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

Lagduf

2>X
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Posts
46,682
Felt like watching Ender's Game again just for shits and giggles and yeah, it still sucks.

I can get some of the changes like Ender being around 12 or so rather than 6 like in the book. You're not gonna really find a 6 year old who can act the way Ender is portrayed in the books, so I get it. That said, they didn't develop any of the other characters apart from "hi, Im Petra" or whatever. side note: I had forgotten Haley Stienfeld played Petra in the flick. She looked like a baby.

They showed maybe 3 battle room scenes, and very little of that showed any of Ender's strategies. It also completely telegraphed the 'twist.'

When I first read Ender's Game I was in 5th grade, I believe. I remember getting toward the last few chapters and thinking "wait a sec how are we at the end, they are still training. Are we not gonna see any actual battles with the buggers?" And then when it's revealed that the last few months of 'simulations' were actual battles it was kind of a mindblowing thing for some kid in 5th grade. I honestly didn't even know there were sequels (or a Bean quartet) until sometime in the late 90s.

I looked at the run time and it was just under 2 hours. I have no idea exactly how much film they cut out for the released version, but at the two hour mark, Ender should have maybe killed Bonzo or gotten his own army. They sped through and cut out a lot of the story WAY too much.

This is me just picking nits, but I don't like that they called the aliens "Formics." They didn't call them Formics in the books until later in the Ender series. They just called them "Buggers," at least for the entirety of the first novel.

What a shame. Terrible movie. It made me want to read through the Enderverse books again but then I remembered that I read the final Ender book (The Last Shadow) a year or two ago and it was absolute garbage and didn't end the actual story. Complete bullshit that Card pulled out of his ass over a weekend. It was literally what the last season of Game of Thrones was to that story.

I bailed on the Bean books, what does is the last Enderverse series even about?

Speaker for the Dead still stands, to me, as Card's masterpiece. It's fundamentally a book about compassion and empathy. How can a man who is such a piece of shit even write such a book?
 

100proof

Insert Something Clever Here
10 Year Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Posts
3,579
Being able to ignore obvious logical inconsistencies is the backbone of religiosity.
 

HornheaDD

Viewpoint Vigilante
Fagit of the Year
Joined
Mar 22, 2016
Posts
4,273
I bailed on the Bean books, what does is the last Enderverse series even about?

Speaker for the Dead still stands, to me, as Card's masterpiece. It's fundamentally a book about compassion and empathy. How can a man who is such a piece of shit even write such a book?

Yeah? I immediately loved Ender's Shadow (Ender's game from Bean's POV, whats not to like). But when I got to the 2nd book Shadow of the Hegemon it felt too political so I noped out.

But at the insistence of a friend of mine, I went back and finished them. They are very different from the Ender Quartet (now Quintet) but tell their own really awesome story about what happens to all of Dragon Army (and others, namely Achilles) after Ender eradicates the Formics and the kids go home. Basically each country wants to become a world power using one of the kid generals. From there, Achilles (evidently FRONCH and pronounced "Uh-sheel") hates Bean for embarrassing him in Enders Shadow and basically its a military game of chess between the two.

I'll tag a spoiler from here just in case you end up wanting to go back, or there are others who are reading or will read them. Enter if you want to know the gist of the rest of the Shadow novels.

Spoiler:

I cant remember which is 3rd and 4th but I think I know the second Bean novel is Shadow of the Hegemon. The third I believe is Shadow Puppets, and then Shadow of the Giant.

Basically it's revealed that Bean's name is actually Julian Delphiki and hes a brother to Nikolai Delphiki one of Ender's troops. He ends up getting together with Petra in book...2.. I think. It's also revealed that Bean was the result of a genetic experiment to change a gene they call "Anton's Key" which makes the individual extremely intelligent even at only months old, but also does not stop the body from growing, so eventually Bean will grow too large for his heart to function and will die. He dies in Shadows in Flight, the precursor to the very last book, The Last Shadow.

