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

you said:
I'm not sure I would call Mother 'funny'. I seem to remember it being quite bloody.
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Having said that I saw "Equalizer 2" today.
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Though Aronofsky would probably deny it, Mother was clearly influenced by the Monty Python sketch "The Visitors" until it turns completely surreal. Some of the most humorous movies I've seen were really bloody, including much of what came from the Python boys when they transitioned to movies. I might have even laughed once or twice at Peter Jackson's Bad Taste or Braindead.
 
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Re: The Visitors - one of the very very few on-screen appearances by Terry Gilliam in the original series… and he was pretty damn memorable too.

"Oh? My God, what a simply ghaaastly place."
 
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Ready Player One 4/10

To be honest, I sort of lost track of what was happening sometime during the middle of the movie.

I don't know what has happened to these brainless mainstream movies - but I seem to remember a time when Spielberg movies had more than just the spectacle and a handful of clichés in them.

I think it's the saturation of CGI effect, which seems to be the result of the endless barrage of Iron Man iterations coming out every month or so. It's like actual human interaction has become such a low priority - that you essentially forget about the characters even being there - during all the utterly repetitive CGI battles.

There was a time when CGI and action was used to enhance the drama - and now it seems they're trying to enhance the CGI and action with little bits of drama.

Except, it's not working.
 
I thought Ready player of one was enjoyable. Not a master piece but it was easy enough to follow and decent enough acting. I'd give it a 7/10 and the only reason I wouldn't give it a higher score is there is not much redeeming about it but it was fun. From a pragmatic perspective it had a lot of issues but it does correctly raise some of the well known social issues developing with spending too much time on-line.
 
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I HATED Ready Player One. Thought that Black Mirror episode about the two elderly lesbians in the nursing home plugged into the virtual reality cloud was better on similar themes without being totally overblown. Some clever homage to the 8-bit computer game era though but it was dull and overlong to me, despite being non-stop action orientated. Croneberg's Existenz also did a better, less trite job, imo.
 
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Mission Impossible 3 - 6/10

I never bothered to watch any of the M:I movies after the terrible second outing, but given the insane amount of praise the most recent one has been getting, I tought I would check out the older ones.

It's surprisingly good for an Abrams movie. He's a very talented director in terms of pacing and all those Spielberg tricks - and it managed to stay reasonably interesting from start to finish.

Hoffman was great as always - but they should have done more with him, and the ending was sort of stupid and weak.

I think the reason I didn't hate it outright is probably because of the incredibly low standard of the post Iron Man movies.

I'm going to check out the next two as well.
 
You'll adore Mission Imposible 5. For the very reason I panned it.
joxer said:
Mission Impossible 5 (Rogue)



Really? That's how we should play games? With that junk in hands?

1/10
Avoid at all costs.

Overall the movie is pretty good, but don't ever expect me to forgive that scene. I wish I never saw it.
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Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol 5/10

At the very end, I realised I had actually seen this before - because I remembered a few sequences.

I guess that's all I need to say about how memorable the movie is.

It was painfully clear that it was a post-Iron Man movie - unlike M:I3. Too much misplaced humor during very serious moments and not enough human drama.

Didn't find the action very compelling, either. In fact, my score is probably too generous.
 
Managed ~3 minutes of Rogue Nation. From the first few seconds, it became clear that the series have taken a sharp turn towards the Iron Man formula.

All tension is gone and "humor" is the order of the day.

Oh well, at least I tried.
 
I tried watching the first two Mission Impossible movies some time ago, couldn't stomach them. Compared to the brilliant television series, they were complete abominations, in my opinion. Haven't had the inclination to watch any of them since, older or recent.
 
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I never bothered with the MI movies after the first one. If you like that sort of thing, I think the Bourne movies are vastly superior.
 
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The Bourne movies are a step up, I would agree - only I believe I've already seen them.

None of these movies are really my thing - but sometimes it's fun to watch a nicely executed mainstream spectacle. I used to love them as a kid, though.

But, when the movies not only encourage not having a brain - but actively take away from your brain should you dare to use it, it becomes too much for me.

Well, except when movies are deliberately trying for dumb fun. Superhero movies, I find, are 50/50 when it comes to being upfront about their nonsense - but M:I seems to want you to take it seriously on some level - and then I just get confused, because nothing holds up to any kind of scrutiny.

Disney seems to be the frontrunner here these days - and it's not hard to see the Iron Man formula applied to everything they do.

The reason it doesn't bother me as much in their Star Wars films, I think, is that I never perceived Star Wars as a serious kind of movie. Well, maybe when I was 9 - but as an adult, it's pretty hard to deny that they're full of stupid crap. But they're also magical - in a way - but that's probably mostly about nostalgia.

Oh well :)
 
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@joxer; Watch Idocracy. It's a classic. :)
@JackOfOwls; I thought Mother was fantastic and I laughed my ass off at Braindead.
@joxer; Watch Braindead, too. Another classic. (aka Dead Alive in USA, I think)
 
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