Quote from: Hydra009 on December 26, 2023, 01:04:35 AMWkik says the 2023 movie of the same name is a "coming-of-age musical period drama" and having seen it, I concur with this assessment.

Well, Whoopi.

Just finished watching Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman. Reminded me of that old Twilight Zone episode called Steel, with Lee Marvin and Jack Klugman.
It also reminded me a bit of Robot Jox, but those robots were gigantic.
I bet the kid in this one had a lot of fun! 🤖

As I was watching A-X-L again, just as the robot dog was attacking a guy, I got a notification for a TBBT video about Sheldon getting attacked by a dog! 🤣

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 26, 2023, 10:15:23 PMJust finished watching Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman. Reminded me of that old Twilight Zone episode called Steel, with Lee Marvin and Jack Klugman.

How weird since this came across my plate today, so I recently looked it up. And there's a reason you're reminded. Both are based on the same Richard Matheson 1956 short story, also called "Steel" like the Twilight Zone episode.

Godzilla Minus One

There's been a lot of buzz over this movie, so I decided to see for myself.

Incidentally, the movie-going experience has become a nightmare, as usual, and the meme stocks are doing super good because I saw this in an AMC and was surprised that a cockroach didn't scan my phone ticket thing.

So, a lot of the hype is that it may be the best Godzilla movie ever made with Dark Knight-esque Oscar buzz (remember how that turned out?) So, is it?

I dunno, but it's pretty good.

I will say that it has strong focus on the human characters, particularly the main character who has a heartbreaking arch who must overcome multiple personal obstacles to earn the victory he gets at the end. Godzilla movies often have scenes of people talking in a room, which makes sense. A giant fire-breathing lizard is a problem that will take planning and cooperation to solve, but they're usually boring and I find myself wondering where the big lizard who breaks stuff is. Well, I didn't do that here. It's compelling drama. They could rewrite it so they're deciding who gets the last Mallowmar and it would work, probably. I won't disappoint you by attempting to summarize the plot. Just see the movie. It's good.

I should note that unlike the Godzilla movies of my youth that were all dubbed poorly, this is subtitled, so a lot of reading. And I still got into the characters. The cherry on top is the monster attacks are pretty cool, too.

Truth be told , I haven't been watching the "monsterverse" movies because I don't care. So I don't have much of a yard stick for the state of special effects. I don't really watch movies anymore.

But, the monster attacks are pretty cool. Big G is used sparingly because of all the human plot to hold the movie up, but when he is used, they fucking use him. He's pretty fucking brutal in the initial attack. The devastation is also weighty They made it look like the city was just fucked.

The effects are important because the movie was allegedly made for less than $15million and has so far grossed $77M. I guess many of the big block busters have underperformed lately. So Godzilla Minus One is a lesson to Hollywood. So maybe we'll get a bunch of cheaper but better movies in the future. However Hollywood is pretty good at taking the completely wrong lesson, so time will tell.

So it's a good movie, but I'm not sure if it's a great movie. I'll have to let it sit and see if I feel any compulsion to watch it again. That doesn't happen as often as it used to. It's a matter of whether it stays with me or not.

My Super Ex-girlfriend is a romantic comedy, which I'm not usually into, but it was cute, fun, and it had a lot of good action scenes. I only knew one of the actors, though, Rainn Wilson, from The Office, which I've never watched a full episode of.

Gojira Minus  One manifests the angst the Japanese people felt after finding out the military and government had lied to them about the progress of the war for years. "A new and terrible weapons" indeed.

I saw the original (the Gene Barry mangled version (but we didn't know that at the time) at the drive-in c. 1957.) I thought it was cool. Strangely, Rodan scared me more than Godzilla. That Rodan was on the level of "The Giant Claw".

The new Gojira features an experimental Shinden fighter, very cool.

The gf, a kindergarten teacher, is on holiday.
Which means she can stay up later and likes to watch tv and movies with me.

She tapes a lot of them, with the digicorder. But our tastes often don't mix very well.

She tapes 'songbird'.
I read the premise and already had my doubts. I told her i couldn't imagine it being a great film, but she kept being interested.

We are giving it a chance now.
I'm not 20 minutes in, but i am already fearing my gut feeling was right.this seems like an utter, boring, mess.
Believe me, you are not missing out if you've never watched this.
If i get persuaded, throughout the film, i'll amend my statement. But it would have to start kicking ass real hard, real fast.


That said, sometimes, she picks out great films that i wouldn't have given a go.
Yesterday we watched 'in darkness' and that was a gem.