He and Petra have some kids, but he's worried about fathering more kids like himself with Anton's Key 'turned.' They have several fertilized embryos taken to see if they can determine that, and Achilles steals them. So books 3 and 4 are basically about getting Bean and Petra's kids back while the whole military chess game is going on. At some point he repurposes the Mind Game software to create sort of an artificial banking app/accountant that eventually starts calculating shit on its own with remarkable accuracy and is almost self aware. This is what eventually becomes Jane who is first introduced in Speaker for the Dead and why Ender and Bean are filthy stinking rich in the subsequent novels.

Shadow Book four ends with Bean finding most (not all) of the embryos that were stolen, and from what I remember they all had Anton's Key turned, so he leaves with said embryos on a ship to travel at relativistic speeds to give people on Earth time to figure out a way to turn off the Key and keep the intended superintelligence. In Shadows in Flight (iirc) the kids themselves figure it out, but its too late for Bean, and he dies at the end of the novel while his kids (who refer to themselves as "Leguminids" - because 'Bean', get it) continue on and then that leads into the Last Shadow.

In the Bean books, Bean also has a few regular kids with Petra who grow up and live out their lives on Earth. Petra doesn't go with Bean, she stays behind and ends up getting together with Peter Wiggin, Ender's brother. He eventually becomes the Hegemon and ushers in an age of peace on Earth. Ender writes "The Hegemon" from this.

Directly after Ender's Game, in the book Ender in Exile, Ender takes off on a ship to scout for a new Formic homeworld with the Queen egg he found. He finds out one of the kids on there has been lied to and told by his mother that he is Achilles' son. He is super intelligent as well, but it's revealed (and Ender figures out) that he is actually one of Bean's embryos that was stolen. I dont remember what happened to him. But this is where Ender decides to become a Speaker and travel the galaxy at relativistic speeds, which is why its been about 3000 years between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.

Shadows in Flight sort of retcons some stuff from Ender's game such as featuring male Formics and the way the Queens work but its not terrible. Its not a bad book but it mainly details the Leguminids finding a derelict Formic ship and they discover different stuff that I cant remember that well.

If you recall the end of the Ender books (Children of the Mind) - it ends on sort of a cliffhanger. The characters discover the homeworld of the 'Descolada' virus that the Speaker/Xenocide/Children books are about. But they don't land. They receive a transmission from the planet that they determine to be the chemical makeup of heroin, or some other drug. They cant decide if it was meant as a welcoming hug, or as a sedative for capture. They determine that the creators of the Descolada 'speak' in chemicals. So yeah - Ender book 4 ends there.



From here I'm gonna spoil the last book because it is absolute shit. Sorry not sorry readers.

The Last Shadow is the final Enderverse book (to date). And it is absolute bullshit. Like, 'pissed DD off for buying it' bullshit. It barely features any of the characters from the Ender or Bean books, but it centers on Bean's grandchildren. And it also sort of shoehorns what happened to Ender's real sister Valentine. She 'surprisingly' ran around the galaxy at relativistic speeds as well, so the original Valentine Wiggin is in this book. If features characters that were never even referenced in any of the other novels. These would be Beans grand children. Kids of the kids in Shadows in Flight, obvs. They land on the planet and discover talking birds that shit all over them as a welcoming committee.

No really.

The birds are sort of reluctant to share any information with the humans, and are just weird. Without going into too much detail that I probably blocked from my memory, we find that the "homeworld" of the Descolada is in fact just a planet settled by humans who got lost in a starship over several thousand years, figured out genetics and mutation (remember this point) as well as how to manipulate the Descolada virus from its original form.

But they didn't create it. It was just *there* on the planet when they landed. While they figured out genetics and mutation, they 'fixed' the virus to not hurt them, and they decided to be so nice to enhance the birds on the ship to be more intelligent, so they can now speak and are sentient. The humans changed themselves into what is basically described as a shaved ape that cant figure out the way pants work. So they walk around balls and tits out.

They can figure out genetics and rewrite the chemical programming of an alien virus... but pants are just too difficult.

