Still works. Movie was great. Ned was kinda annoying, but makes sense. Agreed on Vulture being a fantastic villain, almost DC level good. Tom Holland has a future in the MCU(/Sony now, I guess).
Valerian: This is on par with Avatar or Guardians of the Galaxy for sheer space eye candy. The characters are kind of wooden, and the casting of Valerian was questionable, but it was an awesome sci-fi epic. I would call it similar to the 5th Element. The music was fairly bleh, and the plot was appreciably more complex than the standard sci-fi fare, although not by much. I would recommend it out of pure spectacle and Luc Besson unleashed. Some of the scenes take a trope, like an "alien marketplace" and flip them on their head, and it's worth watching just for that. Also, dunno why Dane DeHaan uses a Lego Batman voice the whole film, but it started to feel ridiculous.
Dunkirk Absolutely fantastic. Christopher Nolan has yet to make a dud, and that trend continues. The script is tightly focused, and the direction and cinematography follow suit. While it is a British film to begin with, I did like that they made zero effort to pander to an American audience. It is a fundamentally British moment in history (and to a lesser extent French, Belgian and Dutch), and the movie reflects that. The action is intense and riveting; in some aspects succeeding in placing the viewer into actual battle to a degree greater than even Saving Private Ryan. A top 10 war movie of all time in my opinion. 9/10 Note: Something I wish I'd known going in, that didn't quite grasp until later in the movie: the narrative is split into three parts, each of which takes place over a different period of time. They are: The Mole (aka the beach jetty): 1 week The Channel: 1 day The Air: 1 hour
IT I got to see it at a screening in town last night. It was really good and goes without saying that it's far better than the original miniseries from the 90s. It definitely took some queues from Stranger Things (including hiring one of the actors), but that was a net positive. I was hoping the film was going to dive deeper into the over-arching mythology of Pennywise/Bob Gray like the book but it didn't. The movie was genuinely scary and will probably be an instant horror classic. I think I still like Tim Curry's portrayal of Pennywise more, but this version was good in its own right and took the character in a different direction. It was gorier than I was expecting, especially the Georgie scene. My own complaint is that it relies too heavily on jump scares. Overall, it was pretty good and worth seeing. 8/10
IT (Part I: The Gang Of Losers) I was pleasantly surprised. Considering the director's previous effort was the overrated crap "Mama", this was good and appropriately nasty in the right moments. A decent job by Cheekbones Skaargaard as Pennywise (his image is drawn exactly as discribed in the novel) however Curry's performance is pop culture folklore now. King should be very pleased how they handle the kids and the coming-of-age backdrop. To King that sort of thing is the most important aspect of his stories and it serves as a great anchor for the lulls. I wish it had more atmosphere than shocks, but it has genuine horror moments nonetheless (even though clowns don't scare me) and it's a thrill seeing the film shot in a town I visit four times a year (Port Hope). I'm glad the film is doing well so the sequel will be shot soon. I thought they had already shot it. 8/10
Blade Runner 2049 Got a press pass from a friend of mine and saw it last night. Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies ever and its one of the few things I'll completely nerd out over. I wasnt sure if it deserved a sequel or not, the first movie is pretty self-contained. So I went into this barely watching any promo footage, spoilers, etc aside from a few trailers with a cautious optimism. It really blew away my expectations and it it much better than I think anyone expected it to be. Harrison Ford has reprised his signature characters but I never expected Rick Deckard to be one of them. However, I think he was great in this. I was concerned he was just going to phone it in, but its probably one of his better performances over the past 10 years, including Force Awakens. Maybe it was that he got to play the character in a completely different way than just throwing on a Fedora and picking up a whip, but he was great. Ryan Gosling was also really good and was a perfect choice for a Blade Runner. Jared Leto was better than he was in Suicide Squad, but I still think he's overrated. I'm going to avoid talking about the plot because mentioning it a little bit will spoil it and I'll return to it when others here have seen it. My only complaint is that it was about 30 minutes too long at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Is it better than the original? It honestly might be. Im going to see it again to properly digest it. As for cinematography and sound, the futuristic world isnt as "gritty" as the original, but its a cinematic experience and one of the most beautifully shot movies I've ever seen. Seriously. Denis Villeneuve has made a lot of great movies, but this is his magnum opus. If he doesnt win multiple Oscars for this I will be shocked. Its currently clocking in at 94% at RT which is amazing. Overall though, well worth seeing it in theaters and an instant classic. 9.5/10
The Dark Tower Had none of the soul or mystery of the novels. Reworked the story and tried to cram the entire thing into 90 minutes. Left out huge numbers of characters and plot points. Worst book adaptation since Ender's Game. 2/10
I’m of the mindset that they should just never make King books into movies unless he writes a book specifically designed to be a movie. The amount of detail he writes can never be done justice.
