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

prideandfall said:
ant-man and the wasp: 5.5/10

another perfectly fine entry in the marvel franchise - nothing special, but at this point i don't think they really need to be.
the MCU is basically the movie equivalent of a TV show: it's no longer about any individual episode, some are weaker and some are stronger, you're watching it because you enjoy the series.
the MCU is the movie equivalent of breaking bad at this point, IMO - it's all good, but some are better than others.

though while discussing the movie with my movie buddy i figured out my issue with this movie and simultaneously my issue with black panther.
ant-man and the wasp has a good number of fun, funny, or interesting scenes that were enjoyable to watch, but the overall story narrative was pretty stupid as well as shallow and inessential, and told poorly on top of it.
its presentation was rather incoherent, and thus the film only succeeds on the power of its individual scenes, because they don't come together at all to form a complete whole. it's not a very good movie, but enough of it was fun to watch that it was enjoyable to view it.
black panther was pretty much exactly the opposite: the story narrative was interesting and well told and the presentation was solid, but there weren't any scenes i enjoyed watching or sequences that stood out, so it was a good movie but i didn't find any of it very enjoyable to watch.

looking back over the MCU on the whole i think most of the movies fall into one or the other of these categories, and the few real standouts (iron man, avengers, winter soldier, thor 3, avengers 3, guardians 1) are the ones that manage to do both.
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I would rate it higher than you did, but it's merely a step or two above mediocre.

It's great that Marvel makes lower budget movies, but those lower budget movies should take more risks to truly take advantage of the lower budget (like Deadpool or Logan). This movie just doesn't take the risks it could be taking given the smaller budget.

I think what bugs me the most are both incarnations of the Wasp. Both Hope and Janet van Dyne are not Marvel heroes, they are Marvel girlfriends.

What makes Marvel heroes Marvel heroes are their flaws, whether it's Tony's arrogance and drinking, or Okoye's hidebound devotion to tradition even if the cost is global war and instability. Marvel girlfriend characters on the other hand are generally not as flawed because the writers just don't give a shit.

I always had the sneaking suspicion that Jean Grey started out as a girlfriend character who just happened to have powers and be on a superteam but was not a proper hero. Then (or so I imagine) someone at Marvel realized that a prominent member of the X-Men was sorely lacking in the kind of flaws fans expect from a Marvel hero, so they overcorrected with the Dark Phoenix saga. Not that I have an ounce of evidence to support this claim, but the character was boring and lacking in flaws like a proper Marvel hero should have, and that all seemed to change with the Dark Phoenix saga.
 
How it Ends

This is Netflix movie about the end of the world. I think the cause is a shift in the poles or something; or maybe it's volcanoes... I think it's a magnetic shift or something. The movie never really explains it. Anyway, a father and his soon to be son in law decide to drive out to Seattle after the entire west coast goes dark in order find the daughter/spouse. They soon run into bad people and barely get away. Then they run into more bad people, and barely get away. Then they run into more bad people, and then they get away. And then that happens again. There were several times I fast forwarded several minutes because it was obvious what was going to happen, and it was going to take too long to get through it.

It had some interesting things, but that's the best that can be said of it.

3.5/10
 
The Summit

Movie about how the United States elected a leader that was secretly an asset for the Russian Government. While the premise was interesting, I just found it to be too unbelievable. Also, the pace is really slow and it felt like it was going on forever unlike The Manchurian Candidate which went through all the relevant scenes and then the finish in like two hours.

2 of 4
 
Underseer said:
I always had the sneaking suspicion that Jean Grey started out as a girlfriend character who just happened to have powers and be on a superteam but was not a proper hero. Then (or so I imagine) someone at Marvel realized that a prominent member of the X-Men was sorely lacking in the kind of flaws fans expect from a Marvel hero, so they overcorrected with the Dark Phoenix saga. Not that I have an ounce of evidence to support this claim, but the character was boring and lacking in flaws like a proper Marvel hero should have, and that all seemed to change with the Dark Phoenix saga.
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That about sums up what I've heard about it. She was the stereotypical good girl, which made the whole Dark Phoenix thing more pronounced and impactful than it would have been if she'd just been a regular character instead because it was someone that decent and pure going bad. This seems to be the mistake that the current X-Men films are making by just jumping into having Sansa becoming Dark Phoenix without taking any time to develop her character into something where it will be a shocking twist when she becomes evil for an hour or so before becoming good again due to a similarly underdeveloped love story with that random dude who seems to have the same powers as Cyclops.
 
