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

Saw Jumanji next level - while a lot better than knifes out (which i mentioned above is rather awful) it wasn't as good as the first one. It had a few new ideas and the actors did a fantastic job (to say in what fashion i would have to add lots of spoiler tags or jdr will throw a tantrum) - so i'll just leave it as they did a good job. Still it was kind of silly movie (but i suppose it is intended after all it is a comedy at heart). Dwayne johnson is getting old. I hate to give a number - 7ish maybe 8ish if you love it. You should stay to see the credits - well the start of the credits. Hum. i wonder if cats or frozen 2 is any good.

Just a heads up StarWars: Rise Of Skywalker is not selling well on opening day in china.

Link - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...-rise-skywalker-beaten-by-local-films-1264388

So that $1Bn might not be realistic as I mentioned earlier.

Here's a decent spoiler free opinion that fits my opinion.

I so wanted to love or at least like this movie, but for me, it was like watching a really expensive poorly conceived fan fiction. I know there are people who enjoyed this movie. Don't let my personal opinions get in the way of that. But I was super let down by the conclusion to a trilogy that was destroyed by a lack of cohesive vision.

Click to expand...

The less it makes, the happier i am, it would be an important message that they can't get away with sloppily made SW movies. Nerdy as it may be, it's important to a lot of people that its handled with respect and care. Just like people were pissed off how GoT S8 was handled.. They just wanted to be done with it, it's the exact same feeling you get here.

Not interested in the SW movie at all. Maybe I still watch it in some future if there's nothing else to do.

Got hyped with the upcoming Nolan's scifi reverse timeflaw:


There are already doomsayers all over internet because Warner spent enormous amount of $ for something that isn't bore them to death drama/biography/history/war, but this movie will be a rarity. Hollywood making something original instead of rehashing the same old stuff deserves every cent IMO. Never thought I'll say this but thanks Warner.

…

OMG OMG!
https://www.soompi.com/article/1369...sula-responds-to-reports-of-2020-release-date

The distributor of “Peninsula,” the sequel to the hit film “Train to Busan,” has responded to reports that they have decided on an exact premiere date.

On December 3, reports were made in French media that, “Director Yeon Sang Ho’s ‘Peninsula’ is set to premiere in August 2020. Specifically, the date is August 12, 2020.”

Click to expand...

Why noone told me the sequel is coming?!
And why must I be hyped over movies coming in the next year? That never happens. I'm getting old it seems.

Frozen 2 - was pretty bad - maybe 4 or 5 out of 10 for those who like ratings. THe first one was really good - this one had a convoluted story with lots of glitter (think Fantasia). I wonder how many kids actually followed the plot. The first was a very simple compact story and adding a bit of to it wasn't such a bad idea but this one was a mess. Also the music wsn't as good and the overall plot was contrived.

The glitter will probably keep kids entertained but otherwise skip.

Good explanation by The Quartering why you can't trust Rotten Tomatoes..

Oh what a shock not like it's owned by an Ex-Disney CEO.

Saw SW

The pacing was terrible. It seems like it should have been two movies. I also think that JJ was going for a face paced disjointed movie serial type effect as if you were binge watching movie serials like Flash Gordon Trip to Mars one after the other. It felt like Indiana Jones at the Temple of Doom.

In fact, it felt like two movies - a first half and a long ending.

I also could have done with more Rose. She got the Jar Jar Binks treatment. I also would have liked to have seen Gen Xers - once again we're ignored with only Boomers and Millennials getting any visuals.

That said, I enjoyed it. It was Star Wars and I recommend it to everyone. I don't go Star Wars thinking its Citizen Kane. And its quite a bit better than any Marvel movie.

I will probably not watch anymore if Disney keeps giving it the new Star Trek treatment. Star Wars was always fun and not meant to be political. The fact that it wasn't Vietnam, etc. was what made the first one enjoyable.

Couchpotato said:

Just a heads up StarWars: Rise Of Skywalker is not selling well on opening day in china.

Click to expand...

This has always been the case in China. Unlike its neighbour Japan, no one was allowed to see Star Wars in China when they were first made so it was not able to take cultural root like it did everywhere else in the world.

By the time China did see the new ones, big budget space operas were already everywhere, some of them were animated - Star Wars was just one of many.

It would be like expecting John Carter of Mars to do well after Avatar came out.

Star Wars has never flopped in China afaik. Not like this. Rogue One did better than this there..

Not even bending the knee to them, hiding Finn in the far back + brightening his skin in the china promo posters helped.. lol, so much for standing up for diversity and being "inclusive" yada-yada..

Edit: I don't think even two movies would have sufficed, a TV series would have been more fitting for this theme.. I don't hate the story in it, i just really, really dislike how little time everything is getting, it's only teasing the viewer with various locations and plots and moves on to the next.

Apropos RT userscore by crpgnut (yes I still think it's him undercover) - that thing was "fixed" for like a decade and not only for Disney involved products.
For user scores, always go imdb and read a few impressions that go into some details. When possible. The best option is always word of mouth, but when a title wasn't seen by any of friends you trust, go imdb.

In any case I suggest ignoring professional critics unless there is one or a few who often seem to share your taste. Professionals tend to adore style over substance and pretend that the peak of filmography is bland drama or sterile facts. If such a film can also bore a viewer to death, expect raining of good scores from professionals. I'm saying professionals forget that most of movies are made for an audience and not exclusively for critics (there are always a few junk movies out there shot not for the audience but for Oscars voters).

