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

[blastula]

I saw all the best picture nominees over the past two weekends. I thought they were all good, but my clear favorite was Shape of Water. I'd rank them all like this,

The Shape of Water
Get Out
The Post
Phantom Thread
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Call Me by Your Name
Dunkirk
Lady Bird
Darkest Hour

I was not expecting much from Shape but I was totally into that story all the way. Have no faults with it. Michael Shannon should have been nominated. He does great baddies. I do hope though that Get Out wins for the sake of diversity. I mean the horror genre gets no respect. Even Peele doesn't want to call his film horror, but he's wrong, it has too many of the tropes to not be horror. It does it with great style, but still horror.

I was expecting to like Lady Bird more than I did, but wasn't sold on the preciousness. Either you're in that space or not. I probably upgraded The Post because of my personal interest in the topic. I thought Darkest Hour was too cartoonish in a way, too broad, not really Churchill himself, but the entire story and characters. Dunkirk was too monotonous, same scenes over and over. I liked most of Call Me by Your Name, it reminded me of a lot of my favorite foreign films from the 80s and 90s, but downgraded for the peach scene. Trigger warning, please!

Mind you I thought they were all good films, just noting my down marks.

One movie I thought should make the list was All the Money in the World, which I liked more than half of them. I would give Plummer best supporting actor, even without considering he did it as a late replacement. I didn't see all of the acting nominees, but from what I saw, which was all but one or two in each, I would go with Daniel Day Lewis for actor, again. Can't believe he's retiring. Who does that? Hawkins or Mcdormand for best actress. Supporting to Metcalf. I didn't see I Tonya though.

There were several actors who showed up in multiple nominated movies, Caleb Landry Jones, Alison Brie, Lucas Hedges, Bradley Whitford, Timothee Chalamet, Lily James, Nick Searcy, and more, but I would give a special achievement award for Michael Stuhlbarg. That guy is a totally different person in every role. I especially liked his performance in Call Me by Your Name, the way he pulled off that big talk at the end.

 

[TSwizzle]

Get Out, 8/10; Finally got round to watching this movie and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I had no idea it was a horror movie until I was about halfway in. But once I twigged what was going on it was pretty obvious what was coming next but it was still very entertaining.

 

[Malintent]

When people give you reasons for why they hate something and the reasons don't make sense, it usually means they're not being honest about why they hate it.

And it's amusing that you are so offended by my use of "triggered" comments, given that the whole reason I do that is to show how shitty those "triggered" comments are. Bigots are the ones who normally use that term, and they're usually the biggest snowflakes.

No. I was going to suggest you see a proctologist in order get whatever it is removed from your ass too. I've ignored your unwarranted comments regarding exactly this stuff, but I'm glad someone else said something.

To people that ask me, "what crawled up your ass and died"?

I respond:

"You know that thing that crawled up my ass? It finally died!" cause, you would think that should be a good thing, no?

 

[Underseer]

Maybe off-topic, but this is kind of the default movie thread.



Here, Moviebob complains about the fact that the Mission Impossible seems to get a pass from his fellow movie critics. (And no, he's not being a snob, he likes lots of movies most critics would consider awful.)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Thor: Ragnorak - Yeah, the blu-ray is out, and I watched it again for the second time. You never know if something falters with a second viewing. But this film stood up perfectly and remained an absolutely marvelous production. Just enough of everything and pulls off a remarkable film.

 

[Underseer]

When people give you reasons for why they hate something and the reasons don't make sense, it usually means they're not being honest about why they hate it.

And it's amusing that you are so offended by my use of "triggered" comments, given that the whole reason I do that is to show how shitty those "triggered" comments are. Bigots are the ones who normally use that term, and they're usually the biggest snowflakes.

No. I was going to suggest you see a proctologist in order get whatever it is removed from your ass too. I've ignored your unwarranted comments regarding exactly this stuff, but I'm glad someone else said something.

Wow, so angry.

Why does this topic trigger you so much?

 

[Underseer]

Black Panther - Well golly, I can see why some people hated this film. Not only were there are lot of blacks in the film, there were also a lot of smart women (black women) too. To make matters even worse, for the most part, the resolution to the plot also involved just black people. This film was a trigger fest!

