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

Double post because it's unrelated to previous ones.

Memoir of a Murderer has an interesting setup:
"A former serial killer with Alzheimer's fights to protect his daughter from her psychotic boyfriend."

This one is not for everybody. Why should you care about serial killer who forgot about his murders due to illness and is now living as if nothing happened? You shouldn't really care, it's his daughter who's not guilty of having him for a father but then again, having a lunatic for a boyfriend perhaps such father is not a curse but a blessing? If the boyfriend is loco at all. Maybe it's all faked to finally catch the murderous dad. And maybe everything is just halucination caused by brain damage later diagnosed as Alzheimer?

This movie is a superrare food for brain where the end has two possible causes - you will not know which one is true. Both can be true yet result is the same. A sort of destiny where any path taken leads to the same waypoint.
This is not one of those pick your ending movies (example italian job - not remake). The ending here is fixed and known, but what exactly led to it is on you to pick.

Transformers fans will hate this one, the rest would adore it just like I did.
If you're up to some challenge, give it a shot.

you said:

Saw Solo: A Star Wars Story.

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Saw it tonight. I had very low expectations but I liked it a lot. They left it with enough material for a sequel. Hope it happens.

Solo. I liked it better than the Star Wars Last Jedi and the one before it, they're both absolutely awful. But so far the best new SW movie is Rogue One.. What i did not like with Solo was how ugly it was, so grey and dull. Neither is as good as the TV series Clone Wars, which is absolutely essential for any SW fans, Rebels is pretty decent too (need to catch up, only saw S01).. 6/10

A Quiet Place. Really excellent, loved almost every part of it, perfect length too, which is rare for movies to have these days.. 8.5/10

Ripper said:

Spoiler

So, the world has been ravaged by sound-sensitive monsters for months, and they only just now stumble upon the fact that high-frequency sound defeats them? I found that a bit disappointing.

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Amusing. I thought Rogue One was the worse of the lot; but what do i know....

vurt said:

Solo. I liked it better than the Star Wars Last Jedi and the one before it, they're both absolutely awful. But so far the best new SW movie is Rogue One.. What i did not like with Solo was how ugly it was, so grey and dull. Neither is as good as the TV series Clone Wars, which is absolutely essential for any SW fans, Rebels is pretty decent too (need to catch up, only saw S01).. 6/10

A Quiet Place. Really excellent, loved almost every part of it, perfect length too, which is rare for movies to have these days.. 8.5/10

Spoiler

Not really.. we don't know if perhaps other people have figured this out as well, it could also mean that just a very specific frequency destroys them. The world is practically dead, communication with other survivors is minimal.

I only thought that him having to offer himself in the end was stupid, he could at least have tried to throw stuff in some direction to make noise and distract.. it's my main issue - that not everyone kept something on them that can make noise (firecrackers etc).. Obviously this would have been priority number 1, to keep them away from you and distract them when needed. Instead they had a specific place that they needed to go to, to pull that off.

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you said:

Amusing. I thought Rogue One was the worse of the lot; but what do i know….

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it was far from perfect.. but it had a good sense of adventure, it was quite dark and i really liked for example K-2SO, the best droid in the series apart from the grumpy Chopper in Rebels or R2/C-3PO duo..The battle in the end is just a bore though. Last Jedi was just a total mess of a movie in comparison, the direction in Rogue One was quite stellar, never felt off like it does in Last Jedi.

to each his own..

Edit: just read that Solo is the only SW movie so far that didn't go well - Disney expect to lose around $50 million. Yeah i think this no-name Solo actor (who did pretty ok to be honest) didn't draw a crowd.. Clarke a.k.a "turbo brows" isn't exactly a great actor.. all the trailers of it are super dull too, i was really underwhelmed by them (only saw the movie because i got a free ticket from a friend).

I saw Upgrade.

Just finished watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Hmm I don't know but the latest Star War movies, and spinoffs just don't interest me as they did in the past.

Maybe my taste changed since I was a teenager, or I'm just tired of watching the same thing over, and over again. The Marvel-verse is starting to feel the same way also.

