What's the latest movie you've seen?

[Trollheart]

Mission: Impossible II (No subtitle yet, that comes with later movies)

Yeah, I did it. I was considering deleting the other two and then I thought, why not? I would say it was more or less a continuation of the previous one, though I think the plot at least made a little more sense. Sort of easy to see the twists coming, but generally it managed to avoid the storyline pitfalls of the first movie, keeping the narrative more or less on the same course. Naturally, it's leave your brain at home time, as some of the action sequences, great though they were, defied reality. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean. Thought Thandie Newton was a little underused, Dougray Scott came off as a cardboard villain, and the other two (Billy and Luther) were kind of just there to lend support, as it were. Great to see Sir Anthony, even if he was uncredited.

I can see how movies like this break box-office records and guarantee sequel after sequel: it's pandering to that kid in us, isn't it? The one who likes to see things explode, likes to see car and helicopter chases, and that the good guys win in the end, and doesn't want to bother too much with whether any of it is possible. Movies like the ones in this franchise, so far as I can see, have no staying power beyond that of the Box Office. I doubt if, fifty years from now, they'll be discussing any of them as movie classics of this century. But I guess they never pretend to be nor were they intended to be. For what they are, which is guilt-free entertainment for the masses, brain not required, they do the job.

Oh well, on to the third one now I guess. Hey! Anyone seen my brain? I swear, I just put it down and now... what was I saying?

[Trollheart]

Mission: Impossible III (In search of a tagline/subtitle still) (2006)

It is, as expected, more of the same, though the cliches are really piling up now: the mole, the agent forced out of retirement back into the field, the love interest who's captured by the bad guy and must be rescued - though in effect she more or less takes over the rescue herself, and is surprisingly proficient with a gun after a few seconds of tuition! The car chases, the explosions, the masks, the parachutes and the flying ziplines or whatever the hell they are: you get the feeling you've seen it all before, and even the maguffin is eerily similar to that from the second movie. In fact, they don't even tell you what it is! Supposedly that's for the next movie, or the one after that.

Seems like the public appetite for brainless thrillers is inexhaustible, and we'll be seeing sequels to this in our old age. Can't say I'm gagging to see the next one, but if they show it I might watch it. Won't kill me if I don't though. Your mission - should you choose to accept it - is to continue watching MI movies until your brain has completely turned to mush. Honestly, I have The Godfather taped too, and although I've seen this already, I'm more looking forward to it than I was to any of these. Cruise on, Tom!

Oh, and has anyone noticed the Star Trek connection? Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore wrote the script for the second movie, now we have JJ Abrams directing this? Spooky.

[Guybrush]

The Mission Impossibles probably got better as it went 🤔 I saw the latest as it was filmed partly in Norway. I think the previous one was too. Ethan Hunt isn't in Norway. Rather it was said to be Austria in the latest, I believe.

As you say, its just cliches and action farce and doesn't really leave a strong impression, at least not on me.

Remember you can also dip into Tom Cruise's two (?) Jack Reacher movies for even more of the same 🙂

[Trollheart]

Thanks, it's not for me. Like I say, disengaging brain for two hours or so, they can be enjoyable. But I prefer something that makes me think, that has good writing (and if it has explosions and car chases, so much the better though not exactly vital). I remember The Good Shepherd being one of this genre (to be kind) I was impressed with, as was, suprisingly if I remember,  White House Down, but spy movies in general can be very boring and dense. You can keep your Bournes, your Bonds and definitely your Hunts.

[Psy-Fi]

Brute Force (1947)

B&W action flick about a group of inmates serving time in prison for various offenses. The prison is a powder keg of pent-up frustration and anger which is only exacerbated by the actions of the manipulative and sadistic head of the prison guards. Much of the action seems like it came from a pulp fiction novel or a crime comic but even though it's a bit unbelievable it's still an entertaining movie.

[Guybrush]

We saw Dream Scenario a while ago 🙂



Nicholas Cage plays an Evolutionary biologist with a somewhat boring personality (very unusual in biologists). For some reason, he starts showing up in people's dreams and this turns him into a viral sensation.

He tries to take advantage of the opportunities that comes his way, but things take a bit of a left turn.

It was a fun movie 🙂 the first half is a little stronger than the last half, but I enjoyed all of it.

Also, I believe the writer/director is some Norwegian bloke. Nice!



Only thing I really didn't like was Nicholas Cage's hair. I wish I could reach inside the movie screen with my trimmer and cut it off.

[Guybrush]

I dont watch many movies but this is one I want to watch

I remember when it released I posted the trailer to BX first and everyone then assumed I was going to watch it but I never did

I have some of those myself with The Green Knight (2021) possibly at the top of my list.

Dream Scenario's current IMDb score of 6.9 seems about right. The story has some untapped potential, but I still enjoyed what it delivered 🙂

[DJChameleon]

Labor Day weekend was my weekend where I just happened to end up watching weird movies.

Kinds of Kindness


I went into this completely blind outside of the teaser trailer maybe but it didn't show much or give you much of anything related to what this movie is about. It ends up revolving around 3 different stories that are extremely loosely related. Each story is played by the same cast they are just given different characters. I ended up watching it twice because I didn't understand what was going on and thought a second watch would clear things up. idk I think @Guybrush will enjoy this. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons is in it. Along with Willem DaFoe.



The Watchers


Another movie that I ended up watching twice but mainly because I was distracted and on my phone for most of the movie so I missed key details. I'm not sure how well it was received in theaters but it was great to me. It gives a spin to some mythical creatures is all I will say. This movie is hard to talk about without revealing the great parts of it. Just watch it.



Amélie


This is a classic to some folks but I have never seen it. I know someone that based their whole personality off of the main character in this movie. It was interesting and kept my attention. I don't mind the fact that I had to read subtitles because the movie is in French.

[DJChameleon]

Yesterday I went to see The Front Room at my local theater because it was closing down after 36 years. The owner of the building sold the property off to a storage facility that wants to be built in its place which is sad. This theater managed to survive Covid 19 by switching to a drive in theater model and they were selling movie theater popcorn like randomly throughout the week. The community came around to support during the hard times. It was hard on the second theater that didn't change their model they had to shut down. Now the closest movie theater is 25 mins drive away. There are three different theaters in each direction that are 25 to 30 mins drive away. It was sad ordering my last ticket from them even though I stopped going to the local theater after I got the Regal unlimited pass. I went for nostalgia because all during high school I would hit up that theater. So many good memories.


Anyways The Front Room, I went into it completely blind. All I knew was that Brandy was in it based off of the movie poster. I didn't see a trailer for it and thank goodness. After I saw the movie and came home. I watched the trailer and wtf through the whole thing. They gave away some key points to the movie in the trailer alone. I didn't even realize this was a A24 movie. It was giving Mother! vibes but something was messing/not adding up and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's definitely a slow burn movie so if you hate those types you won't like this. I think the graphic use of bodily fluids hit too close to home for me since I was in a similar situation irl just last year.

The basic jist of the plot is that an interracial couple that has a baby on the way ends up taking in the husband's step mother and chaos ensues. Come to find out the mother is heavily religious but also has ties to the KKK. That's all I'm gonna say.

[Guybrush]

It's definitely a slow burn movie so if you hate those types you won't like this. I think the graphic use of bodily fluids hit too close to home for me since I was in a similar situation irl just last year.

The basic jist of the plot is that an interracial couple that has a baby on the way ends up taking in the husband's step mother and chaos ensues. Come to find out the mother is heavily religious but also has ties to the KKK. That's all I'm gonna say.

It doesn't sound likely to win any awards, but it still sounds like a fun time.

For myself, I saw this:



It was okay-ish entertainment. It definitely feels like its trying to pick out the best bits from the first two movies and mash it together. I don't think it really gels and it didn't engage me that much. Sometimes I think modern movie productions have become too good in the sense that there's not a wasted minute, every camera angle and picture is well crafted, stuff happens all the time. It just doesn't resemble real life which is messy and sometimes boring. I feel like movies in the past were sometimes better at depicting this, like the banter in Alien or the breakfast scenes in movies like Poltergeist or ET.

