Last Movie You Watched

[bluebell]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

I don’t see it as a bd word at all, but still saying it creeps me out, lol.

Childhood programing…

There is a family down the street where "fart" is considered a bad word.  Their youngest is like 14 I think and their oldest in his 20s and they aren't allowed to say fart in their home.  

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

That's not an attractive word, but it's hard for me to see it as the equivalent to the F word.

What I mean't was that one day it'll be more acceptable to say the f-word much like it's now okay to say fart in most circles. Not looking forward to the day that the f-word is spoken throughout and not just in the junior high and high school halls, and other places.  If that makes sense.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

What I mean't was that one day it'll be more acceptable to say the f-word much like it's now okay to say fart in most circles. Not looking forward to the day that the f-word is spoken throughout and not just in the junior high and high school halls, and other places.  If that makes sense.

👍

[Amulek]

Well, if you are looking to dull your sensitivity to the F-word, I can highly recommend Ted Lasso. The show stars Andy Sudeikis as the show's namesake character who plays an American football coach who gets hired to coach a fictional English football club. Many of the athletes - one in particular - can appropriately characterized as potty mouths.

That being said, the show is actually fairly wholesome. I don't recall any nudity throughout the entire series - maybe a locker room buttocks at one point, but nothing scandalous. Sex between characters, while clearly implied (on multiple occasions), is never directly shown. There are one or two episodes that might cross the comfortability scale for some, depending on your personal discomfort regarding certain implied sex acts, but that's pretty much it.

The comedy writing is absolutely great. Lots of clever wordplay, callbacks, etc. There is an admittedly "middle-age white guy" bent to much of the humor, so younger audiences might not get all of the references and end up missing out on how great the show really is, but I think there's enough there for everyone.

Oh, and unlike so many other shows I've watched over the years, the series finale which aired this week wrapped everything up nicely and stuck the landing - making it be one of the few shows I can add to my short list of programming that was both (1) good throughout its entire run and (2) ended up not blowing it at the end.  

 

[Amulek]

On 5/31/2023 at 8:43 PM, Tacenda said:

I'm interested in the upcoming docuseries about the Duggar family and their religion, it's going to be on Amazon Prime on June 2nd. It's called, 'Shiny, Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets'. 

Kind of fast-forwarded through it last night. It's only four episodes long so not too bad.

It's not nearly as focused on the Duggars themselves as I was hoping, so it's a little like click-bait in that respect. I would say that the series is mostly designed to expose Bill Gothard and the organization he founded: the Institute in Basic Life Principles (five minutes on Wikipedia will bring you up to speed on all of that). 

The producers just kind of use the Duggars as a case study for that particular brand of fundamentalism and use them to tell the story about the cult-like group they sympathized with; but there isn't a lot of new information about the Duggars themselves. At least, I assume there wasn't anything really new, since not much of it was terribly new to me and I largely ignored the show back when my wife used to watch it. 

 

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

Kind of fast-forwarded through it last night. It's only four episodes long so not too bad.

It's not nearly as focused on the Duggars themselves as I was hoping, so it's a little like click-bait in that respect. I would say that the series is mostly designed to expose Bill Gothard and the organization he founded: the Institute in Basic Life Principles (five minutes on Wikipedia will bring you up to speed on all of that). 

The producers just kind of use the Duggars as a case study for that particular brand of fundamentalism and use them to tell the story about the cult-like group they sympathized with; but there isn't a lot of new information about the Duggars themselves. At least, I assume there wasn't anything really new, since not much of it was terribly new to me and I largely ignored the show back when my wife used to watch it. 

 

I learned some new things, such as how they use corporal punishment, how they have forced their adult children to be a part of the show without giving them any money, and mostly how their views were connected with gothard.  I was not aware of who he was or what he taught.

I think the connection to the Duggars wasn't to reveal anything new about them.  I think it's an attempt to tie them to Gothard and fundamentalism in ways that most of the Duggars' fans weren't aware of.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I learned some new things, such as how they use corporal punishment, how they have forced their adult children to be a part of the show without giving them any money, and mostly how their views were connected with gothard.  I was not aware of who he was or what he taught.

