Midweek Movie Free Talk

I've been watching through the Thin Man movies, a 1934 detective film and its five sequels. They're entertaining, and I find the chemistry between the main couple pretty delightful.

I grew up watching Looney Tunes, and it's always surreal to accidentally run into the original source material for one of the jokes & references that I've seen a hundred times. Like watching Casablanca for the first time as an adult and seeing Peter Lorre.

The Thin Man is full of these, and it's weird to feel almost nostalgic for a film I've never watched before.

So I actually saw The Flash. I had planned on seeing it anyway and my mom wanted to watch it (she’s in love with Michael Keaton).

I thought, generally, that it was a fun time. But it’s just hideous. It’s actually kind of uncomfortable how ugly it looked. And I don’t just mean the CGI although that’s definitely part of it. There was just something so incredibly off putting about the cinematography.

In a way I feel bad for Keaton. He was brought back as Batman for this? I know he was going to be the main universe’s Batman but still. If this was how they were gonna do it I’m not confident any of the subsequent movies (including the now canceled Batman Beyond with Keaton) would have been any good.

I finally got around to watching the Spiderverse movie. It was so good.

Plot wise, it was pretty okay and not anything that hasn't been done before. But it was well executed and in general was hilarious. I laughed a lot.

But their main strength has always been the art direction and that was beautiful. I was constantly trying to keep up with the different art styles and animation and appreciating how they did them and trying to spot all the little details.

The style for the credits was beautiful. It's the kind of art style I wish I could paint like anyway.

I was very tired by the end of the movie. I want to re-watch the movie, but not in theaters. I want to be able to watch it at home and pause it whenever I want to.

Also according to Wikipedia, it's the longest animated film created by an animation studio at 140 minutes of run time. It didn't feel long.

I've seen some people online dismissing the movie because it's a popular mainstream superhero movie. I like animation and there are non mainstream things I like too. But I get a bit sad seeing those comments, because just because it's mainstream doesn't mean it can't be good and well done. And all that insane amount of effort that went into making the movie shouldn't be diminished.

Saw The Flash a few days ago. It was entertaining. It's a shame that Ezra surrounds himself with drama because he actually has some chops. Or, perhaps my bias of him is based off my reddit experience. Anyway, the story is what you'd expect but Keaton helps the movie a lot. It's relatively well-paced and it has fan service if you're into that. If you're a DC dude, you'll find reasons to like it and appreciate it. As someone who is fatigued from super hero movies, I could have lived without seeing it but I didn't hate it either. It's a B in my book. Definitely better than the movie where Wolverine goes to Japan.

I don't watch a huge amount of movies (I'm more a book guy, and am busy with law school and other commitments), but I recently saw Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and really enjoyed it.

As one who graduated with a degree in journalism, it was a neat callback overall; however, as an occasional stagehand, the "theatrical" nature of Wes Anderson really stood out, especially in the scenes where a live set change occurred on camera, just like in a live performance (to say nothing of the generally-planar Wes Anderson style).

Saw spiderverse at the cinema and i am so so so glad i did, if you are a fan of the first one even slightly then id highly recommend going to see the new one whilst its still on the big screen. The colours popped like crazy in the cinema and it was such a unique experience

Had a couple flights. Watched some random stuff because of it.

Bros 8/10
Very funny. I do like Billy Eichner already, and thought he was great, but understand some people find him grating. Anyway, I liked the other lead. Had some cringy jokes but overall great.

Couples Retreat 1/10
Put this on to fall asleep, and unfortunately didn't. I don't think I laughed once. Bad chemistry in every couple, and the end was wrapped up in such a nice happy bow, it made the entire movie feel pointless. Even after 2 couples realize they shouldn't be together they all end up reconciling, and in reality that's just not actually a happy ending.

Dumbo 2019 5/10
Takes an original story and makes it a boring, by the books affair. I feel like the entire story was changed so much to the point it's even hard to call it a remake. A typical Disney broken family subplot, and a generic villain who acts like a good guy even though he's clearly evil bring down a movie about a flying elephant, and that should be hard to do.

Mary Poppins Returns 2/10
I think I liked the original when I was younger, but this to me was hot, hot garbage. I thought the songs were terrible, Lin Manuel Miranda's accent was grating, the kids were annoying. Practically nothing good here.

Strange World 6/10
Thought this was fun enough. The kid was annoying, and the plot was unoriginal, but the world looked great and I was always excited to see what was coming up next.

Werewolves Within 4/10
Expected more of a funny mystery movie, I guess I was thinking like Clue, but it wanted so badly be a quirky comedy, it fails to make you invested in the characters or over all mystery in favor of unfunny jokes.

I watched Extraction 2. It reminded me a lot of Extraction. The action sequences were very well done - the story was not particularly interesting (they did another extraction). They are clearly setting up a franchise, and it's clearly just trying to cash in on the success of John Wick. The one scene was incredible - I would guess that it was upwards of 15 minutes in what felt like a single take, and it was intense. Chris Hemsworth managed to Hemsworth his way through the whole movie, which is generally sufficient for me in terms of action. If you want to watch a movie where a guy with a gun and a knife extracts someone from a place and kills a lot of people while doing so, then this has you covered.

I am really hyped for the new Barbie movie. Looks like a great cast, possibly a good story line, and anyone who majorly riffs on 2001: A Space Odyssey to market a Barbie movie has my attention.

Something quick I just wanted to bring up, which I thought was interesting/funny, was that Oppenheimer is releasing in Korea on their National Day of Liberation. Like it was purposefully scheduled to come out a month later for that purpose. For those that don't know, this is the date they celebrate their liberation from Japanese rule.

Someone on the boxoffice sub had mentioned it a while ago. That got me thinking, is Oppenheimer seen as kind of a hero to them or something? The user also mentioned (I assume they were Korean because of how specific they were about the culture) but that if the movie portrayed the Japanese as victims it would likely not do well in Korea. Word of mouth would get around that that was the case and the legs would be terrible.

Just watched Beau Is Afraid (2023). I liked it, but not so much. 3.5/5.

I guess I'm used to weird movies so this didn't surprised me, but there were a lot of funny and sad scenes.

It did well what it was supposed to do.