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

Originally Posted by Hurls
Re-watched 2001 with my partner as she hadn't seen it. For a movie made in 1968, it stands the test of time, for both of us, amazingly. The space sequences, in particular, are amazing. ”sorry, I can't do that Dave”. Should be mandatory viewing for anyone training or using AIs, in my very biased opinion.

One of my favourites. When I last watched it, I thought the only thing that hadn't aged well were the ape costumes at the beginning. Other than that, still looks great.

Haven't Hollywood announced a sequel/remake/reboot/butchery of the 2001 series yet?

TENET (2020)

Freshly back from watching this in an IMAX cinema screen. My first experience of IMAX.

For all the pomp and ceremony of IMAX's superior sound quality, the first thing that struck me was that I couldn't hear much of what the actors were saying above the cornucopia of other sounds. By the halfway point I guess I'd actually heard about 65% of anything anyone said.

I don't think it mattered too much anyway as the dialogue I could hear seemed to be mostly stilted exposition and time-travel gobbledegook. I was beginning to wonder if Nolan had gone one step too far in his attempts to push the boundaries of what cinema is capable of presenting.

But, thankfully, the second half put most of my wandering mind to the back of my mind as the relentless action and set-pieces took over and reminded me that it really didn't matter what the plot was nor whether I could hear anyone as the price of admission was more than adequately paid for by such things as watching a jumbo jet crash into a building.

And that was a minor set-piece. The real visual meat comes when we get to see different time streams converge, which is very hard to explain in words, suffice to say it must be the first film I've ever seen where we see a fist fight between one guy in Forward and another guy in Reverse.

I have no idea if the film would have been better if I had been able to hear more of the plot and dialogue or if it would have been worse, as the point at which I gave up and pretended to myself that I was a foreigner watching an un-subtitled film, just catching the odd phrase here and there, my enjoyment increased ten-fold. Especially as it felt like most of the dialogue was only there as exposition to cater to the dummy demographic.

John David Washington of BlackKklansman fame is great in the title role, aptly named "The Protagonist", his dry delivery providing an ideal counter to the frenetic pace of the action and the absurdity of the plot. Robert Pattinson is great as his sidekick as are the usual Nolan accompaniments of Kenneth Branagh and Michael Caine.

The leading lady is also much more interesting a character than she appears at first glance as Elizabeth Debicki does her best to wrangle with the usual damsel in distress stuff. I don't know if I'm allowed to say it, but she does look kinda weird. Maybe that's her thing though, I dunno, what do you think?



I don't think I've ever seen someone with such a long neck. All I could think of was these guys:



Bless her cotton socks, I hope this doesn't give her a complex, but I remember people calling me a Giraffe when I was growing up, but this is a whole new level. Anyway, you prob wont know what I'm on about until you've seen it.

And just to show I'm not picking on the ladies, if I had one criticism of JD Washington, it would be that he was too short. It's always difficult to manage the camera angles so that your protagonist is truly threatening when the bad guys are always towering over them. Something Tom Cruise has made a priority throughout his career. Maybe they should have brought him in as a consultant.

Plot & dialogue: 6/10
Balls to the wall Cinematic splendour: 9/10

For an overall 7.5/10 IMO. An 8 if you watch it in a good mood, 7 or even 6 if you watch it in a foul mood I should think.

The only trailer before the movie was for the new Bond movie: Which looked very interesting indeed. The trailer did nothing to immediately deter me from preparing to mildly hype myself for it. The changing of the Aston Martin's pop-out-the-headlights machine guns to miniguns is certainly a sign of changing times I can fully get behind

Originally Posted by Falksi
Haven't Hollywood announced a sequel/remake/reboot/butchery of the 2001 series yet?

I'm surprised as well but they seem to have an agreement not to touch the classics. They tried with the Ten Commandants/Ben-Hur remakes and both were terrible.

There already was a sequel to 2001, It was called 2010 & it was ok, just ok. I saw it as a kid but haven't seen it since & can't remember anything about it, aside from it at least not sucking.

Yeah but that was released all the way back in 1984.

Release date: December 7, 1984 (USA)
Director: Peter Hyams
Budget: 28 million USD
Box office: 40.4 million USD (North America)

The post was talking about modern Hollywood they love reboots and remasters.