Two Netflix originals: The Babysitter Fast-moving and very fun comedy-reverse slasher film about shy, likeable tween (Judah Lewis) smitten with his perfect dreamboat babysitter/best friend (knockout Aussie model Samara Weaving) who after spying on her one night finds out she’s fronting a bloodthirsty cult. Frantic and never boring, first reel starts as a likeable coming-of-age comedy and suddenly morphs into hilariously gruesome home invasion slasher flick. Also watch for the hottest lesbian kiss in history. All characters are fun and likeable, writing is snappy and like Scream takes fun jabs at horror films and their tropes, and provides a shockingly emotional climax considering the trappings. The two leads have perfect chemistry and fantastic performances, and have “future star” written all over them. More fun than most theatre-run films you’ll see this year. The best work ever done by McG, I’ll say that. 8/10 Death Note Americanization of notorious Manga cartoon will probably disapoint it’s fans considering this is a very meh film dressed in such potential but it can’t click. Fantastic soundtrack is drenched with Atticus Ross’ hypnotic music score and performances are quite good, but the film essentially goes nowhere with low tension and atmosphere, it never lets us know what makes its characters tick like its source material and flat-out has no ending. Another thing: why do they never give the viewers an actual good look at Ryuk even once? Was the director trying to be clever with this unnecessary touch? 4.5/10
Blade Runner 2049 I haven't been to the theater since The Force Awakens, and I'm going to again be in the minority because I didn't think this was actually very good. The movie runs for almost 3 hours and it's a lot of nothing happening. Was it really necessary to have that many scenes of K with his hologram girlfriend? Although those parts dragged the real problem was a total lack of interesting characters. I never really cared about the protagonist, and aside from maybe Deckard and the ever so pleasant hologram lady there really isn't any delving into any of the others. It doesn't have the philosophical intrigue of the original, doesn't have the same suspense, or gritty feel that so perfectly set the tone for the first film. I don't get how people could say this was as good as the original. Just not seeing that at all. On the more positive side, while they don't really pull it off they did at least try to give the film that dark/gritty feel reminiscent of the original. Most of the shots and production value were well done. Other than that, it was a very mediocre movie and a disappointment after so much hype. No wonder Hollywood is struggling if this is really the best movie of the year so far. 6/10
I've seen it twice now and I was able to digest it better on the second viewing. It was definitely more grandiose than the first one, to be sure. And some elements did not need to included, particularly the replicant revolutionary group. I thought that aspect was unnecessary and underwritten. And I wasnt a huge fan of Robin Wright's character. She wasnt the crusty old slob that Bryant was in the original. And I agree, I would have liked to have seen gritty, future LA more than irradiated Las Vegas or junkyard San Diego. Spoiler But the philosophical elements are definitely there, just more subtle. K was a replicant that wanted to be human and pantomimed it throughout the movie. Hes working at a job hunting his own, hes in a relationship with an AI who is programmed to love him, etc. At the end, he wasnt the child of Rachel and Deckard, but it didnt matter. He sacrificed himself for her which made him human. And the last scene hit that irony home. Deckard's daughter is real, but can only experience the simulated snow. K experienced the real thing outside at the same time. It really didnt matter that he was a replicant. And theres a bunch of subtle parallels to Greek gods if you really want dive deep and tie the two movies together. Im glad it wasnt too closely related to the original. The original was 75% Deckard being a Blade Runner and hunting down the replicants. He didnt start having a change of heart until his battle with Roy. In 2049 it kicks off from the beginning.
Yeah, the philosophical stuff is there, it's just wasn't done in as interesting of a way to me. Also, the hologram stuff - I mean, it was like an hour of the movie. You could have accomplished the same thing in 10-15 minutes of scenes in my opinion. I felt like the movie hinged on the main character, and he was just really dull. Subtle is fine, but it was too subtle. Nothing against Gosling, I think that was what the movie called for, I just prefer to see a protagonist with a little more life in them. Maybe it was just me though because a lot of fans loved it. I will say that the movie definitely deserves oscars for the cinematography and score. Spoiler: spoilers The rebellion thing was really lame to me. I hope this shit doesn't go hunger games in subsequent installments. Ugh.
Not recent . . . but, I came across a movie I was not familiar with called Jumper. Directed by Doug Liman, and has a pretty sweet cast. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/ The trailer looks interesting. I don't remember this at all. It made about $80 mm and was #1 the weekend it opened. Has anybody seen this?
I saw it, at least a few years ago. I believe it's the only movie I've seen with Hayden Christiansen (sp?) besides the prequels. He was better in this and it wasn't a bad movie. I don't really have much memory of it beyond a general recollection. If you care enough about to ask about it here I would say it's worth a watch.
Personally I thought that movie sucked HPV-festooned cocks. Lurid, expensive garbage in my eyes but we like what we like. I liked Crash and people hate me for it.
I liked the movie, but then I saw it on HBO and did not buy a ticket for it. I was impressed that they filmed it in something like 26 locations around the world. What you see onscreen they actually went to and shot it. No green screen and no studios.
Split Probably one of M. Night Shaymalan's better movies in years. Its about a guy with multiple personalities that conflict with each other and he ends up taking people captive and they spend the movie trying to escape his more violent personalities. In act 3, his most violent one gains control of his body. Overall, it wasnt bad and the acting by James McAvoy was pretty good. The rest of the cast kind of sucked. The story was a bit too far fetched for believability, but the Shyamalan twist at the end really brought it home: Spoiler Bruce Willis shows up in the last scene and its revealed that the movie is a direct sequel to Unbreakable, and is essentially a villain origin story. I never saw that coming and it was really clever. I hope he makes a third one to see where this goes. Overall, wasnt amazing but wasnt bad either. I liked it. 7/10.
McCavoy made this a good movie. I found the “twists” to be completely underwhelming nothingburgers..... Until the last line of the movie. His next film is Glass, which will combine the cast (espeially villains) of Unbreakable and Split for a trilogy conclusion. Unbreakable is my favourite Shayamalan film.