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

Ender's Game.

Saw this at the movies when it released and didn't think much of it. Saw it again last night as I'd read through the book for the umpteenth time.

What a pile of shit. Viola Davis and Harrison Ford were boring as Anderson and Graff.

The kid who played Ender was awful. They truncated the story even at a 2hr run time.

In this age of cinematic universes like Harry Potter, Marvel, DC, etc, they should have split EG into two films, and set up both the Bean and Ender Quartets. What a fucking waste. And OSC signed off on that shit.

31 is pretty bad. Richard Brake has a few good scenes, but it's mostly just a boring mess. Probably a pretty good reason Rob couldn't get any studio to fund it for him.

Anyway, watched:
Mandy - pretty awesome, as has been noted by others. Cage nailed it, obviously, but I'd also give a decent amount of credit to Linus Roche, made a good villain.

Deathrace: Beyond Anarchy - completely awful. Actually somewhere in the so bad it's good range, maybe? Now, I really like the Statham original (remake, I know), and the two sequels starring Luke Goss are decent. Then this one completely misses the whole point- the car combat is bland and bad. But holy shit is there a ton of slo mo and nudity. Borders on parody, it's so much of both. How this got made is beyond me.

Ant Man and the Wasp - light, which is fine after Infinity War. Michael Pena steals every scene he's in.

Skyscraper - rote, by-the-book, never misses a chance to embrace action tropes. Dumb story, decent setpieces.

Been going back through the Nightmare on Elm St. series. Up to 4, I still think 3 is easily the best.

The Predator - I had the theater to myself, so I brought in a bunch of beer. I was already wasted by the time Jake Busey came out, "That's Gary Busey's kid!" So I had fun, but man that movie was retarded. And this is also the first movie where the dialogue has been edited to remove curse words (FOR THE CHINA RELEASE) in addition to gory stuff. Also this movie further confirms wasabi's theory of Hollywood watching these boards because a big plot element is something The Fish said a few years ago about Asperger's people being the next step in human evolution.

terry.330 said:

Been going back through the Nightmare on Elm St. series. Up to 4, I still think 3 is easily the best.

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The Dream Warriors is great, Patricia Arquette should’ve been locked down as a Scream Queen from that movie as she’s got a pair of lungs on her. I have great for nostalgia for part 2 Freddy’s Revenge. Years later I learned all about the gay overtones in the film. Meh, I still think it’s a pretty creepy Freddy and that bedroom scene when he bursts out of Jesse is still really great. I scored a Freddy’s Revenge poster from Mondo a few months back.

Hotel Artemis - A lot of interesting ideas and world building but does almost nothing with it. It sets up a bunch of stuff and then everything gets paid off in like 5 minutes like they ran out of money or they had to finish before Mom came home. Not everything has to be a 3-hour epic but this needed a little more time to cook. I'm also now convinced Dave Bautista is a better actor than The Rock. Even with what little he has to do in this movie, he has great comedic timing and is physically imposing without being a trite cliche. Anyway, just watch the trailer for this.. it gets across everything you need to know in two minutes.

Bohemian Rhapsody:

I know a lot of critics are giving it shit, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm certain a lot of it was Disney'ed up, and I even read somewhere - maybe here - that certain scenes were re-written as to how they happened in real life, etc. But, I am an absolute *massive* fan of Freddie. I love Queen just as much as anyone else, sure. They were never my favorite band of all time, but I loved em, sure. But Freddie - his talent, his persona, his range, his beauty, the way he was with people - I have always looked up to him and always admired his work and him as a person. In my opinion, he was the greatest male vocalist this planet has ever seen, and it was a tragedy that he was lost to us. I can't even imagine what kind of work he'd be doing were he still alive.

The film, maybe its not perfect. Maybe its Disney'ed up. They touched on his sexuality, and of course they kind of touched on his sexual habits. But for the most part, it was nice to "be there" on his/their rise to what they became. I wish there would have been more on the band and their rise, rather than the 5 minutes they showed of playing Freddie's first show to becoming the massive band we all know. They cut quite a bit out for a 2 hour film, of course. But all in all it was enjoyable, and I cried a couple of times, one of them at a strange moment. When Freddie introduces himself to Taylor and May and says he'd like to try out, and Taylor makes fun of his teeth. Malek's face there was heartbreaking, and I teared up. The end of the film, which Im sure everyone knows by now is (surprisingly) most of the Live Aid set, was incredible. Absolutely incredible. The detail they put into that scene was massive.

I can't even count how many times Ive watched the Live Aid set, and it truly was one of the greatest - if not the greatest- live sets in history. And they did a great job bringing it to the screen. It almost felt like I was watching the youtube "Best audio" version of it lol.

