What movies have you seen lately? Now with reviews!Movies

[Nacho Libre]

I had a very sci-fin weekend: I rewatched Oblivion, First Man, and on Sunday I went to an IMAX theatre to watch Project Hail Mary.

Oblivion is fun and stylish with a great plot twist. Too bad the underlying canon feels underdeveloped and rushed, with a typical big boom finale. Still, 8/10 on technical grounds, great soundtrack and overall good acting.

First Man is criminally underrated and If I remember well, unjustly maligned for not showing the planting of the US flag on the Moon. Boo Hoo, the movie is not about that. It's a character study on Neil Armstrong and his personal struggles while grieving family and friends' losses and trying to carry out his job. Superb acting from Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy. Visually and technically impressive with another awesome, but sparse, soundtrack. I think it's better than Apollo 13, and I love Apollo 13. 9/10.

Project Hail Mary lived up to my expectations after reading/hearing the book. Amaze, amaze, amaze. 9/10.

 

[05XR8]

Another easy watch.

Pretty much RED 3: The Griswalds in The Great Outdoors.

 

[Sum1s2pid]

B+

Pretty good, up until about 15 minutes from the end, but the final bit before the end credits almost makes up for it. Ahmed and James were solid.

B-

Sillier and more gratuitous than the first movie, if that's even possible. I'm not sure who has more plot armour... Aatami, Simba, or the lumber. Eh, still... not a bad way to spend 89 minutes.

C-

The world building and effects were pretty great. Everything else was a disappointment. Washington felt miscast.

F

Do you know someone who likes werewolves? Do you hate that person? Werewolves! The lone point is for the mostly practical creatures, even if the heads look goofy from most angles.

 

[Sprite]

@Sum1s2pid

Agree on The Creator, such a lovely looking film and everything aesthetically is up my street.

However Washington was so underutilised or maybe the script was just lacking. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

 

[TB]

I started The Creator forever ago and don't really have any intentions of going back to finish it.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Well, yesterday I watched Eternity (on Apple+) hoping to watch a humorous take on the afterlife and... Wow, at some point I wondered if it was a horror movie about hell instead. But no, it's just a mild comedy that takes some ideas from Beetlejuice and The Good Place (two far superior productions) but it doesn't have clever, enlightening, or even provocative ideas about what happens after, if something happens at all.

It does have a bit with a Dean Martin imitator that did make me laugh, if you know something about Dino and his... liquor tasting habits.

Hmmm... 3/10.

 

[05XR8]

My wife watched the series. I haven’t. Figured I’d watch this with her. It’s nearly two hours and didn’t really get off until about thirty five minutes to go.
I dislike movies that hurry to close the book when they spent too much time setting things up. I’m not disrespecting the characters or the series, but for not having seen the characters, it played out predictably. Cinematography and everyone playing their parts were great. The premise was working for me at the start. How it finished was fine. How long it took to get there was my issue.

I’d say from my wife’s view, she was waiting a long while for this movie and didn’t think it would happen. She’s relieved.

 

[Dave A]

I went to see Project Hail Mary last night in iMax. Gosling was great, and the relationship built between him and Rocky was really well done. The film had more humour than I expected but it wasn't overplayed nor did it dumb down the drama, which it also had. The cinematography and effects were great. The film was great, I'll give it two 👎 👎 and an 8/10.

 

[Fezzik]

The Martian. Not sure why it’s taken me 10 years to get around to this one. Absolutely loved it. 10/10.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

Just watched this and really enjoyed it! At first I thought it was a black comedy but over the course of the movie it turned into something else completely (I won‘t spoil anything here). Great acting by Brendan Gleeson as well!

 

[Sum1s2pid]

B-

Not bad. Nicholson showed flashes of his pop. Baptista was delightfully unhinged. Weaving needed more to do.

C

Eh, movie was OK. Could've used more shark action. A bland Hassie Harrison somehow manages to look both 20 and 40. Jai Courtney was... pretty good? The hell?! Color me shocked!

C

The storm effects and shark action were pretty well done. That... that's pretty much it. Kinda fun. Mostly dumb. Worse than Crawl, but better than Bait 3D.

 

[05XR8]

Started watching Thrash last night, but my wife couldn’t deal with people’s(written by the writers of course ) bad choices before and during landfall. We’ll probably never watch the rest.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

I watched Bring Her Back last night after seeing it being added to Netflix. I knew very little about it before and wanted to try it out because it looked interesting. The movie starts out great but it kinda lost me after the first 30 minutes. If you are a little observant you can pretty much predict the movie‘s ending after seeing the white line around the house and the conversation between Laura and Andy after their „party“.

Tbh I found the film mostly sad rather than scary. The premise seemed cool at first but towards the end it became tedious. The acting was quite good as well as the cinematography though.

 

[05XR8]

Super Mario Bros. 2

Very dramatic. Not a spoiler: My 15yo, in a few days, daughter didn’t approve of the casino scene.
The theatrics of characters trying to really kill other characters raised my eyebrows. The huge theatre we saw it in(12:50pm show) wasn’t filled and only a handful of small children with their parents.

Wake up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Not as good as the previous two, but did have me surprised by the cast. Since I didn’t check to see who are in it.

 

[Sprite]

Just finished Hail Mary and can say I enjoyed it.

Great mix of drama, comedy & action. The story is a little basic and scrip etc isn’t anything to sing about but it’s just a well rounded film.

The wife really enjoyed it too, especially Rocky.

8/10

 

[Nacho Libre]

Last Sunday's afternoon movie session was like this: The new Naked Gun (Netflix), which I expected to be bad, and it didn't disappoint. This kind of humor and pacing belongs in the 80's, and please someone give Liam Neeson an Oscar-worthy script. 1 star out of 5.

