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

Q: When is a Saw not a Saw? A: When the budget gets inflated because of mainstream star casting so a mainstream audience has to be attracted to turn a profit.
Spiral is the weakest Saw yet by far. All the hallmarks of the series are ditched for increased "accessibility". This was the first in the series that I spotted the trapper and knew the motivation right away, totally ruining the tension. The traps are here but while the first couple are nasty, they get progressively weaker until the final one is the lamest in Saw history.
Barely worth it for Saw (and Chris Rock) completionists.
 
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The Saw films have been junk for awhile now anyways imo. It's one of those franchises that they milked to death, and every sequel was weaker than the previous movie.

I really liked the original Saw, and 2-4 weren't bad, but I think I stopped watching after 5.
 
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Moby Dick (2011) is a 3 hour show which originally was a two part TV movie or two 1.5 hour episodes but can also be watched in one sitting as one three hour movie.

It's quite star-studded and boasts a leading role for Charlie Cox before Daredevil fame, alongside Ethan Hawke, William Hurt and even almost-cameos from the likes of Gillian Anderson, Donald Sutherland and even Pippin from Lord of the Rings. Loads of other notables depending on what you've watched elsewhere.

It's not a bad retelling of the many times retold classic. It has its fun moments and it has its boring filler moments. Not a highly recommendable experience but not a complete waste of time either. The CGI for the whale is extremely well done, surprisingly, and the action scenes, when they happen, are well worth the wait.

6.89/10
 
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Not really, because there are so many of those out there, I avoid standalone short films unless storyrelated specials like OVAs for anime.
Examples are three such short ones for Ajin. These explain certain things not shown in two seasons on Netflix.

Sadly anime did not cover the whole manga and there is no word on season 3 so I'll probably buy comics as both story and characters are brilliant.
 
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Batman: The Long Halloween Part 1

This was quite good, I really liked it. Reminds me of the animated series from the 90s.

I was just about to complain about it being too predictable - and then it surprised me, which is always a good thing.

The only thing I didn't really enjoy was Troy Baker's Joker - as it sounds like he's aping Mark Hamill. He's a great voice actor - but I would have much preferred a more personal and distinct voice for his iteration.

Looking forward to Part 2.
 
The Suicide Squad. Perhaps I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch it, but this latest installment in the Superhero movie database had me feeling downright bored throughout its runtime. The antagonists were dull and there was absolutely no sense of urgency to the plot.

The more I think about it, the more I believe I prefer the first Suicide Squad, as crazy as that may sound.
 
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The Spacewalker (2017, Время первых), also known as Spacewalk, Spacewalker, The Age of Pioneers, or the phonetic version of its original title, Vremya pervykh.

I watched its English-dubbed version, something I rarely do, but I didn't feel like reading subtitles for 2 hours.

The intro (link) is a bit of a farce from an accuracy point of view, an aircraft as slick as a MiG-15 couldn't be landed after such a dive and it wouldn't require it in the first place, the pilot would just have to glide it normally to the runway. But it's more dramatic that way, and to be honest, quite fun to watch :) The rest of the movie seems plausible from a story point of view, perhaps at the exception of the care the Russians seem to have about their crew which doesn't quite correspond to what we know of them back then.

It wasn't really a by-the-book mission, so it's not boring at all. Something like the shorter, Russian equivalent of Apollo 13. If you're interested in space history, don't miss it!
 
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Start it up for me and tell me I'm wrong! If you aren't impressed by Cary's drunk getaway scene, try to resist due diligence, quit there and watch something better instead.

I finally got around to this this weekend.

And I can see what you're getting at, I have to admit North By Northwest (1959) hasn't aged particularly well. At it's time it would have been very fresh and exciting with all the latest technology and stunts on show; full colour, still a relative rarity in 1959, the big name stars of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint before you even get to the quality support from James Mason, Martin Landau and Leo G Carroll, the seemingly death defying stunts and explosions, all the exotic locations, $4m spent on budget before the rigorous and saturating advertising campaign.

But looking upon it now, from modern eyes, it plays very much like an alpha James Bond movie. And a lot of people do refer to it in the same breath as the Bond movies. Which is all well and good, but people don't watch Hitchcock for Bond movies, they watch them for suspense, and there's very little suspense here as one spends more time wondering about the plot holes than any chair-arm gripping tension.

You ask why a different lead wasn't chosen and that you think Grant is a bit weak in the lead role, probably your main complaint, and it does say in the special features that James Stewart was going to be the original lead before Grant, which probably makes more sense. And I agree that Grant is a bit hard to watch at times and does lack something chemistry-wise and sincerity-wise.

However, you ask why someone like Connery wasn't chosen, but you forget Connery wasn't on anyone's radar in 1958, he wasn't even a nearly leading man by that point. And that Cary Grant was the original 1st choice for Bond, Connery only getting the role as 3rd or 4th choice, maybe even further down the line than that. So, again, for the time, Grant was probably the right choice for people's expectations at the time.

