What films have you been watching? (XII/IB) - CFC's Dirty Dozen

[cardgame]

I saw The Hitman's Bodyguard over the weekend. Surprisingly good flick.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I watched Age of Ultron last night. Having seen The Avengers recently, it's striking how similar the basic plots of both movies are:

One of the Avenger's family members/robot creations hatches a dastardly plan to enslave/end the world by using the powers of Infinity Stone(s). This causes internal conflict within the Avengers until Nick Fury comes along and gives a rousing speech about teamwork and fighting bad guys which brings the team together. The Avengers then go off to fight a(n) alien/robot army in a highly populated city where most of the team needs to protect some strategic point while simultaneously saving civilians until Tony Stark can come up with a plan to save the world.

Overall I like AoU better as there wasn't any point where I felt the movie dragged which sometimes happened in The Avengers.

Next up on my tour of the MCU - Captain America: Civil War.

 

[Yeekim]

Right, can we get back to discussing movies we watched recently, as per the thread title?

The Death of Stalin has the same kind of humor as the coffee I drink. People summarily getting shot point-blank is played for laughs. And like black coffee, I like it a lot. Highlights include motions being passed unanimously, pointless bureaucratic procedures, and Georgy Zhukov (HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION). Nicky Khrushchev was also great. Stalin with a British accent is weird, but still grievously funny (like a movie counterpart of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus' Hitler on Venus). The movie makes lasting impressions of the ruthlessness and amorality of power-hungry politicians. I cannot speak for how historically accurate the movie is, as I only know the basic facts of that period.

Spoiler :

I was quite surprised to learn that the story with the repeat concert was based on actual events, according to memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich.
Stalin indeed called radio and requested recording of a concert, performed by Maria Yudina.
They couldn't say such a recording didn't exist, and had to create it... and it actually did not take not two, but three conductors. (The first didn't hit his head, but got a nervous breakdown, and the second got blind drunk).
However, Yudina did not request any money and did not send any hatemail with the recording. Instead, she received 20 000 rbl from Stalin afterwards, to which she replied, thanking him and saying she will donate the money to the church and will pray for forgiveness of Stalin's sins against the country and its people. However, this happened in 1944 and was unrelated to Stalin's death... almost.
Namely, when Stalin was found dead 9 years later in 1953, the same recording was allegedly on. It's since been made available to others:

More liberties with history were taken.
Notably, Beria was not arrested and executed so fast after Stalin's death, and there was some half a year between his arrest and trial/execution.
Also, Stalin's son did not speak at his funeral.
But overall it's pretty accurate.

 

[Synobun]

I watched Age of Ultron last night. Having seen The Avengers recently, it's striking how similar the basic plots of both movies are:

One of the Avenger's family members/robot creations hatches a dastardly plan to enslave/end the world by using the powers of Infinity Stone(s). This causes internal conflict within the Avengers until Nick Fury comes along and gives a rousing speech about teamwork and fighting bad guys which brings the team together. The Avengers then go off to fight a(n) alien/robot army in a highly populated city where most of the team needs to protect some strategic point while simultaneously saving civilians until Tony Stark can come up with a plan to save the world.

Overall I like AoU better as there wasn't any point where I felt the movie dragged which sometimes happened in The Avengers.

Next up on my tour of the MCU - Captain America: Civil War.

Civil War is in my Top 3 for MCU movies. The CA movies were, in my opinion, far superior to either of the Avenger movies. Maybe Infinity War will change that.

Rewatched Dodgeball. Humour aged well although probably not from a sensibilities point of view. It'd probably offend people today.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Spoiler :

However, this happened in 1944 and was unrelated to Stalin's death... almost.
Namely, when Stalin was found dead 9 years later in 1953, the same recording was allegedly on. It's since been made available to others:
/SPOILER]

So that's the link between the two. I looked into the film's history portrayals and did find the rest of what you were saying.

Spoiler :

There's the matter of Zhukov, who was disgraced in the period before Stalin's death and was certainly not a high-ranking officer at the time. He did lead the in the coup against Beria.

 

[Zkribbler]

The Sea Hawk, a silent movie in which the British leading lady is captured by Barbary pirates. They are astonished by her "milky white" skin. None of the pirates seemed to notice they were as white as she was.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I saw The Hitman's Bodyguard over the weekend. Surprisingly good flick.

I thought that one was pretty good too. Wasn't holding out a lot of hope for it at the beginning, but I'm glad I watched the whole thing.

Watched the remake of Total Recall on the weekend. I enjoyed it much more than the original. And Kate Beckinsale was in it.

 

[Takhisis]

The good part about it is that it doesn't really feel like a remake.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It barely had anything in common with the original. I actually fell asleep halfway through but I don't remember liking it before I passed out. I can't really judge it on the merits though.