And to close my evening I restarted The Smashing Machine (Amazon Prime) from the beginning, and it was just OK. It probably means more to the early fans/historians of UFC and Dwayne Johnson personally, and he at times has good scenes with Emily Blunt and Bas Rutten (surprisingly endearing presence) but at other times it's just the Rock in (great) makeup. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Yesterday I watched Guy Ritchie's Arthur: Legend of the Sword (HBO Max) and in a word, it was terrible. It had more similarities to a medieval Masters of the Universe adaptation, Eric Bana and Jude Law are in just for the paycheck, and how does Charlie Hunnam keeps getting work? Must be sorcery. 0.5 out of 5.

 

[05XR8]

It started off okay. It's cool they followed the premise of the novel. To me, the Schwarzenegger 1987('87) version worked out better in story and the movie. Definitely more primitive and almost rushed compared to the new 2025('25) movie, but no fluff at all.

'87 was just hard core Arnold. Brute strength and comedic take downs. '25 had more drawn out scenes and nearly felt like combining both Total Recall movies.

Might have been better to just make it look like 2025 USA(it's funny I still have relatives that live in Co-Op City in The Bronx). If only they waited a couple years just at the start of this US presidency.

Well, it was something to watch before I went to work and I'll probably watch it again to check more of the details.

 

[VBR]

Star Wars, original unaltered theatrical version, as found on the 2006 Limited Edition DVD release bonus disc (aka GOUT). Loved it, and enjoyed it so much more than the Special 'needs' Editions. Ripped it to my PC and cut the black bars off so it filled the whole width of the screen (very easy to do in Handbrake as it's set to do that automatically), then copied it to a USB stick and watched it on my 4K TV. Even though it was only 326p , it was still totally watchable, IMHO.

I can see why fans were disappointed with the quality back in the day, but I knew exactly what I was buying and was pleasantly surprised. It was a very Lo-Fi yet nostalgic experience. Highly recommended.

 

[05XR8]

Was alright. Something to watch while I played GT7.

 

[VBR]

Watched the rest of the original unaltered Star Wars trilogy. Empire was pretty rough with the snow scenes, as it brought out all the noise. RoTJ looked a lot better. Overall, it was a great experience.

I think these 2006 bonus DVDs from the Limited Editions would look absolutely fine on a 4:3 CRT TV.

 

[VXR]

Wuthering Heights. I really enjoyed it.

 

[VBR]

Watched the 16:9 from open matte version of The Matrix tonight, and was totally blown away by it. The colour timing was absolutely astonishing: I think it was the original one done for film in the cinema and not altered at all. I can't describe just how incredibly natural it looked compared to all the re-releases which have been digitally filtered into oblivion. Also, very nice to see extra material on screen, which was hidden by the regular widescreen versions black bars.

Here's a little look at what I'm talking about:

 

[Nacho Libre]

Yesterday I watched The Iron Lady (on Amazon Prime), a biopic of Margaret Thatcher acted by Meryl Streep, together with the jovial Jim Broadbent, the late Anthony Head (of Buffy the Slayer fame), and Olivia Colman, among others.

Narratively, it starts with an elderly Margaret Thatcher that has been out of power for years and is dealing with the onset of dementia. The story jumps between the present and the past and covers major events of her life, like her introduction to politics, marriage, and eventual rise to power and falloff, but IMO it lacks depth. Of the times she lived in and conflicts she faced, we really only see one resolved: The Falklands War, but others like the struggles with the unions and the IRA feel like footnotes. And the royals? They are never mentioned or shown (!)

Meryl Streep is mesmerizing, as always, but Jim Broadbent brings a welcome touch of levity, even if: For most of the movie, he is an hallucination of her fading mind, since Margaret Thatcher has been a widow for some time in the movie.

7/10 but let me tell you something, if you have an elderly and ailing parent this hits different, it does.

 

[Northstar]

I subscribed to AMC's A-List as I really need to start watching more current movies while they are still in the theater instead of just the stuff already in my physical collection. Today's watch was Tuner, thought it was going to be just another heist film but it is more about a transitional phase of life with the heist stuff being secondary. Definitely worth a watch although I feel like the ending is a bit of a letdown.

Also, Dustin Hoffman's character is hilarious.

 

[VBR]

Watched the old 1988 movie Akira on Blu-ray last night. I have lots of appreciation for how it was made: it was a massive achievement back in the day.

 

[sirjim73]

The Martian. Not sure why it’s taken me 10 years to get around to this one. Absolutely loved it. 10/10.

Well, it takes 10 years to get to Mars...

Wuthering Heights. I really enjoyed it.

Which version?! There's hundreds of them. Olivier?

 

[Fezzik]

Well, it takes 10 years to get to Mars...

4 years. Clearly haven't watched the film. No way even a botanist could've grown enough potatoes for 10.

Don't go to the cinema anymore so I'm happy that Project Hail Mary is now on the rental streams. WIll give that one a go this weekend.

 

[sirjim73]

4 years. Clearly haven't watched the film. No way even a botanist could've grown enough potatoes for 10.

Don't go to the cinema anymore so I'm happy that Project Hail Mary is now on the rental streams. WIll give that one a go this weekend.

Well, if you'd watched the film in 2020, I could have used the joke then...

 

[TheCracker]

Don't go to the cinema anymore so I'm happy that Project Hail Mary is now on the rental streams. WIll give that one a go this weekend.

Great film. If you enjoyed The Martian, you'll probably enjoy this too. It has a similar upbeat feel to it. 👍