Last Movie You Watched

[Amulek]

Elf

A modern Christmas classic. And it contains one of my favorite (meme-able) quotes of all time: You sit on a throne of lies! 🤣

 

[Amulek]

Avatar: The Way of Water

The CGI was, for the most part, pretty first rate - though I did think they struggled with animating many of the flying creatures throughout the film. 

Unfortunately, in terms of storyline, character development, etc., I found the film...lacking. In fact, if we put the technical advancements aside, I would say that the first film was actually better (and, full disclosure, I didn't especially care for the first film).

Don't get me wrong, it isn't a horrible movie; it just isn't a really great one. If you are thinking about seeing it eventually, the theater is probably the way to go - provided you can find one with adequately comfortable seating. At over 3 hours runtime, it's a long time to be sitting in one spot. Thank goodness they didn't try to throw in any mid-/end credit scenes.  

 

[Calm]

Do they give you a bathroom break?

[Amulek]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

Do they give you a bathroom break?

Nope. I think the days of intermissions are dead and gone.

 

[Matthew Andreasen]

"The Glass Onion" on Netflix.

[Calm]

7 Women and a Murder, Netflix, in Italian with subtitles

[bluebell]

On 1/8/2023 at 1:41 PM, Matthew Andreasen said:

"The Glass Onion" on Netflix.

What did you think of it?  I thought it was entertaining and funny in parts but also a little dumb.

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

What did you think of it?  I thought it was entertaining and funny in parts but also a little dumb.

I started to watch but couldn't get in to it. 

[bluebell]

Just now, Tacenda said:

I started to watch but couldn't get in to it. 

Same with me. I watched the first half and then didn’t finish the second half for more than a week. The second half really is where it gets good though (especially if you like murder mysteries). 

[bsjkki]

6 hours ago, bluebell said:

What did you think of it?  I thought it was entertaining and funny in parts but also a little dumb.

I enjoyed it. Liked the first one better.

Edited January 12, 2023 by bsjkki

[bluebell]

26 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

I enjoyed it. Liked the first one better.

Me too.  I thought it was better.

[Pyreaux]

Avatar 2 The Way of Water.

A new sea-based view of Pandora with a new sea-based resource Earthlings exploit. Just sticking close to the old themes but in a new place. Aside from Maverick, it will be hailed the best, or one of the best, films of the year (as it lacked the competition). Its over 3 hours, and I'm sure there is a sequel that was shot back-to-back with this. Visuals are good, action is good.

The dialog is not as terrible as I feared, but dramatic conversations do kind of 180° a lot. A No-to-a-Yes or I-Don't-Accept-You-to-Okay-I-Accept-You is usually one sentence away. It wouldn't be so unnatural if it didn't happen in most every dramatic moment with dialog. 

It follows a family lead by a strong father. It was almost a family movie, full of bloodless but violent kills. There are two death scenes a family might consider; A bad human's arm bloodlessly but graphicly flies away as you get a good look at it, and one bloody bullet entry wound of a good character. I'd think twice about showing a young child, if your child is not ready to talk about death. It has its own message about death, and a Gaia theology.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Tacenda]

A Man Called Otto   

Go see it, well worth your money and time. Very moving film. 

[bluebell]

Watched Devotion last night. It was in theaters only about a month or two ago, but I don’t think it did that well. You can probably rent it on Amazon prime, but I watched it for free through my Paramount subscription. It’s about two navy, fighter pilots, one white one black, during the Korean War. The most of the movie happens around war time stuff, that’s really not the focus of the movie. The movie is more about the relationship between the two men it’s based on a true story, and I think they probably stayed pretty close to how things went down because there wasn’t a lot of action sequences or unbelievable things happening.

The movie had a lot of heart, and was really good.

[Pyreaux]

M3GAN

A well-done classic telling of a learning robot going beyond its programming, and its inventor who apparently never considered Isaac Asimov's "rules of robotics". A dark comedic, PG-13, horror.

Synopsis: A child's parents die and she goes to live with her emotionally distant aunt who works on advanced robotic toys, who becomes inspired to make a toy companion for her. A life-sized doll, with learning software and wifi, programmed to protect her ward from physical and emotional harm.

Spoilers for Content's sake: Assuming you never saw the trailer footage; What do you guess the robot's idea on how to effectively remove the sources of emotional harm becomes? Anyway, people die off the edge of the camera so you can still hear it but don't see it, though you see blood smears. If you are okay with that, it might be an okay horror flick for an adolescent and adult.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Pyreaux

[manol]

9 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

... Isaac Asimov's (an LDS sci-fi author)...

Are you sure Asimov was LDS? 

[Pyreaux]

3 hours ago, manol said:

Are you sure Asimov was LDS? 

Well... I was, but apparently, he was only married to one... We still have Orson Scott Card... Ender's Game was a neat film.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Well... I was, but apparently, he was only married to one... We still have Orson Scott Card... Ender's Game was a neat film.