The film itself? Well yeah, sure it was good. The one big issue I had with it was I was spending a lot of time wondering where in the heck I had seen the main "bad guy" (The Wire). Didn't realize it until I got home. That was bothering me. The other issue I had was that the bad guy wasn't as developed as a great character as I was led to believe by other people. He has a history, a life, yes. But then his attempt to takeover and his ultimate plan is just over the top, with no thought behind it.

Otherwise, this film was really good. The big missing element was the humor, but as I have been told, that is something to be expected with the Black Panther. He isn't Tony Stark.

A very strong offering to the massive Marvel tapestry. I wouldn't say the strongest, I reserve that for Avengers and Ragnorak, but this is definitely a great film.

3 of 4

Well sure, having more dirty minorities automatically makes a movie worse in the eyes of certain people.

And what seemed poorly thought out about Killmonger's plan?

He was fulfilling his father's original plan. He was getting revenge for the death of his father. He was venting his frustrations on Wakanda for sitting silently on the sidelines throughout colonization, slavery, etc.

His plan carefully leveraged Wakandan law and traditions.

There are parts of his plan that I feel were ill-considered, but those flaws are in line with the character (such as that his plan would reverse the roles of oppressed and oppressors without actually doing anything to address the underlying injustice, the same flaw that Magneto has with his plans). What problems did you have with them?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Black Panther - Well golly, I can see why some people hated this film. Not only were there are lot of blacks in the film, there were also a lot of smart women (black women) too. To make matters even worse, for the most part, the resolution to the plot also involved just black people. This film was a trigger fest!

The film itself? Well yeah, sure it was good. The one big issue I had with it was I was spending a lot of time wondering where in the heck I had seen the main "bad guy" (The Wire). Didn't realize it until I got home. That was bothering me. The other issue I had was that the bad guy wasn't as developed as a great character as I was led to believe by other people. He has a history, a life, yes. But then his attempt to takeover and his ultimate plan is just over the top, with no thought behind it.

Otherwise, this film was really good. The big missing element was the humor, but as I have been told, that is something to be expected with the Black Panther. He isn't Tony Stark.

A very strong offering to the massive Marvel tapestry. I wouldn't say the strongest, I reserve that for Avengers and Ragnorak, but this is definitely a great film.

3 of 4

Well sure, having more dirty minorities automatically makes a movie worse in the eyes of certain people.

And what seemed poorly thought out about Killmonger's plan?

He was fulfilling his father's original plan. He was getting revenge for the death of his father. He was venting his frustrations on Wakanda for sitting silently on the sidelines throughout colonization, slavery, etc.

His plan carefully leveraged Wakandan law and traditions.

There are parts of his plan that I feel were ill-considered, but those flaws are in line with the character (such as that his plan would reverse the roles of oppressed and oppressors without actually doing anything to address the underlying injustice, the same flaw that Magneto has with his plans). What problems did you have with them?

The whole, just gonna arm my people thing. For instance, a lot of the trouble in Africa is not going to be helped by arming people, because who do you arm? The colonization splintered the populations, so that they would war with each other, instead of with the oppressing regime. So who exactly do you side with? If he wants to arm Africa, it is going to take a lot more coordination to pull it off, than just sending ships with weapons. And seeing that Africa isn't currently being oppressed by Europe, rather they are suffering from the long term affects of said earlier oppression, Africans will be killing each other.

His problem with Wakanda not helping is fine, but the trouble is, his plan firstly, does not address aiding African nation, but rather just arming them which ignores the real problem. In other words, I understand why he is upset, but his plan makes absolutely no sense.

- - - Updated - - -

When people give you reasons for why they hate something and the reasons don't make sense, it usually means they're not being honest about why they hate it.

And it's amusing that you are so offended by my use of "triggered" comments, given that the whole reason I do that is to show how shitty those "triggered" comments are. Bigots are the ones who normally use that term, and they're usually the biggest snowflakes.

No. I was going to suggest you see a proctologist in order get whatever it is removed from your ass too. I've ignored your unwarranted comments regarding exactly this stuff, but I'm glad someone else said something.

Wow, so angry.

Why does this topic trigger you so much?

I think the trouble is that you've pretty much taken any modicum of dissent as based on bigotry.

 

[Ford]

Under the Skin

This movie checked off a lot of boxes for me. Visually arresting? Check. Slow pacing and minimal dialogue? Check. Science fiction without being filled with CGI and explosions? Check. Scarlett Johansson naked? Bonus points for that.

