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

[Jimmy Higgins]

Clerks 2 is also great.

- - - Updated - - -

Dark Money.

A documentary that focuses on Montana...a state that a little over a century ago was a "company town" owned by mining interests. Every level of government was controlled by corporate money. The people fought back, enacted laws that curbed corporate influence in elections, and had a good run throughout the rest of the 20th.

Then following Citizens United, corruption flowed right back in. A comparatively small state (population wise) became ground zero for the new model of campaign finance. The interesting thing is that most of the elected officials (and candidates) harmed by the influx of dark money were conservative Republicans. Dedicated public servants who just wanted to represent their constituents were purged from their own party because they didn't play ball with the moneyed interests behind their opponents.

It's a good movie, but very depressing. 7/10.

Only if it's true. What did Snopes say? Documentaries have an abysmal track record.

Historically, Montana established tight campaign finance laws due to what was noted above.

Montana attempted to keep their tighter campaign finance laws post Citizens United, but failed.

 

[angelo]

Just how many times are the Police Academy franchise movies going to be repeated? It seems every second week around my part of the world!

6/10 for original, 3/10 for the rest of the sequels.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Avengers - End Game (No spoilers) - So I just watched this movie which apparently the average human being has seen at least 3 times by now. The 2094th movie in the Avengers series attempts to take on what is ultimately the end of Phase III, which is the end of a gargantuan film arc, the scope of which has been unknown up to this points. Riding on the heels of Infinity War, and a relatively impressive set of films of which the worst were okay, End Game was lining up against all odds of being able to handle what it was up against. And unlike The Battle of Winterfell, this worked, and worked extremely well.

I had heard someone note there being a few loopholes, but honestly, as far as comic book films go, there were some useful coincidences, but nothing I think was wrong. The one thing I will say, and I feel this isn't a spoiler, is this film lacks the massive, and I stress "massive", intensity from Infinity War. I can think of only a couple of things that could have been done differently to make the film work better, but generally that includes details. This film was done brilliantly and it ends an unspeakably great run of Marvel films. We can only hope the run can continue. As a Patriots fan, I'm familiar with the all good things must end... some time. I'm hoping in this case, we get a phase or two more great films.

Personally, I think I prefer Infinity War slightly over this, but we are really splitting hairs. Thanks Disney for not fucking up the Marvel product!

4 of 4

 

[steve_bank]

Yesterday and today. The Misfits and Bus Stop with Marlin Monroe.

She was a good actress.

Bus Stop 8/10
The Misfits 12/10

In the Misfits Clark Cable was probably playing himself. A man who is in poor health trying to relive things that no linger exists or are passing into history. 3 men catch wild horses for the slaughter house and face a moral dilemma instigated by a woman.. I think he dies not too long after the movie.

 

[angelo]

Yesterday and today. The Misfits and Bus Stop with Marlin Monroe.

She was a good actress.

Bus Stop 8/10
The Misfits 12/10

In the Misfits Clark Cable was probably playing himself. A man who is in poor health trying to relive things that no linger exists or are passing into history. 3 men catch wild horses for the slaughter house and face a moral dilemma instigated by a woman.. I think he dies not too long after the movie.

Since you mentioned Marilyn Monroe, or Norma Jean as she was also know, she was good in one of the best comedy/drama ever, Some Like It Hot with Tony Curtis and the lovable Jack Lemmon. I'd rate that at least 8.5/10

 

[TSwizzle]

Wonder Woman, 4/10; Not my cup of tea but jeezus, Gal Gadot may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

 

[steve_bank]

Yesterday and today. The Misfits and Bus Stop with Marlin Monroe.

She was a good actress.

Bus Stop 8/10
The Misfits 12/10

In the Misfits Clark Cable was probably playing himself. A man who is in poor health trying to relive things that no linger exists or are passing into history. 3 men catch wild horses for the slaughter house and face a moral dilemma instigated by a woman.. I think he dies not too long after the movie.

Since you mentioned Marilyn Monroe, or Norma Jean as she was also know, she was good in one of the best comedy/drama ever, Some Like It Hot with Tony Curtis and the lovable Jack Lemmon. I'd rate that at least 8.5/10

She could act other than playing a cooing dumb blonde....

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Avengers - End Game (No spoilers) - So I just watched this movie which apparently the average human being has seen at least 3 times by now. The 2094th movie in the Avengers series attempts to take on what is ultimately the end of Phase III, which is the end of a gargantuan film arc, the scope of which has been unknown up to this points. Riding on the heels of Infinity War, and a relatively impressive set of films of which the worst were okay, End Game was lining up against all odds of being able to handle what it was up against. And unlike The Battle of Winterfell, this worked, and worked extremely well.

