direction as possible, I also saw 君の名は, or Your Name, in theaters, which was a treat. It's anime, but not super anime, and is mostly just gorgeous and a little odd and very heartfelt. At the end I was maybe crying a little bit. Worth seeing on the big screen just for the visuals. Really gorgeous.

[scottws]

I saw Alien: Covenant.  Skip!  I found it very dumb and predictable.  I found Prometheus to be a far better and more entertaining movie... that's saying something.  I'd rank it maybe above the AvP movies and Alien: Resurrection, but that's it.

[MysterD]

I enjoyed Passengers but I couldn't get into The Arrival at all.

I liked both of those.

[Cools!]

Wonder Woman: I enjoyed it, but found the end meh.
Alien Covenant: I thought it was too repetitive and predictable compared to everything else that has been done already. Also, Prometheus setup an interesting sequel and Covenant just skipped all that. Having said that, it's Alien movie so I had to watch it.
Skull Island: I liked it except for your typical monster movie cliches. Maybe there is hope for a good sequel.
mother!: It's not perfect, but I liked it a lot as a mental ride. Not for everyone and does feel too pretentious at times.

[Cobra951]

Coco (Pixar).  Masterpiece.  Don't read a word about it.  Just watch it.

[MysterD]

The Foreigner - Awesome movie. Excellent performances from both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan. Way more acting & seriousness than one might expect from a Jackie Chan film. It'd way more of a thriller than anything else. Sure, there ain't many Jackie Chan style fights here - but when they're here, which is a few times, they're awesome.

November Criminals - Decent movie, but has its issues. A few things: the title is awful; doesn't fit the film. It's more about investigating a murder than criminal stuff going on. Criminal stuff feels more like a backdrop. B/c there are sub-plots and other things going on, it feels like this film could've been fleshed-out. At 1h20m or so, it's too short. It gets to the ending correctly, but feels like it does it too quickly. And then, it kind of...just ends. The journey there was really good, but it's ultra-quick wrap-up and not fleshing-out the love story sub-plot and other sub-plots enough seem to hurt the flick. Ansel (the lead from the awesome Baby Driver movie) and Chloe Moretz-Grace are really good here, despite the way things wrap-up too quickly.