I wanted to like it, but...

It might have been spoiled by the simple description on the DVD sleeve. Johansson stars as a mysterious alien woman who lures men into her "lair" (for lack of a better term) and they're consumed by an even more mysterious black liquid. Thing is, that sums up the film. She drives around Glasgow in a van, picks up different men, takes them back to their place where they're sucked into the liquid. She's great as the alien. Dispassionate - almost robotic - while she's searching for her prey, then alluring and innocent when they get in the van. There's a man on a motorcycle throughout the film who is apparently her watcher/supervisor, but he's almost a complete mystery.

Or it might have been because I was coming down with a nasty cold and wasn't really in the right frame of mind.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The whole, just gonna arm my people thing. For instance, a lot of the trouble in Africa is not going to be helped by arming people, because who do you arm? The colonization splintered the populations, so that they would war with each other, instead of with the oppressing regime. So who exactly do you side with? If he wants to arm Africa, it is going to take a lot more coordination to pull it off, than just sending ships with weapons. And seeing that Africa isn't currently being oppressed by Europe, rather they are suffering from the long term affects of said earlier oppression, Africans will be killing each other.

His problem with Wakanda not helping is fine, but the trouble is, his plan firstly, does not address aiding African nation, but rather just arming them which ignores the real problem. In other words, I understand why he is upset, but his plan makes absolutely no sense.

Ya, it is a serious flaw in the plan. I don't believe there's anybody actively oppressing Africans today aside from other Africans. It would pretty much just be one group of Africans killing another group of Africans until they decide to go out of Africa and get slaughtered by the more advanced Iron Man drones.

If he wanted to help black people rise up, he'd be much better off cancelling the weapons shipments and having those planes fly off loaded down with the advanced medical tech that the Wakandans have. Sure, the CIA guy would probably still tried to shoot them down, but it would have been a less heroic act on his part when he's blowing up medical relief deliveries in order to protect the profit margins of his bosses' campaign contributors instead of stopping mass slaughter.

 

[Toni]

A Bad Mom's Christmas

Really enjoyed this more than I expected to. Female-centric comedy films can be hit or miss for me as the humor isn't necessarily directed towards male tastes as much but this one was IMO enjoyable by anyone who doesn't have a stick up their ass about women. I really enjoyed seeing Kristen Bell in a character so vastly different from Eleanor Shellstrop on The Good Place, it gave me a great appreciation for her abilities. I'd actually never seen Kathryn Hahn before but she stole the show in so many scenes.

I enjoyed the first one. I think Kathryn Hahn stole that one too. Far from a great movie but I just love Kristen Bell.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/ZoBXTcatYhM[/YOUTUBE]

BTW, welcome to the board.

I haven't seen the first one yet, actually. My wife and I were going to watch it at some point before seeing the new one but she ended up watching it without me I'll have to catch it at some point when I get the chance.

And thanks for the welcome! Trying to get back into forums after a long absence from them.

I had forgotten that scene! Thanks for posting it.

 

[none]

unthinkable 9/10
really good
really tense, not for the kids
samuel jackson and that chick trinity from the matrix franchise

 

[ZiprHead]

Alien: Covenant

Hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet.

Okay, I admit I missed the first few minutes of the movie so that may have been pertinent.

Show

But I missed where Walter became David and will sabotage the colony.

I probably should stop trying to cruise TFT and watch a movie at the same time.

Probably should put the explanation in hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The whole, just gonna arm my people thing. For instance, a lot of the trouble in Africa is not going to be helped by arming people, because who do you arm? The colonization splintered the populations, so that they would war with each other, instead of with the oppressing regime. So who exactly do you side with? If he wants to arm Africa, it is going to take a lot more coordination to pull it off, than just sending ships with weapons. And seeing that Africa isn't currently being oppressed by Europe, rather they are suffering from the long term affects of said earlier oppression, Africans will be killing each other.

His problem with Wakanda not helping is fine, but the trouble is, his plan firstly, does not address aiding African nation, but rather just arming them which ignores the real problem. In other words, I understand why he is upset, but his plan makes absolutely no sense.

Ya, it is a serious flaw in the plan. I don't believe there's anybody actively oppressing Africans today aside from other Africans. It would pretty much just be one group of Africans killing another group of Africans until they decide to go out of Africa and get slaughtered by the more advanced Iron Man drones.