They (the shaved apes) end up turning on the main characters and try to kill them for some reason, but fail. The main characters escape the planet with little to no information as to what the fucking Descolada was other than assuming it was a data gathering virus which was mutated by the shaved ape humans. But they don't know for certain. The shaved apes don't even know what it was for. They just modified it.

Also, literally everyone figures out how to do instant transmission like Jane did, so they can just teleport all over the fucking place like they're driving to the store to get some ciggies. It makes no sense. It took GOBS of processing power for Jane to pull it off and it also required the Father Trees from the planet from Speaker to give her this ability. But basically if you think *real hard* about where you wanna go, you'll just pop over like walking into a different room.

There's an authors note at the end of Last Shadow that is Card basically telling the reader how he came up with the story. He literally fucking says something like "Yeah I read a book about birds at my sisters house on vacation and it was cool so I decided to put talking birds in my story."

He doesn't answer shit. I finished Children of the Mind something like 17 years ago. I waited 16 years for that ending and... fucking garbage.

The first 4 Ender Books and by extension the Bean books are super great. Loved them, Card's idiocy not withstanding. But just... ignore the Last Shadow. Its so stupidly bad and mundane.
 

Lagduf

2>X
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Posts
46,682
Yep, sounds...dumb. I'l skip, plus it's been so long since I read the first four Ender books I'd probably not remember shit - other than that it gets fucking crazy in the last book, lol. I don't think we really needed a last book. It's okay to have a mystery. Sounds like Card just milking his legacy for easy cash.

I think I've read the first two (maybe three) Bean Books. I enjoyed them, just put the current book I was on done for some reason and never picked it back up. I think the book I was in Bean was leading his little Thai army (lol.) Card is obsessed with race, but, frankly - the idea of worlds separated by race fits the dystopian narrative.
 

SouthtownKid

There are four lights
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2003
Posts
26,898
The Living Daylights

Best thing about the film is the title. I remember it being great, kind of dark. Nope
It's got the last great John Barry James Bond score. He never did another. And after that, Bond movies had pretty much all garbage film scores for the next 20 years. The Goldeneye score is fine as its own thing, but it's not Bond music. And David Arnold doing a sad Barry immitation with bad techno added to it during the Brosnan years was just awful.

I like all the Afghanistan stuff in the movie. The Mujahideen are still the good guys with a heroic ally I wouldn't be surprised was purposely modeled after our great friend back then, Bin Laden. I also love the pre-credits sequence in Gibraltar with the fake out new Bond reveal and truck fight.

That fight on the cargo netting hanging out the back of the plane was fantastic for the '80s. Still holds up. They ripped it off verbatim in that awful Tom Holland 'Uncharted' movie... all in CGI and it felt completely limp and pathetic compared to the fight using practical effects in Living Daylights. And the foreground miniature model work they used for the bridge blowing up sequence was first rate even by modern standards.

No, it's not dark. If it ever seemed dark, it was only because it directly followed more than a decade of Roger Moore. Who Living Daylights was actually written for originally. But Dalton did bring something to the character. A bit of an edge and a world weariness we wouldn't see again until Daniel Craig.

I still really like this one. Definitely John Glen's best directorial effort. Plus it wraps up some loosely connected character threads from the Connery and Moore eras, like General Gogol. Maybe you were in a bad mood when you rewatched it.

License to Kill, on the other hand, is hard even for me to rewatch. A lot of it looks like a low budget tv movie more than an actual theatrically-released film.

I rate Living Daylights about evenly with Goldeneye. A little higher for me personally, although I understand people who feel the opposite. But waaaaay above the rest of the Brosnan movies. Now that was a disappointing era for the franchise.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Stagefright (aka Aquarius)- A theater company is putting on a rather odd musical about a serial killer who targets prostitutes. When one of the performers injures herself she goes to the nearest hospital which just happens to be a mental asylum. An inmate (who just happens to be a serial killer that was an actor) escapes and follows her back to the theater. The fascist (and opportunistic) theater director decides to lock everyone in overnight to practice. The killer picks them off one by one until we're left with the final girl. It culminates with the killer staging his own production using the corpes and dismembered body parts of his victims in a pretty awesome scene.

