What was the last movie you watched?

[Edward J Grug III]

And then once someone makes a mildly funny joke, it’s seen as if the cruelest thing in the world has just occurred, and people start crying and yelling.

Isn't that the whole point of Emma? Assuming you are referring to the incident where she has her big realization?

I was thinking of seeing it this weekend, but haven't checked up on reviews for it yet.

[Edward J Grug III]

And then once someone makes a mildly funny joke, it’s seen as if the cruelest thing in the world has just occurred, and people start crying and yelling.

Isn't that the whole point of Emma? Assuming you are referring to the incident where she has her big realization?

I was thinking of seeing it this weekend, but haven't checked up on reviews for it yet.

I quite enjoyed reading this on Emma: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/movies/emma-jane-austen.html

[Darth Geek]

Anna And The Apocalypse (2017) - I was underwhelmed by this. It's not bad, but I was expecting a lot more from it. Fortunately it only takes about half an hour to get to the zombie stuff. But before that I didn't really care about the high school drama stuff. The makeup effects are almost all practical and really well done. I just didn't find the characters that interesting. Except Steph, who was great, and I wish the movie had just been about her. And Nick was annoying as hell and I hated him, even after his backstory that is supposed to make him sympathetic. The songs are just okay at best, and don't seem to really add much to the movie. There are long stretches without songs and you don't miss them.

[ScottotD]

Went to see Emma. Boo. Barely funny at all. And then once someone makes a mildly funny joke, it’s seen as if the cruelest thing in the world has just occurred, and people start crying and yelling.

Plus, I highly doubt that this movie passes the Bechdel test. All women in this film are either annoying (the main character trait of the vast majority of them), stupid with no opinions of their own, or manipulative.  I’d give this film a pass if I were you.

Take that Jane Austen!

[stethacantus]

Shadow ( 2008 )
I was initially unimpressed with Well Go.  They were one of the video labels who released the Shaw Brothers films, and picked the weakest selection of films to license.  And their releases were initially letterboxed instead of anamorphic. But then they got better. I'm guessing they realized if they were going to specialize in  Asian action films, they better hire someone there who knew something about Asian cinema. Today they are a worthy successor to Dragon Dynasty. In fact, a lot of the recent martial arts films I purchased came from Well Go. Unfortunately, they are currently no longer releasing Shaw Brothers films. But they are releasing current day classics, such as Zhang Yimou's Shadow.


I don't really want to get into the plot, as there are a lot of spoilers. But the description on the DVD box or next to any streaming video release, as well as the trailer, gives this one spoiler away. The plot involves a general, who after being wounded during a one-on-one duel to determine which kingdom would rule a city each had claimed, has himself replaced with a look-a-like. His shadow, who will take his place while he hides in a cave. There is an intricate plot for the general to use his shadow to conquer the city he lost in that duel, even though his emperor insists  have peace with the rival kingdom. This is one of those films where there are a lot of twists, especially when the motives of some characters are suddenly reveled. This is the strong point of the film. It's weak point is the action. There is very little. But when the action scene finally happens, it is pretty impressive. Visually, Zhang chose to deliberately mute the colors so that it practically looks like a black and white film. Only the skin tones of the characters gives have any color.  This comes off more like a gimmick than an artistic statement. Still, in balance I can understand why this film is regarded as a modern classic. 


Thor: Ragnarok ( 2017 )
Well, now that I have all of the DCEU films released on home video,  I am finally getting around to the recent MCU films  ( 2017 -2019 ), starting where I last left off, which was SONY's Spiderman: Homecoming. That's right, I haven't seen an MCU since then. Did watch the various MCU television series. It's a good thing Marvel pretends those shows take place on another planet, because none of them spoiled anything from the MCU films. ( The first season of Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. did spoil something from the second Captain America film, but since then they stopped trying to tie into plot points from the MCU.  Ragnarok was another MCU triumph, even with the change in tone from previous Thor films. But maybe they should leave the comedy to the Guardians of the Galaxy films. ( Or perhaps an MCU Howard the Duck film? One can only hope. )

