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Movie Monday Free Talk
Tilderinos, have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any movies that you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers as you can.
Not a new movie, but I finally managed to get my hands on the despecialized version of the original Star Wars. Last night, for the first time in decades, I got to watch the movie of my childhood unblemished by 90s George Lucas.
I love the Star Wars restoration / fanedit scene. Fanedits saved the prequels.
The work that has gone into these restorations is unbelievable. If you can, get the rest of the OT despecialized.
Oh man, that sounds awesome. How did you manage that?
I was having massive troubles with the official instructions, couldn't get all the files, and then a random google search turned up a forum post where someone had taken just the english language track, glued it to the video, and posted the 2GB file (the full version is over 20GB with tons of languages and subtitles), so I immediately downloaded the link. It was taken down a few minutes after I got it.
If Disney made a blu-ray of the original film, I would totally buy it. I grew up with that movie, and the special edition is an insult to its existence.
Damn, that was really lucky. I know I have searched for a clean version online a few times to no avail. The worst offender of the special editions in my opinion is Return of the Jedi with the whole CGI bar scene. It is just heinous. It drives me crazy that they do not have the originals available in any legal format.
Another one I have on my list to take some time to watch is the Phantom Edit for episode 1.
I've finished Jonas Mekas's As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, it's a 5 hours long montage of his personal films, featuring mostly his wife, kids and life in New York. It's a bit long but thankfully someone cut out the best part for you and put it on youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR0cIUrRyXo
Overall I liked it more that I expected, I watched one or two chapters (there's like 14) each evening. I found that less dumb than watching the umpteenth TV show, and it's a great daydreaming device, you can think of something else and not miss much, since nothing is happening in this movie.
It's probably the most positive and happy piece of media I saw, and while uplifting as times it also depressed me a tad, since this guy had a much better life than I do.
I saw Frozen 2 yesterday and it was phenomenal. I actually teared up a few times. The comedic elements and music were great too.
There was an underlying theme of intolerance and fear of things/people we don't understand and what kinds of long lasting negative consequences can stem from those fears. In that way, I think the story is extremely relevant for some of the things that are currently happening in the US. Namely, a general fear/intolerance of immigrants and people with non-christian religious beliefs. I feel like these fears are driving Americans apart inside the country and potentially preventing us from better working with our allies to fix some of the issues that are causing people to flee their countries in the first place.
These fears are surely a product of our past and present and will continue to shape our future as well. We need to make an effort to see each other as fellow humans and we need to try to stop viewing issues through the lens of us v them. We're all in this together. Easier said than done, I know.
As a kid who grew up in the 90s, I think I had a pretty similar upbringing as far as movie watching as most kids where we had a VHS player, a stack of Disney movies, and several VHS tapes of recorded shows and movies to watch. I have a lot of fond memories watching some of those recorded tapes. My three favorites I remember growing up were Surf Ninjas, the 1977 cartoon version of The Hobbit, and the 1971 movie The Point.
I think all three of these really helped define my tastes a lot in how much I like campy and surreal movies.
The Point is probably the least well known of the three and is a very strange musical cartoon narrated by Ringo Starr about a boy who is kicked out of his village for not having a pointy head. I would say about half the movie is just trippy visuals and songs by Harry Nilsson. Here is a great example of one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guqFqcV4Po0.
I went with my family to see The Good Liar recently. I thought it was okay. The acting by Ian McKellen and Hellen Mirren was solid, but I felt that the story was fairly predictable.
Spoilers
It seemed pretty obvious from the get go that Ian's character was the one who was really getting scammed throughout the whole process. I was hoping to see a bit more intrigue between the Ian and Hellen going back and forth as the movie progressed, but the characters seemed fairly one-dimensional until the twist at the end.
I also thought the final shot of Ian's character paralyzed and unable to speak / eat / drink was really over the top. I get he was a horrible character / person, but as someone who just literally watched their grandfather wither away over the past few months looking virtually the same as Ian, it was an just unexpected gut punch that detracted from the movie for me
I really want to see Knives Out over the Thanksgiving holidays. The cast just looks top notch and the trailer showing Daniel Craig's over-the-top accent seems hilarious. I also just love mystery movies like this and from what I have seen so far it reminds me of a modern Clue almost.
Trailer here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGqiHJTsRkQ