[polishgenius]

Did you see RRR though

(EEAAO was pretty great tbf)

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 12 January 2023 - 03:47 PM, said:

Did you see RRR though

(EEAAO was pretty great tbf)

I have it on my list on Netflix, just have not gotten round to watching it yet being that it's 3+ hours long, I need to set aside some time.

[polishgenius]

fwiw, if it helps, there's an intermission point (fairly clearly marked) that works as a break-point if you want to watch it in two halves.

[amphibian]

RRR is nothing truly special in the long context of Bollywood, but it moves along quickly and the leads have chemistry enough to work.

Bollywood has so many great dumb hits ready for you all to discover.

[worry]

Kinda shocking that this is its first timing being adapted, but it looks good!

[Aptorian]

Watched The Pale Blue Eye on Netflix.

My review is a snore out of ten.

[Tsundoku]

Cool.

[QuickTidal]

AVATAR: TWOW just blew past 2billion in the box office.

I have a friend who finally went to see it on the weekend, and he said that the theatre was still rammed full....the legs this thing has are even more insane than the first one.

I maintain, as I always have, you don't bet against James Cameron.

[Mezla PigDog]

I still haven't seen the new Avatar. I went to the movies for the first time in ages today. Coaxing my son back after he got scared and we had to leave a screening of Sing 2 about 2 years ago. There was a chameleon character with a glass eye and she lost it and replaced it with an apple and he utterly freaked out. Nithing scares this kid but that broke him! Anyway, today we got through a screening of Matilda so fingers crossed, movies are back on!

Apart from that, my home movie watching the last few days has done Jurassic World, Jurassic Park II, Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World Dominion. None of them touch the original of course but I like the first World movie. The rest may be blah but I never get tired of people running from well CGI'ed dinosaurs. It's my first time seeing Dominion and I enjoyed seeing the old gang back together and with the new gang and the Steve Jobs-esque bad guy but it's pretty meh.

[QuickTidal]

Watched LADY SNOWBLOOD (1973), which was Tarantino's inspiration for KILL BILL....which I mean even certain shots are cribbed from the former. And no offence to Uma Thurman, but Meiko Kaji is a much better "revenger" than her.

It's a gruesome, but very good film. It FEELS a little exploitative at times, but never overt (for reference Kaji's career prior to this was dominated by like "female jailed in heat" type pure exploitation roles) considering it was Toei who was not in the habit of doing such films. There are some GORGEOUS scenes in this....clearly done on a set....but gorgeous nonetheless.

My only real complaint was that anytime someone got stabbed or slashed the blood spurt was unrealistically insane (and cartoonishly red like paint), and then it would run like water out of the body and the sound effect they used was like a creek of running water...LOL.

I dunno if I'll ever watch the sequel, it's apparently not as good...but I quite enjoyed this one.

[QuickTidal]

This looks good. Gyllenhall always brings the goods.

[Aptorian]

Watched Black Adam.

It's not that bad of a movie. But certainly not great either. It's like everything in the film is slightly off, like somebody is trying to skip a few steps in the regular super hero formula, which is a nice change but there's little investment in the characters or stakes to care for, when everything is a card board cut out.

Also somehow The Rock has become the opposite of the charismatic action star he began as. No real jokes or one liners, the attempts at humor are flat. He's kinda boring in this.

It is an okay action film though. The superhero fights are solid and the special effects are spectacular. It could just had been so much better.

[QuickTidal]

I want to know what it is about Hirokazu Kore-Eda that makes him so able to tap DIRECTLY into our humanity with like ALL his films....but I finally got around to watching SHOPLIFTERS (2018 Palm D'Or winner) and my gods...incredible, heart wrenching, and phenomenal.

I recall seeing NOBODY KNOWS in the early 2000's and being affected by it, but who knew this guy would proceed to make movie after movie that is that affecting. Amazing.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 09 February 2023 - 06:51 PM

[Aptorian]

I watched Father Stu starring Mark Wahlberg, co-starring Mel Gibson.

I don't usually like Mark Wahlberg as an actor but he was pretty good for this role And Gibson certainly has the experience to play a shitty role model.

[Morgoth]

Avatar 2 was fun. A relatively weak story, but visually stunning. No surprises there I guess. I'm happy we saw it at the cinema, and in 3D, rather than wait for it to be available at home.

[Mezla PigDog]

I saw Avatar 2 yesterday as well. IMAX 3D. The story was so weak. I could overlook the weakness in the first movie story depth because the visuals were so amazing. And I have watched the movie on regular TV and enjoyed it because the world is pretty cool. For the new movie the only interesting thing is the water aspect and trying to work out if the Na'vi look and sound like their human actors. The rest of it was garbage and you can see the plot for the next movie coming a mile away.

It will be terrible on the small screen in 2D. It would have been a long 3 hours without the IMAX 3D aspects. And who knew alien children would talk like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

[QuickTidal]

Mezla PigDog, on 16 February 2023 - 06:44 AM, said:

I saw Avatar 2 yesterday as well. IMAX 3D. The story was so weak.

This is such a strange take to me.

It's a simple, but engaging story about family and unity and belonging, while also fitting in the notion that the humans have not given up on grinding resources out of the planet. Is it simplistic? Maybe. But heartwarming goes a long way in my books I guess.

[Gorefest]

The story wasn't much, but I hadn't expected it to be and it was enough to carry the visuals and the action along decently enough. We saw it in 4DX. Not sure if the chair movements and water spray added all that much and the 3D at times was shockingly bad, especially when you consider that the first Avatar was groundbreaking on that front. With this one it felt as if the 3D was mostly post-production, like so many inferior '3D' films. But maybe it was just that the ciname was poorly set up, I don't know. It was especially noticible when things were moving fast, they just became a horrible headache-inducing blur. I suspect it will be a cinema setup issue, as I cannot imagine that Cameron with this big of a budget behind him would have scamped on those aspects. But I really wished I had watched it in 2D iMAX instead.

Having said all that and having been quite the critic of this sequel beforehand: I thought it was suitably spectacular and pretty entertaining. I was actually rather amazed at how brutal and bloody it was at times, considering it is now a Disney product. There were little kids in my showing, whose parents I can only assume had the same idea. so the ripped off arms and quite shocking deaths were an unexpected offering.

I still really don't see how they can drag this out for another 2-3 films and I'm not really sure if i could be bothered about going to see an Avatar 3, but it definitely delivered on what was on the tin and it was an impressive feat of worldbuilding and visual spectacle. So props to Cameron for that and I'll happily concede that i was probably a bit overly harsh beforehand.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 16 February 2023 - 01:57 PM

[QuickTidal]

Gorefest, on 16 February 2023 - 01:56 PM, said:

I still really don't see how they can drag this out for another 2-3 films

The theories are that we haven't seen what the REAL story is yet, and 1 and 2 are entirely table setting, and 3 will start to reveal, and 4 is where the whole thing gets fully revealed, and it was enough to stop the Disney suit individual that Cameron reports to in his tracks and blow his mind.

[Gorefest]

Problem is that the story so far isn't exactly what pulls crowds to the cinema for this, so if 1 and 2 already are not able to entice on a story-level, why would people keep coming back for more? Just because Cameron claims he has a cool reveal in film 5 that dropped a Disney exec's pants off? Sounds like a weak draw. "Honest, guys, just hang in, I've got something cooking three films down the line."