Which movies have you watched? xi --- straight to dvd

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Midnight Run (1988 96% rotten tomatoes)

Robert De Niro, of course, playing the bounty hunter taking a bail-jumping prisoner back.

So far so predictable. I think I've seen this plot played out several times. Can't remember which films, though. Some 50s movie did it, I think.

Anyway, this wasn't too bad a film I suppose. (Apart from some gratuitous coincidences that had to be put in to keep the interest alive. Oh and fairly silly car chases.)

But I can't see it rated 96%.
 
The Omen (1976? the first one).

I wanted to like it, and i hadn't seen it before. But other than the first good scene
Spoiler :
governess hanging herself
i really didn't see anything that nice/interesting :/

The Exorcist didn't come out that many years later (3?) but was a lot more interesting, imo.
 
Just got back from seeing Dunkirk. Nearly fell asleep. No reason to care about any of the characters. Never felt "epic" (rescue "armada" = one small boat with a three-man crew; the entire BEF plus French units = a few hundred extras on a beach; the RAF plus Luftwaffe = less than a dozen aircraft; no sense of connection or importance to anyone not on the beach; bloodless/painless combat scenes.) Goofy contrasting timelines. Doesn't even work as an "action" movie as there hardly is any.

The Dunkirk scenes in Atonement beat the whole of Dunkirk both as movie-making and for conveying "the horrors of war" in general, and this battle in particular.

As someone who loves both historical dramas in general, war movies in particular, and any take on WWII that remembers that it isn't all about the US, I was sorely disappointed.

5.5/10 - fine acting and a compelling story ruined by perhaps the most overrated director ever. If it weren't for Nolan (and Harry Styles, who ain't bad) I doubt it would have gotten any press.

EDIT: Come to think of it, it felt like a particularly well-shot made-for-TV movie.
 
Spider-Man: Homecoming

I'd have to go back and rewatch Raimi's Spider-Man 2 to be sure, but this was probably the best Spider-Man movie I've seen. Outstanding cast. Tom Holland is definitely a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire, who was okay. Michael Keaton was great. He and the SFX team made The Vulture actually kind of scary, and the writers gave him a good origin-story that fit into previous movies. They even came up with a plausible idea for that furry neck on his costume. Marisa Tomei kind of stayed in her lane, playing the cute dork that she's had in her pocket for 30 years (yes, I watched A Different World, I'm not too proud to admit it), but I thought that worked great, and I liked the total revision of the Aunt May character. All of the other "kids" (read: 20-somethings) at the high school were fantastic. Off the top of my head, I think all of the updates to the character and his world, bringing the 1960s character into the 20teens, worked beautifully. I caught several "easter eggs", and there was one more that I know I missed. And yes, I stayed for the mid- and post-credits scenes. What can I say, I'm a sheep.


I saw this too. Liked it for the most part. Thought the kids were playing it a bit too young, though.
 
I saw this too. Liked it for the most part. Thought the kids were playing it a bit too young, though.

You can always wait for the next spiderman actor, in 3 years at most :)

A dark song (2016)

British "horror" film. 1 hour and 40 minutes of pretty much nothing, concluded by a rather insulting scene. To be avoided
 
The Omen (1976? the first one).

I wanted to like it, and i hadn't seen it before. But other than the first good scene
Spoiler :
governess hanging herself
i really didn't see anything that nice/interesting :/

The Exorcist didn't come out that many years later (3?) but was a lot more interesting, imo.
For that era, in that subgenre, it went:
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Omen (1976)

Suspiria
was 1977, if you want to include that. I thought The Exorcist II was awful, so I wouldn't recommend it, and I've never seen The Omen II. I'm not sure there were any good supernatural/psychological thrillers during the '80s and '90s, when slashers, aliens, and serial-killers kind of took over. My mental list jumps all the way to The Exorcism of Emily Rose in 2005, but maybe there's something in the interim that I'm forgetting or haven't seen. Should we put The Shining (1980) in that group?

I saw this too. Liked it for the most part. Thought the kids were playing it a bit too young, though.
I thought the kids were perfect, but I guess I don't really know any teenagers today. There's the obvious concern that the actors could abruptly age (in appearance, not in years). They're all in their early 20s. Holland, Batalon (Ned), and Zendaya are probably the only ones who obviously need to be in the sequel(s), and they're all 20-21 today. Assuming the next movie keeps pace with real-time, as the MCU tries to do, it may still be plausible for those actors to be playing high school seniors when they're 23. In comparison to the actors who typically play high school kids, these guys may be the most believable in film history. The cast of Friday Night Lights (the tv show, which I loved) would have been straining credibility if they'd been playing college students. :lol:
 
^Rosemary's baby (and The Tenant) were also far superior to the Omen, yes :)

A pity, given the film started well. And it does have Gregory Peck.