I found the film was too long generally for the plot, at just over 2 hours I really started feeling it towards the end. I did enjoy it though, generally. I made it through without nodding off quite easily and there's a lot of nice stuff on show, from great shots to wonderful period-piece nostalgia.

Like a lot of 1950s films it's a bit of a transitory piece, with one foot in old Hollywood and one foot in the modern era of cinema. It's an almost perfect amalgam of a 1940s Humphrey Bogart film noir and a 1960s cheesy Bond film. What it isn't though is a classic Hitchcock movie. If he wasn't so obviously the director then I should think many people would never guess it was one of his, even though many people do now refer to it as a quintessential Hitchcock classic.

It's my fascination with the above that enables me to enjoy this kind of film to a greater extent than if it had been a random other film watched in exclusion of context. There's so much more here to read into it than it's face value of just another dumb summer blockbuster. There's far too much quality on show for the film to be completely forgotten or derided. Particularly if you view it as the film that spawned the entire 1960s spy genre.

However, I think it's current 8.3/10 ranking on IMDB takes too much of this into consideration as, by modern eyes, it's almost impossible to watch it today without constantly noticing every single back projection and obvious set. So much suspension of reality is required to pretend to yourself you can't see any of it that it makes Star Trek sets look like genuinely inter-planetary sets. And while this can be ok in some genres, in a genre where globe-trotting is half the appeal, it really detracts more than it otherwise might.

7.3/10
 
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Bond flicks are like North by Northwest, not the other way around. I've watched the film probably ten times in my entire life, most recently about a month ago, and it still stands as an absolute classic. Films today can barely hold a candle to the story and characters that this tales boasts, and Fleming himself praised it. Is it a product of its' time? Certainly. And perhaps that's the problem with the current movies that are being churned out as well.
 
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Thanks @lackblogger; for putting it in context. When viewed as a proto-Bond, I can see it deserves classic status. I still don't think it's any good, but I recognize that it paved the way for good films to follow.
 
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The Suicide Squad. Perhaps I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch it, but this latest installment in the Superhero movie database had me feeling downright bored throughout its runtime. The antagonists were dull and there was absolutely no sense of urgency to the plot.

The more I think about it, the more I believe I prefer the first Suicide Squad, as crazy as that may sound.

Watched it last night out of boredom, and yeah... it's pretty terrible. You're not crazy for preferring the first movie. This one was even worse.
 
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Watched it last night out of boredom, and yeah… it's pretty terrible. You're not crazy for preferring the first movie. This one was even worse.

Interesting. I haven't seen it. I was so-so on the first Suicide Squad. Wasn't great, but I certainly didn't have the disdain that most people have for it.

But this one seems to have pretty much universal acclaim compared to the first one. So I'm pretty amazed you're saying this is even worse. Of course I never understood the hatred the first one garnered. So there's that.

Personally, I don't think I'm gonna see it for a long time. I haven't seen most of the Marvel movies and I'm so burned out on superhero movies. I also never got past 1/4 of the Justice League: Snyder Cut. I'm just done with them, I think.

The only one I really enjoyed was Joker, but that's a very different kind of movie. And I'll probably try the Robert Pattison Batman movie. But those are probably it.
 
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But this one seems to have pretty much universal acclaim compared to the first one. So I'm pretty amazed you're saying this is even worse. Of course I never understood the hatred the first one garnered. So there's that.

It has a modest 7.5 rating on IMDB, which is much higher than it deserves imo, but I certainly wouldn't call that universal acclaim. You're correct though in that the first movie is rated lower.

The only thing I thought I'd like going into it was the variety in the cast, but unfortunately some of the actors I wanted to see are only in the film for a few minutes.

If you enjoy exaggerated silliness in your action movies, you'll probably like it.
 
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It has a modest 7.5 rating on IMDB, which is much higher than it deserves imo, but I certainly wouldn't call that universal acclaim. You're correct though in that the first movie is rated lower.

About the universal acclaim I think I mostly meant the youtubers I follow for reviews, like RedLetterMedia, YMS/Sardonicast, etc.
 
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The only one I really enjoyed was Joker, but that's a very different kind of movie. And I'll probably try the Robert Pattison Batman movie. But those are probably it.

Have you seen Watchmen? If not, you should give that one a try. It's also quite different than the typical superhero flick. Unlike most of them, it feels like it was actually made for adults.
 
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Have you seen Watchmen? If not, you should give that one a try. It's also quite different than the typical superhero flick. Unlike most of them, it feels like it was actually made for adults.

Yeah, I liked it, though if you're a fan of Alan Moore, I think you have to look at it as its own thing. I think the opening credit sequence is a pretty good trailer.

 
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