Last movie you watched

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Tomb Raider (2018)

It sucks, I had no joy in watching it.

[Arfguy]

The Disaster Artist. Honestly, I don't know what the hoopla was about. It was competently done and it's kind of crazy watching James Franco play Tommy Wiseau, as he did a great job. The movie, on the other hand, was kind of meh IMO.

[Starter Set]

The Han Solo movie.

Enjoyable enough. But man, that Alden Ehrenreich guy can't catch a break though. He just can't score a clean hit at the box office.

Shame, i like him fine.

[Jim Kelly]

When I flew back from Europe last week, I watched THE DISASTER ARTIST and THE SHAPE OF WATER on the plane.

I knew I would be entertained by THE DISASTER ARTIST, but I didn't expect to be so inspired. I thought it was a powerful work of art--even if it tried to put a pretty bow on the end of the movie.

I had high hopes for THE SHAPE OF WATER and it was a competent movie, but it didn't rise to the level I thought it would. Of course, this might be a case where it's not to the advantage of the movie to watch it on a small screen with bad sound.

I think small budget movies do well on small screens, but big budget movies usually don't.

[Charmed]

I saw Annihilation sometime last week. The scene with that bear-looking thing scared the crap out of me, sure, but the ending scene with the spoilers:

humanoid thing that mirrored Portman's character's movements

end of spoilers freaked me the hell out. She's got a persevering gene that I don't, because I would have just given up.

[DebkoX]

'It'. Far more funny than I think they intended.

[wonderlad]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom -entertaining matinee fare - nothing more than that. Chris Pratt raises it up a notch but feels flimsy compared to the other summer blockbusters (Avengers/Deadpool/Solo).

[Kirby101]

Blade Runner 2049, wanted to like it, unfortunately very boring. Some interesting concepts that weren't handled right.

[ed2962]

Red Sparrow Not bad but kinda meh. J-Law wasn't great as a Russian spy but not terrible. I'd say she was just this side of adequate. Plot was a bit slow moving. Two and half stars

[Red Robe Jaldari]

Taxi 5.

****************

[Kirby101]

Incredibles 2. I agree with others, not as good as the first, but still great fun.

Ghost in the Shell. Visually stunning and good enough adaption, could have been better.


Transformers The Last Knight, stopped watching after 45 minutes (I may return to it). A total mess. Incoherent and chaotic. This is from someone who liked all the previous ones, they were stupid, but loads of fun. I really couldn't follow the plot here (was there one?) I am sharp enough to keep track of all 4 dream zones in Inception, but here I was lost.

[wonderlad]

Nocturnal Animals. The execution of this movie is really good. For a first time director, Tom Ford looked like he had a very steady hand. The look of the movie is so slick. I just...did not understand that ending.

Yes was a great movie. Watched with a friend and remember having to explain the ending to him, but now for the life of me can't remember the details. FYI this was Tom Ford's second directorial after A Single Man.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Ghost in the Shell. Visually stunning and good enough adaption, could have been better.

Agreed. GitS wasn't the train wreck butthurt otaku made it out to be (or maybe hoped it would be). As for everyone who bitched that ScarJo couldn't act, well, if that was the case, then she was in the perfect role since the Major wasn't the emotive type.

[Kirby101]

Agreed. GitS wasn't the train wreck butthurt otaku made it out to be (or maybe hoped it would be). As for everyone who bitched that ScarJo couldn't act, well, if that was the case, then she was in the perfect role since the Major wasn't the emotive type.

I thought ScarJo was good. She was suppose to be unemotive, but when the Dr was apparently killing her, she was very effective. She also moved great. There were times she took on the walk and movements of the anime character.

[Melchior]

Agreed. GitS wasn't the train wreck butthurt otaku made it out to be (or maybe hoped it would be). As for everyone who bitched that ScarJo couldn't act, well, if that was the case, then she was in the perfect role since the Major wasn't the emotive type.

I think I had two major issues with the live-action GitS movie that combine to form what annoys me.

1. They kept lifting scenes directly from the old animated movie, sometimes frame-for-frame. Which came across as a little much since the stories are different. It made the pieces feel shoe-horned in and broke my personal sense of immersion. I think I would have felt better if they had to keep the scenes that they would have made them their own rather than following the old ones so closely.

2. The Major's title. The live-action GitS felt like an origin story with a younger protagonist than the one we get in the various other series. Which is what threw me. In the anime/manga, Kusanagi's title of Major is because she's been around for a while, has plenty of experience, and has earned her team's and commander's respect. She's the Major because she's earned that rank. The live-action Major does not seem that experienced - well trained, yes, but not seasoned yet. She doesn't feel like she deserves to be called "Major" at the point in her life she is in the live-action movie.

Trying to find a good way to put this.... Kusanagi's character in other media has always been the in-control, serious, occasionally introspective, ocassionally silly, professional special forces soldier/hacker. So seeing an early Kusanagi took me a bit to adjust to.... but then they seem to insist that she is still the experienced person as well, especially with the old recreated scenes. I guess one way to put it is that.... if the Major was Batman (and she probably could do a good job as an anime Batman), it feels like the live-action movie meant to be a Batman: Year One movie explaining how the Major proved herself and became comfortable with herself/her body, and half of the movie supports that. The other half has a fully kitted-out Batcave with giant penny and dinosaur, all the bat-vehicles, Gordon already has a bat-signal setup, hoodlums are whispering in terror about the man in the batsuit, special spare suits in the back, etc. Which makes sense for the character, but not at the point in their life that the movie is portraying, and seem to be included only because they seem cool and to appeal to nostalgia from people who have seen parts of the character's later life.

TL;DR - It felt like they were telling character's Origin Story A, who became popular later due to later Story B, and then decided to include scenes from B into A when the narrative of A does not support the character doing that yet.

EDIT: no gripes about Scarlett Johansen's work on the character. I was kinda surprised they didn't handwave the race-swap by saying that the body they put the Major in was like that, and maybe have her in a new body of a different race at the very end. Before we knew what the movie was about, I was theorizing that they were going to explain away ScarJo's body as the Major switching bodies for an assignment (or on vacation renting a body, and who wouldn't want to look like a supermodel on a beach trip?), with a subplot that the assignment got out of hand and she's stuck in an alt body until they can get something more normal for her back.