Last movie watched...

[Professor Bear]

Miracle Mile - so that's where Cloverfield nicked its ending from.  A decent of-its-time thriller about a bloke who answers a wrong number in a phone booth that then ruins his night entirely.  Some good character moments, and the tension builds nicely to the finale.  Not much in the way of setpiece moments, but the meeting with cops at a gas station that goes badly sideways and the traffic jam scene come dang close.

Bird Box - more like ShiteBox.  It's not a good film, but I did enjoy it for its tense moments, which are well done even if the central premise is the kind of stupid that might just break the thing entirely for you.  I would say it's more memorable for its atmosphere and growing sense of dread than I would its ending or characters, though the bit where Bullock's character manipulates the little girl into chucking herself under the bus is a great moment that illustrates how a protagonist can straddle the line between sympathetic and irredeemable.  The bit with the shadows on the video camera made me think of the apocalyptic movies of John Carpenter, but also made the monsters entirely supernatural.  Worth a look.

[broodblik]

Alita Battle Angel - I went to watch the movie this afternoon. I can highly recommend the movie, especially watching it in a 3D Imax theater. 

[Jim_Campbell]

Lego Movie 2: charming and funny and smart. Also just a little bit sly and subversive. Very welcome in a big studio movie like this. ‬

[Colin YNWA]

Battle for the Planet of the Apes holds on to its reputation as the weakest of the Apes movies, though fair to say its not entirely without merit.

The budget reductions are fully realised but this should almost have worked to the films advantage. Many mock the Mutant arms silly looking vehicles but the make complete sense in the context of the shattered world we are seeing. However the design lets them down and there's not the chaotic touches that would make it all work without one imagines much expense.

The films biggest issue is that the set pieces lack the conviction of the last film. Where Conquest, with similar limited resource finds a way to make its set piece ending work here it fails. It basically boils down to the biggest act of playing possum ever given to cinema (i'd imagine!) ... it even fails to be the end with the highly undramatic treetop 'struggle' between Aldo and Caesar drags things needlessly out.

Prehaps the film is best represented by Governor Kolp so quietly menacing in Conquest so over the top and flacid here.

Shame it has some good ideas but neither time, nor conviction to land them... for all that I still enjoyed it... its just why escapes me!

[Mardroid]

Alita: Battle Angel

Despite my reservations, mentioned above, I thought I'd give it a chance. I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it a lot.

I did find the CGI of certain characters very noticeable (Likely as it involved humanoid types. I probably wouldn't have noticed so much if it were just vehicles and scenery). Apart from Alita herself, I'm particularly referring to that huge male cyborg. (Forgive me, I'm terrible remembering names.) But it didn't really take me out of the film or bother me much. It just did seem more like a CG animated movie than live action in places because of it. Which, I guess it was, anyway, really.

The big eye thing for Alita, I'm still not convinced it was really needed. [spoiler]It turns out it's not typically a cyborg thing, as there's actually lots of cyborgs in this film with regular faces. I guess it sets her apart in that she is literally an older generation of cyborg specifically designed as a soldier, and a Martian one at that, although I figured the Martians were human colonists in this case rather than aliens, but I could be wrong.[/spoiler] But I got used to it, and she's all round very endearing.

[spoiler]It ended in a way, strongly suggesting there should be a sequel. I hope this happens, but if it doesn't, the film still works in a 'she's found her place in this world, and the struggle continues' [/spoiler]kind of way.

[spoiler]Part of me thinks they missed a gag, by not showing an after credits scene of a scavenger finding her half a boyfriend on the junk heap as she was found, but it's probably a good thing they didn't do that.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if something like this did happen in the sequel (she survived the fall from a similar distance after all) but maybe they shouldn't.[/spoiler]

[Keef Monkey]

Yeah my feelings about the big eyes were that they didn't bother me, but that they definitely could bother some viewers, so for that reason it seems a risky design and because it doesn't really have any bearing on anything I didn't understand why they went with it. Like I say though, I forgot about it pretty quickly and it wasn't a problem for me.

We watched The Mummy: Tomb of The Dragon Emperor at the weekend. Had seen the first two (and rewatched recently because Bea hadn't seen them and loved the ride at Universal) and still find them really good fun adventure romps, but this was my first time seeing this one. It was pretty poor, none of the fun and humour seems to have carried forward, and as great as Maria Bello is it feels odd to just recast that character (and also to make a weird reference to it in the film). The yetis livened things up a bit, but it's easy to see the wheels had come off the series a bit with this one.

