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

Originally Posted by Drithius
Also enjoyed Dune. I haven't seen the 80s version in quite some time, so my collection may be off, but I preferred how this latest rendition spends more time fleshing out the the characters and reasons behind the plot(ting). My only critique, albeit relatively minor, would be that there could have been a couple less Zendaya flashbacks; they started to feel repetitive. Otherwise, it was a good film and I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.

It's easier to flesh things out when you have that much more time. The new film only covers the first half of the book and it's still longer than the David Lynch version.

I rewatched Lynch's film a few weeks ago, and it definitely hasn't aged well in some aspects. I still like it a lot, especially the soundtrack, but some scenes are just downright ugly now.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Also watched a movie this week that stars Jason Momoa called Sweet Girl.

Oh god… Haven't I warned you?

Originally Posted by joxer
A word of warning on Sweet Girl.
I was hoping for a juicy revenge thriller against corruption and got hollywood's usual mediocrity.
Characters are dull, the story is pathetic and dialogues tend to be classically dumb (example, when you start the car do you say to whomever is with you "hold on"?).
There are also badly made scenes. An example, a train full of people, a fight starts, suddenly the train is completely empty. What, Scotty beamed them all up?

Please people, just skippit.

Yeah, seems I couldn't help myself and purchased a ticket to also see Dune on the big screen. I'll try to take some disinfectant wipes to wipe down the 3D glasses. I fucking hate that there's no 2D option of seeing it. Anyway, I am excited for the weekend now.

EDIT: Hilariously, I didn't buy the right ticket which comes with the 3D glasses included (yeah, where I live they double dip and also tax you for the glasses, I guess in case you come with your own?). So, not wanting to complicate things, I just bought another ticket right behind me, and since the cinema won't allow you to buy seats directly next to another already occupied seat, I basically guaranteed myself a row of empty seats in almost all directions. Hilarious.

Yeah, the uncharted movie really looks like a dumpster fire. I mean, what the hell, Marky Mark as Sullivan, the charismatic old man from games? This movie really has no purpose. It's basically a more cartoony version of Indiana Jones. But why do we need it? In terms of the games, they wanted their own Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider, but to have the freedom to expand in terms of gamelay. And there always the opportunity for a spectacle, while playing. But as a movie, what will this provide? Just a low-budget Indiana Jones. This really felt like a big budget advertising for the Uncharted Collection remastered for PS5/PC.

I agree for the most part. I actually think Mark Wahlberg is a pretty decent actor, but he's miscast here and so is Tom Holland.

This looks like one of those movies that no one will remember in a few years.

It's like they really don't want to crush the idea that all video game to movie adaptations are bad.

I'm really curious if the Last of Us tv series will manage to be great, and break the curse.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo…te-1235036655/

Awesome to finally have it confirmed. Oct 2023.

Ahhh that's nice for them, big congrats getting a pick-up this early. I've yet to see the flick, I'm keeping my expectations very much in check, as I'm a huge fan of the novels and Lynch's version.

Watched Dune today at the cinema.

I thought it was a pretty good movie and I'm looking forward to next.

I haven't read the books or watched the previous movies, so I'm not biased by that fact and went "virgin" into it, so there's that.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Just a low-budget Indiana Jones.

More like a big budget Young Indiana Jones.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo…te-1235036655/

Awesome to finally have it confirmed. Oct 2023.

I think it was pretty much a sure thing, but it's nice to have confirmation.

Keeping an eye here for thoughts on Dune, so thanks to all for avoiding spoilers, but I'm worried at the low effort reviews. I'll probably do quite a few paragraphs and a few pics when I write mine, but y'all making me feel like a windbag for doing so

Well, it's kind of hard to write much about a movie and keep it spoiler-free at the same time. Although I'm not sure how much could be spoiled about Dune at this point.

Resident Evil reboot

Some franchises just need to die and never be rebooted again.

What could they ever do that has not already been done before in this franchise.

As I understand it, this reboot is supposed to be more faithful to the storyline and lore of the games. The Milla Jovovich films were only loosely based on the series.

No idea if that's going to end up being a good thing. Imo, at least 90% of game to film adaptations range from mediocre to terrible. I thought the original RE movie was ok, but the sequels were little more than B-movie schlock.

Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, for the first time. I thought I had watched it before but I think it was only 10 minutes of the intro when I was 10 and a few minutes around "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" a couple of years later, as well as lots and lots of pop culture references.

So… well, I'm glad I finally watched it. Aside from that I don't have much to say. Will probably read the book next.

Dune Part 1(2021)

I haven't read the book and I'm one of those people who didn't particularly enjoy the 1984 movie beyond the casual fun factor, I just like the idea of a decent sci-fi movie. Saw it in IMAX.

I'm afraid it didn't grab me and my overall reaction was one of ok to middling to nah, wish I'd skipped it.

The visuals are great, in places. But then so it was with Transformers movies.

The slow and brooding atmosphere worked really well for the director when he made Bladerunner 2049 and slow and brooding is most of the concept of Bladerunner generally. However, trying to do the same thing with Dune simply doesn't work IMO.

And the reason for that is that it comes across to me as a relatively generic action movie, at least in this Part 1 of this film, no idea about the book. You have the hero, you have his family, who are presented as the good guys, and you have the ugly bad guy and his evil army who don't do much but be evil and try to kill the good guys.



There are a couple of plot nuances here and there which are nice, but nothing particularly in depth nor ground breaking and certainly not much to think about either during or after.

The portrayal of the bad guy in particular really took me out the movie as they literally copy and pasted Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. It wasn't even subtle, it was an in your face carbon copy, like an SNL sketch or something. And then they had the bad guy eat a meal noisily and grotesquely while giving out some dumb evil order and I nearly facepalmed with a big sigh in the theatre.



It's a really long film and it felt it, 2.5 hours, and most of it is long brooding atmospheric shots with most dialogue reduced to choppy one-liners and trailer quotes and necessary exposition. As a consequence, the acting seemed fine, but that's because there was nothing much to challenge anyone, which also left quite a few scenes feeling a bit wooden.

To be honest, I probably would have enjoyed it more if the film had zero dialogue entirely and instead they went full-on voice-over and just had someone like Judi Dench narrate the book while we watched stunning visuals.

The action scenes are very poor and underwhelming and mostly comprise a couple of dozen people fighting each other with short swords.



There is simply nothing of any great interest here for anyone who is either mildly well versed in movie watching or looking for something vaguely different, or even more of the same done better.

I can understand a Dune fan specifically wanting to love it and be in a mad panic to ensure Part 2 gets made, but that ain't me.

Oh yeah, characterisation is virtually non-existent either. It's one of those films where they give characters dramatic and emotional death scenes almost ignorant of the fact that the audience has only seen them for 5 minutes and gives zero fucks about them. And this happens… a lot.

Still going to give it 6/10 though, because the visuals are worth it not being complete shit-tier.