College Swing ( 1938 )
Another week of reruns for SNL. And I just happened to have another unwatched film in my library, and unfortunately I was able to find it. About a year ago I bought The Big Broadcast of 1938 because it was one of the WC Fields films, and I was closing in on owning every WC Fields film released on DVD. But it was only available as part of a two film set from the Bob Hope Tribute Collection. So, I had a second film I didn't want. Basically, these are the first two feature films Bob Hope was in. But only as a co-star. The Big Broadcast of 1938 credited WC Fields and Martha Raye as the stars, while College Swing is a Burns & Allen film. And a very bad Burns & Allan film at that. There is hardly a plot. Most of the film is set pieces for the dozens of guest stars to perform. Which I am guessing is the whole point of this potboiler, just a setup so that various guest stars and even top billed stars only need to shoot a few minutes of footage, and then move onto the next set to shoot a scene in a different potboiler. But what's worse, while Burns & Allen are credited as the stars, the studio didn't even bother to provide them with a script where they acted as a team.  The film begins in 1738 in a one-room college where Gracie Allen plays the only student unable to graduate, basically for being stupid. A bet is made that if Gracie, or any of her female decedents, are able to pass the final exam within 200 years, that woman would inherit the college. Of course, Gracie passes the stupid gene down from daughter to daughter, so that by 1938 her great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter ( still played by Gracie Allen ) is just as stupid as she was, and none of the women in the family has been able to pass the final exam. It is coming up upon the 200 year deadline, so Gracie hires a manager ( Bob Hope ) to help her pass the test. But once realizing how helpless she is, steals the answer key and helps her cheat. George Burns plays the administrator who gives Gracie the oral test, and is barely in the film. Once Gracie inherits the college ( which by the 1930s has grown to a large campus ) she begins to go on a hiring spree of wacky professors, each as an excuse for guest stars to either sing or perform a brief comedy routine.  No one here seems to be delivering their best material, and the original songs are forgettable, the lone exception being Moments Like This which went on to be a pop standard covered by a lot of recording artists over the years and has been used in many other films since College Swing.  But pretty much, this film was a waste of my time.

[Variety of Cells]

And then once someone makes a mildly funny joke, it’s seen as if the cruelest thing in the world has just occurred, and people start crying and yelling.

Isn't that the whole point of Emma? Assuming you are referring to the incident where she has her big realization?

I was thinking of seeing it this weekend, but haven't checked up on reviews for it yet.

I quite enjoyed reading this on Emma: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/movies/emma-jane-austen.html

It's a good read, and that all sounds good on paper.  I do like the idea of a main character who isn't likeable.  But if that's going to be the case, then they should at least be entertaining.  Which is why I was so surprised that once Emma finally says something half ways amusing, the movie stops to try and immediately correct that behavior.  How dare the audience be entertained by a joke! 

It's not a terrible film.  The actress who plays Emma does a good job I guess.  But the supporting characters are stuck in this in between state.  They are flat, predictable, and goofy.  But not so goofy or cartoonish to be amusing.  There is a fine line between making characters annoying to the cast while being amusing to the audience, and I do not feel this movie won that fight.

But my opinion is obviously not everyone's.  The primarily 60+ audience I saw the film with were having a grand old time.  Interested to hear your opinions if you do see it.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Just watched Knives Out.

That might be the best detective/mystery movie I've ever seen.  The plot is right up there with the best Agatha Christie stories, the acting is top notch, and great cinematography.

[Russoguru]

I got Knives out for my mom and dad the other day. I can't wait for them to see it. My mom has always had a huge affinity for murder mysteries.

Gymkata - This movie is... good actually. Some of it was silly(okay, more than some), but I don't think I can quite call it an incoherent mess. I think bizarre would be a fitting word to describe Gymkata. It at the very least is interesting and fun to watch. At times the lead reminds me of Richard Dean Anderson during his Macgyver years. Also, there's this Mel Brooks-looking mofo in there too.

[CJones]

Hidden Figures. Pretty decent. I'd be curious to know how much of this is accurate.

For those who don't know, this is about NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who died a few days ago, and who was instrumental in calculating trajectories for NASA's manned space missions. Most notably John Glenn's first time orbiting the Earth. The story about Glenn insisting that she double check the computer's numbers definitely did really happen, but in the movie, it's suggested that the computer gives two different results when given the same data, and therefore at least one of them is wrong. In real life I think it was more that they just didn't trust these new-fangled computers.

