What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Philistine said:

I don't understand all this love for Basterds, I didn't care for it at all. I found the leads completely unappealing. Hateful 8 I did enjoy, but my favorite Tarantino movie is Jackie Brown.

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Jackie Brown is my least favourite movie of Tarantino

My personal top 10 Tarantino directed works:

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. The Hateful Eight
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Django Unchained
5. CSI Las Vegas: Grave Danger, part 1
6. CSI Las Vegas: Grave Danger, part 2
7. Kill Bill Volume 1
8. Kill Bill Volume 2
9. Jackie Brown
10. Inglorious Bastards

Haven't seen Deathproof.

He also directed some segments in other films: Grindhouse, Sin City, Four Rooms, one episode of ER, to which I've only seen Sin City, and so many years ago I can't even visualise the scene in question. Wow, Sin City was 14 years ago, I enjoyed it in the cinema but have never had the desire to rewatch it.

He's also a writer, or, primarily he's a writer and if you include writing credits then he also had a strong hand in: True Romance, Natural Born Killers, From Dusk Till Dawn, From Dusk Till Dawn TV series, to which I've seen and enjoyed them all except the TV series but, again, have never had the urge to rewatch any of them.

From 7 to 10 on my list are also in the category of enjoying watching the first time but not having any desire to rewatch them, which is no bad thing if your 'worst' work is something that only suffers from rewatch value. From 1 to 6 and I've enjoyed repeat viewings and could happily watch again tomorrow. I consider my no.1 an all time classic of human nature.

His earlier films are certainly more to my liking, when you compare them to the films after Kill Bill. While I did enjoy the latter ones, I just feel that his earlier films were better crafted and satisfy better, at least for me. I do really like True Romance, tastes might vary but that one is quite enjoyable.

Tarantino only wrote the screenplay for True Romance, someone else directed that one. Good movie though. The dialogue between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken alone makes it worth seeing. Gary Oldman was also great.

I do think his earlier films were a little better. Of my top three Tarantino films, two are among his earliest.. Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.

I thought The Hateful Eight sucked. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I found it completely uninteresting. Deathproof was worse.

I think it's safe to say that we all have varying opinions on Tarantino's work Except Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…. god, what a self-indulgent, meandering waste of time. 90% of it is character exposition that has absolutely nothing to do with any semblance of a plot. It could have easily been edited down to half its running time. And this is from someone who was eagerly awaiting its release!

The guy somewhat reminds me of George Lucas - grounded in his early career and just running off on complete tangents later on… because nobody in production dares challenge their 'genius'.

Talking of sharp variations in personal preference concerning the same person, I've been catching up on Tom Cruise this last week:

Jack Reacher (2012) was more interesting than I expected it to be, though still not quite what I imagined either. It's more of a detective crime conspiracy film than an action film, something I'm more used to watching Denzel Washington do than Tom Cruise. I can't say I liked Cruise's Reacher character but apparently the books are popular.

His character is ultra-dead-inside and ultra-focused almost to the point of the autism spectrum where objectives supersede any sense of emotion. This makes for a cool action protagonist and helps reduce any dumb things happening such as plot-convenience metaphorical tripping over while running away, but inevitably leaves the film awkwardly cold and a bit wooden.

There are lots of enjoyable scenes and the regular tropes of this kind of thing are all of a decent enough standard that it gets an easy pass from instant mockery, though this is one of those movies that proves that CinemaSins does indeed know what it's talking about sometimes and accurately picks up on all the things that are a bit off about it. Worthwhile popcorn stuff that's about 20 minutes too long for it's own good 3.5/5

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) was very entertaining indeed. Sci-fi but more sci-fantasy, it's a blend of many other films, as if someone put the script of Groundhog Day into a food blender with The Matrix and Starship Troopers. The end result is surprisingly unique and interesting.

Every time Cruise dies he's reborn at an earlier point in the day, on the day of the big land assault against the aliens, to which he has to keep doing this until he figures out what's going on. An excellent unique aspect is how Cruise starts the film as a coward and it's nice to see him actually have to act beyond the protagonist stereotype, something he actually does very well.

Always nice to see the late Bill Paxton in these kind of movies as well. I have no huge complaints about this near perfection of cinema other than the expected nonsense of the inevitable plot holes that amass the more the film continues, as is to be expected with any time travel movie that attempts to take itself too seriously, this time resulting in a relatively unsatisfying ending and final 20 minutes generally. 4/5

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) is something that decided to improve on the original in all the wrong directions if you ask me. While the first one was only based on a short story, this is based on a whole book and so you'd expect a more complex consiracy/crime plot, but, alas, it's about three degrees dumber than the first one and about as generic as it can get.

Some evil military contractors are bumping off or framing innocent military personel so Jack Reacher comes in to solve the case, all in extremely predictable fashion and as formulaic as any cheap generic action movie. Compounding this is the now split screentime for our protagonist who now performs co-operative action with a strong female ass-kicker and, on top of this, with a plot-convenience surprise daughter (or IS it his daughter? etc) who does nothing but provide irritating ways to get our protagonists into ever depper shit.