 

[rah]

It's not like either movie was a masterpiece.
The only shortcoming of the second vs the first was I never felt for a second that it was just an implanted experience in the remake.
In the original, it was actually open to debate.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, having the protagonist unplug himself at the end would have been a twist… but then this way it's different.

 

[Synobun]

Rewatched Coach Carter. Very good.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Captain America: Civil War - The premise of the movie, that the Avengers are somehow recklessly destructive and need oversight, is very suspect. Also the bad guy's plan required an awful lot of clairvoyance to pull off. Otherwise it was a very enjoyable watch.

I think watching a lot of the previous MCU movies recently really increased my enjoyment of watching these movies again. There are a bunch of references and easter eggs that I've missed before because it had been so long between watching each film that I forgot a lot of the events that had lead up to each movie.

I'm not sure what to watch next. Maybe Dr. Strange.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Captain America: Civil War - The premise of the movie, that the Avengers are somehow recklessly destructive and need oversight, is very suspect. Also the bad guy's plan required an awful lot of clairvoyance to pull off. Otherwise it was a very enjoyable watch.

I think watching a lot of the previous MCU movies recently really increased my enjoyment of watching these movies again. There are a bunch of references and easter eggs that I've missed before because it had been so long between watching each film that I forgot a lot of the events that had lead up to each movie.

I'm not sure what to watch next. Maybe Dr. Strange.

I recommend Ragnarok if it's available.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I recommend Ragnarok if it's available.

That is a great movie, but I saw it back in November/December so it is still relatively fresh in the old memory banks. I'm trying to get a refresher on the movies I haven't seen in a while or at all in preparation for Infinity War. The current candidates are Thor 1 & 2 (Infinity Stones) Dr Strange (Probable Infinity Stone) Hulk & Spiderman (Haven't seen).

 

[Synobun]

Out of those, I'd do Spiderman. The first two Thor movies are forgettable. Hulk is canon, I think, but uses a different actor and wasn't really a part of the MCU. I hated Dr. Strange.

 

[rah]

Dr Strange was one of the few (and I mean few) that I could talk my wife into going to the theater for.
And she claims she liked it, and she had obviously never read the comics. She found it visually stunning and liked the female old wise one. (not realizing that it was a male in the comics)

 

[Takhisis]

Captain America: Civil War - The premise of the movie, that the Avengers are somehow recklessly destructive and need oversight, is very suspect.

Well, obviously. It's a comic book film.

 

[Takhisis]

Back to Japanese cinema! Tonight I watched Teshigahara Hiroshi's おとし穴 (Otoshiana - Pitfall, 1962), a surrealist mystery film. Wikipedia's summary is spot on:

Spoiler :

Pitfall is set against the background of labour relations in the Japanese mining industry, but the film owes as much to surrealism as it does to "socially aware" drama. The mine in the film is divided into two pits, the old one and the new one, each represented by a different trade union faction. A mysterious man in white, whose identity we never learn, murders an unemployed miner who bears an uncanny resemblance to the union leader at the old pit and bribes the only witness to frame the union leader of the new pit. The two union leaders go to the murder scene to investigate only to come across the body of the witness, who has subsequently been killed by the man in white. They blame one another and begin a fight which ends in both their deaths. The film ends with the man in white observing them before riding off on his motorcycle, satisfied his mission is complete. Beyond this realistic plot, Pitfall shows us the realm of the dead as well as the living, as the ghosts of the victims look on, powerless to intervene in events and bring the truth to light.

 

[EgonSpengler]

That is a great movie, but I saw it back in November/December so it is still relatively fresh in the old memory banks. I'm trying to get a refresher on the movies I haven't seen in a while or at all in preparation for Infinity War. The current candidates are Thor 1 & 2 (Infinity Stones) Dr Strange (Probable Infinity Stone) Hulk & Spiderman (Haven't seen).

I'll also endorse Spider-Man: Homecoming off that list. Thor was fine, but Thor 2 was, as Synsena said, literally forgettable. I mean, I don't even remember thinking it was awful. Just... nothin'. The Incredible Hulk was also fine, but only completionists need to bother.

I thought Dr. Strange was kind of boring, a by-the-numbers origin story, one we've seen several times lately. Broken American travels to Asia (or Africa or South America), learns their mystic secrets, becomes even better at them than they are, returns home to restore justice, blah, blah, zzzzzzz... Batman Begins, Arrow, Daredevil and Iron Fist just in recent years, but in the superhero genre, the story is as old as mud and goes all the way back to Tarzan and The Shadow. The missed opportunities to write more interesting stories with different people are really piling up, and it's starting to make me a little angry now. (If they do Moon Knight, for god's sake, they have to make him African-, Arab- or Persian-American before they send him to the Middle East to find Konshu, or I will burn the forking theater down.) I also missed this one while it was in theaters, and I suspect it really needed to be seen on a big screen, like Gravity or Avatar. The cast and SFX are both outstanding, but without a better, more inventive script they were kind of treading water.