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Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

Prompted by a conversation here I ordered The Prisoner from the library.
Got the Alec Guinness movie instead of the series.

The crisp RP accents made it less about attacking any one country and more about the methods employed by Communist/totalitarian regimes.

1984 in 1955.
 
Cloverfield Paradox - 6/10

A decent B-list sci fi movie. The issue is that, post-production, they decided that they wanted to tie it into the Cloverfield movie, so they added a few scenes with people calling into the space station the characters are on or saying something on a TV screen mentioning Cloverfield and filmed some new scenes with the husband of one of the characters who was in the movie for a couple minutes at the beginning hiding from Cloverfield monsters. None of the main characters on the space station ever made the slightest reference to anything to do with Cloverfield. The movie itself was fairly good, but the tie-ins didn't work for me at all.

It was brilliant as a marketing move and likely got a few million people who wouldn't have seen it otherwise to tune in, but for me it seriously undercut an otherwise enjoyable movie.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Cloverfield Paradox - 6/10

A decent B-list sci fi movie. The issue is that, post-production, they decided that they wanted to tie it into the Cloverfield movie, so they added a few scenes with people calling into the space station the characters are on or saying something on a TV screen mentioning Cloverfield and filmed some new scenes with the husband of one of the characters who was in the movie for a couple minutes at the beginning hiding from Cloverfield monsters. None of the main characters on the space station ever made the slightest reference to anything to do with Cloverfield. The movie itself was fairly good, but the tie-ins didn't work for me at all.

It was brilliant as a marketing move and likely got a few million people who wouldn't have seen it otherwise to tune in, but for me it seriously undercut an otherwise enjoyable movie.
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I respectfully disagree. The Cloverfield connection was completely illogical and made absolutely no sense in the context of either movie, but most of the other plot points in The Cloverfield Paradox were equally nonsensical. In the end, it didn't seem to know if it wanted to be a space horror film like Event Horizon, or a science fiction movie like Sunshine or Life. I don't want to spoil anything, so rest of the rant is hidden...


I mean, why the heck did Volkov go crazy because a bunch of worms magically transported into his body, along with a basketball sized gyroscope? Shouldn't he have felt sick and/or dead instead of paranoid? How convenient is it that these particular objects transported cleanly inside his body without any immediate adverse effects whatsoever? And then there is Mundy's detached arm, that gives them a hint about the whereabouts of the gyroscope. So the ship grabs his arm, acting as if by some intelligent force, the arm disappears, and later appears, but not controlled by him but presumably by the other Mundy in the alternative dimension. Where the space station crashed into the ocean. And somehow, that arm can scribble a hint that the gyroscope is inside Volkov, so that they can move the plot forward. This fucking movie is full of stupid deus ex machinas like that, which are never explained and only exist for cheap thrills and to add to the runtime so that you can call it a "movie" instead of a run-of-the-mill episode of Outer Limits.

The monster at the end was the least of this movie's problems.



I'd give it 3/10. Its only saving grace is that the main villain's motivation is not entirely illogical, given the circumstances, and Elizabeth Debicki isn't too hard on the eyes.
 
All the other plot points were supposed to be illogical and not make sense. They were messing around with other dimensions and that caused weird and illogical shit to happen. The fact that they were weird and illogical was the entire point - reality was breaking down around them.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
All the other plot points were supposed to be illogical and not make sense. They were messing around with other dimensions and that caused weird and illogical shit to happen. The fact that they were weird and illogical was the entire point - reality was breaking down around them.
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Why doesn't the same reasoning apply to the monster? I mean, if the entire point is that weird and illogical things happen, then a monster from a completely different franchise showing up from nowhere fits right it, doesn't it?

No, the real problem is that the even the weird stuff has to have some rhyme or reason to it. It can't stop and start suddenly for no reason (no in-story reason that is, deus ex machinas that just move the plot forward are rarely good reasons). The Cloverfield Paradox doesn't take the madness far enough.
 
Jayjay said:
Tom Sawyer said:
All the other plot points were supposed to be illogical and not make sense. They were messing around with other dimensions and that caused weird and illogical shit to happen. The fact that they were weird and illogical was the entire point - reality was breaking down around them.
Click to expand...
Why doesn't the same reasoning apply to the monster? I mean, if the entire point is that weird and illogical things happen, then a monster from a completely different franchise showing up from nowhere fits right it, doesn't it?