Asimov was rather a sexist pig, so glad he wasn’t one. He was an atheist through and through. 
 

I loved his books, I can’t read them any more knowing he thought his talent gave him to right to assault women. 
 

http://www.factfiend.com/isaac-asimov-kind-douchebag/

And his wife was an atheist too, though she had been born into Latter-day Saint family. 
 

https://ffrf.org/ftod-cr/item/34651-janet-jeppson-asimov

Edited February 1, 2023 by Calm

[Amulek]

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Rotten Tomatoes has only 48% of critics giving it a positive review while audiences rate it a solid 83%.

Spoiler alert: The critics are right.

The movie was just all over the place, and not in a well-designed or intriguing sort of way. There are basically three main characters throughout the film - only one of which is actually on the marquee - and the film really suffers for it. At one point I actually fell asleep.

My advice: skip it and wait for it to pop up on Disney+ six months from now (or whenever).

 

[Stargazer]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:32 AM, Calm said:

Asimov was rather a sexist pig, so glad he wasn’t one. He was an atheist through and through. 
 

I loved his books, I can’t read them any more knowing he thought his talent gave him to right to assault women. 
 

http://www.factfiend.com/isaac-asimov-kind-douchebag/

And his wife was an atheist too, though she had been born into Latter-day Saint family. 
 

https://ffrf.org/ftod-cr/item/34651-janet-jeppson-asimov

I've read, as far as I can tell at this late date, every novel he wrote. And a good portion of his non-fiction. I was, and to a certain extent even now, am an Asimov fan. At the time, I didn't know anything about his non-consensual proclivities. It really creeps me out now that I know about his behavior. I suppose I separate his writing from his personal behavior in a similar manner as I separate important historical figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison from their slave ownership. Not that I equate Asimov with these men.

When I was about 17, I wrote a letter to Asimov asking him for advice on how to finish the fiction stories I was trying to write, because I couldn't find endings to them. Surprisingly to me (because I didn't know that he made a practice of responding to all letters), he did answer me on a type-written postcard, and advised me to start out knowing what the ending was going to be, find a good place to start the beginning, and then meet in the middle. It quite charmed me at the time. I wish I still had the postcard.

After he died I wrote a story -- or I should say, I tried to write a story -- examining Asimov's reaction to finding out there was an afterlife, after all. As per usual, I couldn't figure out how to end it. If I had known that his wife Janet was raised LDS, I could have ended the story with post-mortem LDS missionaries coming to visit him, and him recognizing them due to having heard his wife's stories of her past. Oh, well.

[Stargazer]

The last movie (actually a 2008 BBC miniseries) I watched was Sense and Sensibility. My wife, who is a Jane Austen aficionado, made me do it. As with Pride and Prejudice, watched under the same enforcement, I enjoyed it greatly. Before watching this TV version I had also been required to watch the 1995 Ang Lee movie version. The 2008 version is definitely better.

I have become a Jane Austen fan. I have now actually read Pride and Prejudice. 

[Calm]

SG, I had read the vast majority of Asimov’s fiction books, iirc, and had a shelf or two of both sci fo and mystery, not sure about his short stories though.  While I found him dry and his characters not particularly endearing, relatable, I found his ideas wonderful and it was a real blow to find out about his arrogant misogyny, though looking back at most of his female characters it comes through quite a bit Imo.   While I recognize that everyone has flaws, his glorying in his abusive treatment of women is too much for me to set aside. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:35 PM, Amulek said:

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Rotten Tomatoes has only 48% of critics giving it a positive review while audiences rate it a solid 83%.

Spoiler alert: The critics are right.

The movie was just all over the place, and not in a well-designed or intriguing sort of way. There are basically three main characters throughout the film - only one of which is actually on the marquee - and the film really suffers for it. At one point I actually fell asleep.

My advice: skip it and wait for it to pop up on Disney+ six months from now (or whenever).

 

One of my favorite reviewers, The Critical Drinker, says this about it: Ant Man 3 Will Make You Hate Movies

"A movie which basically sums up everything the MCU has become, a plot so entirely predictable and generic that it feels like it was written by an overworked AI, basically consisting of a series of tired and played-out tropes that have been done a million times before, lame attempts at quippy jokes and visual gags that are jarringly at odds with what's actually happening, headache-inducing visuals that are so obnoxiously overdone you can hardly process what you're seeing, and an ending that puts everything back exactly the way it was before..."

I have no plans to watch it.

[Tacenda]

New Amsterdam on Netflix, I'm addicted.

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

New Amsterdam on Netflix, I'm addicted.

I watched the first year and then I got annoyed by one plot line, so dropped it.  Interesting idea, but it felt a bit patronizing to me…trying too hard.  Not uncommon in the first year of a series.