China is a specific market and I wrote something about that before. Your movie won't air in China if not compatible with current political climate unless you carefully pack stuff so censors don't notice hints and undertones that are considered "dangerous". If censors do spot something they don't like, assuming it's not the whole movie, such scenes will get cut out and the audience will eat spaghetti without any sauce.
Imagine you're living in such a country, aware that all you'll see on screen is a bland story and tons of special effects just because it's enforced by law and not by incapability of pisspoor Hollywood screenwriters to make a good script. Well… At one point you'll say screw it, install Steam and play The Witcher 3 instead of going to cinema.

All good points too. You have to think the downplay of Rose in this one didn't help it in China either.

I did like the return of Haydn Christiansen though.

vurt said:

Star Wars has never flopped in China afaik. Not like this. Rogue One did better than this there..

Click to expand...

Yes, Rogue One did better ... BUT, no Star Wars movies has EVER succeeded in China, period. The entire franchise combined did less than opening weekend for Avengers Endgame in China.

- Original Trilogy was never shown.
- Prequel Trilogy TOTAL was <$20 million
- Biggest success was Force Awakens with $124 million. Rogue One got $69MM, Last Jedi less, Solo even less, and Rise only ~$12 million so far.

Just saw The House that Jack built by Lars von Trier. The first 3/4 of the film were very von Trier, meaning kind of pretentious and shock for shock value. But I absolutely loved the ending. A real twist.

The first 3/4 which I didn’t hate but didn’t particularly like, were very similar to Nymphomaniac, but replace sexual deviancy with the mental deviancy of a serial killer. Very pretentious rationalization and dialogue while trying to disturb the audience. Felt a bit cheap. And gratuitous. Especially the family incident. But, it really found redemption with the ending.

I plank to see Star Wars Rise of Skywalker again with my kids (saw with older son, younger son home for a few days), and will hopefully clarify my feelings more at that point.

Two thoughts:
1. I liked the movie, I continued to feel emotional connections to the main characters and was happy with the overall story and movie and conclusion.
2. It drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE just how obvious it now is that this ‘trilogy’ was not written as a trilogy. For all the critique of the prequels, it followed the core project management principal of ‘start with the end in mind’. And while perhaps they DID have the ending envisioned, there was a lot that happened that shows any through-plotting was ‘block diagram’ level at best. And to me that was the biggest issue.
2a. Because of #2, the movie ended up overstuffed with things that had no place in the conclusion of a trilogy. Revenge of the Sith is actually pretty great in that regard (and Return of the Jedi somewhat weak).

Oh well ...

Lucky Day said:

I did like the return of *Redacted* though.

Click to expand...

Spoiler tags, please. Some of us haven't seen it yet.

JDR13 said:

Spoiler tags, please. Some of us haven't seen it yet.

Click to expand...

I really attempted opinion without referring to actual plot points. Surprisingly hard since I am loaded down with 42 years of being a huge Star Wars fan - but that load is lightened since I never thought any of them were very good as movies

Hollow. British horror. Didn't like it too much apart from the various locations, but i have a weak spot for the English countryside. The actors were decent too.

The Lighthouse. Drama/horror. Wow, this was quite the tale. Outstanding performances by Dafoe and Pattinson (didnt recognize him, was surprised when i read who it was). One of the better movies of 2019 for sure. It could have been 10 mins shorter perhaps.

I watched a film that I'd heard of before but had never gotten around to viewing, 'The Quiet American", based off the Greene novel by the same name. It was pretty good, I've not read the book but might pick it up to see if perhaps there is an earlier beginning than the movie purported, as I think the most interesting time period would have been when France first got involved. Decent flick, but then again Caine doesn't tend to be in many shoddy films.

Connected to my previous post about professional critics criteria.
This is today's metacritic's list of 50ish worst movies in 2019 (not all possible titles from worldwide cionematography, just those that have a few critic entries on metacritic):
https://www.metacritic.com/browse/movies/score/metascore/year/filtered?page=5

Of course I haven't seen them all, but some I did. And I object on a few choices:

- Anna is over the top spy thriller fun with no timewasting scene. Add Helen Mirren's totally crazy performance in this flick and suddenly you can't believe it's considered as one of the worst movies of the year. Are those critics blind or simply hate someone involved in making of this movie?

- Domino is a work of genius, deliberate trolling of the current film industry (not just Hollywood!), irritating anyone's good taste to the point of pain. Critics, obviously too stupid to geddit, behave as the insulted primadonna here. I guess this means mission accomplished at one side so, bravo!

- Shaft (2) earned enough of laughs from me unlike tons of overrated so called comedies. While I want more of this stuff, critics obviously don't.

- Men in Black: International simply can't be the top worst, it's mediocre. I don't think anyone exited cinema or turned it off after 20 minutes - and in 2019 there were hundreds of such garbage titles plainly unwatchable. MIB4 isn't great, but is decent enough not to be among the worst movies of the year.

- Night Hunter does not care about political correctness nor any sjw rubbish, everyone has their way to react to evil and you, the audience, is not here for preaching but for vigilantes of a different kind. Ben Kingsley ain't no Clint Eastwood and doesn't serve justice as Harry or the nameless heroes, but that's the deliberate difference that doesn't mean this is one of the worst movies.

- Replicas, a mediocre scifi thriller that thought a dumb script can be turned into gold with a big actor name on screen - it can't. But it's mediocrity doesn't make it almost the worst movie of the year!

- Polar, made as campy fun and borderline trash&grindhouse, also almost the worst? Did critics even watch this one or it wasn't boring enough to get a bit better score? It definetly wasn't boring.