I will definitely go watch it again, and I'll pick up the blue ray. I still wish that Sascha Baron Cohen had stuck around to play Freddie, I thought he was a good choice and could have brought something to it. But I do have to admit, Rami Malek did a great job, and when he finally sported the short hair/moustache combo, it was almost like looking at the real thing.

F4U57 said:

The Dream Warriors is great, Patricia Arquette should’ve been locked down as a Scream Queen from that movie as she’s got a pair of lungs on her. I have great for nostalgia for part 2 Freddy’s Revenge. Years later I learned all about the gay overtones in the film. Meh, I still think it’s a pretty creepy Freddy and that bedroom scene when he bursts out of Jesse is still really great. I scored a Freddy’s Revenge poster from Mondo a few months back.

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Cool poster! Part 2 was one of the first movies I rented as a kid along with Street Trash. Fun times!

wyo said:

Cool poster! Part 2 was one of the first movies I rented as a kid along with Street Trash. Fun times!

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Tenafly Viper!

the sandlot

i saw this back in the day but didn't see it as something special. but just watched it because it was on AVGN's top favourite movies of all time list and i loved it.

the story telling, pacing, acting, the characters were all spot on. the whole movie had a epic feel to it similar to stand by me. it's like a cross between the goonies and stand by me which i think what they were going for.

an epic movie, i loved it and i would say it's an 80's classic that wasn't filmed in the 80's.

NOES 4- Much better than I remember, forgot it was directed by Renny Harlin back when he was making cool shit like Prison.

Got this from Mondo years ago: http://jasonedmiston.com/portfolio/posters/nightmare-on-elm-street-3/

terry.330 said:

NOES 4- Much better than I remember, forgot it was directed by Renny Harlin back when he was making cool shit like Prison.

Got this from Mondo years ago: http://jasonedmiston.com/portfolio/posters/nightmare-on-elm-street-3/

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Cool poster!

I’ve got big nostalgia feels for The Dream Master. Probably my most watched Nightmare film as a kid - I had a massive crush on Lisa Wilcox. Great soundtrack too with Tuesday Knight’s Nightmare intro track, The Divinyls, The Angels and Blondie.

And yeah, thanks for the reminder of Prison, I haven’t seen that in years. A great double up with Craven’s Shocker. Renny was the man back then. He followed up ANOES4 with Die Hard 2 and then Cliffhanger.

Bogard said:

the sandlot

i saw this back in the day but didn't see it as something special. but just watched it because it was on AVGN's top favourite movies of all time list and i loved it.

the story telling, pacing, acting, the characters were all spot on. the whole movie had a epic feel to it similar to stand by me. it's like a cross between the goonies and stand by me which i think what they were going for.

an epic movie, i loved it and i would say it's an 80's classic that wasn't filmed in the 80's.

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this was a bit of a classic movie to me as a kid! I still do the imitation of "Fooorr eeeeevvvvv eeuuhhh..... FOOORREEEVVVUUUHHHHHH" out loud all the time

I think i still call people L7 Weenie's too

Finally got around to seeing Halloween 2018. Would probably have to see it again but I enjoyed it for the most part. It obviously doesn't hold a candle to the original and there's some story-related stuff that is ridiculously stupid (mostly all of the teleporting the characters do, everything to do with the doctor and a lot of the granddaughter's unnecessary side story) but I liked a lot of the little things (Michael moving from house to house like in the original, Jamie Lee playing Laurie as broken and not just a boring badass and the predator/prey stuff in the third act) and most of the nods to the original movie served a larger metaphor than simply being bait for "Top 10 Easter Eggs You Missed..." Youtube videos.

All in all, I'd say it's way better than most of the sequels and leaves Rob Zombie's garbage in the dust. That's not a very high bar though.

100proof said:

Finally got around to seeing Halloween 2018. Would probably have to see it again but I enjoyed it for the most part. It obviously doesn't hold a candle to the original and there's some story-related stuff that is ridiculously stupid (mostly all of the teleporting the characters do, everything to do with the doctor and a lot of the granddaughter's unnecessary side story) but I liked a lot of the little things (Michael moving from house to house like in the original, Jamie Lee playing Laurie as broken and not just a boring badass and the predator/prey stuff in the third act) and most of the nods to the original movie served a larger metaphor than simply being bait for "Top 10 Easter Eggs You Missed..." Youtube videos.

All in all, I'd say it's way better than most of the sequels and leaves Rob Zombie's garbage in the dust. That's not a very high bar though.

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Hear, hear!

Suspiria
It's worth seeing if you like the original, but I was probably overhyped for it, so it wasn't completely satisfying. My friend, who had never seen the original, loved it.

It hits most of the original's plot points. The remake contradicts the original both by keeping its visuals understated (there are practically no primary colors in the movie), and by making certain elements more explicit (there are extreme close-ups of the witch's hands, near NFE levels of gore, etc.). It also puts more emphasis on the dancing. The dances are unnatural-looking and correspond to sacred geometry, probably a subconscious way of conveying a sabbath ritual.