Seems that the 70s had a lot of religious (christian usually) horror films. I recall another one, about a gate to hell in an apartment. It was generally not that good either, though (the one with the actor later on playing Rocky's trainer, and also starring in Hopkins film about puppeteering)
 
Yeah, the religious/supernatural/psychological horror-thriller had a nice little roll there, in the early '70s. I do recommend The Exorcism of Emily Rose if you're digging into the subgenre (or if you're just looking for a movie to watch).

I haven't seen The Tenant. As for "gate to hell", my first thought was Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which scared the motherloving crap out of me when I was, like, 9. I haven't seen it since, so I can't say whether it holds up. Burgess Meredith wasn't in that one, though, so you must be thinking of something else.
 
Yeah, the religious/supernatural/psychological horror-thriller had a nice little roll there, in the early '70s. I do recommend The Exorcism of Emily Rose if you're digging into the subgenre (or if you're just looking for a movie to watch).

I haven't seen The Tenant. As for "gate to hell", my first thought was Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which scared the motherloving crap out of me when I was, like, 9. I haven't seen it since, so I can't say whether it holds up. Burgess Meredith wasn't in that one, though, so you must be thinking of something else.

The film is called "The Sentinel" :)


It also has Christopher Walken. He is just a comedy extra, though ^^ Iirc he speaks just 3 lines.

I have seen the exorcism of Emily Rose. It was ok. :)
 
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Ha! The sentinel: the most frightening movie of your life. I haven't laughed so much since I read a Dan Brown novel by mistake.
 
Today I had that weird craving to watch one of those "so bad it's like a car crash, you have to look" movies. SyFy Network never disappoints. Piranha.
 
Rainmaker (1997 82% rotten tomatoes)

This wasn't too bad. Matt Damon and Danny DeVito take on a health insurance firm that is refusing to pay out to a leukemia victim.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I expected more from a Coppola film based on a Grisham novel.
 
I remember running into that on TV one night. It was reasonably watchable.
 
I have seen Valerian by Luc Besson yesterday. Like most of his movies it was watchable but was not special enough for real greatness.
In the end i still don't understand why it flopped so hard as it was better than most Marvel movies and the scifi setting was easy enough to be mass compatible.
In numbers 7.5-8/10
 
Watched Rogue One for the first time. I was surprised to see it on Netflix. Netflix usually only has crappy movies, not A list movies. I didn't see it was coming to Netflix in the usual coming/going articles.
I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Netflix signed a distribution deal with Disney that kicked in last Fall. They get all Disney films, including LucasFilm, Marvel and Pixar, starting last September, for 3 years. They have Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Rogue One, Zootopia/Zootropolis, Finding Dory and Moana right now, and will get everything new going forward. Older films are still bound by whatever agreements were signed at the time, and I believe Netflix's deal only applies to movies released 2016-2018. It seems like Rogue One, Moana and Doctor Strange were on Netflix 6 months after the theatrical release.
 
I thought the kids were perfect, but I guess I don't really know any teenagers today. There's the obvious concern that the actors could abruptly age (in appearance, not in years). They're all in their early 20s. Holland, Batalon (Ned), and Zendaya are probably the only ones who obviously need to be in the sequel(s), and they're all 20-21 today. Assuming the next movie keeps pace with real-time, as the MCU tries to do, it may still be plausible for those actors to be playing high school seniors when they're 23. In comparison to the actors who typically play high school kids, these guys may be the most believable in film history. The cast of Friday Night Lights (the tv show, which I loved) would have been straining credibility if they'd been playing college students. :lol:

This is one of the things I hate about Hollywood casting. The 'kids' did a good job. But they ain't kids. They're all 21. Assume that there's a sequel that comes out in 2-3 years, and a 3rd movie in 2-3 years. Boys normally gain a big part of their adult height and size between 14 and 21. But in 5 years these 'kids' will be no taller than they are now. By writing a part for a kid, and not casting a kid, they may make it look OK now, but it isn't going to look OK in the future.
 
Clash of the Titans! (2010)

Up to now i knew only of the infamous RELEASE THE KRACKEN!!!! scene, but
actually this is a pretty cool movie :D

Ok, they maim the myth, but i didn't know it has Ser Davos, Danish Hannibal, and even Ralph Fiennes (with an awesome opening scene as Hades).

Moreover i wasn't aware that Hannibal is that tall. First time i saw his character i thought it was The Rock :lol:

Fiennes manages to be convincing even as Hades -- what an actor ^^

 
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If they're going to remake one of the most famous mythological films, they should at least do it correctly. I'm tired of Hades being cast as the source of all evil because he's the god of the dead - if one is going to do a film about the Olympians, one should try removing one's Judaeo-Christian blinkers first!
 
"Christian blinkers", I think would be more fair. There's no devil in Judaism, and only kinda-sorta an underworld.
 
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