If he wanted to help black people rise up, he'd be much better off cancelling the weapons shipments and having those planes fly off loaded down with the advanced medical tech that the Wakandans have.

That isn't going to work either as many Governments in Africa would screw things up. If all Africa needed was Aid, it'd be in top ship shape by now. The problem is the elements required for sustained good governance are not as established in Africa mainly because Europe intentionally failed to provide those foundational steps.

Sure, the CIA guy would probably still tried to shoot them down, but it would have been a less heroic act on his part when he's blowing up medical relief deliveries in order to protect the profit margins of his bosses' campaign contributors instead of stopping mass slaughter.

That could have actually have been an interesting angle to take. I think it would have been better for the guy to have had a better plan, and he kind of goes off trying to topple bad regimes in Africa... you know... "the bad way" in order to develop a centrified African region. The issue though is that BP wouldn't have had the easier moral high ground.

Plot would have worked better that the guy gets chummy with same BP ally, but goes off to working in Africa taking out some dictators in the background, with support of ally. BP starts noticing stuff going on. BP makes the connections to the baddie. BP confronts big baddie (big baddie tells him who he is, etc...), some more stuff happens, get together again and big battle, but more or less a draw, with baddie getting wrist slapped and not allowed into Wakanda. However, big baddie continues on with connections remaining in Wakanda to help him, setting up the sequel.

 

[prideandfall]

Annihilation: 4/10
(7/10 for the first two acts but holy hell this movie just turns into a dumpster fire at the end)

from the writer/director of ex-machina, there's two major and distinct things i want to talk about with this movie.

first:
great first act, lovely setup and amazing tension... thoughtful, well shot, atmospheric. fantastic second act, some really chilling and stand out moments. third act the whole thing completely falls apart and turns into pure idiotic trope-filled faffery.
and i had the same problem with ex-machina (though for totally different reasons), that the first and second acts were just amazing but then the third act completely fell apart and damn near ruins the movie.

second:
given the cultural climate right now the fact there is a smart, thoughtful, serious film in theaters right now featuring an exclusively female main cast (in fact there's only like 2 men in the movie and they're only in it for a few minutes and their only function is to provide impetus for the women to be doing stuff), and those women are all smart and capable and at no point in the movie do they ever act stupid or frivolous... and nobody is talking about this movie.
annihilation is everything that every "female representation" advocate has been clamoring for in the public eye for the last decade and yet it totally bombed at the box office and nobody is even mentioning what a profound film this is for women in cinema.
(also nobody ever talks about The Descent which just a fucking amazing movie with an all female cast... too busy fingering their buttholes over the ghostbusters reboot i guess)

 

[Jayjay]

Alien: Covenant

Hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet.

Okay, I admit I missed the first few minutes of the movie so that may have been pertinent.

Show

But I missed where Walter became David and will sabotage the colony.

I probably should stop trying to cruise TFT and watch a movie at the same time.

Probably should put the explanation in hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet too.

Show

When Walter and David where fighting, just before getting out of the planet, and Walter seemed to have the upper hand, they never showed David being killed. David must have turned the tables offscreen, and from the point when he joins the others in the drop ship he's pretending to be Walter.

 

[ZiprHead]

Alien: Covenant

Hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet.

Okay, I admit I missed the first few minutes of the movie so that may have been pertinent.

Show

But I missed where Walter became David and will sabotage the colony.

I probably should stop trying to cruise TFT and watch a movie at the same time.

Probably should put the explanation in hide tags for those who haven't seen it yet too.

Show

When Walter and David where fighting, just before getting out of the planet, and Walter seemed to have the upper hand, they never showed David being killed. David must have turned the tables offscreen, and from the point when he joins the others in the drop ship he's pretending to be Walter.

Okay, that makes sense out of an otherwise muddled movie.

 

[Underseer]

The whole, just gonna arm my people thing. For instance, a lot of the trouble in Africa is not going to be helped by arming people, because who do you arm? The colonization splintered the populations, so that they would war with each other, instead of with the oppressing regime. So who exactly do you side with? If he wants to arm Africa, it is going to take a lot more coordination to pull it off, than just sending ships with weapons. And seeing that Africa isn't currently being oppressed by Europe, rather they are suffering from the long term affects of said earlier oppression, Africans will be killing each other.

