Most recent movie you saw

I watched Cabin Fever, the first one directed by Eli Roth. I found it to be pretty middling but I did like certain bits. Also, it brought memories to me of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

piercing (2018)

Minions the rise of gru.... an astounding minionillion/10 from me

I saw Searching. I was already impressed by Unfriended and its concept, and I also liked the sequel (although not as much), but I think Searching is really the pinnacle of those type of movies.

@MrFroz Oh yeah, Searching is good! That being said, I cannot imagine watching it in a movie theater. :P

I read that there is a standalone sequel in the works as well.

I literally watch too many movies. You wanna see?

I watched this the last 3 weeks:

• Bad Times At The El Royale
• Spiderman: No Way Home
• The Adam Project (Netflix)
• The French Dispatch (Very artistic and a small masterpiece)
• Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
• The Emperor's New Groove
• Runner
• Lu Yang: The Great Adventure of Material World (This is both a philosophical art movie and a game all at once)
• Day Shift (Netflix)
• Interceptor (Produced by Chris Hemsworth, this is pretty bad.)
• Jurassic World: Dominion
• Spiderhead (Netflix) (With Chris Hemsworth and pretty good)
• Minions: The Rise of Gru
• Carter (Netflix)
• Blacklight (Netflix) (Surprisingly good flick with Liam i will find you and kill you Neeson)
• Legend (Great biopic about the Kray brothers)
• Kronk's New Groove (Easily a top tier contender for worst sequel. Its unbelievable how they messed this up)
• Elvis (This was a great, albeit lengthy, biopic, from the eyes of Colonel Tom Parker)
• Seoul Vibe (Netflix) (This is 80s all day every day. Highly entertaining)

Amulet. A woman is possessed and her husband has to stop it somehow, but there are other reasons he's concerned.

Seen two the last few weeks:

• Jurassic World: Dominion
• Top Gun: Maverick

Jurassic World was OK-ish, not as bad as YouTube claims it to be. Top Gun was a better film and I do like the fact that the IMAX version was released on home media.

Seen The Crow. After having watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I recalled that Bruce Lee had a son who was an actor as well, so I saw Brandon Lee's final film and was not disappointed. I'm now curious to check Rapid Fire and Showdown in Little Tokyo, also Bruce's Enter the Dragon.

@MrFroz Bruce Lee also has a daughter, Shannon, who also had a brief acting career.

Reportedly, she really did not appreciate what Quentin Tarantino did with her father in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

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

https://youtu.be/taSkmZUa4dY?t=4

8 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

@MrFroz Bruce Lee also has a daughter, Shannon, who also had a brief acting career.

 

Reportedly, she really did not appreciate what Quentin Tarantino did with her father in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Thanks for the tidbit. Regardless of Bruce Lee, I didn't like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood as much as I would have expected from Tarantino, whose work I've been following for quite some time (my nickname is inspired by those of the characters in Reservoir Dogs).

The testament of Orpheus. I didn't fully get it, I understand it mostly expands on the ideas of the previous movies (it's the last of a trylogy) while reviewing Jean Cocteau artistic life as a whole. It' a cool movie.

3 Idiots. Pretty funny and emotional Hindi film.

2 hours ago, MrFroz said:

Thanks for the tidbit. Regardless of Bruce Lee, I didn't like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood as much as I would have expected from Tarantino, whose work I've been following for quite some time (my nickname is inspired by those of the characters in Reservoir Dogs).

I have not watched it either. I was disappointed by Inglorious Basterds and I could not finish Django Unchained, so I have not bothered with his subsequent movies. Plus I am honestly sick of Quentin Tarantino as a person at this point. 

Just finished watching Ti West's X. I thought that it was going to be yet another Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off but it turned out to be better than I expected.

spin me round (2022)

Watched Take Shelter. It is a very well acted film that I think does a good job depicting how a mental illness can suddenly develop on a person and affect those around him, as well.

@MrFroz A movie where Michael Shannon does not play a bad guy? That, I ought to see!

Oh, hey! And it is currently available on Tubi.tv. I know what I am going to watch tonight. 

I was watching A Knight's Tale last night. Such a cheesy movie but also fun lol. I forgot Lydia from Breaking Bad was in it.

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

@MrFroz A movie where Michael Shannon does not play a bad guy? That, I ought to see!

 

Oh, hey! And it is currently available on Tubi.tv. I know what I am going to watch tonight. 

Don't know about that actor's previous work but the overall acting in the movie is pretty solid. Ironically I thought that the main character not being a bad guy, as in, not a serial killer or otherwise deranged lunatic helped with the movie's portrayal of mental illness.

