Which Films have you seen lately? 19 - Get Your Film's Name Outta Your Mouth

[EvaDK]

It's less cinematic than Orient and Nile, that's for sure. Some of Ustinov's later appearances as Poirot were in tv adaptions; not made for theatrical release. But I do like the mystery and the specifics of the murder in it, though.

 

[Arakhor]

Have you watched Evil Under The Sun? Ustinov stars as Poirot, but it also features Diana Rigg, Jane Birkin (I adore Antonioni's 1966 Blowup) and - Maggie Smith.

I think not. It doesn't ring a bell.

 

[Takhisis]

Watched James Landis' The Sadist (1963), a serial-killer film made with a 67,000-dollar budget which actually works because of brilliant camera work. Fulfils all the slasher tropes without actually devolving into the corny or the blood-spattering mess of later films.

Also watched Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), a rare Western in which the Injuns and also the rebels are not caricatures, even if it is still Hollywood.

 

[Takhisis]

Not Mr. Bean?

Non.

Enjoying my re-watch of TSCC. Amazing how much I forgot in that many years. Mid-way through Season 2. It's holding strong, but show woulda been more successful as a 10 epi series on a streamer, instead of going to traditional network 22 epis in season 2, where it loses some of that sense of urgency. Still, I find what I now see as some innovative tv making here, with devices used in later series. Been so long, I'd forgotten how creative it was back then.

Anyway, I think T3 was a bit underrated myself. Probably biggest issue may have been overall continuity maybe. However, I still think it very watchable. (And it gave us Lokken, queen of Uwe Boll movies )

TSCC was ahead of its time.

As for T3, some of the main criticisms are that the pacing is horrible (there's fast action scenes and long pauses with exposition), plus the plot of T2 repeated but badly implemented so a) you know what's going to happen while in the earlier two films there was suspense and b) since they have to make the T-X not win while it is ridiculously overpowered then they have to make it not use its powers, which gives you a lot of moments to slap your own head.
It has a plasma cannon that it only uses when it's dramatically convenient, to the point of not actually shooting John Connor.
It can, on foot, outrun speeding cars. More than once it is near its targets and doesn't shoot.
It actually refuses to grab the handguns the two detectives carry and chooses to walk sedately towards its targets instead of just shooting the crap out of them.
It is a shapeshifter which just sticks in the same appearance throughout most of the film.

They also screw up their John Connor, who is an incompetent whiny emo with 0 agency instead of the leader who precociously took command in T2.

(And also a plethora of smaller plot hole and continuity errors)

 

[Sommerswerd]

Saw Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness today with wife and kids. Holy deus ex machinas! Weird movie, they seemed to be going for a scary/horror movie... but it was a totally expected direction, given Spiderverse and all of the other Marvel stuff dealing with the multiverse lately. They seemed to be leaning hard into the What If animated series, but I hadn't seen all of the episodes, and you didn't need to in order to follow the film. I've said it before, but using the multiverse concept is brilliant, from Disney/Marvel's perspective, because it completely frees them from canon/continuity concerns.

In any case, the movie was a fun watch, and it was refreshingly straightforward, despite all of the superficial multiverse implied complexity. I went into the movie very tired, as I had been up late the night before and then very early that morning... but the movie's pace and depth was actually fast, simple and exciting enough to keep me awake. If it had been more complicated I would have fallen asleep for sure. I was in no shape to watch a deep, complex film today. This movie was different, odd and most importantly, overall, fun to watch. The music battle was a pretty good illustration of how this film drew on all the most bizarre elements of the MCU so far... even more than Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy: Part II.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have watched one of the Mr. Bean Maigret tv shows. It was rather boring.
I still expect Bean to be better than Depardieu.

 

[Kyriakos]

Dianna Rigg is always nice, but Evil Under the Sun is indeed quite cheap :/

 

[EvaDK]

First footage from Avatar: The Way of Water

 

[EgonSpengler]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) was fun. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't been following the MCU, but it features a great performance by Elizabeth Olsen and some great Sam Raimi moments. If you're a fan of either of them and have already seen the rest of their work, you'll get something out of this even if you're not following the MCU closely.

If you want to jump into this film without catching up on all 700 movies that came before it, I strongly recommend watching WandaVision on Disney+ first. (The first Doctor Strange from 2016 is less important to this movie's story than WandaVision is.)

Spoiler :

Elizabeth Olsen's performance was awesome. It's an admittedly shallow pool, but she's one of my favorite MCU villains. I'm just going to go ahead and assume she's not dead. I'll be furious if she's really dead. An alternate-universe version of Wanda who never went insane won't be sufficient - our Wanda needs a redemption arc. I'm willing to be patient, but it has to happen.

All of the Sam Raimi stuff was great. Wanda looking out at the heroes from every reflective surface and then climbing through the mirror; the magical music battle; Evil Wanda trying to possess Suburban Mom Wanda.

