Last movie watched...

[Mardroid]

The was something off with the graphics to me too, and it was mainly that blurriness. I think that was the intentional style though.

I think my mind cancelled or out by the end.

Yes, probably one of, if not the best Spider-Man movie, and that's for a character* who had been served pretty well in the movies.

*Okay,it's mainly a different character, but Peter Parker still  has a fairly major role.

[Professor Bear]

CLOSE - Netflix original movie.  Pitching at the level of a 1990s action flick but shot to look like a BBC drama, there's nothing much to recommend it, but at one point someone has a bullet shot out of their arse, which I don't think I've seen before.  One of the baddies also falls into a fishtank and the fish beat him up, which is also something I don't think you see very often in action films, though admittedly I haven't watched that many of late.
And why does every action hero have to have PTSD and be a distant emo jerk?  It just seems like the writers acknowledging that their A-plot doesn't really hold the attention so they have to have an excuse for the actors to do shouting at someone to stop the audience checking their phones when things aren't exploding or being shot at.

[broodblik]

Polar - Nextflix movie based upon a Dark Horse comic book. If you like your action/violence ala John Wick this is for you. This will only consume 2 hours of your life.

[wedgeski]

CLOSE - Netflix original movie.  Pitching at the level of a 1990s action flick but shot to look like a BBC drama, there's nothing much to recommend it, but at one point someone has a bullet shot out of their arse, which I don't think I've seen before.  One of the baddies also falls into a fishtank and the fish beat him up, which is also something I don't think you see very often in action films, though admittedly I haven't watched that many of late.

We watched this over the weekend as well. Apart from some good fisticuffs (Noomi Rapace gives it some on this front), it's pretty bad. The fish tank section is particularly weird.

[Funt Solo]

The Commuter

Liam Neeson pays the bills.  To be fair, I didn't actually watch the entire movie.  I got as far as the climactic money shot, and then saw there was still half an hour of movie after that, started to lose the will to live and abandoned it.  There's only so much of my life left: so doing a Jack Nicholson seemed fair.

It's SO stupid.  Even the phrase "dumb as a bag of hammers" doesn't get close to the dumbness of this movie.  Your willing suspension of disbelief will get kidnapped and tortured to death by the 30-minute mark, and then have its corpse flayed for about another hour before they launch it into space - directly at the heart of the sun.  Do something else with your life: even watching paint dry has the potential for meditative contemplation, which has to be, on a karmic scale, better than allowing this desperate plot anywhere near your brain.

[Keef Monkey]

I've seen some Friday The 13th movies but not all, and other than the first one and Jason X I couldn't remember which ones I had seen. Being a horror buff that felt really wrong, so obviously the only way to remedy that is to watch them all in order.

It's been a really rough road because damn those films are rough, and almost all (so far) exactly the same so there's no wonder they all blended into mush for me. Thankfully it finally became worth it with Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, because it was heaps of fun. There's a real tonal shift to amusingly self aware trash that made it really enjoyable, hopefully that's the way the series will continue (I've seen the one in space so I at least know it'll get more and more ridiculous).

Rewatched Resident Evil too, just because playing the fantastic new remake of Resi 2 reminded me I have a real soft spot for those Milla movies and a blu-ray set I never cracked open. I know they're objectively mince, but I really enjoy them anyway so I guess they qualify as guilty pleasures (except I feel no guilt)!

Had never bothered to watch Kong: Skull Island, I think because it had been lumped into the same universe/franchise as the Godzilla reboot and I really didn't enjoy that film. Was buying some 4k blu-rays on a 2-for-£30 deal though and had to make up the numbers so decided to give it a try. Loved it, so much damn fun and exciting spectacle and just a great thrill-ride. Looked incredible in 4K too, the extra detail and the super vibrant colours made it pop so good, plus it has probably the best Atmos soundtrack I've heard at home, really all encompassing particularly when Kong belts out a big grumpy roar.

Really surprisingly thrilling and enjoyable, right on board for the next film in this monstery franchise now.