I think the connection to the Duggars wasn't to reveal anything new about them.  I think it's an attempt to tie them to Gothard and fundamentalism in ways that most of the Duggars' fans weren't aware of. 

 

2 hours ago, Amulek said:

Kind of fast-forwarded through it last night. It's only four episodes long so not too bad.

It's not nearly as focused on the Duggars themselves as I was hoping, so it's a little like click-bait in that respect. I would say that the series is mostly designed to expose Bill Gothard and the organization he founded: the Institute in Basic Life Principles (five minutes on Wikipedia will bring you up to speed on all of that). 

The producers just kind of use the Duggars as a case study for that particular brand of fundamentalism and use them to tell the story about the cult-like group they sympathized with; but there isn't a lot of new information about the Duggars themselves. At least, I assume there wasn't anything really new, since not much of it was terribly new to me and I largely ignored the show back when my wife used to watch it. 

 

It was sickening how the children were taken advantage for the show, and how the daughters weren't paid, and only Jim Bob got paid basically and how they all had to sign a contract without knowing what they were getting in to and were exploited big time. I blame TLC a lot. And the Duggar parents for sure. But I'm glad this group was exposed and hopefully those that watch see the harm it causes. It was very authoritative somewhat like the LDS church with patriarchy and a concentration on women and how they dress, glad the church is less so now. But have only watched till the start of the 3rd episode, pretty sure it's getting worse.

Edited June 3, 2023 by Tacenda

[Amulek]

17 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It was sickening how the children were taken advantage for the show, and how the daughters weren't paid, and only Jim Bob got paid basically and how they all had to sign a contract without knowing what they were getting in to and were exploited big time. I blame TLC a lot. And the Duggar parents for sure.

I don't care for that sort of business either, but it is (unfortunately) not at all that uncommon in the entertainment industry. You see it with child stars all the time.

 

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

 

It was sickening how the children were taken advantage for the show, and how the daughters weren't paid, and only Jim Bob got paid basically and how they all had to sign a contract without knowing what they were getting in to and were exploited big time. I blame TLC a lot. And the Duggar parents for sure. But I'm glad this group was exposed and hopefully those that watch see the harm it causes. It was very authoritative somewhat like the LDS church with patriarchy and a concentration on women and how they dress, glad the church is less so now. But have only watched till the start of the 3rd episode, pretty sure it's getting worse.

Agreed on how sickening a lot of it was, especially so because the parents had such good intentions.  It was also kind of weird because Gothard doesn't have any special claim to authority that I could tell.  Just him declaring himself to be one.

[bluebell]

On 5/16/2023 at 7:51 AM, Amulek said:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Overall, I thought it was a fun movie and delivered a good (albeit imperfect) ending for the trilogy. And I really liked some of the choices for the soundtrack. Creep, No Sleep Til Brooklyn, and Dog Days are Over were all highlights in the film.

I'm not a fan of the new Groot-suit personally, but my kid actually prefers it to the original, so I guess they do their market research at least.

Should be interesting to see what Gunn does now that he's finished with Marvel and moving over to run the DC Universe.

We saw this last night and I wasn't prepared for how dark the movie is.  If you have sensitive children--especially ones that love animals--I'd watch it first before letting them watch it.  There are some parts that are just brutal.  And the "happy ending" doesn't fix all the pain the first hours of the movie went through.

I did like it though, but I am sad that the dumb Avengers movies ruined the storyline and required the melancholy ending that it did (I'm trying really hard not to give any spoilers).  Overall the movie has a lot of touching parts but it's not as much fun as the first two, which managed to be lighthearted even with all the hard stuff.  This one is heavier, and sadder.

**I learned recently that the Groot that we have now is not the original Groot reincarnated but Groot's son.  So I'm guessing that's why they went with a different look for him than the Groot in the first movie.

 

[Amulek]

21 hours ago, bluebell said:

If you have sensitive children--especially ones that love animals--I'd watch it first before letting them watch it.

That's probably good advice. My eleven year old son is pretty tender hearted and he did cry at one point during the film. He still really liked it, but you're right - younger kids might struggle with processing certain parts.

And I get what you're saying about the ending. I think they could have gone with a happier ending without ruining the existing story arcs or any future franchise plans, but I understand why they went the direction they did. 