Edit: on 'songbird' even the gf fell asleep at 21 minutes.
I stand vindicated in my prior assesment.
Flaming heap of garbage.

Boss Lady and I are generally synced. I like Poirot enough to sit through them with her, and we both like monumentally stupid movies, like "Lesbian Vampire Killers". The spectrum wanders around a bit in the middle.

Quote from: the_antithesis on December 27, 2023, 10:31:18 PMGodzilla Minus One

There's been a lot of buzz over this movie, so I decided to see for myself.

Incidentally, the movie-going experience has become a nightmare, as usual, and the meme stocks are doing super good because I saw this in an AMC and was surprised that a cockroach didn't scan my phone ticket thing.

So, a lot of the hype is that it may be the best Godzilla movie ever made with Dark Knight-esque Oscar buzz (remember how that turned out?) So, is it?

I dunno, but it's pretty good.

I will say that it has strong focus on the human characters, particularly the main character who has a heartbreaking arch who must overcome multiple personal obstacles to earn the victory he gets at the end. Godzilla movies often have scenes of people talking in a room, which makes sense. A giant fire-breathing lizard is a problem that will take planning and cooperation to solve, but they're usually boring and I find myself wondering where the big lizard who breaks stuff is. Well, I didn't do that here. It's compelling drama. They could rewrite it so they're deciding who gets the last Mallowmar and it would work, probably. I won't disappoint you by attempting to summarize the plot. Just see the movie. It's good.

I should note that unlike the Godzilla movies of my youth that were all dubbed poorly, this is subtitled, so a lot of reading. And I still got into the characters. The cherry on top is the monster attacks are pretty cool, too.

Truth be told , I haven't been watching the "monsterverse" movies because I don't care. So I don't have much of a yard stick for the state of special effects. I don't really watch movies anymore.

But, the monster attacks are pretty cool. Big G is used sparingly because of all the human plot to hold the movie up, but when he is used, they fucking use him. He's pretty fucking brutal in the initial attack. The devastation is also weighty They made it look like the city was just fucked.

The effects are important because the movie was allegedly made for less than $15million and has so far grossed $77M. I guess many of the big block busters have underperformed lately. So Godzilla Minus One is a lesson to Hollywood. So maybe we'll get a bunch of cheaper but better movies in the future. However Hollywood is pretty good at taking the completely wrong lesson, so time will tell.

So it's a good movie, but I'm not sure if it's a great movie. I'll have to let it sit and see if I feel any compulsion to watch it again. That doesn't happen as often as it used to. It's a matter of whether it stays with me or not.

Minor spoilers, but I love that the conflict comes down to volunteers choosing to work together to defeat Godzilla. No conscriptions, just people who believe in the plan and want to do something about it. To paraphrase from memory, my favorite line goes like this: "This country has treated life very cheaply. Kamikaze fighters, planes built without ejector seats or parachutes. Not anymore. We're not making any more sacrifices. This time, we fight for life."

Quote from: Blackleaf on December 29, 2023, 01:13:43 PMMinor spoilers, but I love that the conflict comes down to volunteers choosing to work together to defeat Godzilla. No conscriptions, just people who believe in the plan and want to do something about it. To paraphrase from memory, my favorite line goes like this: "This country has treated life very cheaply. Kamikaze fighters, planes built without ejector seats or parachutes. Not anymore. We're not making any more sacrifices. This time, we fight for life."

And the military needed to take blame for all that death and destruction. OR they needed to get the fuck out of the way.

BTW, I'm not aware of any fighters that made it to combat that had ejector seats during the war. The kikusui units didn't need, obviously, and with so much fighting taking place over the oceans ejector seats didn't seem like a good idea, the development would eat resources needed elsewhere.

Just finished a movie called Skiptrace, with Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville. They were very good together, as would be expected. Another great action packed thriller, set in some pretty exotic locations, like Mongolia and Hong Kong.
Top notch! 👍

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 22, 2023, 12:59:47 AMI just finished watching Star Trek Into Darkness. Great movie! Nothing but action from beginning to end! Good plot, great acting, a very enjoyable time was had!

I'm glad you liked it. For me, though, it was the first and so far only movie that ever made me leave the theater angry. I thought the first third was awesome, which made it all the worse when the last two thirds were the most horribly scripted garbage I've ever seen. And I'm a Godzilla fan, so it's not like I'm some cinema snob who's above watching garbage. SF Debris did a good review of it which pretty much matches my thoughts, so I won't repeat them here, but man... that movie made me mad. I still haven't watched Star Trek Beyond because of it: that movie could be the best thing ever made, and I'd still refuse to see it just because of how much the one before it put me off.