[Professor Bear]

CLOSE

We watched this over the weekend as well. Apart from some good fisticuffs (Noomi Rapace gives it some on this front), it's pretty bad. The fish tank section is particularly weird.

The low-rent 007 opening credits sequence is hilariously naff.  I was looking at it trying to figure out if it was snowflakes or a kaleidoscope to see if it had any thematic relevance to the rest of the film, but it's just some whirly stuff that plays while the titles roll.  Then it smash-cuts to the globe-trotting billionaire industrialist's uhhh... luxury alpaca ranch.  Then the main character is using Fred Flintstone's laptop to send text messages because this is the only way she can be contacted.
It might actually have been amusingly bad, but the director takes it far too seriously.

[Hawkmumbler]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Warner Bros

I'm not remotely invested in Harry Potter as an entity. I find it bloated, dreary, anal in extremis, and not even the best YA novel series of the 90's-00's. So to say i've no real investment in the spin-off series with the few interesting elements of the books (Dumbledore, Snape et al) completely sapped out or watered down to an even more peripheral, dull deep lore fan wank. And that sums up my experience with the Fantastic Beasts sequel. An overly long, repetitive experience that has pretty much nailed the coffin shut for me on ever trying any Potter paraphernalia again. Give it a miss.

[radiator]

I like the HP films well enough, but have zero interest in the Fantastic Beasts series. I'll be genuinely interested to see whether they actually get to make all five films though, seeing the diminishing box office returns on that last one.

To me it seems like the same thing as Solo - you can't really really on niche fan trivia stuff to sustain a multibillion dollar mainstream franchise.

[Professor Bear]

The problem with Solo was that Rogue One was a war movie with Star Wars trimmings and everyone knew what they were getting.  I liked Solo, but it starts out an urban crime drama, then it's a war movie, then it's a heist movie, then it's a kung fu movie, then it's a space opera - who's the audience for this?  Not every movie has to be stuck in a particular box, but some movies - tentpole releases with a budget of a quarter of a billion dollars, for example - arguably benefit from it.
Likewise with the world of Harry Potter, you knew what you were getting into with the adaptations of the famous children's books, but with Fantastic Beasts, who is it aimed at?  Kids?  Adults?

Speaking of grown-up versions of children's worlds: Christopher Robin.  Did we need to see a beloved children's book character reinvented as a PTSD-stricken adult wrestling with the evils of capitalism?  Apparently we did.
Some of the animals are terrifying in their new live-action washed-out grey tones, like Tigger, whose white snout makes him look like he's a thousand years old, and the comfortable marriage of cuddly innocent animals and melancholic real-world drama reminded me initially of Adventure Time, but by the end it just reminded me of those buzzkills on the internet who were utterly outraged by Hobbes and Bacon because it acknowledged the passage of time.
God knows what Americans made of a CGI-led children's film that didn't have twerking or fart noises, but I enjoyed this just fine.  Fun fact: Chinese president Wing Jun Ping Chun Li whatever the fuck I dunno is nicknamed Winnie The Pooh by sassy kids on the internet* because of his portly shape and he so despises it that censors banned this film in China even after the makers avoided any reference to Pooh in the name.

* Or "domestic terrorists" as they're known in China.

[Funt Solo]

It's Xi Jinping, Professor Bebop le she bop babar whatever the fuck I dunno.

[Tiplodocus]

Agree with Funt's sentiment there, Bear.

I wasn't on board with Jade Goody casually dismissing Shilpa Shetty with a broadly racist stereotype name so I don't  think you should be doing it. Weapons grade sarcasm or not.

So please, in future, take care Bear.

[Professor Bear]

You're right, Tips, that was an ill-advised gag and I apologise.

[Tiplodocus]

No worries. I've certainly been guilty of it myself.

[Theblazeuk]

 

I don't know if i mentioned it, but I rather enjoyed that Birdbox. Not a great movie by any means and turns out I only like Sandra Bullock on a bus with Keanu Reeves - but I like the concept, its got John Malkovich, and it's well made enough. Sanity splitting horrors roaming the Earth in a vague and undefinable form? Could have easily been "Birdbox? More like Birdshit!"