Oh and finally saw Ant Man & The Wasp and had a blast. I was one of the few people who wasn't particularly taken with the first film (I really wanted to love it but for some reason it just didn't click and felt really bland to me) but this was way better. The dialogue and gags felt way more natural and zingy and the action was great. Good stuff.

[Keef Monkey]

Went to a screening of The Gate last night, it was one of the first horror films I think I saw as a kid and definitely one of the movies that set me on the path of horror fandom, hadn't seen it many many years though (since primary school maybe?).

It's still great! I had forgotten that one of my weird irrational fears can be traced back to it - there's a (pretty tame really) mirror-based scare (the old 'seeing something scary in the mirror that isn't in the room' gag) that stuck with me so much I was terrified to look directly into mirrors at night all through childhood. If I'm in a jumpy mood mirrors still make me a bit uneasy now if I'm honest, and that's all thanks to this gem.

Watching now it's easy to see why it hooked me in as a kid. The 'kids vs evil' angle played a big part, plus I was starting to rebel a bit against being dragged to church so all the demonic mythology felt cool and exciting. Add in the fact that a metal record features so prominently (I was a rock kid from a very young age!) plus the wee demons have a sort of cute factor made it a pretty great entry level horror. For all that though it still has some pretty effective scares and some awesome imagery and effects (it's got a great Harryhausen look at times).

It was really cool to revisit something that fired up my imagination so much as a youngster, and to connect the dots a bit on why I'm into a lot of the weird things I'm into!

It was being shown in a double-bill with Monster Squad, which I also love (it's Goonies with monsters!) but had to grudgingly leave before it started to catch the train. Will need to give it a rewatch soon too!

[Mattofthespurs]

Velvet Buzzsaw

Not bad. Good cast. The message is a little garbled but I quite enjoyed what it was trying to do and if the end justifies the means then the movie succeeds. Just.

[von Boom]

Kong: Skull Island What utter gobshite. Not even the presence of Tom Hiddleston could save it for me. It make me look back at Peter Jackson's King Kong fondly.

[Funt Solo]

All the Kong reboots keep getting it horribly wrong.  I think Peter Jackson can be great - I have a lot of time for the LOTR trilogy, but he needs an editor now.

I didn't finish watching Kong: Skull Island - it was moronic.  If you want to watch over-confident gung-ho troopers getting spectacularly offed Aliens did it the best and most quotably. 

[Tiplodocus]

I enjoyed Skull Island. Dumb as a bag of frogs and it is painfully obvious Hiddleston was hired to add cred (he doesn't actually do ANYTHING) but a lot of fun to be had, I thought, with great action scenes and some good tension in parts.

But i know I have a tendency for mediocre sometimes, as long as I leave the cinema smiling. Sure, I'll never buy it or choose to research it over other stuff. But if I come across it on telly, I'll enjoy the heck out of it. Does this make me a bad person?

[Colin YNWA]

I missed Kong of Skull Island at the cinema and I'm gutted 'cos having just watched it on DVD I can only begin to imagine what a treat it would have been in the big screen.

I have no idea why as its absolute huckum and nonsense, but by gosh I've not seen hockum and nonsense done with such a sense of fun for a long time and the fact that it takes itself seriously strangely works in showing how it doesn't take itself seriously.

By George I should hate this movie but by George I loved it!

The egotistical self quote. But man I enjoy this movie its such fun!

[Funt Solo]

I can enjoy awful movies (that are either logic-lite, or in the so-bad-it's-good category), but if I have a choice over Skull Island or On The Waterfront, Skull Island ain't even a contender.

This was highly amusing but entirely awful back in '86:

[Professor Bear]

You know how we do that thing where you change a word in the title of a movie that's no good to "shite"?  Well Overlord deserves a version of that but with the word "meh" instead.  Overmeh, Mehverlord - something like that I dunno.
During D-Day, an American soldier is shot down behind enemy lines and finds the Krauts are doing devilish experiments upon French villagers to develop a zombie serum that can create immortal soldiers DUN DUN DUN, it isn't terrible per se, more just an aggressive form of banal and it seems pointless to nitpick about anachronism (rap theme tune) or shallow characters (2d Nazzis) in what is essentially a schlock horror movie that I probably didn't enjoy because I watched it sober.  I spotted Fitz from Agents of Shield, but that's as far as recognizable actors go.
Competently put together, but ultimately uninteresting

[Mattofthespurs]

Finally got around to watching Train To Busan.


Fucking loved it. Possibly my favourite ever zombie movie. Certainly in the top 5.


9/10


(I also enjoyed Kong: Skull Island. Yes, it's dumb as a bag of nails but it's a monster movie. What do you expect?)