One of those movies that rides the line of your patience, always tempting you to skip to the end but always just managing to shove in a watchable action sequence just before you give up. Wont make many people's top 100 even for this particular genre and doesn't even really deserve being mentioned in the same post as the other two movies above. 2/5

Alita Battle Angel - very nice cgi, cliched story. Back when the manga was written it was probably fresh, but not any more. Kinda like Alita herself,, it has a pretty body, but no brain.

Pet Semetary remake - Not bad. They changed things up from the point the kid dies, and you know how I feel about creative changes… but it wasn't terrible. I still prefer the first one, or better, the book.

I'm excited to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, even though people here seem to not have liked it. I'm curious how I'll find it. Being in Europe I have to wait until the 14th of August, which is when I have preorder my tickets. Also, being in Germany for the time being makes this even harder, since I need the English-voiced movie, which is usually in a limited release.

One thing is for certain, Red Letter Media and YourMovieSucks both liked it, and I'm usually in line with their tastes. So I'm still excited.

JDR13 said:

I thought The Hateful Eight sucked. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I found it completely uninteresting.

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I think there is something to be said for this. There are many movies, I didn't like the first time I saw them. For example The Shawshank Redemption and The Usual Suspects comes to mind. Both of these movies I saw in the cinema the first time and I was really bored of them! However, I saw them later on TV by chance on rainy Sunday night and i loved them now and they are in my top 20 list! I think rain relaxes me and something about the mood of those movies and mood my surrounding matched and then those movies clicked!

I think Tarantino movies have certain mood to them as well and I think you have to feel for that mood before they can click. This is one of the reason why I don't always go and watch Tarantino movies on cinema when they are released. I avoided watching The Hateful Eight on the cinema since I wanted to watch it at my home while being warm and snuggly in my bed so the cold and snow feel of the movie don't get to me!

I also love to play games while its raining outside and bit cloudy. I think this is one of the reason why I love Morrowind so much since most of my gametime in Morrowind was in autumn when it was cloudy and raining all the time and it sort of matched the atmosphere of the game as well.

lackblogger said:

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Edge of Tomorrow (2014) was very entertaining indeed. Sci-fi but more sci-fantasy, it's a blend of many other films, as if someone put the script of Groundhog Day

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No.
It's one of rare time loop movies and has absolutely nothing in common with Groundhog Day except belonging to the same time loop genre.

Note that Groundhog Day is not the first time loop movie. Also note that I promised yet never managed to make a thread about time loop movies due to lack of time and willpower, maybe it'll be best to lower the ambition and just list them with a few sentences and that's it. Tomorrow? Not possible, it's my town's day with all sorts of festivities thus I'm gonna get pissed. Not pissed off.

Classic joxer.

Dude, I could have chosen any timeloop movie, but when describing something to someone who might have little knowledge of the genre then one simply picks the most well known example. The groundhog day aspect of this movie is well known and well conversed and relates to the aspect of the film which requires him to gain the trust of a female via multiple retries.

So, I'm afraid, yes.

I look forward to your completely unnecessary list and fine-tuned over-detailed explanation of things that have nothing to do with the point other than your intentional or unintentional misunderstanding of regular communication

"When describing something to someone who might have little knowledge of the genre" on internet forum add a link or believe that someone knows how to use Google.

If on a chatty/coffee/date with a person who never saw a single movie in their life… I'd pick Dr. Strange over Groundhog Day although that one doesn't belong to time loop genre, it does contain a time loop problem-solution part.

Just a suggestion because I do believe more (alive) people watched Dr. Strange than Groundhog Day.

joxer said:

I do believe more (alive) people watched Dr. Strange than Groundhog Day.

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I accept your bet. What's the wager?

I don't do impossible to check bets - no way to ask everyone alive did they watch something.

Weird comment considering you used the phrase "I do believe" in your assessment of the pointless comparison. Something must have made you believe that? Apparently not, it's just something you made up in your own head, so, yes, thanks, I guess in this instance I really do 'win' the internet, although it appears as with all internet victories there's no actual prize, what with the option of a prize being bypassed via hyperbole, as per usual.

So I shouldn't believe anything?
Of course something made me believe. The idustry of mainstream where it's a sin not to watch a mainstream entry somewhere and sometime (cinema, optical media, TV, streams, piracy).

To this day I still haven't watched Titanic and never will, yet I do believe 99% of human population saw it. The percentage goes lower for Transformers or, in this example, Dr. Strange, but these are still mainstream "everyone wants to" watch.

Groundhog Day was never mainstream.
And you stated initially you're trying to describe "something to someone who might have little knowledge of the genre". Well, who would that be? If not mainstream chaser.

joxer said:

Groundhog Day was never mainstream.

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I take it this another "Lol, I'm just trolling coz I'm a funny troll" post by you? Do you never get tired of this routine?

Lets see some data that even suggest this is true; or is this a random baseless comment?
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Either way I definitely prefer Groundhog Day to Dr. Strange.... but that is just me - i have no clue which one has been watched by more people.

joxer said:

Just a suggestion because I do believe more (alive) people watched Dr. Strange than Groundhog Day.

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Sherlock Gnomes - the sequel of Gnomeo And Julia
Lighthearted fun with the theme of Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy, Moriarty.

I watched "The Favourite" the other night, I really enjoyed it. The costumes, the constant updates on the war in the back round, the interactions between members of Parliament and the PM, and his relationship with the Queen....great stuff. A movie I really enjoyed, and one I know I'll view again in the future.