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

I saw The Neon Demon. Very cool and atmospheric. I loved the visuals and the soundtrack. Very dream-like and disturbing. Liked it a lot.

Great news, I just found out that the final season of Samurai Jack was in the works for some time, and it'll be releasing in March. Can't wait.

http://www.polygon.com/tv/2017/1/23/14356402/samurai-jack-season-5-premiere-date

Bad news is, they needed to find a replacement for the voice actor that did Aku, since he died some years ago. Too bad, he was amazing. But Gendy said he found someone that can do a pretty similar imitation.

So, can't wait!

Watched Elysium. Missed this when it came out and later always thought I'd already seen it -- turned out I confused it with Oblivion. Anyway, the story was a bit strange, but overall I enjoyed the movie -- and it featured an orbital habitat, one of the features of the next Stellaris patch ("Banks"). Could have been more, but I'm happy to take all I can get.

Just rewatching Blade Runner - still, wow!!!

Watched a good film - Denial. Terrific performance from Tom Wilkinson as the grumpy wine-guzzling barrister that brought down David Irving. Spoke to some of the mischief we see in the current climate.

I saw a movie, I apparently missed back in the day. Glengarry Glen Ross. What an amazing movie. The cast was impressive, and their acting was spotless. Especially Jack Lemmon. Omg, he was good.

I saw Glengarry glen roos recently (2 weeks ago) didn't care for it. The acting was good jsut didnt' grab me; there was a more recent film that was somewhat similar taht I liked a lot but cant' remember the title.

I saw Arrival, and man was it amazing. I'm really excited for Blade Runner and the Dune remake that the director will handle. Very high hopes.

Arrival is not a remake. Remakes suck and should be treated as garbage. Mona Lisa painting remake would be called a fraud, rip off or plagiat.
Reboots however can turn out quite good.

joxer said:

Arrival is not a remake. Remakes suck and should be treated as garbage. Mona Lisa painting remake would be called a fraud, rip off or plagiat.
Reboots however can turn out quite good.

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And where did I say anything about Arrival being a remake?

And by following your logic about remakes, technically any film/movie made after a book is a remake. And should therefore suck. And I definitely don't agree. Many people can have different views and creative visions on rendering a subject-matter. And I'm very much looking forward to Denis Villeneuve's rendition of Dune.

And I don't want to get into what's a remake and what's a reboot. Technically nothing is an absolute remake, and nothing is an absolute reboot. Thus, the two terms kind of loose meaning for me.

No, a movie, comic, game or something else based on a book or inspired by one is not a remake.

@joxer: As I said, I don't want to get into a debate over what's a remake and what's a reboot. That serves no purpose for me.

Anyways, while looking for some reviews for the movie, after having seen it, I stumbled on these two folks. And before anyone jumps to conclusions, it just so happened that they were black, so I mean nothing with this. I'm sure I could find some white people with the same attitude towards the movie.

But this kind of audience is the exact reason why we have turn-your-brain-off movies. And Arrival was absolutely not the most hard to follow movie. Denis's Enemy was way more weird and hard to explain. Anyway, I was just surprised, and forgot that there still are people who will get turned off by a smart movie.

Unless my statement wasn't clear, Arrival, an original work, is a must watch movie.
There is nothing hard to follow, it's just that some people refuse to open their mind. Let 'em live under their glass bell.

joxer said:

Unless my statement wasn't clear, Arrival, an original work, is a must watch movie.
There is nothing hard to follow, it's just that some people refuse to open their mind. Let 'em live under their glass bell.

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Yeah, nothing unclear about that. It is a must-watch movie.
At the end of the movie, I did notice that they referenced that it's based on a short story. I haven't read it, so no idea how much they deviate. From the summary, it seems not a lot.

About the expectation for it to be an action movie, it seems the trailer did contain some action scenes which were cut. So people seeing the trailers, might have been set with different expectations than myself, as I refused to watch any trailers.

But, honestly, I'd prefer misinformation in the trailer, especially for a good movie, than out-right spoiling the plot.

I saw Nocturnal Animals, and liked it quite a bit. Another home-run for Jake Gyllenhaal. It was quite a thrilling ride.

My company (Corning) rented out the local theater and hod a full showing of 'Hidden Figures' for Black History Month ... which was cool in itself.

The movie was very well done - depicting actual situations that have remained 'hidden' for decades ... sadly because the 'heroes' were women AND black. The acting was excellent, direction and cinematography also very well handled - the juxtaposition of historical elements was done in a way that never felt like 'Forest Gump or Zelig', and really didn't jump out at all.

Oh ... there was all that glorious sexy math going on!

Saw Terminator Genisys a couple of days ago. Not too bad methinks but I have two issues (that I can remember).

Emilia Clarke.
She's nice, but she's no Sarah Connor!!!!

Bad radiology!!!
There is a scene (don't think this is a spoiler), where they need a strong magnet which they can turn on an off. Hmmm. Ahh. Hospitals have MRI machines. They have very strong magnets. So radiology department, here we come, applying said procedure to one of tha magnetic resonance units. Good idea.

Not! Sorry, but MRI magnets don't work that way. The magnets (electromagnets) are driven by super conducted electricity. You don't just turn them on and off. Well, you can turn a unit off rapidly (in a few seconds) by evacuating the liquid helium needed for super conductivity. But then it would take at least a week to power it up again. Assuming the machinery wasn't damaged, which often happens. Turning it off slowly would bring it down in around 10 minutes, only requiring a day for rebooting. No matter what: bad idea. Doesn't work.

And, if they didn't take any precautions (didn't see any), keys and watches would be sucked into the machine. And their credit cards would be wiped.

pibbur who thinks that MRI machines should only be used for imaging. And that MRI images are nice and good looking.

PS. Patients have died during MRI examinations, due to metallic (ferromagnetic) things drawn into the machine - they go veeery fast. And for sufficiently large objects, it's impossible to get them out as long as the magnet is running. You can wath it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BBx8BwLhqg DS.

My gf's family still has the old VHS recorder and we watched "Highlander II". Man, the memories( and young Virginia Madsen...damn!)
Still remains one of the best movies to this day,

Arrival. Why wasn't this up for an Oscar? Isn't a film that directly addresses the question "What is your purpose here?" (the meaning of life) worthy?

Philistine said:

Arrival. Why wasn't this up for an Oscar? Isn't a film that directly addresses the question "What is your purpose here?" (the meaning of life) worthy?

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Huh? After La La Land, Arrival and Moonlight are tied for most nominations with 8 each ... including Best Picture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_Arrival