What are you watching?

[spoRv]

Soul (2020)

Another fantastic movie from Pixar! What should I say without spoiler it? Nothing, so go to watch it. Now!

8/10

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Call of the Wild (2020)

You (may/should) all know the story... about me, I didn't know - or I forgot it... well, I liked it very much, and acting was good, still... even if I love animals, and Buck (the dog star) was well made, its CGI was over the top, and destroyed my suspension of disbelief... hence it lower the vote quite a lot: it would have been at least 8/10 using real dog or "normal" CGI - IMHO here is out of place, while it could be great on a movie like Garfield, for example.

So, if you are prone, like me, to be transported out of the story when watching "wrong" character faces (Rogue One docet, as much as last chapter of The Mandalorian season 2, you know what I mean I guess), you still will got plenty of fun and emotion; if not, you will like A LOT MORE than me, like my friends did on Xmas watch!

6/10

[PDB]

Haven't filled posted in this thread in a while. I still watch movies regularly but haven't been filling this out. Anyway, here is a random selection of movies I've watched lately.

"Older Films"

Streets of Fire:This has been a blind spot for a long time. Especially given my love of Walter Hill films. I am disappointed in myself that it took so long to watch it. Regardless of that, I loved the film. It really feels like a sister piece to The Warriors. Kind of trafficking in that mix of gritty atmosphere with more fantastical/heighted characters all in a 50's Rock N' Roll world. Also a nice against type role for Rick Moranis and man, Diane Lane is easy on the eyes.4/5

The Conversation: Second blind spot and also a great one. A real nice look at paranoia and what it can do to a person. Gene Hackman always brings his best. I'm not sure the movie would work without him. 3.5/5

American Graffiti:Last of my blind spots. I was hoping I'd enjoy this more than I did. I expected more, given it has a mythic legacy to it. I just wasn't feeling it. Not that it was bad but maybe I wasn't in the mood for a hang-out movie. 2/5

Midnight Run:I think this is one of the great buddy cop movies, well only one cop but you get the point. Well, ex-cop. Its fun to actually see DeNiro care about a comedy role and give it his all. 3.5/5

Marathon Man: Been a while on this one. I remember enjoying it the first time but this time it just didn't hold together as well. The short Roy Scheider parts are great but I tired of Dustin Hoffman's character pretty quickly this time. His character only liven up when he is playing against Laurence Olivier. 2.5/5

Sorcerer: Speaking of Scheider. I rewatched this in anticipation of watching the Wages of Fear cut. Love this movie. Prue tension. One of the few times the original is a great film but the remake is just a little better. 4.5/5

Cool Hand Luke: Still a masterpiece of anti-authority. 4.5/5

Soldier (97): Hey it's Kurt Russell. Fun movie to watch. Basically, an encapsulation of everything good and bad with 90's film-making. But I wanted to watch something that I could turn my brain off with. 2.5/5

Studio Ghibli

I guess another blind spot would be the Studio Ghibli films. Always intended to watch them but never got around to it. With my kids old enough to watch with me and the winter making going out difficult, this became a fun, family watch (except the PG-13 Princess Mononoke). Strangely, I found myself most attracted to the earlier Miyazaki's film.

Nausicaa: Great start and super enjoyable. 3/5
Castle in the Sky: My fav of the bunch. 4/5
Kiki's Delivery Service: A sweet enjoyable film 3.5/5
My Neighbor Totoro: Was expecting to like this more than I did given its rep 3/5

Spirited Away: Story was just too disjointed and maybe episodic for me to enjoy. Shame since I know its beloved. Maybe I need a second viewing. 2.5/5
Howl's Moving Castle: Also traffics in being a little disjointed but I really dug the creatively behind this one. 3/5
The Cat Returns: Kids especially loved this one. 3/5
Porco Rosso: Fun and did what it needed to. 3/5