Moonfall, reminded me of a 70s disaster movie so I enjoyed it.

@MrFroz He notably played General Zod in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel - where he coincidentally looks a lot like Doomguy without his helmet in Doom Eternal - and the villain of Guillermo del Tero's The Shape of Water. I am not very familiar with his filmography, but Take Shelter is the first movie where I get to see play a sympathetic character.

Okay, so I watched Take Shelter. Phew, that was rough! I had to play a game (Doom, incidentally) while watching the movie to keep myself occupied, not because it is bad, but rather because it is so nerve-wracking to watch the protagonist failing to receive proper help, getting slowly but surely consumed by paranoia and taking increasingly questionable decisions as a result. It is disappointing how this kind of movie always stops itself short of pointing out the root of the problem, but I guess it is to be expected coming from a mainstream American movie.

Also, in hindsight, the movie's premise reminds me in some way of Akira Kurosawa's I Live In Fear, although it greatly differs in its execution.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!

Book of Evil (2018)

walker (1987)

I went through all the Predator films in the series and these are my thoughts on each one:

Predator: Despite his popularity I haven't seen much films featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The only one I recall seeing from start to finish is The Last Stand. I think he did a pretty good job in the first entry of this series, and what I like about this film is its jungle setting, which is really vibrant. Only flaw I can think of is that the special effects haven't aged well, in my opinion.

Predator 2: I think this one is not as good as the previous one, but its still very watchable. I was surprised to see Ruben Blades from Fear The Walking Dead here. The special effects are considerably better, and one thing that made me curious about this film is how the Predator's presence can cause some hilarious situations, which reminds me a little bit of Jason Takes Manhattan, or Jurassic Park: The Lost World. The ending was interesting as well.

Predators: This one is a very interesting concept, and Adrien Brody as one of the leads did a better job for the role than what I thought he would. Needless to say the special effects are much improved given the 20 year gap between this and Predator 2, but more than that I liked the seemingly endless planet setting with extinct earth wildlife.

The Predator: This is by far the worst for me. I didn't expect this movie to be so bad sincerely. There are so many characters but very few are developed, and when they die you just don't care. There's also a character of a kid on the autistic spectrum and I don't like the way his condition was tied into the movie plot.

Prey: Unlike The Predator, I didn't expect this one to be so good. I think it ties in rather nicely with the first two films in the series, and might even surpass Predator 2. I recommend watching Predator and Predator 2 and then this one. They make a very good trilogy.

Whan about Alien versus predator?

1 hour ago, ducon said:

Whan about Alien versus predator?

I actually saw the first film not too long ago, before the Predator movies. I watched Event Horizon and it was better than what I expected from Paul W.S. Anderson, so afterwards I saw Alien vs. Predator and I enjoyed that as well. I liked how the pyramid constantly changed while the characters were inside of it. I also liked the way it ended very much. As for Requiem, I recall watching it when it came out and didn't really enjoyed it all. Perhaps I should see it a second time...perhaps not.

On 9/11/2022 at 8:40 PM, Rudolph said:

Okay, so I watched Take Shelter. Phew, that was rough! I had to play a game (Doom, incidentally) while watching the movie to keep myself occupied, not because it is bad, but rather because it is so nerve-wracking to watch the protagonist failing to receive proper help, getting slowly but surely consumed by paranoia and taking increasingly questionable decisions as a result. It is disappointing how this kind of movie always stops itself short of pointing out the root of the problem, but I guess it is to be expected coming from a mainstream American movie.

 

Also, in hindsight, the movie's premise reminds me in some way of Akira Kurosawa's I Live In Fear, although it greatly differs in its execution.

 

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!

Its very rare for me to want to see a movie more than once but Take Shelter is one that I want to eventually see once again. I might check that flick by Kurosawa you've mentioned...I only know of Kurosawa by name, but my brother tells me he's a great director, and I have an issue of the Rolling Stone magazine from 1998 (the one that has got a red-haired Marilyn Manson in the cover) that features an article on him.

@MrFroz I Live In Fear is considerably more comical and preachier than Take Shelter, but it is a good movie nonetheless. 

As for Akira Kurosawa's filmography, I recommend starting with Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro: the former served as a major inspiration for Sergio Leone's western movies, especially A Fistful of Dollars, which makes them quite accessible to a non-Japanese audience.

There is also The Hidden Fortress, which clearly served as an inspiration for Star Wars: A New Hope (as well as The Phantom Menace and to a lesser extent Return of the Jedi), but I honestly did not like it very much. Still an interesting watch.