 

[Tacenda]

"Leslie" on Netflix, everything awesome, except some "F" words. So touching and I was bawling at the end. 

[bluebell]

17 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

"Leslie" on Netflix, everything awesome, except some "F" words. So touching and I was bawling at the end. 

What's it about?

 

[Tacenda]

14 minutes ago, bluebell said:

What's it about?

 

It's about a woman who won the lottery, $190,000, and drunk the money away and she had a 13 year old son who she left. And how the town hated her and how she finally got sober and changed her life and how a couple of people helped get her there when she was homeless and hopeless. It may feel like it's slow moving but it picks up and to me, it was very touching. My brother is an alcoholic and at this moment going through the same thing so maybe it's close to home. 

No sex scenes, or violence. 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Tacenda

[bluebell]

58 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It's about a woman who won the lottery, $190,000, and drunk the money away and she had a 13 year old son who she left. And how the town hated her and how she finally got sober and changed her life and how a couple of people helped get her there when she was homeless and hopeless. It may feel like it's slow moving but it picks up and to me, it was very touching. My brother is an alcoholic and at this moment going through the same thing so maybe it's close to home. 

No sex scenes, or violence. 

It sounds compelling. Is it fiction or based on a true story?

[Amulek]

Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse

If you liked the first installment (Into the Spider-Verse) then you'll love the second as well.

It's visually entertaining and crammed full of allusions to previous Spider Man films / comics / games (you name it). Good times all around.

I heard rumors about there being issues with the sound-mix, particularly at the beginning. We went to go see the film in one of the AMC Dolby theaters and didn't have any trouble making out any of the dialogue. It was just a bunch of fun - highly recommend. 

 

[Amulek]

The Flash

As the penultimate film in the Snyderverse, The Flash seeks to both wrap things up for the (current) Justice League while simultaneously setting the stage for the next iteration of reboots looking to be produced by James Gunn over the coming years.

Without giving too much away, the film takes its inspiration from Flashpoint - though, in my opinion, even the small screen version from the CW series did it better. This is apparently necessary in order to open up the DC films to the 'multiverse,' thus paving the groundwork for new stories to be told (and other actors to be cast / re-cast) going forward.

I didn't especially care for the sequence where the audience gets a glimpse into the DC multiverse. There was a bunch of sketchy CG employed that served to recreate nearly every iteration of the iconic DC characters across time - including some pretty deep cuts that were probably only added so that DC super-geeks would have something to explain to their significant others after the credits ended (assuming, for the sake of argument, that said geeks were able to convince their significant others to actually join them).

The film isn't horrible, but I distinctly remember thinking at one point how much more I enjoyed watching Batman over the Flash...in a movie where the Flash is ostensibly the main character. I don't really blame Ezra Miller for that. I thought they (the actor prefers they/them pronouns) did a good job with the material they were given. It's just that the film had a lot going on and not all of it gelled together.

Critic reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes put the film at around 65% fresh while the audience reviews were more like 84% positive. The audience closest to being correct here (at least in my opinion) happens to be the critics. The film is watchable. I would even say it's more good than bad, but it's certainly not great. Yet another one you can put off until it comes out on the streaming platform of your choice.

 

[bluebell]

I recently rewatched Terminator Genisys again because it was free on Paramount+ and it's a solid entertaining movie.  It's also PG 13 so you can actually watch it with your family, unlike the others.  It's a reworking of the story (they consider it a stand alone movie and not connected in story to any other movies in the franchise) but it has good actors, really good special effects, and it's even funny in some places.

After that one I rewatched Terminator 2 because it's currently on Netflix and it's still my favorite out of the whole bunch.  It's just got so much heart, and the soundtrack is so good.

[Rain]

15 hours ago, bluebell said:

I recently rewatched Terminator Genisys again because it was free on Paramount+ and it's a solid entertaining movie.  It's also PG 13 so you can actually watch it with your family, unlike the others.  It's a reworking of the story (they consider it a stand alone movie and not connected in story to any other movies in the franchise) but it has good actors, really good special effects, and it's even funny in some places.

