Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

wyo

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upgrade

10/10 fucking epic!. the best movie i've seen since the john wick films. it was like a cross between john wick and blade runner.

mostly unrecognisable cast but they all did a fantastic job. the main guy reminds me a lot of tom hardy in many ways, which is a good thing.

fantastic story similar to the story of the first john wick movie but based in the future, and was paced very well to the point where i thought i was fifteen minutes in but it turned out it was forty minutes. and it kept me interested all the way through trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

the whole movie was a pleasant surprise with great action that rivals john wicks fight choreography with a game of thrones (wow! i was not expecting that) ending which is one of the best endings i've ever seen.

Yeah, Upgrade was legit! Glad I caught it at the theater since it was in and out as bubz mentioned. Blumhouse productions are a crap shoot as far as quality but they have put out some great flicks in recent years: Split, Get Out and Upgrade, to name a few.

EDIT: Can't forget Whiplash!
 
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jro

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The Vault - low-budget indie horror that somehow got James Franco (eh, I guess he does pick some weird shit) and Clifton Collins, Jr. to be in it. Bunch of dudes rob a bank, then they head down to the old vault to get the real $ and shit goes bad. Not bad, not great. Several good scenes were a lot more memorable than the actual movie as a whole. Also pretty predictable.

Terminal - Margot Robbie vehicle, and also Mike Myers' first film role in quite a while. Weird, stagey, and somehow pretty entertaining. Took forever to get going, but then it's a third act that's consistently bonkers.

Unforgiven - First time I'd watched it in maybe 10 years or so. Holds up quite well. I'd forgotten how good the ending is.
 

F4U57

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Upgrade is on my to watch pile. Also, there’s a new Puppet Master film, written by S. Craig Zahler. Great genre cast in this one too.

 

pixeljunkie

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Also, there’s a new Puppet Master film, written by S. Craig Zahler. Great genre cast in this one too.

Saw this last night - fucking terrible.

Let me explain:

I'm a fan of the series. I feel as though they got sequentially better, hit the mark by PM3 then declined. I love PM4 and 5 and it's a shame they couldn't develop the new mythos they were going for with those. Everything after that has been garbage.

So...THIS piece of shit. Barbara Crampton, check...there's a nod to the original. Charles Band gets executive director credit [rolls eyes] and the intro credits felt very much in line with the originals. Then it all goes to hell.

Spoilers below:

The whole gist of the plot is that 30 years ago was "The Toulon Murders" and the town is having a convention centered around the anniversary and people are bringing their puppets to auction off (???). So, the puppets are now in the vicinity of Toulon's corpse and come back to life to wreak havoc. Sounds fine on paper I guess?

So, they open with Toulon in a bar being weird to set him up as a racist homophobe. He proceeds to have the puppets kill a lesbian couple that kissed in front of him. Then, shoot forward 30 years and the hotel is full of gays and jews that piss off the little puppets who start killing.

The main problem I have with this flick is,

• Outside of casting Crampton there are no nods or easter eggs to the original series
• The puppets are completely superfluous and are the equivalent of electronics in Maximum Overdrive
• They have multiples of the same puppets because Toulon apparently made tons and sold them ???
• Even the kills are random and out of place, as if this was a cobbled together FX reel

Also, NOT ONE FUCKING FRAME OF STOP MOTION

I could seriously write pages about what they got wrong with this, but it's already a waste of my time and I refuse to care anymore.
 

HornheaDD

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Saw the Tom cruise Mummy this weekend. It's got a bad rating online I believe, and didn't do so well financially.

Tbh, it wasn't too bad. I thought it set up that Dark Universe pretty well, and teased Jekyll/Hyde pretty cool too.

Was it amazing? Nah. Was it terrible? Nah.
 

100proof

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Went and saw Mission Impossible Fallout in an empty theater this evening.