Bent: 2/10 Didn't watch the ending, because there wasn't any point. There were good guys and bad guys and some were good and some were bad....zzzzzzzzzzz
 
Leviathan. Russian film about a man in a small seaside town who fights back against the corrupt mayor who is trying to confiscate his property for a development. Slow movie. Lots of conversations around the table accompanied with copious amounts of vodka drinking. The cinematography is beautiful, though. It somehow manages to make that town - with it's crumbling buildings and overgrown weeds even outside the "nice" hotel - seem oddly appealing. It is also worth remembering that this isn't an outside look in, but a Russian filmmaker commenting on the deeply entrenched corruption in his own country. The mayor is little more than a mob boss (with official support) and even the protagonists (like a Moscow lawyer who comes down to fight for the little guy) aren't exactly saints.

If you like long, bleak, slow moving foreign films, this is a good one.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Underseer said:
I always had the sneaking suspicion that Jean Grey started out as a girlfriend character who just happened to have powers and be on a superteam but was not a proper hero. Then (or so I imagine) someone at Marvel realized that a prominent member of the X-Men was sorely lacking in the kind of flaws fans expect from a Marvel hero, so they overcorrected with the Dark Phoenix saga. Not that I have an ounce of evidence to support this claim, but the character was boring and lacking in flaws like a proper Marvel hero should have, and that all seemed to change with the Dark Phoenix saga.
Click to expand...

That about sums up what I've heard about it. She was the stereotypical good girl, which made the whole Dark Phoenix thing more pronounced and impactful than it would have been if she'd just been a regular character instead because it was someone that decent and pure going bad. This seems to be the mistake that the current X-Men films are making by just jumping into having Sansa becoming Dark Phoenix without taking any time to develop her character into something where it will be a shocking twist when she becomes evil for an hour or so before becoming good again due to a similarly underdeveloped love story with that random dude who seems to have the same powers as Cyclops.
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They also messed up Magneto by having him flip in the first film, instead of making that the end of a two or three film arc. They just jump into these, what should be incredible and impactful face changes, which steals all of the dramatic influence they should have.
 
Also, they kind of glossed over the fact that Magneto had just straight up murdered tens of millions of people a few minutes earlier and everyone was cool with him after he switched sides in the middle of the fight.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Also, they kind of glossed over the fact that Magneto had just straight up murdered tens of millions of people a few minutes earlier and everyone was cool with him after he switched sides in the middle of the fight.
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Let's be clear, it is important to keep a dialogue open. Living the past isn't going to help us in the future.
 
The Alamo - A film documenting a generalized military disaster by kind of making up a lot of fictionalized scenes. The Texan militia disobeyed direct orders to abandon the Alamo and return with sorely needed men and weapons (this isn't exactly spoken much about in the film). They all died. General Houston felt that San Antonio wasn't worth it and impossible to defend. He'd eventually win the war, and a belated Darwin Award was awarded to William Travis and Jim Bowie for a needless reenactment of the finish to the Battle of Thermopylae.

The film stars John Wayne who plays John Wayne pretending to be Davy Crockett. Not sold. The film joins a huge collection of Hollywood epics about the Texas Revolution and the Mexican Wa....

...wait... there aren't that many movies about the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War. Geesh, umm... so I suppose this kind of stands out as its own presentation of a really really stupid and pointless sacrifice. There is a notable seen when the women and children are evacuating and a husband just can't leave them behind, and then his blind wife goes on about how she'll be proud her husband died defending the Alamo. Yeah, the movie is really into the importance that was disobeying orders and sacrificing resources and men for a lost cause.

I think the rallying cry "Remember the Alamo" was put forth by General Houston as a warning of what happens to idiots that don't listen to him.

2 of 4
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
The Alamo - A film documenting a generalized military disaster by kind of making up a lot of fictionalized scenes. The Texan militia disobeyed direct orders to abandon the Alamo and return with sorely needed men and weapons (this isn't exactly spoken much about in the film). They all died. General Houston felt that San Antonio wasn't worth it and impossible to defend. He'd eventually win the war, and a belated Darwin Award was awarded to William Travis and Jim Bowie for a needless reenactment of the finish to the Battle of Thermopylae.

The film stars John Wayne who plays John Wayne pretending to be Davy Crockett. Not sold. The film joins a huge collection of Hollywood epics about the Texas Revolution and the Mexican Wa....

...wait... there aren't that many movies about the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War. Geesh, umm... so I suppose this kind of stands out as its own presentation of a really really stupid and pointless sacrifice. There is a notable seen when the women and children are evacuating and a husband just can't leave them behind, and then his blind wife goes on about how she'll be proud her husband died defending the Alamo. Yeah, the movie is really into the importance that was disobeying orders and sacrificing resources and men for a lost cause.

I think the rallying cry "Remember the Alamo" was put forth by General Houston as a warning of what happens to idiots that don't listen to him.