Link - https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/mov…n-development/

My first reaction to seeing the Tenet trailer was not really understanding what I was seeing. I saw scenes in reverse, and scenes in forward, but couldn't imagine how these would work together. I'm vaguely curious to see the movie myself, but I'm afraid I'll probably react to it like it's just a contrived narrative to have something weird happening on screen. Though with the pandemic I'm not sure when I'll be able to see it.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Yeah but that was released all the way back in 1984.
The post was talking about modern Hollywood they love reboots and remasters.

Yeah, 2010 was a slightly different thing, adapted from a follow up novel by Clarke. I see that as a bit different to a sequel or reboot that Hollywood cooks up themselves. Pretty forgettable, though. If ever there was a film that should have just been left alone, it was 2001.

I must be one of the few people to consider Nolan's work severely overrated.

Originally Posted by Drithius
I must be one of the few people to consider Nolan's work severely overrated.

I'd be another one.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
There already was a sequel to 2001, It was called 2010 & it was ok, just ok. I saw it as a kid but haven't seen it since & can't remember anything about it, aside from it at least not sucking.

I saw it a couple of years back for the second time (first time being decades ago). It's not a classic, but I enjoyed it. It still had some interesting ideas and a nice atmosphere, Roy Scheider is always watchable and I'd forgotten the awesome Helen Mirren was in it. It didn't blow me away but it was a solid story, better than most sci fi but a long way from the brilliance of the original.

Originally Posted by Drithius
I must be one of the few people to consider Nolan's work severely overrated.

Originally Posted by Ripper
I'd be another one.

You two are (hopefully) a minority.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
There already was a sequel to 2001, It was called 2010 & it was ok, just ok.

It wasn't ok. It was plain rubbish. This one:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
After watching it I thought I've heard Stanley Kubrick rolling in his grave, but it couldn't be true as the man was still alive.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
TENET (2020)

Thanks for the input but I'm more interested in timebending ideas, logic of that and comparing it to a few time paradoxes or timeloop movies than stuff like:

John David Washington of BlackKklansman

Neverheard about any of it. Nor care TBH.

And about exotic necks I can only say hell yes. Gimme a variety of human beings, had enough of plastic surgeries patients being cast in every single Hollywood movie!

Dwayne Johnson's latest movie Black Adam got it's first official teaser.

Dwayne Johnson is set to star as the DC Comics anti-hero in this film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. The DC FanDome panel presented concept art of what fans can expect from the Shazam spin-off, including Black Adam's costume. Black Adam is scheduled to open December 22, 2021.

The latest Batman reboot got a trailer as well.

Director Matt Reeves gave Batman fans the first trailer for his franchise reboot starring Robert Pattinson at DC FanDome. Reeves' detective film also stars Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Colin Farrell as Penguin, Paul Dano as Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone. The cast also includes Peter Sarsgaard and Jayme Lawson. The Batman is scheduled for release on October 1, 2021.

Wonder Woman 1984 also got another official trailer.

The new era of Wonder Woman begins here. #WW84 only in theaters

Birds of Prey. Truth in advertising on this one, the trailer made the movie seem like it was going to be an abortion and this was true. The only high point in this DC travesty was showing Harley Quinn's beaver. This has been a running gag in her comics so I was pleased to see it here, but not enough for the agony of the rest of the running time. For comparison we watched the Birds of Prey TV show, and unfortunately this was also terrible in the CW tradition of focusing on teen relationship drama rather than recreating iconic characters. I won't even start with how those icons are treated here, except to say that unless they were named you wouldn't recognize them. Don't waste your time even if [especially if] you are are DC fan like me.

It took multiple attempts to get that last post up…. apparently you can't use "if" followed by parentheses…

You can’t? Interesting…

I presume to block malicious script.

Rewatched The Italian Job remake and actually impressed. Kept the flavour but did not emulate, repeat the story. Only real commonalities were a clever heist and minis! I did also enjoy the first one, especially the final scenes.

Robert De Niro is back with more acting legends in a new comedy movie.

The War With Grandpa


I enjoyed his last comedy Dirty Grandpa so hope this one doesn't disappoint.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Robert De Niro is back with more acting legends in a new comedy movie.

The War With Grandpa

Now that one is really odd. Not the movie, but it's case.
imdb is a legit site, we all know that.
On imdb, movies are reviewed by critics, as you may spot, 3 critics did their review, two german and one not german. For TWWG movie. As I always check what users and critics write (not all, just a few random) I've spotted this oddity. Go to that third critic link (Aaron something is the name).
Looks suspicious, right? I googled if it's a legit site, no dice, not a single return about that site.
Can it be some new best secret legit service or imdb got hacked?