Directed by Michelle Saovi (Cemetery Man) this is his directorial debut and while it doesn't have the visual trickery of his later movies the groundwork is there. It's a fun slasher with some good gore and Saovi uses the theater setting well.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
I rate Living Daylights about evenly with Goldeneye. A little higher for me personally, although I understand people who feel the opposite. But waaaaay above the rest of the Brosnan movies. Now that was a disappointing era for the franchise.
I remember going to see Die Another Day in the theater with my dad and the look of absolute confusion and anger on his face when we walked out.
 

DevilRedeemed

teh
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Posts
13,554
It's got the last great John Barry James Bond score. He never did another. And after that, Bond movies had pretty much all garbage film scores for the next 20 years. The Goldeneye score is fine as its own thing, but it's not Bond music. And David Arnold doing a sad Barry immitation with bad techno added to it during the Brosnan years was just awful.

I like all the Afghanistan stuff in the movie. The Mujahideen are still the good guys with a heroic ally I wouldn't be surprised was purposely modeled after our great friend back then, Bin Laden. I also love the pre-credits sequence in Gibraltar with the fake out new Bond reveal and truck fight.

That fight on the cargo netting hanging out the back of the plane was fantastic for the '80s. Still holds up. They ripped it off verbatim in that awful Tom Holland 'Uncharted' movie... all in CGI and it felt completely limp and pathetic compared to the fight using practical effects in Living Daylights. And the foreground miniature model work they used for the bridge blowing up sequence was first rate even by modern standards.

No, it's not dark. If it ever seemed dark, it was only because it directly followed more than a decade of Roger Moore. Who Living Daylights was actually written for originally. But Dalton did bring something to the character. A bit of an edge and a world weariness we wouldn't see again until Daniel Craig.

I still really like this one. Definitely John Glen's best directorial effort. Plus it wraps up some loosely connected character threads from the Connery and Moore eras, like General Gogol. Maybe you were in a bad mood when you rewatched it.

License to Kill, on the other hand, is hard even for me to rewatch. A lot of it looks like a low budget tv movie more than an actual theatrically-released film.

I rate Living Daylights about evenly with Goldeneye. A little higher for me personally, although I understand people who feel the opposite. But waaaaay above the rest of the Brosnan movies. Now that was a disappointing era for the franchise.
Hah yeah I wasn't in the best mood. Thinking about that fight scene on the cargo plane and how cold Bond is when he cuts the laces of his boot thus letting the pleading villain fall to his death, yeah pretty great. Also I really like Dalton.
Thing is I watched this film at the cinema when I was around 12, I just remember really liking it, and I know I had watched it since, I just didn't remember it being so goofy.
The whole milkman sequence was quite excellent

Brosnan era Bond is vomit inducing. The guy can act, but as Bond he is severly insufferable.
 

SouthtownKid

There are four lights
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2003
Posts
26,898
Hah yeah I wasn't in the best mood. Thinking about that fight scene on the cargo plane and how cold Bond is when he cuts the laces of his boot thus letting the pleading villain fall to his death, yeah pretty great. Also I really like Dalton.
Thing is I watched this film at the cinema when I was around 12, I just remember really liking it, and I know I had watched it since, I just didn't remember it being so goofy.
The whole milkman sequence was quite excellent

Brosnan era Bond is vomit inducing. The guy can act, but as Bond he is severly insufferable.
Funnily enough, I had the opposite experience in that I didn't like Living Daylights that much when I saw it in the theater. And I don't know why, because I had been ready for Moore to step down 2 movies before that. But it really grew on me the more I rewatched it.

And yeah, I loved that fight between the milkman and the random SAS guy in the kitchen (plus, I love Chrissie Hynde). I liked that even though he looked like a nobody, he put up such a good fight to the point the milkman assassin could have lost and the movie would have ended an hour early. Even the fight in the Russian jail was good. All the action was well choreographed.

