Last Movie Watched Thread

I watched Monuments Men over the holiday. Pretty disappointing, particularly given that Every Actor was in it.

I do not hate Jodorowsky. Sure, he's a batty, out-there guy whose metaphors sound strangled, perhaps awkward, in his mostly articulate English. I gleaned his Giger commentary as trying to collect the greatest to affect a vision of pure transfiguration (re Herbert's Dune). The results from the collaboration are how he classifies the visual design displayed in Alien, not the egomaniacal "I did this, and all has come from ME."

Horrible Bosses 2: I really love the first one so I was looking forward to this. Luckily it's pretty funny. I think it is a dumber version of the first movie, there's a lot less characterization and everyone's quirks from the first movie are amped to 11 but that's okay. I think Jennifer Aniston's character probably could have been written out, I didn't like the outcome at the end with her, it's too creepy. But overall, I liked it, I certainly think Rotten Tomatoe's rating is too low.

Usually I find my opinion of a film is about 10% difference than the RT ratings.

Oh while I'm thinking about it, I did like this more than Dumb and Dumber 2, but even then that movie had plenty of moments that made me laugh. So even though neither of these sequels were necessary (or timely), they're both not terrible.

I just watched Ip Man 2. These movies feel so manipulative, they just get you on Ip Man's side and make whoever he's facing seem like the biggest bunch of jackasses ever, you just can't wait for him to come and kick everyone's ass. You get really riled up, my roommate and I both find ourselves screaming at the TV.

I love what seems to be Ip Man's special move, where he twists his opponent around and holds their head between both his knees while he just feeds them shots to the face. They're making a third in 2015 apparently, I hope he does it again.

You tell your precious Rolling Stone magazine that my last words were... I'M ON DRUGS!

Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage

I'm still puzzled as to why it exists. I kept thinking "the guy they've got to play Sinbad isn't doing that good a job" until I realised when the end credits rolled that he's the writer / director. Patrick Stewart probably made himself an easy few grand by doing about ten minutes worth of narration.

My boss said "We should watch a really cool movie that's somehow connected to Christmas. I did a search for fun Christmas-related movies, but the only thing that came up was Die Hard."

What should we watch?!??!?

Iron Man Three!!!

So tonight I watched two movies, A Better Tomorrow and Lucy. A Better Tomorrow was awesome, some great John Woo action and I liked the melodramatic storyline. Chow Yun Fat is just like the coolest mother fucker ever in that jacket. I gotta get a hold of the sequel now.

Lucy was entertaining enough to keep my interest for the whole film without me either a) Falling asleep/getting drowsy or b) Getting distracted by my phone, which is much more than I can say for most blockbusters these days. The stupidness of the concept was kind of annoying but it led to a lot of neat action scenes, and the whole bit about Lucy losing her humanity was interesting at least. I watched it mostly because of its context. The whole English language French action film with a female lead that was internationally successful thing. It'd be nice if that kind of thing could happen more often.

Inside. The French one from 2007.

I just watched Snowpiercer! I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than Interstellar, if I were to compare last-ditch-saving-humanity-apocalyptic films.

Is minor boobage okay or will that beget all manners of lawsuits?  If minor boobage is cool, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is really cool and tangibly related to Christmas.  If minor boobage is out and you don't have a copy of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang that you taped off TBS a couple years ago that excises the aforementioned minor boobage, then watch The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

The first time I saw it I was tripping on codeine via pneumonia recovery and assumed that I was just high as fuck and dreamed the entire thing up.  Santa Claus is basically a D&D character who gets magic weapons and battles orcs and dragons with a cheetah at the behest of some kind of nature deities.  I apparently was not that high because I saw it again several years later and it is exactly that.  If you can drink at work it might be more fun because it's basically shit made by Rankin Bass that has orcs in it and is not the Hobbit.

  

Predestination: close adaptation of Heinlein's time travel classic '-All You Zombies-'. Beautifully shot, great acting work from Ethan Hawke and especially Sarah Snook. Avoid spoilers unless you already know the original story.

Rewatched Oculus the other night. It's got such a great concept, but the ending is as painfully stupid as I remember from seeing it in the theater. Then I watched Absentia, another movie from the same director, which I thought was much better. I'll continue to give Mike Flanagan a chance, I just hope he works out some of the faults in his movies. 

I agree on Oculus. Not a bad movie but ultimately is the film equivalent of driving in a roundabout.