Well I don't even like the original 3 as much as i did as a kid; but as a kid they were fantastic. I remember walking in on the first one (we were 2 or 3 minutes late) and we saw it on one of these huge screens they don't make anymore. It was the middle of the space fight and it was just awesome. But these days the those movies seems kind of yawn fest with poor acting.

For me, the only Star Wars movie I actually care for is Empire Strikes Back.

Probably didn't help that I was always cheering for the Empire, I laughed when Skywalker got his paw sliced off and people actually yelled at me in the theatre. Almost thought I might have to leg it.

ESB is the best.. but i love all 3, and the prequels too (far better than the new). Like a lot of sci-fi out there the acting ranges from acceptable to terrible, i don't really care.. i can even enjoy animated sci-fi without any problems so...

You've been eating too many mushrooms if you think the prequels were better than the new films.

JDR13 said:

You've been eating too many mushrooms if you think the prequels were better than the new films.

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No, they still retain that great sense of adventure that Lucas is actually good at. It had epic looking locations and scenes, things he also does great. It had interesting aliens and creature design, wonderful design overall (everything from ships, clothing, architecture). They also had better music.
The new movies lacks all that.. And most of all they don't feel very Star Wars at all. They might excel in other areas (acting is never as bad as it is in the prequels), but they are extremely similar to the new star trek movies, which i also hate and find incredibly dull.
There's stuff i don't like in the prequels, jar-jar (not a big deal, he has like 3-5 minutes in total of screen time), i hate the pod-race, Anakin is a pretty awful actor.. Last Jedi was like watching a bad joke, the direction is probably the worst i've ever seen for a big sci-fi movie. It's as if Matt and Trey of South Park did the movie as a prank, it was almost unreal watching it.

vurt said:

No, they still retain that great sense of adventure that Lucas is actually good at. It had epic looking locations and scenes, things he also does great. It had interesting aliens and creature design, wonderful design overall (everything from ships, clothing, architecture). They also had better music.
The new movies lacks all that.. And most of all they don't feel very Star Wars at all. They might excel in other areas (acting is never as bad as it is in the prequels), but they are extremely similar to the new star trek movies, which i also hate and find incredibly dull.
There's stuff i don't like in the prequels, jar-jar (not a big deal, he has like 3-5 minutes in total of screen time), i hate the pod-race, Anakin is a pretty awful actor.. Last Jedi was like watching a bad joke, the direction is probably the worst i've ever seen for a big sci-fi movie. It's as if Matt and Trey of South Park did the movie as a prank, it was almost unreal watching it.

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Well, that's your opinion. To be clear, I don't think any of the movies are very good, but the prequels were outright terrible. Lucas hasn't been a good director since the original Star Wars, and that's the only movie directed by him that I really like. ESB and RotJ weren't directed by him, and it's probably not a coincidence that ESB has always been my favorite.

Also, you might want to go back and watch the prequels again because your memory seems a little off. You think Jar Jar had 3-5 minutes of total screen time? You must have been privy to a completely different version of the films I saw.. especially TPM in which he was a major character throughout much of the movie.

JDR13 said:

Well, that's your opinion. To be clear, I don't think any of the movies are very good, but the prequels were outright terrible. Lucas hasn't been a good director since the original Star Wars, and that's the only movie directed by him that I really like. ESB and RotJ weren't directed by him, and it's probably not a coincidence that ESB has always been my favorite.

Also, you might want to go back and watch the prequels again because your memory seems a little off. You think Jar Jar had 3-5 minutes of total screen time? You must have been privy to a completely different version of the films I saw.. especially TPM in which he was a major character throughout much of the movie.

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He was mostly in the background even though he did travel with the major characters. I mean R2-D2 is also a "major" role but he doesn't have too much screen time either, at least not where the focus is purely on him. But you are correct that you can probably see him for more than 3-5 minutes in total, and especially so in TPM. I just don't think he had so much focus that it gets annoying or that it's unbearable.