Brosnan really got let down by the writing more than anything else. If they somehow could have sent the Casino Royal screenplay back in time 11 years, I think Brosnan could have been good in it. I think the Daniel Craig movies are more what Brosnan wanted to do...more Connery-style...but they kept writing Moore-era zany silliness for him instead. Dalton suffered from that as well. The writers were unable to fully commit to breaking away from the style they'd stuck with in the 1970s to mid-'80s. I mean, they really tried in License to Kill. But then halfway through, they backpeddaled so hard they broke the movie.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
The Pale Blue Eyes- At Westpoint in the 1830s a cadet is found hanged with his heart removed. Christian Bale is a detective brought in to solve the case and he befriends a young Edgar Allen Poe who assists and ultimately ends up getting himself involved in the case. Featuring a very strong cast, period accuracy and a good sense of atmosphere but it's slow. A little disappointing as well as the Poe character really could have been anybody and it devolves into occult nonsense rather quickly but it's still intriguing enough and well made. The guy that plays Poe in particular does a fantastic job and looks remarkably like him. Worth a watch but nothing spectacular.
 

Tarma

Old Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2001
Posts
7,138
Platoon

Tom Berenger's character is top five material in terms of coolest most sublime characterizations in a movie ever in my opinion

Ha, watched this myself the other day! Great film, that still stands up as one of the best war films made... such a great cast... shame many didn't fulfill the potential they showed here, or didn't until many, many years later. Grab the 4K edition from Shout! Factory - awesome transfer and great sound.

Point Break
(1991)

An action classic, that certainly makes you wonder why we didn't see more of Patrick Swayze during the 90s. Gary Busey is brilliant, but a little under used, and there's a nice cameo from Tom Sizemore.

Haven't seen the remake. Don't want to either.
 

SouthtownKid

There are four lights
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2003
Posts
26,898
Ha, watched this myself the other day! Great film, that still stands up as one of the best war films made... such a great cast... shame many didn't fulfill the potential they showed here, or didn't until many, many years later. Grab the 4K edition from Shout! Factory - awesome transfer and great sound.

Point Break (1991)

An action classic, that certainly makes you wonder why we didn't see more of Patrick Swayze during the 90s. Gary Busey is brilliant, but a little under used, and there's a nice cameo from Tom Sizemore.

Haven't seen the remake. Don't want to either.
Remake isn't bad as its own thing. They updated it for modern times by having the criminals be environmental activist nutjobs, which was kind of interesting. It isn't bad at all, and a well above average action movie, although by no means required viewing. But if you have absolutely nothing else to watch some night and it's on streaming, you could do a lot worse.
 

Tarma

Old Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2001
Posts
7,138
Remake isn't bad as its own thing. They updated it for modern times by having the criminals be environmental activist nutjobs, which was kind of interesting. It isn't bad at all, and a well above average action movie, although by no means required viewing. But if you have absolutely nothing else to watch some night and it's on streaming, you could do a lot worse.
Hmmmm... you're not really selling it to me, but appreciate the opinion. I've just started watching The Wire (20 years late to the party I know) so that's filling up dead time at the moment :)
 

SouthtownKid

There are four lights
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2003
Posts
26,898
Hmmmm... you're not really selling it to me, but appreciate the opinion. I've just started watching The Wire (20 years late to the party I know) so that's filling up dead time at the moment :)
I wouldn't really try to sell it to anyone. It's more of a "That wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be" kind of movie. It falls short of being something I'd recommend. I mean, I'd much sooner recommend the A-Team remake than Point Break remake.

Plus, if your choice is that or The Wire, stick with The Wire. Especially seasons 3 & 4.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Wishmaster 2- It lacks the budget and creativity of the first movie but there's still some good stuff in there. Having the Djinn in prison and then working at a casino is pretty funny, though I think the casino was a huge missed opportunity. There are a handful of practical effects scenes that are fun but there's also some truly embarrassing CG. The main character Morgana's fashion is 90s as fuck, looking like a cross between Fairuza Balk from The Craft and Gwen Stefani lol. Overall it's pretty bad, like an R rated Sci-Fi channel original but Divoff is worth watching and there's some funny stuff.
 