Stuff about the xenomorphs

Anyways, something that annoys me about it is the xenomorph life cycle. In this movie, spider insects human with egg which hatches baby xenomorphs which grows to adult.  I mean, the whole life cycle doesn't make sense as there seems to be no point to the Spider stage. Why have a stage that is asexual, relatively vulnerable and reliable on finding a compatible host. Wouldn't the aliens be more deadly and better adapted if they skipped the spider stage and went directly to xenomorph?

Whatever. In this movie, all these stages can be completed in a matter of hours or even minutes. Yes, a spider lays an egg and within hours, that has become a grown ass xenomorph. They don't seem to need nutrition or anything much for this to miraculously happen and the spider stage seems even more pointless.

[close]

But set design was good and I was okay entertained.

[Guybrush]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice



I didn't expect that much and actually found it to be slightly better than I feared. Monica Belluci looks great, Catherine O'Hara is so funny and Michael Keaton is still good. Ortega does a more run of the mill, but decent performance as Lydia Deet's daughter while Winona Ryder was strangely wooden this time around. Strangely because she showed she could act well in Stranger Things, but doesn't quite convince me here.

Anyways, it's not a big problem in a comedy. The movie is never hilarious, but it did elicit some chuckles from me and my buddy. Oh, and Danny Devito kinda plays Frank from Always Sunny, only deader.

[Guybrush]

Recently we saw The Old Dark House from 1932.



It's a dark and very rainy night. A young couple and their friend are forced to give up on their car ride through the Welsh countryside to seek refuge from the sudden storm at a mansion; a mansion lived in by two or more strange siblings who has Boris Karloff as their butler. And he has a drinking problem.

The story isn't great, but the movie is still quite entertaining and also funny. It's got lots of great banter and a good dose of weird. I read that it was an influence on Rocky Horror Picture Show. I can see that.. at least the start is pretty much the same.

It's somewhere between old horror and comedy, though I felt it leans more heavily into comedy. See it if you like old, spooky (not really) movies.

[innerspaceboy]

Classic horror comedy reminiscent of The Trouble with Harry and Arsenic and Old Lace? I thoroughly enjoyed both of those.

[Guybrush]

Classic horror comedy reminiscent of The Trouble with Harry and Arsenic and Old Lace? I thoroughly enjoyed both of those.

Possibly, though it's hard for me to say as I haven't seen those 🙂 The humour is accessible and a little goofy at times and generally sticks to the dialogue. It's not slapstick.

Me and my wife also saw this:

Full Circle (also known as The Haunting of Julia) from 1977



It's based on the book Julia by Peter Straub and is more or less a classic ghost story. It has a lot in common with The Changeling released a few years later, though it's not quite as creepy or well known.

I don't wanna spoil anything, but it features Mia Farrow in the lead who is trying, in the best tradition of the genre, to figure out who or what it is that haunts her. The movie has violence and moments of horror, but most of that is kept just off-screen or at least not overt. It seems carefully made.

This movie caused me some slight childhood trauma as I saw the first few minutes of it on telly in my childhood. Needless to say, it didn't seem traumatic today, but it is effective.

I also give this one:

[DJChameleon]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice



I didn't expect that much and actually found it to be slightly better than I feared. Monica Belluci looks great, Catherine O'Hara is so funny and Michael Keaton is still good. Ortega does a more run of the mill, but decent performance as Lydia Deet's daughter while Winona Ryder was strangely wooden this time around. Strangely because she showed she could act well in Stranger Things, but doesn't quite convince me here.

Anyways, it's not a big problem in a comedy. The movie is never hilarious, but it did elicit some chuckles from me and my buddy. Oh, and Danny Devito kinda plays Frank from Always Sunny, only deader.

I saw this two weeks ago and I enjoyed it. It was a bit strange having two antagonists but it ended up working out.

I also saw Romulus and loved it so much. Some people complained about the characters not having much depth but I'm like come on they are alien fodder who cares if they have depth or not. Only the main two needed depth which they did and had good back story. I disagree with your analysis of how the alien evolves. It has always been that way and necessary.