I had heard someone note there being a few loopholes, but honestly, as far as comic book films go, there were some useful coincidences, but nothing I think was wrong. The one thing I will say, and I feel this isn't a spoiler, is this film lacks the massive, and I stress "massive", intensity from Infinity War. I can think of only a couple of things that could have been done differently to make the film work better, but generally that includes details. This film was done brilliantly and it ends an unspeakably great run of Marvel films. We can only hope the run can continue. As a Patriots fan, I'm familiar with the all good things must end... some time. I'm hoping in this case, we get a phase or two more great films.

Personally, I think I prefer Infinity War slightly over this, but we are really splitting hairs. Thanks Disney for not fucking up the Marvel product!

4 of 4

It really was a brilliant movie. I've seen it twice already. I loved how many of the threads from the past movies they tied together and wrapped pretty much everything from Phase 3 into one nice little bow of awesomeness.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wonder Woman, 4/10; Not my cup of tea but jeezus, Gal Gadot may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

I'd rate it a little higher than that, but not by much. Agreed though on GG's beauty, especially when she's wearing the WW outfit.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Wonder Woman, 4/10; Not my cup of tea but jeezus, Gal Gadot may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

I'd rate it a little higher than that, but not by much. Agreed though on GG's beauty, especially when she's wearing the WW outfit.

I thought it was a fair score. Some cool effects. But a dumb story. Also... Wonder Woman is not a feminist character. She's a dominant woman, in the BDSM sense. She was created as a fantasy by men who enjoyed being sexually submissive to women. She's that fantasy. While it was always subtle, it was always there. That's the core of the character, and the "fun" about her. Without it she's a completely flat character. Boring, run-of-the-mill powerful super woman we've seen a million of already. They had a golden opportunity to have some fun with this and they didn't even go near it.

 

[Sarpedon]

The character has developed somewhat from its origin, as archetypes tend to do.

That YOU would find a more close to the origin interpretation more 'fun' is simply your taste. Archetypes develop according to the dominant trends in culture. Some men originally found the dominant woman titillating. Women found the character liberating. As the character developed, the appeal of the heroic woman became more popular and powerful, while the sexual fetish version became marginalized (though still existing and developing). The heroic version is appealing to women and men, while only some men (and probably a few women) like the fetish version.

And frankly, as she is the archetype of the modern super woman-she can't be called stereotypical, because she is archetypical, just as Gandalf is the archetype, not the stereotype.

 

[Ford]

Speaking of DC superheroes...

Aquaman.

Didn't see it in the theater, but I was house-sitting for a friend and he's got the 4k version and a big TV. It sure does look good. The effects team were like "remember Avatar? What if we did that...only underwater?"

Yet all the fantastic effects in the world (and they seemed to have all of them) don't work if the story isn't compelling. It's a given that every first superhero movie is the "origin story" and those have a certain structure. This looks like it tried to break away from that, and it just didn't work. It goes from "he's a kid" to "he's a superhero" pretty quickly, and then tells the story of his youth/training in flashbacks and not completely. They mostly skip over him discovering he's different, the loss that changes every young superhero, and learning to cope with those things. One minute he's a toddler, the next minute he's a submarine-lifting, ass-kicking, quippy hero.

The other thing is, they went "all in" on this movie. Massive battle sequences and giant monsters which would normally be introduced in the second or third superhero film were put into this one. Good origin stories stay (relatively) small. The young hero's battle with that first nemesis. The Matrix is actually a superhero origin story. Neo discovering who he really is, then doubting himself, then finally - at the end of the third act - fighting and defeating Agent Smith. It would have been absurd (and eventually, it was) to introduce an army of Agents Smith for him to fight in that first film, and Aquaman kinda did just that. The origin story was just a secondary plot to the main story, which was "we've designed this really awesome massive CGI battle sequence, and we're trying to justify it."

And is it me, or does Black Manta sort of resemble the comic relief robot from the Power Rangers TV show?

5/10

 

[angelo]

Love At First Bite. 1979. George Hamilton as the vampire and Susan St James. A good vampire comedy romp.

Count Dracula moves to New York to find his bride. Hilarious romp, I'd forgotten how funny this movie actually was.

8/10

 

[KeepTalking]

Speaking of DC superheroes...

Aquaman.

Didn't see it in the theater, but I was house-sitting for a friend and he's got the 4k version and a big TV. It sure does look good. The effects team were like "remember Avatar? What if we did that...only underwater?"

Yet all the fantastic effects in the world (and they seemed to have all of them) don't work if the story isn't compelling. It's a given that every first superhero movie is the "origin story" and those have a certain structure. This looks like it tried to break away from that, and it just didn't work. It goes from "he's a kid" to "he's a superhero" pretty quickly, and then tells the story of his youth/training in flashbacks and not completely. They mostly skip over him discovering he's different, the loss that changes every young superhero, and learning to cope with those things. One minute he's a toddler, the next minute he's a submarine-lifting, ass-kicking, quippy hero.