Every one of them (except for maybe 2... I seem to recall thinking that was a ridiculous turd) have been competently made popcorn action movies and this one is no different. They're big and dumb and ultimately empty experiences but they're well-shot (some beautiful vista shots in this movie), have some great action scenes that build tension effectively and are just entertaining as shit.

Tom Cruise may very well be the messiah of an insane cult and he's not a particularly good actor but he (mostly) picks great projects and surrounds himself with good filmmakers.
 

NeoSneth

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Saw the Tom cruise Mummy this weekend. It's got a bad rating online I believe, and didn't do so well financially.

Tbh, it wasn't too bad. I thought it set up that Dark Universe pretty well, and teased Jekyll/Hyde pretty cool too.

Was it amazing? Nah. Was it terrible? Nah.

Yeah, I'm quite sad it killed the Dark Universe. It would have been great to see some of those old horror characters in some modern movies.
It should never have been called Mummy. Everyone thought it was a Mummy series remake without Brendan Frasier.
I didn't think it was terrible, but needed less action. I don't think people caught that Tom Cruise turns out to be the Mummy.
 

oliverclaude

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Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) -- Hahaha... someone was heavily into Riki-Oh but in a entertaining way. Well, let's be generous: why not? A darker DC comic with a Vince Vaughn in a good mood.
 

Ip Man

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Went and saw Mission Impossible Fallout in an empty theater this evening.

Every one of them (except for maybe 2... I seem to recall thinking that was a ridiculous turd) have been competently made popcorn action movies and this one is no different. They're big and dumb and ultimately empty experiences but they're well-shot (some beautiful vista shots in this movie), have some great action scenes that build tension effectively and are just entertaining as shit.

Tom Cruise may very well be the messiah of an insane cult and he's not a particularly good actor but he (mostly) picks great projects and surrounds himself with good filmmakers.

what makes you say his not a good actor. he's been acting most of his life and it's his original profession unlike many others who fall into acting from modelling, singing, comedy or just being a look a like.

sure he's no robert de niro or a great actor, but he does his roles really well.
 

SouthtownKid

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Tom Cruise is perfectly decent within a certain range. It's just that it's a pretty narrow range.
 

HornheaDD

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Yeah, I'm quite sad it killed the Dark Universe. It would have been great to see some of those old horror characters in some modern movies.
It should never have been called Mummy. Everyone thought it was a Mummy series remake without Brendan Frasier.
I didn't think it was terrible, but needed less action. I don't think people caught that Tom Cruise turns out to be the Mummy.
But it was a remake of the Fraser movie, for the most part. It was practically the same story, for the villain anyway.
 

100proof

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what makes you say his not a good actor. he's been acting most of his life and it's his original profession unlike many others who fall into acting from modelling, singing, comedy or just being a look a like.

sure he's no robert de niro or a great actor, but he does his roles really well.

Well he's been playing the role of a straight man for 35 years so credit where credit's due.

Like Southtown said, he has a very narrow range. As long as he stays within that range (Mr. Intensity McRunningman, Mr. Affable Phonylaugh), he's a totally serviceable actor. He makes a great action hero because he does intensity and tension-breaking facial expressions well. However, there's a reason he stopped doing dramatic roles 15 years ago and it ain't the money.
 

HDRchampion

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Tom Cruise is one of my favs! Lots of iconic roles & movies.
 

SouthtownKid

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Well he's been playing the role of a straight man for 35 years so credit where credit's due.
Well, not convincingly, but he really works at it. Also, that do-your-own-stunts thing is kind of admirable in someone who wasn't trained from childhood to do them, like Jackie Chan. In other words, whatever he lacks in ability, he compensates for with effort and work ethic, which I can respect.


Still, I often wonder what Eyes Wide Shut would have been if Kubrick hadn't died and the movie had starred almost anyone else.
 

