Topic: The Movie Thread

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I know this will probably be a bit TL;DR for most, but here's a list of all the films I've watched over the past few weeks.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - After a wartime video goes viral showing the titular Billy Lynn heroically protecting his commanding officer's body from being taken by enemy forces, his entire squad is sent on a publicity tour back in the States where they must face how disconnected the populace is from their struggle (outside of vague patriotic platitudes) and what it really is they're fighting for.

Godzilla 2014 (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - I think this one is sooo close to being something great, but just makes too many mistakes to quite get there. I love that it spends time building up suspense (the best Godzilla films often don't have much of Big G and have great human drama, after all), but Bryan Cranston is the only one who really puts in a noteworthy performance & it really loses something once he's killed off. Again, I don't really have an issue with the amount of Godzilla, but rather how that time is used (oftentimes it'll completely cut away to something entirely else as soon as he clashes with one of the MUTO, dodging the actual monster fighting). That said, there are some good shots, and a satisfyingly brutal finish. It's also waaay too dark (in terms of lighting), the scene where the MUTO attacks the train is a huge example of this where I could barely see anything except it's glowy spots & the flaming wreckage in the river at the end. A real shame too as it can be a real looker when you can actually see what's going on (like the sequence in the rain where Godzilla & the MUTO descend on San Francisco).

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - A tonally confused affair, on one hand resigning itself to being nothing more than popcorn entertainment (any poignant "man vs nature" themes are undercut by Monarch transforming into a facsimile of the MCU's SHEILD, and it starts to dive headlong into the "Hollow Earth" nonsense), but on the other hand it seems like it wants to take itself waaay to seriously with an overdramatic environmentalist message & visually gritty aesthetic. As a big Godzilla fan there are things for me to like here (there are a lot of fan favorite Kaiju here, including a pretty cool version of King Ghidorah that goes pretty hard, though it's so much that it teeters along a similar issue that Spider-Man 3 had with too many big names for one movie), but I wouldn't blame anyone for not liking it.

Godzilla VS Kong (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - At this point the Monsterverse has given up any pretense of offering any sort of compelling human drama (which it was rarely good at anyways, at least not on the level of stuff like Godzilla: Minus One) and lunged head first into being a big dumb monster punch 'em up flick, and honestly, it works. Revelling in the absolute dumbest aspects of it's convoluted lore, it's a film more concerned with having fun than trying to say/do anything meaningful, and boy is it a fun film. Godzilla & Kong's fights are awesome (the best in the franchise), and you never go too long without them tearing through things on screen.

Hancock (Blu-Ray) - Before we had like 6 different versions of "Superman but Evil", we had "Superman but just kind of a jerk in need of some good PR". I think this is pretty fun in the first half when it's working on that core concept, but kinda loses itself when trying to explore lore/backstory & forcing and endgame villain.

the Killer's Game (Cinema) - Dave Bautista plays the best assassin in the game, but wants to get out once he finds a woman and starts developing health issues. Soon it's learned he's come down with an incurible disease, so he puts a hit out on himself so she doesn't have to watch him slowly die & can get his life insurance. He learns that the diagnosis was a mistake and he's going to live, but now only if he can survive the onslaught of eccentric assassins out to get him. I'm pretty sure this just bombed, but honestly I kinda liked it. It's not a masterpiece (and I think kinda tonally inconsistent), but with a lot of creative (& bloody) kills, explosions, and some light female nudity, it's an enjoyable enough "Dude/Dad" film if that's something you're into (not as good as "the Beekeeper" from earlier this year though).

Kong: Skull Island (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - Even as someone who is much more of a Godzilla fan, I'll say that Kong's solo movie is probably the Monsterverse's best. It's really the only one that successfully invests you to it's human cast (you really want to see John C. Reilly's character make it home, and Samuel L. Jackson's Packard is a compelling villain, jaded after pouring his military career into Vietnam with nothing to show for it, he becomes obsessed with taking out Kong, even if it means the deaths of his men that he supposedly cares so much about). There's a lot of imagination on display when it comes to the flora & fauna of the titular island itself, which leads to a lot of exciting encounters, whether it be our group of survivors finding themselves underfoot a massive spider, or the various punch 'em ups Kong winds up in with other beasts. Just a really enjoyable time.

the LEGO Movie (Blu-Ray) - Who knew that a movie about LEGO would be so solid(ly built)? At it's core it's just a family film with a message about how we're all special in it's own way, but it's still one of the most visually stunning/unique CGI animated films from a big studio and the cast is pretty fun, whether it be Will Ferrell hamming it up as unrepentantly evil "President Business" or Will Arnett's "Batman" trying to hard to be cool. Enjoyable watch.