The other thing is, they went "all in" on this movie. Massive battle sequences and giant monsters which would normally be introduced in the second or third superhero film were put into this one. Good origin stories stay (relatively) small. The young hero's battle with that first nemesis. The Matrix is actually a superhero origin story. Neo discovering who he really is, then doubting himself, then finally - at the end of the third act - fighting and defeating Agent Smith. It would have been absurd (and eventually, it was) to introduce an army of Agents Smith for him to fight in that first film, and Aquaman kinda did just that. The origin story was just a secondary plot to the main story, which was "we've designed this really awesome massive CGI battle sequence, and we're trying to justify it."

And is it me, or does Black Manta sort of resemble the comic relief robot from the Power Rangers TV show?

5/10

I don't think Aquaman was intended to be an origin story, and it seems to me that they gave just enough of his origin to set up the main plot line, which is the story of his becoming King of Atlantis.

 

[Wiploc]

Love At First Bite. 1979. George Hamilton as the vampire and Susan St James. A good vampire comedy romp.

Count Dracula moves to New York to find his bride. Hilarious romp, I'd forgotten how funny this movie actually was.

8/10

Some good one-liners there.

 

[Ford]

Avengers - End Game (No spoilers) - So I just watched this movie which apparently the average human being has seen at least 3 times by now. The 2094th movie in the Avengers series attempts to take on what is ultimately the end of Phase III, which is the end of a gargantuan film arc, the scope of which has been unknown up to this points. Riding on the heels of Infinity War, and a relatively impressive set of films of which the worst were okay, End Game was lining up against all odds of being able to handle what it was up against. And unlike The Battle of Winterfell, this worked, and worked extremely well.

I had heard someone note there being a few loopholes, but honestly, as far as comic book films go, there were some useful coincidences, but nothing I think was wrong. The one thing I will say, and I feel this isn't a spoiler, is this film lacks the massive, and I stress "massive", intensity from Infinity War. I can think of only a couple of things that could have been done differently to make the film work better, but generally that includes details. This film was done brilliantly and it ends an unspeakably great run of Marvel films. We can only hope the run can continue. As a Patriots fan, I'm familiar with the all good things must end... some time. I'm hoping in this case, we get a phase or two more great films.

Personally, I think I prefer Infinity War slightly over this, but we are really splitting hairs. Thanks Disney for not fucking up the Marvel product!

4 of 4

It really was a brilliant movie. I've seen it twice already. I loved how many of the threads from the past movies they tied together and wrapped pretty much everything from Phase 3 into one nice little bow of awesomeness.

I finally saw it today. Afternoon matinee, so only a dozen people in the theater, which was fine by me. As was the movie. My problem with the first two Avengers movies is that they didn't quite have the knack of tracking all these characters at once. The movies (and to a certain extent, Civil War) had too many threads going on. Infinity War solved this by splitting everyone into teams and telling a few stories rather than half a dozen. This one (for obvious reasons) had even smaller teams and held much of their "huge battle" firepower until the end. It was a bit predictable in parts, and filled with fan service, but it was easily the best of the Avengers movies, and one of the best MCU films.

Show

They really gave Captain Marvel the short end of the stick, though. After a solid setup with her own movie (right before this one) she shows up, disappears for most of the time, and shows up at the end when she would have been a game-changer if she'd been a bit early. It's almost like they knew they'd written themselves into a corner and kept her out of the fight on purpose. And while I know that Black Widow's a bigger character whose death was supposed to have more impact, it just didn't do it for me. They set it up for Clint to be the one to sacrifice himself. He'd lost his family, lost himself, and would have been redeemed for all his misdeeds. Oh, and Natasha didn't get a funeral?

 

[Ford]

Hail Satan?

For the second time in my life I was the only one in the theater for a movie. A Thursday afternoon matinee at an "art" theater.

The Satanic Temple's Arizona chapter had a screening last week, but I missed that one. Kinda wished I hadn't. This would have been fun to see with some of the people who were featured in the film.

Anyway, onto the movie. It's a by-the-numbers documentary. Talking heads. News clips spliced in with footage filmed by the crew. Mostly predictable narrative structure. What emerged for me is that while it tells the story of the rise of The Satanic Temple, the movie is really "about" the journey to get their statue of Baphomet built and put on the lawn of some state capitol next to the 10 Commandments. Everything else - the founders who did it as a semi-serious gag, the schism that happened when one branch took the Satanism part too seriously, and the fact that it got bigger than anyone expected - is ultimately secondary to the goal of getting that monument on the "holy" ground of a capitol. Or not.

It's not particularly groundbreaking as a documentary, but it was funny, a little frustrating at times, but ultimately entertaining. I give it 3 out of 4 pitchforks.

p.s. the other movie I watched alone in the theater was American Ninja 2.

 

[marc]

I was alone in a theater for Tales From The Dark Side.

 

[angelo]

I was alone in a theater for Tales From The Dark Side.

I used to love those kind movies/TV series like Twilight Zone ect, until I became a militant atheist which completely ruined the pleasure I used to get from tales of the supernatural.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

p.s. the other movie I watched alone in the theater was American Ninja 2.

It still burns me how this film was screwed over by the Oscars.