Ponyo, Princess Kaguya, Pom Poko,Secret World of Arrietty, Whispers of the Heart: None are exceptional but no regrets about watching. The sad ending of Princess Kaguya really affected my daughter. 2.5/5


Modern

Ready Player One: Revisitng this one. I don't think much of Spielberg post say Saving Private Ryan (maybe JP). I think Schindler's List and SPR made him crazy for Oscar and prestige to the detriment of his film making. I think he tries to go back to that populist type of film-making every once and awhile to try to recapture the magic. Its always to limited success. With that in mind I rewatched RPO and I hated it as much the second time. It felt like a souless, nostalgia grab with little story, little character and almost no passion. 1/5

Tenet: I always cut Nolan slack since he is one of the only film-makers trying to make high-concept, big budget non-comic book films. I enjoyed the film and Washington and Patterson are great team but the film feels choppily edited and its concept poorly defined. Inception got around this with constant but interesting exposition dumps but Tenet seems uninterested in holding your hand. It makes more sense on the second viewing but still fells like it is missing something. All-in-all, I really liked the film but not Nolan's best. 3.5/5

Soul: Barring TS4 this is the best Pixar film I've seen in about a decade or more but feels like two movies smashed together. 3/5

Wonder Woman 84: Super hot garbage. Just a mess of a script 1/5

[spoRv]

50 first dates (2004)

I watched it a looong time ago, so it was time to revisit it... well, it's even better than what I remember: it has everything a good movie must have - interesting story, fun, good acting, great locations... if you liked Memento, you can't miss it!

7/10

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Asphalt Burning - original title: Børning 3 (2020)

Stumbled upon its trailer by chance, I didn't even finished to watch (the trailer) and decided to go directly to the movie.
Well, I made a good decision: what could be better than a comedy involving racing cars? Add to this it's a Norwegian movie (yes, it's one of The Things of mine...) and that's it: instant fun!
Sure, the English dubbing is not the best and I bet some jokes are lost in translation, and CGI effects are dreadful... still, a lot of fun!

7.5/10

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Lions for Lambs (2007)

At the time I decided to NOT watch it because, according to its trailer, I already knew that I would not like it.
But lately it came back to my mind just because its trailer, and a strange Italian translation of a word (actually, a non-translation, leaving the word in English but assuming it was an Italian word)... as I was not able to find that trailer, I had no choice that to watch the whole film... and, indeed, I did not like it: sure, technically a perfect product, with great actors, correct colors, good music, but... a lot of politics...
The vote I gave could have been even lower, but the last minute of film, with its meaning, raised it a bit.

5/10
P.S. the word was correctly translated in the final movie, hence the trailer contained only a temporary translation - or it was just a Mandela effect...

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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Can't skip this - I watched (almost) all superheroes movies, so... I expected a lot, but it did not lived to my expectations. Yes, first part was quite good, a lot of action - and IMAX version helped this - but after that, the second part - that indeed at the end was the last two thirds - was slow, boring, uninteresting... the post-credit shot raised the vote, though!

5/10

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Summerland (2020)

I was forced to watch it! In exchange to watch the previous movie, I (had to) promise to watch this. And of course it was as I expected: slooooow, quite boring, with some plot twists that would be unexpected for all but me... still, I must admit that, despite everything, it was good: acting, locations, story music... fact is, it could be compressed to 10 minutes or so (without credits) losing pretty much nothing!

6.5/10

[lionmane]

So... The first time I heard "Raya and the Last Dragon," I was thinking of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Crt4S1IZM

...which also has this classic 80's synth-pop song in a movie that promoted Motown in the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSse2JXmHQ

But, seriously. Is this movie any good? I heard Mulan 2020 sucked compared to the 1998 animated version so I was wanting to get some input before wasting my time.

Oh, and the general reviews for Mulan were:
Mulan 1998: incredible struggle to overcome and deep character development that relates to any girl/woman
Mulan 2020: unstoppable superwoman with little character development

[deleted user]

Watched Lone Ranger (2013).