Lone Survivor (Blu-Ray) - Speaking of "Dude/Dad" films, this one goes pretty hard. I can understand that glorifying war (especially something as modern/touchy as recent Mideast conflicts) is going to rub some the wrong way, but I honestly liked this. Based on a True Story (but obviously embellished for movie's sake), it follows Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of a small band of Navy Seals who found themselves surrounded by a couple hundred Taliban fighters after getting found out during a reconnaissance mission.

Ranma 1/2: the Battle of Nekonron: the Fight to Break the Rules! (Blu-Ray) - Very by the numbers movie adaptation of a long running Shonen anime. New one off villain shows up to antagonize our protaganists, has just enough henchmen that almost every recurring cast member gets to tag along as they get a fight (though I'm a little salty that Ukyo & Kodachi were who were left behind this go around, lol), but the good guys save the day in the end and go home. For die hard fans of the franchise only (even the animation is nothing special. There are some TV & OVA episodes that look better).

Ranma 1/2: the Battle of Togenkyo: Rescue the Brides! (Blu-Ray) - Much like the first film, it sees the extended cast facing off against a one off movie villain, and although the concept wasn't anything new, I think it was much better executed here. The animation quality was a pretty big jump up (not up there with something seminal like Ghost in the Shell or Memories, but still nice 90's anime vibes), and it was overall much more fun and the cast has never looked better. I'd still likely say this is one for existing fans of the property only, but as a fan I couldn't much tell you what more I could want from a film in this franchise (other than the fact that it completely snubbed Kodachi, the only extended cast member to be left out).

the Shallows (Blu-Ray) - While surfing off of a secluded beach in Mexico, a woman is injured by a shark (which is stalking the area due it being the site of it's latest kill, a whale) and must find a way to get back to land. There's a few contrived moments narratively (how did no one see that huge whale carcass just a few hundred feet from the shore while they were surfing?), but overall it was a tense ride that gripped me throughout and it has some of the most gorgeous scenery shots I've seen in a film.

Zack Snyder's Justice League (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - This is perhaps one of the most epic superhero films ever crafted. Now, I get that a 4 hour+ runtime is a huge ask and that a better storyteller may (should?) have found a way to trim some fat (I could have probably done without the lengthy epilogue added, which was a lot of buildup to stuff he knows he was never going to get to do), but at least it now has the time to build up characters like Cyborg & some of the greater lore behind what is going on. It's certainly better than the theatrical cut though, and the definitive way to watch the film if you decide to do so.

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Been watching too much stuff as of late!

17 Again - It’s pretty much your standard 2000s teen comedy film, and is about a middle-aged man being magically transformed back into his 17-year-old self and reenrolling into his old high school and trying to fix his relationships with his soon-to-be ex-wife and estranged children. I’m not really into watching comedy films, but I did enjoy this one. I thought a lot of moments in the film to be funny (Ned was by far the best character in the film) and the ending was super heartwarming, though some of the scenes and moments, knowing the context and what was happening, did make me feel very weirded out and uncomfortable when watching it at times. Unlike most of the films I watched recently, I saw this movie on HBO Max/Max.

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie - YouTube has a pretty decent selection of movies that you can watch for free on there without having to buy or rent. I have watched some VeggieTales media before, including a few Netflix shows and another film called The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie. I have seen Jonah, but I didn’t remember a lot of it besides the opening scene before I watched it. The film tells two stories; one being a car mishap with a group of vegetables and an adaptation of the Biblical story of Jonah, with the two seemingly unrelated stories having a connection with each other via their themes of mercy and forgiving people. Although this movie is aimed toward younger audiences, I really enjoyed this one a lot! For an early 2000s movie, the animation is really impressive and holds up well by modern standards, usually CGI films around this time had animation that was stunning for the time but didn’t age well visually (with a few exceptions). The songs were pretty catchy and I liked the themes and humor they put into the stories, and I will say that the way Jonah’s story ended shocked me quite a bit with how he refused to forgive the Ninevites despite learning about forgiving people and having a song sung to him about second chances when he was in the stomach of a whale and how Khalil and Jonah’s own camel abandoned him in the desert in the end.