So 'sorcery' and 'witchcraft' are two different things? Um. Okay.

There were moments when I thought Cumberbatch and Olsen were carrying Xochitl Gomez a little, but then I reminded myself that she really is a high school kid. Google says she just turned 16, which means she might've been 14 when they were filming this.

As with Moon Knight, I have to admit that I kind of went into this movie with some unfounded hopes, if not expectations. I fell for the idea that this movie would set the stage for the next whole phase of the MCU and/or tie together the multiversal stories that we've already seen. While I didn't expect to see the MCU's X-Men, I did think this movie might set up how mutants will be introduced later. I wondered if Wanda might do something in this movie that would be the reverse of her "No more mutants" moment from the comic and somehow bring mutants into the MCU. And when they were at Mount Wundagore and Strange mentioned Chthon, I wondered if something there might lay the foundation for vampires in the MCU (or even just hint that they've been there the whole time).

We've seen three different perspectives on the multiverse in the MCU (four, if we count Spider-Verse), and we still don't have any kind of unifying plot, theme, or theory. No Way Home felt entirely disconnected from Loki, and Multiverse of Madness didn't feel connected to either one.

I remember that this movie had a tumultuous production. COVID-19 of course put everything in a blender; Scott Derrikson left mid-production and Sam Raimi had to jump aboard a train that was already moving; and when Multiverse of Madness ran into production delays, Sony refused to push back No Way Home. Multiverse was originally supposed to premier before No Way Home. I don't know how that was supposed to have worked. I did read that America was supposed to appear in No Way Home, and that her removal from that film might explain Ned's sudden expertise with Strange's Sling-Ring. It might be a small miracle that this movie is as coherent as it is.

Hearing that No Way Home was supposed to come after Multiverse of Madness makes me wonder if the Strange we see in No Way Home originally was going to be a different Strange.

Here's a minor brain-twist for you: While Mysterio was lying about being from another Earth, he must have known something about the multiverse, because he correctly referred to Peter's Earth as "Earth 616." At the time, we just thought that was an Easter Egg for fans of the comics. I think it's even possible that the writers of Far From Home intended for that to just be an Easter Egg, and Multiverse of Madness has essentially ret-conned Mysterio into someone who knew something about the multiverse.

All of the cameos were fun. I knew about Patrick Stewart and Hayley Atwell, but not Anson Mount or John Krasinki. I'll be fine if Krasinki doesn't end up playing Reed Richards, but I do hope we see Hayley Atwell again.

I didn't spot her name in the credits, but Charlize Theron was obviously playing Clea, right? I never read much Dr. Strange, but even I knew that.

 

[Takhisis]

Last Train from Gun Hill (1959), starring Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn and Carolyn Jones, the last of which I've finally seen in colour for the first time.

 

[Synobun]

Underdog Kids. 1/10. This is... a very bad movie. The production value is somehow worse than you might expect from your local film school. Horrible structure and sound design, exceedingly simplistic tropes. Just terrible.

 

[Deadly Dog]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) was fun. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't been following the MCU, but it features a great performance by Elizabeth Olsen and some great Sam Raimi moments. If you're a fan of either of them and have already seen the rest of their work, you'll get something out of this even if you're not following the MCU closely.

If you want to jump into this film without catching up on all 700 movies that came before it, I strongly recommend watching WandaVision on Disney+ first. (The first Doctor Strange from 2016 is less important to this movie's story than WandaVision is.)

Spoiler :

Elizabeth Olsen's performance was awesome. It's an admittedly shallow pool, but she's one of my favorite MCU villains. I'm just going to go ahead and assume she's not dead. I'll be furious if she's really dead. An alternate-universe version of Wanda who never went insane won't be sufficient - our Wanda needs a redemption arc. I'm willing to be patient, but it has to happen.

All of the Sam Raimi stuff was great. Wanda looking out at the heroes from every reflective surface and then climbing through the mirror; the magical music battle; Evil Wanda trying to possess Suburban Mom Wanda.

So 'sorcery' and 'witchcraft' are two different things? Um. Okay.

There were moments when I thought Cumberbatch and Olsen were carrying Xochitl Gomez a little, but then I reminded myself that she really is a high school kid. Google says she just turned 16, which means she might've been 14 when they were filming this.

As with Moon Knight, I have to admit that I kind of went into this movie with some unfounded hopes, if not expectations. I fell for the idea that this movie would set the stage for the next whole phase of the MCU and/or tie together the multiversal stories that we've already seen. While I didn't expect to see the MCU's X-Men, I did think this movie might set up how mutants will be introduced later. I wondered if Wanda might do something in this movie that would be the reverse of her "No more mutants" moment from the comic and somehow bring mutants into the MCU. And when they were at Mount Wundagore and Strange mentioned Chthon, I wondered if something there might lay the foundation for vampires in the MCU (or even just hint that they've been there the whole time).