I fully expected to hate it, then I actually started liking it, and then in the end I hated it more than I thought I would have hated in in the first place.

Had this movie not been done under Disney and stood by its more serious tones and some changes to the script, it could have actually been pretty good but instead it's just another thing Disney ruined.

5/10 at best.

[Bigrob]

The Thin Red Line (Criterion Blu-ray)

Solid 10/10/ Hadn't seen it since it's exclusive engagement at Odeon Leicester Square in London and had got the BD release as soon it as was released with the intention of committing three hours without interruptions to fully enjoy it. I managed to do this yesterday and the film is absolutely magnificent. Apart from the slight encoding error 29 mins into the film, the disc is also perfect.

[LucasGodzilla]

Recently I sat through a bunch of gialli since I have the latter two Vinegar Syndrome Forgotten Gialli box sets, and wow, I regret not getting the first volume limited box set since even the titles I wasn't really interested in on both boxes were just so much fun to watch and the box itself is such a nice centerpiece.


The only title that I thought was kind of boring between the latter two boxes was The French Sex Murders (which surprised me given it had so much going for it all things considered and was waiting for an HD release of that for ages as I ended up spying on the German company FilmArt for a BD; Still waiting for a release of Contraband from them though).


Girl In Room 2A was pretty entertaining though fairly dumb at times—especially the music editing—and the mystery element involves more on the how and why rather than who. That said it does have its merits for being surprisingly moody at times.

I did notice the grading looked much better on the Mondo DVD though with more filmic colors contrast despite that supposedly coming from a negative (possibly an inter-neg?)...

I may consider doing a regrade of the VS transfer to look like this DVD someday if I ever feel enough motivation.

The other title I feel worth mentioning that it's nice to finally see Autopsy finally restored in HD as I was hoping Blue Underground would revisit it one of these day.

Armando Crispino's two gialli are such oddities in the genre, both low-key feeling like David Lynch films to be honest with The Etruscan Kills Again having that very soapy drama feel of Twin Peaks and Autopsy being feeling very unreal and carries around the atmosphere of an exploitative arthouse film. So anyways, seeing that latter film in a new restoration is nice to see.

Similarly to Girl In Room 2A, I did notice that the color grading was a bit underwhelming at times. I did come across a trailer of the movie in the pass that seems to carry more of a filmic look to it that I quite like (its sickly green and blue hues also quite fitting to the movie's tone—though who knows if it's accurate).

I may try to regrade the VS transfer of this movie too if I ever get enough motivation one day, though idk when that day will come.

[Hitcher]

Army of the Dead

Not as good as Snyder's Dawn of the Dead but what drove me nuts was the dead pixel - I thought my TV was bust.

[Bigrob]

Zack Snyder's Justice League 10/10

Got an early delivery of the 4K UHD drop through my letterbox on Saturday morning and i had the house to myself for the day. I held off watching it until i knew i could commit to all four hours in one sitting with the best possible version so the stars aligned that morning for me haha.

Absolutely phenomenal IMHO! A fitting end to the Man of Steel trilogy. I was amazed at how different it was compared to the hack job that i was unfortunate to see in cinemas in 2017.

[apzlsoxk]

Mars Attacks! (1996): 3/5

I watched this movie dozens of times when I was a kid. The parts of it that were an homage to old B-movies are pretty entertaining, but the action sequence at the end is just so long and exhausting. And it does the "martians trick humans by pretending to be peaceful, and then blast them to smithereens" over and over again, I would have wished for more creativity. Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessica Parker's scenes were all great. I wish Michael J. Fox was in the movie more.

But my biggest issue with the movie I've realized with Tim Burton movies, is a sort of overt disrespect Tim Burton has for his own audience. It's most noticeable during beetlejuice, particularly where he plays Winona Ryder's suicide note scene as a joke. That one's off-putting because moody teenagers are really some of Tim Burton's primary audience, but the same audience hostility is present though much more subdued in Mars Attacks.