Poupelle of Chimney Town - Did I forget to mention that YouTube also offers free anime films? Poupelle is animated in 3D unlike the other anime films I watched, and I did also like this one. Like the previous film, this is also aimed toward kids, and the film is about the friendship between a young boy and a man made of actual garbage. I really thought the premise was interesting. I really liked this one, mainly from its story and the visuals and setting. The story is pretty heartwarming, deep, and all about accomplishing your dreams and believing, and I did find the moments midway and nearing the end to be very bittersweet and beautiful. Being someone that likes drawing, I really liked the art style, use of color, and the industrial look of the city they were in, and for a movie that is set in a city with lots of chimneys and highly polluted skies, there were a few shots and character designs that were funky (in a good way), colorful, and bright (e.g. the Halloween dance sequence in the beginning of the film) and I really like the mechanical and built-together design of Poupelle a lot. Only criticism is that the animation sometimes gets choppy in a few scenes and looks unclean, and the animation sometimes swapping from 3D to 2D looked a bit off and inconsistent, but that does not really affect the movie’s quality a lot or made it any less enjoyable for me.

The House of the Lost on the Cape - Another anime film, being about an elderly woman taking in a runaway girl and an orphan in a special house but I was surprised when the film to introduce supernatural creatures and elements midway through and there being a final battle at the end with all three of them and a bunch of supernatural creatures banding against a gigantic, evil entity, and I had initially thought it was a pretty simple film from what I read about the plot and premise. I loved the film for its heartwarming story and the relationships the three main characters build with each other. It’s a bit more obscure, but I think it’s a hidden gem!

The Wonderland - This one caught my attention, mainly from a famous artist named Ilya Kuvshinov working on the film as a character designer. It is probably one of the most prettiest anime films I have seen with has really gorgeous visuals and animation (especially during a ceremony near the end of the film) and Kuvshinov’s art style is animated so wonderfully. The visuals of the world are very surreal, but beautiful to look at and very unique, and the film kind of reminded me of Studio Ghibli with the animation, visuals, and the film being mostly set in a weird, whimsical and fantastical world, plus the main conflict being driven by environmentalism and the lack of rain. So many of the shots are beautiful (my favorites being the ceremony with the prince and the final scenes in the Wonderland), and they seem to take a lot of inspiration from Ghibli films. Though, I think the story is kind of generic and I didn’t feel any strong connection with the characters unfortunately (mainly from how they don’t tell a lot about their backstories besides maybe two characters in it) but I think the film did really well in the animation and visual department, even though the film doesn’t have a super unique story or interesting characters.

The LEGO Movie - Don’t have much to say on this one. Seen this before and it’s a classic! Love how comedic LEGO media is and this one is still fantastic.

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A Clockwork Orange (UHD Blu-Ray) - Brutally dark, but it's a beautifully shot film and while it's largely about free will (is anything, even torture, permissable in quashing bad behavior, or do we try to rehabilitate criminals into choosing to be good of their own choice), it does also have some warnings about authoritarian governments that are relevant in the current landscape. I'll admit it can be kind of hard for me to get into older films a lot of times (by my standard, anything made before the 80's), but this had me completely transfixed.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (UHD Blu-Ray) - On the other hand, here's another 70's film that didn't quite land for me. Don't get me wrong it's still a good movie, but I'd imagine a huge part of the appeal is the mystery behind it all and the film is just so ubiquitous (at least for those of my generation) that it just can't possibly surprise (even though I haven't fully seen it until now). Likewise, while I'm sure the visuals were breathtaking at release & still have a noticeable sense of vision to them, it just doesn't really awe in that respect either (I do like the scene with the child being "called" by the lights while all the electronics in the house go haywire. That was evocative). There's some good character work too, such as Roy driving his family away over his obsession. Definitely worth a watch though, especially if you somehow are in the dark over it's influence.

Deadpool & Wolverine (UHD Blu-Ray) - First watch since the theatre. It is still loads of fun with a lot of bloody action & the crass humor still elicits some laughs (though everything that's just "ha ha, this is an R rated Disney movie!" doesn't hit as well after you've seen it once), though I think it's the weakest of the franchise. Again, most of it is just poking fun at the fact that it's Disney/MCU now, and doesn't have the emotional core that held the first two together in spite of their raunchiness (that being his relationship with Vanessa, which has been unceremoniously done away with off screen here). They pay some lip service to him wanting to join the Avengers/MCU to "matter" for her sake, and it's hinted that they still have a future together, but this is very much a side concern at best. That said Ryan & Hugh had some fun chemistry & I'll probably be there for the next one.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly (Blu-Ray) - Both stylistically & in terms of animation this is the best Dragon Ball has ever looked, and even if any future movies follow in Super Hero's footsteps in being CG (which TBF still looked fine) I'll be forever glad we got this. Probably won't be of any interest if you're not into whatever Dragon Ball is all about, but if you are this is a rip roaring fun time. Though I didn't notice until now that it's completely sanitized of any blood whatsoever (not that it's a huge deal or that I need it to have 80's ultraviolent OVA gore levels, but with how much our heroes get rag dolled around & the few people that get shot, just a little bit would have made the already visceral action hit just a tad bit harder).