I wonder if the business about the segregated restrooms was true. You'd think NASA of all places would be more progressive than that.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Hidden Figures. Pretty decent. I'd be curious to know how much of this is accurate.

I looked it all up when the movie came out so can't remember it all, but just about everything that happens in the movie did happen in real life, but the movie compresses the timeline a lot.  Some of those ladies worked at different times and were not all together like in the movie.  So you've got to stretch the NASA events out to over something like 10 or 15 years.

The bathroom scene was made up, in real life she refused to walk the extra distance and went to the white restroom.

[Darth Geek]

Cat's Eye (1985) - Wow this suuuuucked! The only segment with any redeeming value was the last one. And that was mostly just boring except for the cool troll creature. I did like the troll design, except there is no reason for it to be wearing a type of court jester hat.

[Johnny Unusual]

Missing Link

I found this one to be really disappointing.  Not bad but not that good either.  It has a good message, the animation is top notch and the story is not bad.  The main problem comes down to the characters: I just think they didn't click into place properly.  Zach Galifinakis' Susan the Sasquatch is decent enough but his shtick, taking everything literally, doesn't really work as a joke and it seems a weird choice since he has been around humans enough, apparently, to get a lot of other stuff.  I feel like the writer wanted him to have a fun quirk, got married to the idea of his quirk and didn't do anything clever with it (or really tie it into the plot.  This feels like one of those things that should have a surprise impact on the plot in the film).  Hugh Jackman's English gentleman explorer starts strong, an over the top adventurer whose are is obstencibly learning that A) the White Man's Burden view of the world is toxic and exploration is about discovery, not conquest and B) learning there are people whose approval you don't need because they aren't worth it (which Susan also learns).  Good lessons.  But while the arc has some clear through lines, I don't feel like I really know who this guy is by the end.  Least fortunate is Zoe Saldana's character, an explorers wife who wants to see the world.  Obstencibly.  But unfortunately in trying to create a strong female co-star, they create an anemic tool whose purpose in the film is to tell Jackman to be a more likeable character and feels more like a mouthpiece for the direction the writer wants Jackman to go than her own character.

I don't feel like I know or connect to these characters and even worse, they seem to have very little chemistry.  Three different characters should be fun for the filmmakers to bounce off each other but while they are wacky (well, the men get to be wacky), they aren't greater than the sum of their parts.  Some of the emotional moments do work but the film is first and foremost a comedy and I think those parts don't.  But the action set pieces are really cool, including a comical hallway scene in the vein of the hallway fight in Inception.  So much of the movie works so it is such a shame that one major flaw took away the majority of the fun for me.  Shame.  Hopefully Laika's next film will be stronger.

[stethacantus]

Tokyo Gore Police ( 2008 )
A lot of people I knew kept insisting I add this one to my martial arts collection, claiming it is one of those instant classics. Not exactly so easy as it was out of print and sellers were asking for a lot of money for the remaining DVDs and blu-rays. But a few weeks ago a few of the sellers dropped the price on the DVD to around $15 for the bare bones edition. Three things occurred to me while watching this. One: this movie isn't good enough to warrant the price gouging. Two: if there was still demand for it, then why is it OOP? And Three: it turned out to be co-produced by Tokyo Shock, which means basically they own the film and didn't have to discontinue releasing it due to the license running out. So why the hell is it even OOP?

Lets put it this way. If you liked Story of Riki and the gory Trauma films, then this is probably something you would like. A young girl named Ruka witnesses her police officer father  have his head completely explode from being shot by a handgun. Years later Ruka is a member of the Tokyo Police Department, which has been "privatized' and replaced with cops who wear samurai armor. The city is full of serial killers called Engineers, who are mutants who are able to rapidly heal, and have the ability to grow either weapons or crocodile mouths from their wounds. So basically, when they are shot or cut, they instantly grow parts like chain saw arms, guns that protrude from their eye sockets, or their legs turning into crocodile mouths. The only way to kill them is to split them in half with a samurai sword, which Ruka is so skilled at doing that she has killed a record 100 Engineers. Of course there is a shocking revelations of who murdered her father, which ties into the origin of the engineers. The movie is basically an excuse to show several different kinds of mutilations, either by the engineers murdering their victims and arresting officers, or by Ruka herself against the engineers, or anyone else who pisses her off. There is not really a good story here, nor is the few scenes of martial arts memorable. But like Story of Riki, it holds your attention for it's entire run time. ( BTW, Story of Riki is way better. I wouldn't call this one a modern classic. )