We've seen three different perspectives on the multiverse in the MCU (four, if we count Spider-Verse), and we still don't have any kind of unifying plot, theme, or theory. No Way Home felt entirely disconnected from Loki, and Multiverse of Madness didn't feel connected to either one.

I remember that this movie had a tumultuous production. COVID-19 of course put everything in a blender; Scott Derrikson left mid-production and Sam Raimi had to jump aboard a train that was already moving; and when Multiverse of Madness ran into production delays, Sony refused to push back No Way Home. Multiverse was originally supposed to premier before No Way Home. I don't know how that was supposed to have worked. I did read that America was supposed to appear in No Way Home, and that her removal from that film might explain Ned's sudden expertise with Strange's Sling-Ring. It might be a small miracle that this movie is as coherent as it is.

Hearing that No Way Home was supposed to come after Multiverse of Madness makes me wonder if the Strange we see in No Way Home originally was going to be a different Strange.

Here's a minor brain-twist for you: While Mysterio was lying about being from another Earth, he must have known something about the multiverse, because he correctly referred to Peter's Earth as "Earth 616." At the time, we just thought that was an Easter Egg for fans of the comics. I think it's even possible that the writers of Far From Home intended for that to just be an Easter Egg, and Multiverse of Madness has essentially ret-conned Mysterio into someone who knew something about the multiverse.

All of the cameos were fun. I knew about Patrick Stewart and Hayley Atwell, but not Anson Mount or John Krasinki. I'll be fine if Krasinki doesn't end up playing Reed Richards, but I do hope we see Hayley Atwell again.

I didn't spot her name in the credits, but Charlize Theron was obviously playing Clea, right? I never read much Dr. Strange, but even I knew that.

I took my kid raised on the MCU to see it on Sunday and he loved it, I was happy for pretty much the same reasons as you, except I really REALLY HATED:

Spoiler :

Seeing Agent Carter, Mr Fantastic, Professor X and those other 2 killed off, even if it was good Raimi-style death. I mean, I get it, and it's fine, because it's the multiverse, but I just hate watching it just like I hated watching the X-men die over and over again in Days of Future Past!

Also thanks for the tip about that end credit scene, we have the Marvel Encyclopedia in the house so we could look up that character they teased.

 

[Kyriakos]

First footage from Avatar: The Way of Water

Humans still can't defeat a 3rd world alien civ? :/
(or 4rth world, considering the human civ is 3rd world galaxy-wise)

 

[Takhisis]

They haven't unlocked orbital bombardment then?

 

[Kyriakos]

I am watching Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Edit: watched it now. Nice Agatha Christie had something which I have observed (in far more macabre tone, obviously) in Maurice Level's grand guignol plays and stories. The Witness for the Prosecution's conclusion reminded me of "The Last Kiss" by Level.

@Fippy , watch this, if you haven't yet.

 

[EvaDK]

Humans still can't defeat a 3rd world alien civ? :/
(or 4rth world, considering the human civ is 3rd world galaxy-wise)

They haven't unlocked orbital bombardment then?

Well, the company bastards surviving the first film, had to return home to Earth first, explain what happened on Pandora and then the company needs to mount a strike force and send it to the Moon. As Pandora is roughly 5 lightyears away from Earth in flighttime, that gives Pandora around 10 years of peace, before the humans return.

 

[Takhisis]

Pandora is roughly 5 lightyears away from Earth in flighttime,

How many parsecs is that for Han Solo?

 

[Kyriakos]

Since I liked the Witness for the Prosecution, I am following it with another Agatha Christie adaptation: The Mirror Crack'd.

This has a few stars too, including Elizabeth Taylor. Angela Lansbury plays Mrs Marple. And there's also Kim Novak.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm. Still watching. I can see a few ways this will develop, and I'd hazard a guess:

Spoiler :

Going by motifs in Christie's work, as well as Taylor selling the part of 'I can't think of the poison being meant for me' a bit too crudely, maybe part of the convolution here is that she poisoned the other person. Could also be (since she is mentally unstable) a bit of the Wilkie Collins twist in Moonstone; she isn't even aware of what she did, but the motive was revenge for something the other person did to her in the old days (leading to the invalid child of hers, or other stuff already mentioned supposedly "in passing")
But the problem here is how she poisoned the drink she was holding - would be quite tricky to do it on the spur of the moment; she should have identified the victim before their talk, that would work.
While I like some variation of the above theory, I can't imagine why she'd willingly tell the detective so much about her conversation with the dead woman, if this was conscious revenge.
Another possibility is that she was a pawn, but I can't bother with this now. Let's just see how it plays out ^_^

Later (watched it now ^_^ )

Spoiler :

I am happy with my guess

 

[Terxpahseyton]

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