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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I recently saw the sci-fi classic "War Games" (1983) from my partner's personal movie collection.
Aside from the helicopter chase towards the end of the movie, so much of the film felt so real!
I had heard about phone phreaking as an early hacking method, but never really understood how it might work- it was an incredible plot point!
I could do with the love interest character (played by Ally Sheedy) either being recast as a dog or rewritten to actual have a human personality, though. Which is a problem I have with a number of older sci-fi movies, which leads me to enjoying the genre less than I would like :/
I watched Infinite on Prime the other night and really enjoyed it. A fun and unique action/fantasy movie. To say it's "like The Matrix but with Mark Whalberg as Neo" is accurate, but doesn't lessen my recommendation if you're looking for an escape. I think what sticks with me is that watching it tapped into the same kinds of feelings I remember feeling when watching The Matrix for the first time.
Now I want to go back and watch The Matrix. I'm not sure how well it will hold up, but it's hard to explain how amazing it was when it came out, and how central to our zeitgeist it became in 1999. Probably the difference between growing up with Star Wars as a "classic" and seeing those effects in the theater as an adult for the first time.
I also watched Oblivion on Netflix. (See a pattern?) As a Tom Cruise action vehicle, it was about what you would expect. But it was entertaining and had an interesting premise. I give it a B-
Matrix absolutely holds up. The CGI of the machines is long in the tooth but the action is all top notch since bullet time was just camera tricks instead of CGI.
A while back, I asked for super hero movie recommendations for a noob and received several good ones. That made me look into more of them, but seemingly almost none of them use numbered sequels. I'm hesitant to look them up and expose myself to spoilers. Are there spoiler-free guides or machete order types of resources for the most popular franchises? Thanks!
time to take a shit on Megalopolis (2024)! Just kidding --- I get the hate -- but it wasn't that bad.
I personally felt like it was Coppola doing a blend of Dark City (1999) by Terrence Malick through the eyes of American Fiction (2023) and Cloud Atlas (2012) (maybe.)
Ultimately, I viewed this as Coppola as Shakespeare and the overall production and performances as theatre over film.
Sounds interesting! This may have convinced me to give it a shot
I wish I could pin it down -- but yeah, its neat. I wouldn't be surprised if we see either an official edit or a fanedit to tighten it up a bit, but even as it is, I liked it.
There's one scene about 3/4 through with Driver and Missandei that felt so authentic and natural -- it must have been totally off-script, but was so perfect to balance the overall tone of the film.
Wrath of Man - 8/10
Great, straight-forward action. Didn't expect much since Jason Statham has been in quite a few B movies in recent years if not decade, but the names Guy Ritchie and especially Holt McCallany of Mindhunter fame really caught my attention. No nonsense to see here, just a really solid flick.
holy shit. I think about this movie a lot. Its so honest with what its doing --- like you said, no nonsense.
I like this one a lot. Surprisingly mature film from Ritchie.
We went to the cinema last week and saw The Wild Robot, the latest animated movie from DreamWorks. I realize it's been out awhile and has likely already been discussed here, but we don't go out much. It absolutely blew me away. It's a kids movie featuring an expressionless robot and talking animals but it brought me to tears about halfway through and they didn't stop until we left. For context, I'm a grown man raised by hardass boomer parents and I've seen arguably much sadder and more human movies and crying just isn't something I do. I've been thinking about it every day since.
I saw Mars Express recently and was a huge fan. It's a French animated sci-fi thriller that that is very reminiscent of the original Ghost in the Shell but has it's own very unique world-building. The animation and general art design are fantastic.
Trailer
This spurred me to check out all of Jérémie Périn's other work and I've been blasting through his series Lastman which is also great and immensely entertaining. Not sure how I missed it for so many years as a huge fan of animation.