Taiso

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I think Cruise has been brilliant in a number of movies:

Eyes Wide Shut
The Last Samurai
Vanilla Sky
Magnolia
Top Gun (yes, it's a good movie and he's good in it)
Born on the Fourth of July
A Few Good Men
Minority Report
Tropic Thunder
Edge of Tomorrow

I think Cruise is fashionable to bash on and a weird cultural zeitgeist of hating on him has found solid footing in rationalization. It's the same for DiCaprio, who is one of the finest actors of our times but he gets shit on for no good reason.

Cruise not being to someone's liking, I can understand. I've heard people say Sonequa Martin-Green is a good actress but I fucking hate her method, her mannerisms, her glaring and the way her head shakes when she's emoting distress and sorrow.

At any rate...

Alpha

It's really good but it takes a while to get going. The first 30-45 minutes is all world building and set up to establish the long journey ahead of Keda (the protagonist) to get back home. It's very well filmed and the director, Albert Hughes, understands the importance of showing the unsullied, undeveloped and uncultivated land as equal parts vast, beautiful and mortally dangerous. Although I'm sure many liberties were taken with its prehistorical interpretation of humanity's struggle, the film effectively conveys their tenuous grip on life, forced to rely on their ingenuity to make up for their physical frailty as they were.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Keda's budding relationship with the wolf he names Alpha, which is the entire point of the film and when things really start to get interesting. It's really a movie about discovery and reinventing one's self in order to survive and prosper, whether you be a human being or a canine mammal. The world takes away, but it also meets you half way. Oddly enough, the movie almost unintentionally carries a message of tolerance and acceptance of others, a natural byproduct of its events. This, I find, is the only way for such stories to be told without feeling like a lecture. The performances aren't anything to write home about except for Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, who plays Keda's (played with serviceable chops by Cody Smit-McPhee) father, Tau. For what little time he has on the screen, he's incredibly emotive and sympathetic.

If you choose to see it, iMax is the best way; this movie was meant to be experienced in this fashion.

Rating: 4/5
 

fake

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Agreed that Cruise is a good actor. Eyes Wide Shut is a masterpiece. Other than the Scientology thing and a few of his weirdo episodes, I actually like him and appreciate his dedication to the medium. Here are a few anecdotes:

There's a scene in Edge of Tomorrow where he's in a helicopter that's going in for a landing. Helicopters are pretty expensive to rent and shoot, so crews try their best to get a usable cut on the first take. They had to go through multiple takes because Cruise couldn't stop smirking. The director asked him why and Cruise said he just gets so pumped being in a helicopter that he has a hard time containing himself.

He watches one movie every day, either to learn from or to just enjoy. He's really serious about movies, and I don't see him as someone who will take a role for a paycheck. Well, maybe save for the Mummy. Even a crazy person would raise their eyebrow when Universal said they were planning on creating a Universal Monsters universe.
 

Taiso

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They shouldn't have announced the Dark Universe. They should have just done it without fanfare. The way they did press for it was just so cynical it was a big turn off for me.
 

fake

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I mean it's just corny to begin with. I'm sure if they got some really good writers, it could turn out OK. I never expected Ant-Man to work, but they made it happen. But Universal Monsters seems like even more of a stretch in terms of getting anyone to take it seriously.
 

90s

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No mention of Collateral?

I really like this movie. I'm so used to seeing Tom Cruise as a good guy (Jack Reacher, Ethan Hunt, etc.) and it was really cool to see him as a bad guy in this. Not just the personality of Vincent, but the look (grey haired man, grey/white suit); hes cold. The end of the movie is bleak, which I think was appropriate.

Yeah, I'm no expert on acting, but I think Tom Cruise is good and his movies are usually entertaining at least. The guy might be odd, but his work is good I think. His ex wives were pretty hot too, hes done pretty good for himself. :lolz:
 

jro

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Still, I often wonder what Eyes Wide Shut would have been if Kubrick hadn't died and the movie had starred almost anyone else.

They could have used Peter Dinklage, he's about the same height.
 
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