2 of 4
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A much better film on the same subject is the 2004 The Alamo directed by John Hancock. It's historically quite accurate, and includes the controversial theory that Crockett surrendered and was executed. The film died at the box office, probably due to it's deliberate puncturing of myths.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318974/
 
Pandorum

I started watching a Youtube review of this movie, and then I was all, "Hey, that looks pretty cool" because I dig good sci-fi horror. So I went to Netflix and it was available. Then, about 15 minutes in, I remembered that I'd seen this movie before. And about 10 minutes later I turned it off (apparently for the second time). I wonder if this movie has dark powers to cause amnesia.

At any rate, it's about a ship going to another planet. It has 16,000 people aboard, but something goes awry and mutants have taken over. Well, I don't know if they're mutants or aliens, but they're super fast, strong, and ferocious. Yet, there are humans still roaming around hiding from them in very close proximity, even though they can easily catch humans, which they immediately kill and eat (or sometimes just gnaw on) at every encounter. Except when they don't. There's no reason for this massive inconsistency, nor for any of the others that exist in this film. I don't know how movie-making works, so I don't know how so many end up so stupid. But doesn't someone ever say, "Hey, this is clearly insulting to the intelligence of the audience, and these same mistakes have been made over and over and over again, so let's not make those same mistakes"? Maybe there is, and maybe that person gets shouted down or something. I don't know.

3/10
 
Opoponax said:
Pandorum

I started watching a Youtube review of this movie, and then I was all, "Hey, that looks pretty cool" because I dig good sci-fi horror. So I went to Netflix and it was available. Then, about 15 minutes in, I remembered that I'd seen this movie before. And about 10 minutes later I turned it off (apparently for the second time). I wonder if this movie has dark powers to cause amnesia.

At any rate, it's about a ship going to another planet. It has 16,000 people aboard, but something goes awry and mutants have taken over. Well, I don't know if they're mutants or aliens, but they're super fast, strong, and ferocious. Yet, there are humans still roaming around hiding from them in very close proximity, even though they can easily catch humans, which they immediately kill and eat (or sometimes just gnaw on) at every encounter. Except when they don't. There's no reason for this massive inconsistency, nor for any of the others that exist in this film. I don't know how movie-making works, so I don't know how so many end up so stupid. But doesn't someone ever say, "Hey, this is clearly insulting to the intelligence of the audience, and these same mistakes have been made over and over and over again, so let's not make those same mistakes"? Maybe there is, and maybe that person gets shouted down or something. I don't know.

3/10
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My understanding was that the humans were either deliberately or accidentally woken up one by one, so that there is always a few humans around and the rest are still in the pods. That explains the inconsistency. But it's been a while since I saw Pandorum so I could be missing something.
 
Allied 8/10

Very nicely done spy/love story. I really cared about the characters as we came to know Max and Marianne and hoped the best for them though it was clear they were doomed. I enjoy WWII movies so that was a bonus as the setting for this film, fortunately it did not focus on battle at all with only the occasional action sequence that did not seem out of place but rather served the story. Really my only complaint about the film is that somehow they cast the most mild infant in the history of film, as the baby doesn't even make the tiniest squawk even when bombers are crashing just outside the window :)
 
Kedi 9/10

Today I watched "Kedi", a documentary about the street cats of Istambul, and their interaction with the local people. I really enjoyed it.

 
I rewatched 9 Queens and I'm looking for info.

I don't believe this is the same film I first saw but I can find no reference to a remake on the web.

Anybody know something I don't? (Be nice :))
 
The Great Santini
10/10

The story of an aging macho Marine fighter pilot and his relationship with his family. Robert Duvall plays the pilot. Great film.
 
Spiderman: Homecoming - Shoot! There are too many Marvel films now that one can't say it was a top three Marvel film, because you actually need to take some time and go back and figure out where each Marvel film stands. So now we need new nomenclature. This film was one of my favorite Marvel films. It isn't Ragnorak / Infinity War level good, however, I liked the villain in this film a lot as the villain makes sense, not just in motives but also in execution. The movie has a more juvenile feel... being a 14 year old in high school, that makes sense. It seemed to carry an appropriate weight for humor, feel, etc... all along the story.

3.5 of 4

Batman v Superman - Afterbirth of the Justice League (with Rifftrax) - My goodness, this improved the movie so much. The disappointment was that the main crew didn't do the whole show. But some of the sides acts were just as good. Others, not so much.

3.5 of 4 (with and only with the Rifftrax)
 
At this very moment I'm watching Interview With The Vampire on Netflix.

It doesn't hold up as well as I thought it would. Kinda hard to forget that you're watching Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt playing vampires. That said, it is much darker than the sparkly vampire movies since. I'm wondering aloud when we're going to get back to a time when vampires are once again beautiful, violent, blood-sucking monsters.
 
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