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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.
Trailers are too long. I watch a trailer, I watched the whole movie. I can fill in the gaps.
I love when they keep the trailers very short. I prefer when they actually show a single scene rather than a long mix of many scenes.
Take Marty Supreme for example. Another thread is talking about how well this movie is doing. So I go watch the trailer and it gives so much away that I don’t feel like watching the movie anymore.
I started Red Cliff (2008) but turned it off simply because… i just don’t like epics like that. Even this last round of Lord of the Rings, I found myself being all ‘ugh… get on with it’ during the battle scenes.
i just prefer slow cinema these days.
it looks like i’m on to Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the late 50s. I’m not one for horror or anything, but i figure it can’t be too spooky. i’ve only seen a handful of scary movies, but mostly funny ones like Drag me to Hell, House of Wax etc.
If you want to dip your toes into some more slow-burn horror (I know you said you're not one for horror, but slow-burn horror is easily my favorite thing to watch so I can't help myself), a lesser-known one that I recommend is The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015), and another good even lesser lesser-known one is Pyewacket (2017).
wicked! thanks. it’s such a massive but neglected genre for me.
I have never had much interests in the 80s slasher series, but I wanted to at least familiarize myself with the big franchises, so I have seen A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th Part 2.
Honestly didn't expect A Nightmare on Elm Street to be so good and enjoyable as it was. First of all it looks fantastic. Clearly high production value and good cinematography. The gritty rough look can work too, but in this case it really helped the film to not look overly cheap. As the story is built around an effective blend of dream and reality, it is vital that those scene look convincing, and they nail it. Every dream sequence feels unique and well executed. There is a level of creativity I didn't expect. I was completely taken aback by the full on Exorcist mode, that sealed this film in the "Why haven't I seen this before now?"-category.
A few things doesn't work that well, like the ending is weird and off-tone compared to the rest, and the acting can sometimes be clunky. But what an absolute classic! I know the rest of the series probably doesn't have quite the same quality, but I still want to see the rest now.
For Friday the 13th Part 2 maybe I shouldn't have watched this was immediately after Nightmare on Elm Street, as the drop in quality and entertainment was massive. Yes, different franchises that does different things, and maybe Part 2 isn't the best place to start, but it was what I had available. On the positive side, this seems very honest in what its goals and ambitions are. Show some kills and some half-naked/naked teenagers. It doesn't try to be more than that, which is fine. I just found it to be very slow going, none of the characters are particular interesting so you don't really care when they get killed off, and the kills aren't that creative. I did appreciate the more "human" part of Jason as a character. He doesn't act supernatural just yet at least.
I haven’t seen Part 2, but I remember watching the first Friday the 13th after watching Nightmare on Elm Street and being like “what?” With how iconic the franchise it is I thought it would be good but it’s really bad. From the three movies of the franchise I’ve seen, the 2010 reboot produced by Michael Bay is better.
I'm interested in the new Avengers movie that comes out late this year, but I'm hopelessly behind on Marvel as a series and would like to "catch up" enough in time to see the next movie. Could someone please help me understand which movies I should watch?
IIRC, there are four movies in the Avengers: Subtitle sequence, of which I've only seen the one just called Avengers (2012). I'd need to see Age of Ultron (2015), Infinity War (2018), and Endgame (2019) to complete the main sequence. But I also know that there are like 20 other Marvel movies that tie into each other. Are there any others that are basically required viewing to follow the overarching plot besides the main sequence movies? Are there any that aren't required, but are obvious "while you're at it, definitely watch this one too" just because they're particularly good?
Sorry if this is easy to look up, but I'm worried about spoilers and figured I'd ask here first. Thanks!
I don't feel there's a quick way to really catch up in that sense. As unsatisfying as it is to answer your question this way.. you cannot really catch up easily. It's not like every movie in the series is going to matter, but having only seen the teasers for Doomsday, there is so much background information that will be meaningless if you go into it having only watched a few movies like the actual Avengers movies. It comes out in nearly a year so I'd just say that if you do like superhero movies, just start from the very beginning. You don't have to watch everything but there's really no way to know what would be relevant.
Starting from, say, the latest phase of movies would probably feel really unsatisfying too. It's a great question though and hope someone else has another/better take than me. Like, there's gotta be nearly no new fans to the franchise at this stage. The entire audience is probably built in from years of movies and shows? It's overwhelming!
There’s definitely a way to catch up “quickly” which is still watching like 40 hours of content. But the full experience is gonna take some time especially with the Fox X-Men taking up such a big portion of Doomsday.
The thing is, between Iron Man 1 and Endgame, there was no overarching plot outside of several post credits scenes. The movies were worth watching for their entertainment value & the interactions between all of the various characters. If I had to make a list of MCU movies I enjoyed watching & would rewatch, it would be this:
Iron Man (May 2, 2008)
Captain America: The First Avenger (July 22, 2011)
Marvel’s The First Avengers (May 4, 2012)
Iron Man 3 (May 3, 2013)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (August 1, 2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1, 2015)
Ant-Man (July 17, 2015)
Captain America: Civil War (May 6, 2016)
Doctor Strange (November 4, 2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5, 2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7, 2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (November 3, 2017)
Black Panther (February 16, 2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (April 27, 2018)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6, 2018)
Captain Marvel (March 8, 2019)
Avengers: Endgame (April 26, 2019)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2, 2019)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3, 2021)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (December 17, 2021)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6, 2021)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5, 2023)
Thunderbolts (May 2, 2025)
Bare bones to understand the MCU imo:
Iron Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Captain America: Civil War
Thor: Ragnarok
Avengers: Infinity War
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Endgame
Afterwards it gets a bit muddy. Really only think Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four: The First Steps are likely to be the only things you need to understand Doomsday. In order to understand Thunderbolts: Black Widow and The Falcon and the Winter Solider are probably the only ones that are necessary.
Loki might also be necessary and if you’re gonna watch Loki you might as well watch Deadpool and Wolverine.
Give it a few months (if they don't exist already) and someone will post a YouTube video with a "how to catch up" or a "plot summaries for everything you missed" and you can decide to watch just what you want to watch and speed catch up on the rest.
are you wanting to watch full films or would you settle for a few fanedits that combine things?
I'd prefer to actually watch the movies themselves if possible. I'm worried about spoilers if I venture into fan sites and YouTube, etc.
So I haven't been to a theater since...2021? Think I saw The Matrix Resurrections (unfortunately).
Anyway, last week, I came across a trailer on YouTube for Kokuho. Idek why the algorithm popped it up for me. It kinda reminded me of Memoirs of a Geisha which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then I saw they were doing a limited one night run in the US. Luckily there was a single theater here in DC that was showing it, so I bought a ticket for tonight.
And damn, what a movie. I'm no film buff; I rarely watch movies in the first place. Either way, I was enraptured by the end. The thing that was most interesting to me was the times I wasn't sure where something was going. And I almost wonder if that was intended or a cultural difference, being a Japanese film and me being a westerner. Like what I was seeing on screen made me think "No...he's not going to...Is he? No way..." And then it didn't happen. But I feel like if I was watching a typical American movie, I don't think my expectations would've been subverted.
Either way, that was a great movie for my return to the movie theater. I definitely need to start doing that at least once a quarter or something.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
What I loved about the first 28 Years Later is that it felt like a domestic drama with a post-apocalyptic background. I also think the iPhone cinematography gave it a cool visual style. This has more of a studio polish (not as striking) and the story is sillier and dumber. It kind of feels like Garland had a strong vision for what the first movie would be but a weaker one for the sequel.