It takes quite a while to get to the point. I think I could easily cut out 20 or 30 minutes of the movie just in post. If they had gone through another draft before shooting, they could've removed 45 mins to an hour of irrelevant story. And that's one of my main gripes. They establish that Suzy is from a Mennonite community to show she's supposed to be innocent and uncorrupted. They don't do a good job connecting this with the changes Suzy goes through.



Also, the big backdrop of the movie is the separation of Berlin, refugees, and the resulting terrorism. They make a big deal out of this, but it doesn't really connect with the main plot. So to me, it was a pretty arbitrary thing to focus on.

That said, it's a cool movie, the score by Thom Yorke is great, the title designs and title cards are awesome, and there is some crazy shit that happens. If you're a fan of the original and it's playing in your area (it's a pretty limited release - I'd imagine a lot of theaters are avoiding it because it's an Amazon Studios movie), you should see it. It feels like a first draft and what really sucks is that there was an amazing movie buried in there, but it's weighed down by a meandering story.

I'll have to check it out at some point. The original is a masterpiece.

Finished up TNOES series. Part 6 is a huge chunk of shit but it has some pretty cool visuals at certain points, they don't always work but at least they were trying. Everything else is garbage.

New Nightmare is an interesting premise but I can't stand that little kid, he ruins every scene he's in which about 70% of the movie.

terry.330 said:

I'll have to check it out at some point. The original is a masterpiece.

Finished up TNOES series. Part 6 is a huge chunk of shit but it has some pretty cool visuals at certain points, they don't always work but at least they were trying. Everything else is garbage.

New Nightmare is an interesting premise but I can't stand that little kid, he ruins every scene he's in which about 70% of the movie.

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It’s been a while since I watched them, but I feel that 2 had the best story. If you liked 3, you kind of need to bundle in 4 into the equation, because I feel they’re joined at the hip. I kind of go 2 1 4 3 5.

Overlord
Fun and reasonably engaging. Needed more evil and menace but it was worth watching. Felt like a cross between Star Wars Episode 7, Inglorious Bastards/Fury, and the videogames Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Resident Evil 4.
For teenagers mostly.

My Dinner With Herve- Recommended. Obviously Dinklage is great as always and it's good that they didn't sugar coat who Herve really was. You don't feel sorry for him more than you should and he is shown, he rally had a very bizarre life and I think on top of his condition it would have taken a similar toll on anyone.

They
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_(2002_film)

Thought it was going to be scary but then saw the CGI monsters. CGI wasn't horrible, it looked fine and not hokey... it just wasn't scary. Like people getting attacked by a pile of old socks that made weird noises.
Main character had a Single White Female look to her.

Headshot - Indonesian action movie from Timo and Kimo (Timo Tjahjanto also directed and wrote The Night Comes for Us) starring Iko Uwais. Uwais is awesome, as usual and the movie itself is pretty silly (it's about kids being kidnapped and then trained to be criminals, and also one-man armies, basically), but the action scenes are really brutal. They're mostly excellent, but a few have some really shaky camera work that detracts from them. I don't get why a director would do that when the choreography is so good on its own with nothing that needs to be obscured.

rouge one

i watched it when it first came out but thought it was boring. just rewatched it and i've got to say it may be my favourite out of the entire series. top 3 at least.

the darkest out of the series which gives it a serious and gritty tone. loved the characters, every single one of them especially k2 who is by far my favourite out of the star wars bots. darth vador hasn't been this good since return of the jedi.

i loved the approach they went with toward the rebellion, a very realistic one that shows a darker side which we never saw before that includes sacrifice and betrayal. and that ending, just wow.

F4U57 said:

Cool poster!

I’ve got big nostalgia feels for The Dream Master. Probably my most watched Nightmare film as a kid - I had a massive crush on Lisa Wilcox. Great soundtrack too with Tuesday Knight’s Nightmare intro track, The Divinyls, The Angels and Blondie.

And yeah, thanks for the reminder of Prison, I haven’t seen that in years. A great double up with Craven’s Shocker.

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I haven't seen Prison but it sounds cool. There were a fair few films with similar plots. The Horror Show (aka House 3) and The First Power spring to mind. Have you seen those and can you think of any others?

Bogard said:

rouge one

i watched it when it first came out but thought it was boring. just rewatched it and i've got to say it may be my favourite out of the entire series. top 3 at least.

the darkest out of the series which gives it a serious and gritty tone. loved the characters, every single one of them especially k2 who is by far my favourite out of the star wars bots. darth vador hasn't been this good since return of the jedi.

i loved the approach they went with toward the rebellion, a very realistic one that shows a darker side which we never saw before that includes sacrifice and betrayal. and that ending, just wow.

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I loved Rogue One. Other than Empire, I think it's the best SW film.