Dragonheart (UHD Blu-Ray) - This was always a favorite of mine as a kid & I watched it every time I stumbled across it on TV. It may not be a "great" movie, but it's a lot of fun having Sean Connery chew the scenery as a dragon with a sense of chivalry, and although it took a bit to get used to the aged CGI I had a blast revisiting this.

Dune: Part 2 (UHD Blu-Ray - My first watch since theatres, and I'd honestly say I even enjoyed it a bit more this time around (probably because it was easier understanding everything that was going on the second go around). Narrative is pretty gripping seeing Paul as he tries to avoid becoming what he's going to have to become if he wants to win, and otherwise it's just a slick looking modern sci-fi blockbuster (really love the black & white arena scene on the Harkonnen home world).

Field of Dreams (UHD Blu-Ray) - Farmer hears voices telling him to build a baseball diamond in his corn field, and dead baseball players come back to play ball. Seriously though, I don't care much about sports, but this was actually a solid movie & pretty emotional (you just kinda have to watch it for yourself). He thinks he's healing old wounds for the dead, but ends up healing a hole in his own heart sort of deal. There's also a scene involving a debate over banning books in schools that unfortunately still feels relevant.

First Man (UHD Blu-Ray) - Biopic of Neil Armstrong starring Ryan Gosling. Every time I watch a movie about early space travel I just can't imagine the kind of willpower these guys would have to have in order to climb into these claustrophobic tin can death traps & be shot into space (and this film specifically makes it known how common death was for these men, and the impact it had on the survivors), and even more miraculously how anyone managed to survive when something goes wrong. It features some stunning visual shots as well.

Forbidden World (UHD Blu-Ray) - A mercenary(?) is contracted to go to an isolated research facility on a remote planet in order to help the scientists contain a strange creature, but of course they don't tell him everything & soon chaos ensues. Just a schlocky sci-fi B-movie from the 80's that rips off a number of more prominent films from the era (like Alien), and although it's not "good" per-se, it has all the ultra gore, sex/nudity, and hilariously dumb decision making from the cast of supposed geniuses you could ever want from a film of this type. A fun watch if that sounds up your alley.

Hot Pursuit (Blu-Ray) - 80's comedy about a preppy college student who just misses out on getting to go with his girlfriend's family on a Caribbean vacation & spends most of the film's runtime going on all sorts of misadventures across the isles trying to catch up to them, before having to use a bunch of skills he learned along the way to go full commando & rescue the family from pirates. It's not a must watch, but I enjoy the vibe of 80's comedies so I liked it (also has Ben Stiller in an early roll)

Interstellar (UHD Blu-Ray) - When ecological collapse has brought human civilization to the brink of collapse, a former engineer/pilot turned farmer is given the chance to potentially find a new home for humanity thanks to a wormhole discovered near Saturn (there's a lot more to the set up than this, such as the government officially embracing conspiracies that the space race was a hoax, and a mysterious "ghost" leaving his family messages, but I don't want to be here all day explaining). Absolutely beautiful both thematically & visually. It may get a bit sappy at the end, but that's just the magic of movies as far as I'm concerned & it may be my favorite film of the bunch I have listed here.

King Kong 2005 (UHD Blu-Ray) - I remembered this was a pretty big deal back in the day, although for whatever reason I never saw it then (I was 14 when it came out, so you'd think the prime target for the "giant monkey movie", lol), so I decided to rectify that. I don't think I'd call it a masterpiece, but it's definitely worth the watch if you have the time. Perhaps a bit too long, I wouldn't say I need instant gratification, but an entire hour before reaching Skull Island is maybe a bit much (although it has amazing set piece after amazing set piece once they land, especially the Kong vs T-Rex scene). Some of the visuals are starting to stretch thin/show their age (like a laughably green screen looking underwater shot during the swamp attack), but it mostly holds up & is often still breathtaking (really loved how well realized the 30's New York looks). Didn't really connect to any of the characters, but Jack Black's role became easy to hate by the end.