After that one I rewatched Terminator 2 because it's currently on Netflix and it's still my favorite out of the whole bunch.  It's just got so much heart, and the soundtrack is so good.

Having never watched any of the Terminator movies and only seeing the ads that is something I never would have expected to hear about one of them. 

[Amulek]

Yeah, T2 is the best installment in the franchise, and it's one of the films you can bring up whenever you're talking about sequels that are better than the original.

I didn't love Genisys personally, but I liked the cast and thought it was a perfectly good popcorn movie - especially since, as @bluebell mentioned, you can watch it with the whole fam (so bonus points for that).

A few years back, there was a two - arguably 1.5 - season television series that aired on Fox called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that I thought was pretty great. It was one of those shows that was enjoyable and showed real promise but ended up getting cancelled too soon. I hate when that happens. 😐

 

[bluebell]

Lately I've watched the Hulu docuseries about the women who had the power and pulled off the Jonestown Massacre in the 1970s.  It was interesting to find out more about the women that Jones surrounded himself with.

And then because I was bored waiting for my cat to saunter home I rewatched Young Victoria on Netflix.  It's got Emily Blunt and whoever it is that plays Prince Albert and is about the years right before and right after she came into power.  It's a love story to some degree but also interesting from a historical perspective, especially from the perspective of a woman at that time and all of the powerful men in her life trying to control her.

[Amulek]

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Kids night. Oh well, what can you do.

I didn't think it was a horrible movie, but it wasn't nearly as funny as the Shrek films. Also, in what I'm guessing was an attempt to be 'fresh' or 'modern,' they made some animation decisions that I didn't particularly care for. The action scenes were all a definite departure from the art style used in the other DreamWorks films from the same IP. My kids didn't care, but I found it kind of off-putting. Oh well, not one I'll probably ever have to watch again. 

[bsjkki]

2 hours ago, Amulek said:

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Kids night. Oh well, what can you do.

I didn't think it was a horrible movie, but it wasn't nearly as funny as the Shrek films. Also, in what I'm guessing was an attempt to be 'fresh' or 'modern,' they made some animation decisions that I didn't particularly care for. The action scenes were all a definite departure from the art style used in the other DreamWorks films from the same IP. My kids didn't care, but I found it kind of off-putting. Oh well, not one I'll probably ever have to watch again. 

Some in my family love that movie but I did not care for it. 

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, Amulek said:

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Kids night. Oh well, what can you do.

I didn't think it was a horrible movie, but it wasn't nearly as funny as the Shrek films. Also, in what I'm guessing was an attempt to be 'fresh' or 'modern,' they made some animation decisions that I didn't particularly care for. The action scenes were all a definite departure from the art style used in the other DreamWorks films from the same IP. My kids didn't care, but I found it kind of off-putting. Oh well, not one I'll probably ever have to watch again. 

 

2 hours ago, bsjkki said:

Some in my family love that movie but I did not care for it. 

My 18 year old went to see it with my 9 and 8 year old and his girlfriend and they all loved it.  Kids are weird. 

[bluebell]

Saw Oppenheimer this weekend and was disappointed, especially since the reviews (from both critics and movie goers) were all raving about how amazing it was.  

My first mistake was thinking that it was rated R because of the subject matter (which the previews made it seem was pretty much the manhattan project).  I should have checked because the rating had nothing to do with the subject matter and everything to do with multiple sex scenes and lots of boobs.  I'm still really annoyed about it because it added nothing (absolutely nothing) to the movie.  

I got my degree in history so the history part I found incredibly interesting, and there was a lot of political stuff that I also found to be interesting as it wasn't anything that I knew anything about.  I think a movie less centered on Oppenheimer and more on the manhattan project would have been more entertaining (he was a weird guy and not really likeable) but it wasn't a bad movie (from that angle) and it seems like they told the historical and political story well.

The length is stupid though.  It easily could have been shorter.  Also, one reviewer talked about how amazing the musical score was and I was excited about that because we never get good movie music anymore but in the end I thought the soundtrack was mostly just very loud and jarring.  I didn't find it moving at all, though I understand that they used it as a way to show the viewer what was going on inside Oppenheimer's brain (which was often kind of odd) more than anything else.