Which movies have you watched? XV - This title not included in your subscription

Previous threads:

Part One: What Movie(s) Have You Recently Seen?
Part Two: What movie(s) have you recently seen 2
Part Three: Which movie(s) have you viewed lately? - Episode III
Part Four: Which movie(s) have you seen lately? - Episode IV
Part Five: Which Movies Have You Seen Lately? V for Five
Part Six: Which Movies Have You Seen Lately? VI - The Sequel Five Sequels in the Making
Part Seven: Which movies have you seen lately? Kinetic Icon VII
Part Eight: Which movie(s) have you seen recently- VIII Remake of the 80s
Part Nine: Which movies have you watched? IX
Part Ten: Which movies have you watched? Ι' --not an iota of bad movies; but maybe bad taste
Part Eleven: Which movies have you watched? xi --- straight to dvd
Part Twelve: What films have you been watching? (XII/IB) - CFC's Dirty Dozen
Part Thirteen: Which movies have you watched? 13 - In a world where...
Part Fourteen: Which movies have you watched? ΙΔ' - The House of Asterion[/QUOTE]
Part Fifteen: Which movies have you watched? IE': NO CAPES!

I watched Onward, I'm gonna say, last week? It was good! It continues the Pixar tradition of making films about family that have genuine heart without tipping into sentimentality. It even took the Disney "dead parent" trope and actually did something with it, explored the psychological impact this would have on children, rather than just being an awkward gap in the character's biography. They also made a decent effort to commit to a pulpy high fantasy setting with things like the manticore and gelatinous cube, and not falling into the pitfall of giving fairy-tale characters swords and saying "this is high fantasy, right?"

I also liked that the metalhead older brother was presented as a D&D-loving nerd instead of an anti-social tearaway. A small detail, to be sure, but having been that kind of teenager, one I appreciated.

The protagonists revelation at the finale felt a little sudden, that they were asking a flashback montage to do some of the character development that should have been contained in the previous ninety minutes, but that's the only criticism I have.

 

Crave does the same subscription thing as in your title, and it's annoying. One thing I appreciate from Netflix is that you pay one fee and get access to the entire library, rather than the quasi-cable model where you pay a fee, get a limited library, and then the "opportunity" to pay more for individual brands/companies.

 

Ballad of Buster Scruggs, it's an awesome movie, the only down-side is the horrible depiction of Native American, which consist of two scenes that showing their savage, inhumane and orc-like hivemind mentality.

Spoiler :

The second scene is actually harming the movie quite severely for me, when groups of Native American, like 20 of them on horseback, equipped with weapons, unable to kill one white-man behind a minimum cover, later on worst, the white-man just went out from cover and stand in the middle of the field shooting Native American. I just cannot believe the Director or Screen Writer would created something this horrible to otherwise awesome movie. Too bad!!

 

Game Night was a fun comedy starring Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman.

 

Zulu - A historical movie that is accurate.

150+ British soldiers defend Rorke's Drift from 3,000-4,000 Zulus.
Michael Caine's first movie. Superb casting and action.

 

The World Is Not Enough - The second-worst of the first three Brosnan Bond films. Better than Goldeneye, but not as good as Tomorrow Never Dies, which was the only one I'd recommend if you just want a good action film. Have not yet watched Die Another Day.

Olympus Has Fallen - Not very good at the beginning, over-reliant on obvious CGI and not plausible, but actually was good in the last third-to-half. Perhaps not coincidentally, that's also when Morgan Freeman's character played the largest role, and when there was somewhat less action and somewhat more plot. I don't plan to seek out its sequels, but would watch them if a friend suggested it.

 

To balance out my refined tastes (The Godfather Part II, Thomas Mann's works, et al.) I've watched two action films.
1) The Great Wall (2016) - great visuals action chicks in cool armour, evil monsters… plot? what plot?
2) Colombiana - not even the above?

 

The Croods. Animated story about a family of cavemen. Dad's motto is "Be afraid of everything." Teenage daughter Eve goes adventuring and meets Guy, who has invented fire. An earthquake destroys the family's cave and drives them into the open. Much laughs. Prehistory as it should have been.

 

If you thought TWiNE and Goldeneye were bad, you can just skip this one.

 

It's still funny to me that China Is Just, So Great, You Guys: The Motion Picture was the subject of a [edit: protracted] "white-washing" controversy.

Like, whether or not the specific criticism of the casting of a white actor in the leading role was valid, it was just so totally missing the point which the film was otherwise beating into the viewer's face, neck and genitals.

 

The Rise of Skywalker. Which, why god, why, can they not write a Star Wars movie without putting a lot of stupid crap in it which ruins the suspension of disbelief?

 

As far as I understood it there were a few unwashed mediæval Europeans who just needed to go and learn from mighty China's arts and sciences and then they arrived and found the women were talented and far better than their own and everyone wore shiny outfits and in fact the Chinese military was the only thing standing between the rest of China and also the rest of humanity and its utter destruction and really the barbarians were improved by their knowing China and they also were deceptive and wanted to steal Chinese secrets.
I watched it in a few goes because it's been on repeat this past week or so.

I've balanced it out with 'Murica saves the world-type films such as Armageddon (apparently this made Liv Tyler a thing™ in Hollywood? it also features Michael Bay and explosions), but we have to admit that the Chinese (with the advantage of nearly two decades' worth of technological advances) got the on-Earth visuals better.

Oh dear, you've been missing out on the Star Wars thread. Synsensa brought in some rumours of the type that are denied in a way that confirms them; tl,dr: they fired a director, got another one who'd already not been that good and had a completely differing vision from the earlier director and also from the one for Ep. 8, and then sod-all they heavily edited it enough to make J.J. Abrams himself not really acknowledge the film as his.

I mean, it's Disney.

 

I did?

 

Yeah, you posted links to reddit.

 

Oh man, how did I miss this when it came out ?

 

Over the past two nights I've watched An American Werewolf in London and The Howling.

 

If you're not sick of werewolves yet, I recommend Ginger Snaps.

 

You should watch What We Do in the Shadows.
"Remember, we're werewolves, not swearwolves."

 

I was also thinking about Wolf (1994). Where Ginger Snaps is an allegory about a girl in adolescence, Wolf is about a guy having a midlife crisis. Great cast - Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Christopher Plummer - but even back then, I found the action and SFX a bit lacking. I imagine it must look ridiculous today.

 

Back-to-back!
Atomic Blonde (2017) Charlize Theron and James McAvoy in a Cold War thriller that actually works, not only as a thriller but also as an action film. No cars explode.
Koblic (2016) A thriller set during the Dirty War in Argentina. Highly recommended.