His problem with Wakanda not helping is fine, but the trouble is, his plan firstly, does not address aiding African nation, but rather just arming them which ignores the real problem. In other words, I understand why he is upset, but his plan makes absolutely no sense.

- - - Updated - - -

When people give you reasons for why they hate something and the reasons don't make sense, it usually means they're not being honest about why they hate it.

And it's amusing that you are so offended by my use of "triggered" comments, given that the whole reason I do that is to show how shitty those "triggered" comments are. Bigots are the ones who normally use that term, and they're usually the biggest snowflakes.

No. I was going to suggest you see a proctologist in order get whatever it is removed from your ass too. I've ignored your unwarranted comments regarding exactly this stuff, but I'm glad someone else said something.

Wow, so angry.

Why does this topic trigger you so much?

I think the trouble is that you've pretty much taken any modicum of dissent as based on bigotry.

He wasn't talking about arming people in African countries. He was talking about arming African diaspora in the nations of the former colonial powers. I'm pretty sure he planned on helping the other African countries after gaining control of most of the world's resources, and I'm pretty sure his "help" would have involved some kind of externally imposed rule (thus making him nothing more than the next colonial invader).

 

[Underseer]

Annihilation: 4/10
(7/10 for the first two acts but holy hell this movie just turns into a dumpster fire at the end)

from the writer/director of ex-machina, there's two major and distinct things i want to talk about with this movie.

first:
great first act, lovely setup and amazing tension... thoughtful, well shot, atmospheric. fantastic second act, some really chilling and stand out moments. third act the whole thing completely falls apart and turns into pure idiotic trope-filled faffery.
and i had the same problem with ex-machina (though for totally different reasons), that the first and second acts were just amazing but then the third act completely fell apart and damn near ruins the movie.

second:
given the cultural climate right now the fact there is a smart, thoughtful, serious film in theaters right now featuring an exclusively female main cast (in fact there's only like 2 men in the movie and they're only in it for a few minutes and their only function is to provide impetus for the women to be doing stuff), and those women are all smart and capable and at no point in the movie do they ever act stupid or frivolous... and nobody is talking about this movie.
annihilation is everything that every "female representation" advocate has been clamoring for in the public eye for the last decade and yet it totally bombed at the box office and nobody is even mentioning what a profound film this is for women in cinema.
(also nobody ever talks about The Descent which just a fucking amazing movie with an all female cast... too busy fingering their buttholes over the ghostbusters reboot i guess)

The first ten seconds of this review is the funniest Moviebob has been in a while.

You know, I'm old enough to remember when highbrow thinking person's meditative art-house science fiction and Natalie Portman fighting a giant mutated alligator with a machine gun would have been mutually exclusive concepts. This is a fun century.

But let me get this straight.

You think people who like female representation should like this movie more because it's such a great movie, but you only give it 4 stars?

How does the logic of that one work out? I'm confused?

Is it a good movie that is being ignored, or is it a mediocre movie? Because if it's a 4/10 movie, then you shouldn't expect people to excitedly talk about it. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The whole, just gonna arm my people thing. For instance, a lot of the trouble in Africa is not going to be helped by arming people, because who do you arm? The colonization splintered the populations, so that they would war with each other, instead of with the oppressing regime. So who exactly do you side with? If he wants to arm Africa, it is going to take a lot more coordination to pull it off, than just sending ships with weapons. And seeing that Africa isn't currently being oppressed by Europe, rather they are suffering from the long term affects of said earlier oppression, Africans will be killing each other.

His problem with Wakanda not helping is fine, but the trouble is, his plan firstly, does not address aiding African nation, but rather just arming them which ignores the real problem. In other words, I understand why he is upset, but his plan makes absolutely no sense.

- - - Updated - - -

No. I was going to suggest you see a proctologist in order get whatever it is removed from your ass too. I've ignored your unwarranted comments regarding exactly this stuff, but I'm glad someone else said something.

Wow, so angry.

Why does this topic trigger you so much?

I think the trouble is that you've pretty much taken any modicum of dissent as based on bigotry.

He wasn't talking about arming people in African countries. He was talking about arming African diaspora in the nations of the former colonial powers. I'm pretty sure he planned on helping the other African countries after gaining control of most of the world's resources, and I'm pretty sure his "help" would have involved some kind of externally imposed rule (thus making him nothing more than the next colonial invader).

That works better.