I think overall SW is quite shallow and much of it relies purely on very nice, interesting designs and atmosphere/lore + friendship/bonding. Clone Wars series (also from Lucas) was pretty much SW perfection, it also captures the little things, the so important details that makes it great. The prequels did create some pretty iconic characters, there's nothing like that in the new movies. As an action figure collector i love tons of the designs of the characters in the prequels, there's really nothing that interests me like that with the new movies (to have just because i love the design). "Let's make a stormtrooper.. in SILVER armor, and it's… A WOMAN..! " duh… that's about as creative as they get.
…i'll leave out what i think about the political activism in the new movies

vurt said:

He was mostly in the background even though he did travel with the major characters. I mean R2-D2 is also a "major" role but he doesn't have too much screen time either, at least not where the focus is purely on him. But you are correct that you can probably see him for more than 3-5 minutes in total, and especially so in TPM. I just don't think he had so much focus that it gets annoying or that it's unbearable.

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I think a great many adults would disgree that Jar Jar wasn't annoying. I can't think of another character that was so disliked that a fan-edited version of the movie without that character actually become popular. At the very least, he's easily the most disliked character in SW.

vurt said:

I think overall SW is quite shallow and much of it relies purely on very nice, interesting designs and atmosphere/lore + friendship/bonding. Clone Wars series (also from Lucas) was pretty much SW perfection, it also captures the little things, the so important details that makes it great. The prequels did create some pretty iconic characters, there's nothing like that in the new movies. As an action figure collector i love tons of the designs of the characters in the prequels, there's really nothing that interests me like that with the new movies (to have just because i love the design). "Let's make a stormtrooper.. in SILVER armor, and it's… A WOMAN..! " duh… that's about as creative as they get.
…i'll leave out what i think about the political activism in the new movies

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There's nothing iconic from the prequels. (Though some might consider Jar Jar iconically bad ). An iconic character is something or someone that's so widely known that even people who aren't a fan of that movie, etc, know who or what it is.

Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, R2D2, and the Death Star are iconic. The prequels had nothing close to that. The only thing I agree with is that there's nothing iconic created from the new films either.

Jar-Jar is supposed to be an annoying character. That's the whole idea.. Qui-Gon very early into TPM threatens to cut his tongue out because he annoys him so much, he sets the tone for how we are supposed to feel for this clown. He's probably supposed to be funny too though, which is a total fail (for any adults at least).

Darth Maul, Grievous, the Battle Droids, Clone Troopers are now iconic characters for the SW universe. There's nothing even close to that from the new movies - we got that boring round droid (i personally hate its design but i can appreciate the little creativity that went into it), and the bulky Silver Trooper (not even new, its from some comic book i believe because the figure has existed since before that movie) - rather typical iconic characters we might see on T-shirts, on cups or as action figures.. but yes neither of these will ever compare to Darth Vader or a Stormtrooper, not even close.. but then again few, if any, characters in the entire movie industry tops those.

I highly doubt Jar Jar was intended to be almost universally disliked to that degree.

We seem to have different views of what an icon is. You can't walk up to a non-SW fan and mention Darth Maul or Grievious and expect them to know what you're talking about. Unless the prequels were really that much more popular in Sweden than they were here. Anyways, I think we should let the thread get back on track.

I didn't say that. I said he's supposed to be an annoying character, not disliked by everyone. He's supposed to appeal to kids. We have those kind of stupid characters in many movies and even in other SW movies. I wasn't particularly shocked and didnt think it was a big deal.

An iconic figure of a certain universe is iconic to fans of that universe But even my parents (who never watched SW) can easily recognize a Clone Trooper as "something from star wars". The SW universe is not limited to the movies, it's out there on T-shirts, cups etc.

I thought it was pretty obvious I meant annoying in a bad way, but you can interpret it how you like.

As far as some things being iconic to fans of that universe, sure, but that's not what you originally said.

That fellow who played young luke was pretty stuck up and it showed in the films. Also yes jar jar was annoying and made the movies very unenjoyable. I can see that it was intended that he be grating but to do it to a degree that it makes the movie harsh to watch is (imho) overdone and bad directing.