Last edited:

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Re-Animator- Well it was time for one of my semi annual watches of this. It is as always highly enjoyable. I appreciate the performances more and more every time I watch it. Jeffery Combs and David Gale are fantastic. This is up there with Return of the Living Dead and Evil Dead 2.
 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2004
Posts
44,746
Full River Red - Zhang Yimou's latest film, came out two weeks ago. I had no clue what this movie was about and zero expectations. This is a return to greatness after his past few bad movies.

At two hours and forty minutes, I never looked at the time. Lots of twists and turns. Highly recommend if it streams where you live. Honestly might be the best Chinese movie I have seen in ten years.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Super 8- JJ Abrams's attempt at making a Spielberg movie and failing. It's not terrible but it's exceedingly mediocre, completely lacking in any charm and Abrams can't write for shit. It's basically Cloverfield for kids. He tries the Stand By Me/Goonies/IT approach of a group of tweens coming of age/emotional journey while on an adventure thing except none of them are likable and their acting ranges from horribly annoying to fairly competent. This is the kind of movie that tricks people into thinking it's good. It's got all the cliches, characters and hits all the right beats but it's all so hollow and forced. The basic premise is solid but it just comes off as a cheap imitation of Spielberg.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Syn

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Bride of Re-Animator- Needed to get the shittiness of Super 8 off of my palette. This was actually my first time watching this and I have to say I can't believe no-one ever talks about this. I had seen Beyond Re-Animator which is not so great but this one is fantastic. It doesn't have the same sense of fun or that not quite definable element that makes the first one so enjoyable but it does it's own thing very well. It works as both a sequel and as an homage to The Bride of Frankenstein.

Jeffery Combs is even more unhinged and dedicated to the insanity of the role, he is straight up deranged. There is a shit-ton of effects work supervised by Screaming Mad George (Society) and just due to the sheer amount some of them don't quite work but the ones that do are fantastic and at times legitimately disturbing. The Bride herself is incredibly well done and her performance is excellent. The ending is a true spectacle of disgusting freaky mayhem on par with the best in the genre. A hugely underrated sequel and I highly recommended it to fans of the original.
 

SouthtownKid

There are four lights
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2003
Posts
26,898
Super 8- JJ Abrams's attempt at making a Spielberg movie and failing. It's not terrible but it's exceedingly mediocre, completely lacking in any charm and Abrams can't write for shit. It's basically Cloverfield for kids. He tries the Stand By Me/Goonies/IT approach of a group of tweens coming of age/emotional journey while on an adventure thing except none of them are likable and their acting ranges from horribly annoying to fairly competent. This is the kind of movie that tricks people into thinking it's good. It's got all the cliches, characters and hits all the right beats but it's all so hollow and forced. The basic premise is solid but it just comes off as a cheap imitation of Spielberg.
It's straight up E.T. except E.T. isn't nice this time. And I didn't even like original E.T.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
It's straight up E.T. except E.T. isn't nice this time.
Pretty much.

Something was really bugging about the movie (aside from it sucking and being unoriginal) for a couple hours after watching it. It's the way it's shot. It's set in a small town in Ohio in the late 70s and shot like one of JJs big stupid action movies. It does not fit the story at all and completely sabotages everything he was going for by aping Spielberg in the first place.
 

terry.330

Time? Astonishing!
20 Year Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Posts
11,793
Jesse Stone: Stone Cold- Tom Selleck plays a small town New England police chief trying to solve a string of seemingly random murders. Apparently based on a series of books, this appears to be a made for TV movie and the first in a long series (there are 9 of these!). This is prime Dad/Grandpa fodder. Kind of hardboiled/pulpy, packed to the gils with cliches, goofy stoic dialogue and every chick he crosses paths with wants his dick immediately. Selleck is good in the role and the supporting cast is solid but it just never gets past feeling like something your Dad would fall asleep halfway through on plane flight.
 
Last edited:
Top