No, the real problem is that the even the weird stuff has to have some rhyme or reason to it. It can't stop and start suddenly for no reason (no in-story reason that is, deus ex machinas that just move the plot forward are rarely good reasons). The Cloverfield Paradox doesn't take the madness far enough.
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Yeah, that was their reasoning. My point was that all the Cloverfield stuff had nothing to do with the movie. The moving arm, the battery inside the guy, it was weird, but it was weird within the story. The Cloverfield stuff was tacked on afterwards and had nothing to do with the plot. They didn't even have one of the actors come back onset and give one line of dialogue about a monster infront of a generic looking wall. The tie in was completely irrelevant to the move they had already finished making.

Not only was it irrelevant, it didn't actually even tie into Cloverfield well. It happened a decade later and the one monster they showed was at least a hundred times larger than the Cloverfield one for no reason at all. It didn't make sense in the movie and it didn't make sense as a tie in to the other movies. It was just tossed in there with no thought or consideration about either of those.

I would have loved to give seen another Cloverfield movie. This wasn't one, though. This was a poorly done marketing gimmick, not a part of a series.
 
Wonder Woman

Didn't think I'd like it because of my disdain for the majority of superhero movies. But it was solid enough watch. I'm not a comic book fan so almost all of my Wonder Woman references relate back to Linda Carter role in the mid/late 1970s TV series.

Maybe I missed it, but can she be killed? Or is that coming in the sequel? Because if she can't be killed, then she's a god, which is more akin to what Superman is than say, Spiderman.

6/10
 
Her power level has increased over the years. Long ago she had the famous invisible jet. these days she can fly. Don't know if it is a conscious decision to up someone's power, or just gradual power creep as writers set a character up against someone they shouldn't stand a chance against.

Either way, glad this is the image of WW that people will get to know, and not the one from that horrible tv pilot.
 
Opoponax said:
Wonder Woman

Didn't think I'd like it because of my disdain for the majority of superhero movies. But it was solid enough watch. I'm not a comic book fan so almost all of my Wonder Woman references relate back to Linda Carter role in the mid/late 1970s TV series.

Maybe I missed it, but can she be killed? Or is that coming in the sequel? Because if she can't be killed, then she's a god, which is more akin to what Superman is than say, Spiderman.

6/10
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From what I remember, back in the '80s Wonder Woman was first given the back story that she was formed from clay by Hypolita, and given life by the Greek gods. Various gods imbued her with different abilities, and I believe this is when she was given the ability to fly, and became mostly invulnerable. That back story shifted a bit over the next 30 years, giving her differing sets of powers, so I'm not sure exactly when the invisible jet was jettisoned in favor of being able to fly herself, or when she became invulnerable, but both of those attributes were pretty much cannon by the '90s.

In the New 52 continuity, which was introduced in 2011, the "formed from clay" bit was ret-conned to be a ruse to protect her identity as Zeus' daughter, making her a demigod like Hercules, her half brother. That is the continuity that is closest to what is shown in the movies. Since then, she fought and defeated Ares, and became the actual God of War, as it was believed that Ares died in the battle. It has recently been revealed (or ret-conned) that Ares did not die, so her status as the God of War was revoked (or at least put in doubt), but she still remains a demigod with the powers of flight and invulnerability.

This was not even the first time she was made a God(dess). In the late '80s, or early '90s, she was made the God of Truth by the other Greek gods, but this notably also meant that Diana was no longer Wonder Woman, and Hypolita took over that role for a while. She got that title taken away from her because she refused to stop interfering in the lives of mortals, and that set up a conflict with Hypolita, who was pretty stoked about being Wonder Woman. In that continuity, Hypolita was killed before they could physically butt heads, and Diana then reverted back to being Wonder Woman.

It can be very confusing, but you get used to that kind of thing if you read comic books long enough. Just understand who the character is in the current continuity, and you are generally set. Problems do arise, however, when multiple continuities get run at once, and say the Wonder Woman from Sensation Comics is not a one for one match with the Wonder Woman from the main Wonder Woman books. Batman and Superman often have the same problem on the DC side, and don't even get me started with the X-men on the Marvel side, as they have about 3-4 competing continuities going on right now.
 
The Princess Bride
10/10 for light comedy fantasy.

The scene where the thief and bandit are matching wits over drinking poison is hilarious. Good writing and acting.
 
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