Black Panther ( 2018 )
First of all, I didn't choose to watch this film this week because it was the final day of Black History Month. Yep, some family members were asking me if I was watching Black Panther for Black History Month. Which is ridiculous. For one thing, where is the black history. Wakanda is a county that doesn't exist. If there was a Black Fiction Month then this film would make sense, not in a month that promotes the actual history of African Americans. But secondly, I would need to be a mathematical genius to have scheduled this film on the final day of a leap year Black History Month. I have been watching a superhero movie each  Saturday base on the order I bought them, which was determined on price, and which ones were OOP or in danger of going OOP.  In the last year there were a coupe of OOP films I was able to buy only because I found a good deal on eBay, a couple I only recently added to my collection only because I just discovered they existed, and then something like The Wild World of Batwoman where I was going to consider the unriffed version that came as an extra with the MST3K DVD as part of the collection, only to discover they released a proper letterboxed version this year. The closest I came to arranging to have a movie watched on a specific date was holding back on watching Elf-Man until the weekend before Christmas. But this wouldn't be holding back a single film, because I just began watching the latest DCEU and MCU films in order. So basically would have needed to plan this out over a month ago at least. Leap Year was invented by Julius Caesar back in 46 BC, so I guess that he is complacent on this scheme to create a leap day, otherwise I would have watched this film on March 1st.( Or perhaps mid April as without a leap year the calendar would have drifted a full year and four months since year 0. )

So, aside from being accused of being politically correct for watching a Marvel movie, it was a pleasant night.  But not that pleasant. I mean, it did get an Oscar nomination  for Best Picture. Also, a Golden Globe nomination. And it won best picture on the MTV Movie Awards. So I was expecting something that blew away all the other Marvel films, you know, all the other ones that were never nominated for Best Picture. But it was pretty average. Sure, I liked the film. But it is nowhere near the best of the superhero films.  I guess you can thank the Academy for expanding Best Picture to 8 nominations, that and members forgetting to nominate anyone of color every other year, and then trying to make up for it the next year. Personally, I found the film very predictable, being a story where the newly crowned king has his thrown challenged. So basically, over rated. But even over rated films in the MCU are better than the average Superhero film.

[stansimpson]

Aladdin (2019) - Went in fully expecting to be horribly bored and sometimes insulted by this (especially since Guy Ritchie's style turns me off so much), but I've enjoyed all the other Disney remakes to one degree or another and I have Disney+ so thought I would give it a shot.

I actually loved it. I think three big things were 1.) Alan Menken coming back to do the score since I have the original memorized (it was the first cassette I ever owned), 2.) I really liked the pacing; there was never a boring moment for me, and 3.) it's not a shot-for-shot remake (I'm looking at you Beauty & the Beast; ugh). On the second point, they really burn through a lot of the moments I was looking forward to. I just really liked the way they laid everything out. All the changes were done to make for a better adaptation or to be clever. Or, well, maybe a few "girl power" moments that made me roll my eyes a bit. But that was few and far between.

I did not expect to like Will Smith as the genie, but I felt like he totally worked. He was never overly Will Smith. He was doing his own thing and brought some real charm and even pathos to the role. You know who didn't though? Jafar. Yikes! Not sure how or why they got this guy, but he's just as underwhelming and pathetic as he is in the trailers. He actually is sometimes so bad that he comes back to laughably bad again.

I can't recommend it to everyone though just because I know the critical reception wasn't huge. For me though, it's my personal favorite of the Disney remakes (aside from maybe Maleficent).

[Darth Geek]

Onward (2020) - This was just...okay at best. The world building felt kinda lazy (not as lazy as Bright, but still), and I wasn't all that invested in their journey, and I didn't laugh all that much. I was mostly invested in the relationship between the two brothers, which is by far the best part of the movie. It's not bad per se, but coming from Pixar I expected better.