8
votes
Midweek-ish 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.
Recently watched both Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) along with Tuner (2026).
Tuner (2026) - 7.5/10
Watched this last night and I had fun overall. Cinematography was great, sound design was top tier, and the chemistry between cast members was great! I found the story to be extremely predictable though, there were only a few moments where it surprised me a bit. It follows the same basic story template as many other movies like Baby Driver, Drive, etc. That predictability did take away from the movie somewhat but I am not a harsh critter.
** Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) - 6/10 **
Watched this a few days ago. I only really watched it since I had an extra A-list movie ticket and wouldn't have to pay to watch it. Overall, the movie is just fine. I didn't watch season 3 of The Mandalorian and still followed along just fine. Story is nothing special, again it's fairly predictable. I think it would've worked well as just a special short series capping off Mandalorian rather than a separate movie. I don't really have much else to say.
EDIT: I also watched Exit 8 today so I'll include it here :)
Exit 8 (2025) - 7.5/10
A solid movie overall, I enjoyed it more than Mandalorian and Grogu. I think the team did a great job with the story-less source material. The repetitiveness of the scenes actually worked well and I was invested from start to finish.
Backrooms
This was mostly boring. There’s a surface level attempt to make it a metaphor for depression. But it doesn’t really work, it’s so on the nose and none of the characters feel like they matter.
I really think the only part of this that’s entertaining is the last 20 minutes where it becomes a creature feature. Needed that to be the whole film.
Pressure
The story about the weather report that delayed D-Day. Surprisingly entertaining for the subject matter and it makes for surprising tension. It feels like something on PBS, or at least something that will play in schools. But good nontheless. Although a moment came to my head that was “damn maybe Brendan Fraser can’t act.”
I also thought that Pressure was all right. I do think they had a bit too many conflicts and could have been better by focusing more deeply on two or three of them. I also noticed some bad line deliveries from Fraser, which surprised me because I thought he was good in Rental Family. And as someone whose job used to be repairing weather stations, I wish they had actually gone into the meteorology itself at all. But overall, worth watching.
Edit: Brady Haran made a video about the actual D-Day weather map.
Yeah I was a bit surprised when all the meteorology stuff was done through montages of writing on paper, ripping paper, taking phone calls and saying numbers, and then throwing balloons up. Since the whole premise is about that I thought they might explain it.
Spoiler
It would have been a way to add some variety to the conflict as well. Instead of fourteen different interpersonal conflicts, there could have been something outside the characters' control. E.g. have a balloon fail to send data from some critical location due to a mechanical failure or operator error. Then you could make Stagg stand by his predictions in spite of missing some of the data that he complained they weren't collecting at the start.
I understand that they may have been trying to stay relatively historically accurate, so maybe they didn't want to invent a complication that didn't really happen. But it's still interesting to think about how it would have made the story more interesting.
I really liked the first part of Backrooms. I like the director's found footage uploads on Youtube and I liked that liminal, empty space that varies between dull and terrifying, that really scratches an itch I didn't really know I had until I saw his work.
Mild spoilers.
I much preferred that to the last part where everything is suddenly very real, tangible and not left at all to my imagination. I especially disliked when he starts cutting marshmallow out of the people and stabbing them, or whatever, that just didn't chime with the vibe I enjoyed from the backrooms youtube stuff. I certainly thought the movie was overrated, but you really can't produce a blockbuster film that runs on just vibes and hints and suggestions like a youtube series, so it was a very tough project to begin with.Updated calendar view
Does anyone want to talk about:
The Sheep Detectives (2026): ★★☆
I was intrigued by positive reviews. The movie is okay, but I really noticed the made-for-streaming directive of explaining every little plot development out loud.
Toy Story 3 (2010): ★★☆
Catching up before Toy Story 5 comes out. This was okay, but I didn't particularly like the change in setting.
Wedding Crashers (2005): ★☆☆
Tried a comedy, but this didn't land.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017): ★★★
I much preferred this to Civil War from last week. This one also has a large number of characters, but it's a completely different set of characters, and I'm able to keep these ones straight for whatever reason. It's interesting that it's the same "cinematic universe" with completely different characters and an unrelated plot. I suppose I have to keep going to see how they eventually tie together. The opening joke was funny.
Labyrinth (1986): ★☆☆
This was a blast from the past with most characters being practical effect puppets and occasionally really bad green screening. I knew that this was one of Jennifer Connelly's first movies, but I didn't realize just how young she was. She doesn't do a great job of delivering quite a few of her lines. The jokes mostly land, but the premise and story never really sucked me in.
Black Hawk Down (2002): ★★☆
Yeah the Guardians of the Galaxy films are easily the best from the MCU
I watched Over Your Dead Body from Jorma Taccone, starring Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Timothy Olyphant, and Juliette Lewis. Fun little movie with an interesting structure, some over-the-top violence, and all that.