[subego]

Moon

Has great ideas, but doesn’t really build a plausible framework around them. Rockwell is fantastic.

[subego]

Gladiator II

Entertained. More than the first, which I was snobby about. Amply raises the combat stakes. Pedro is surprisingly mediocre. Derek is underutilized. Denzel is awesome and carries the movie. Everyone’s a pagan, so not necessarily ideal Christmas viewing. CG is hit and miss. There’s a “give us your tired and hungry” type speech that’s just laughable in a society which functions on slavery.

[subego]

Heretic

Cerebral take on Saw. Doesn’t really stick the landing unfortunately, but way better than it has any right to be. Another recent example of Hugh Grant just being on fuckin’ fire.

[Thorzdad]

Am I a bad person for having zero interest in seeing Wicked?

[subego]

I think it’s possible you’d enjoy it.

Why do you think it’s not calling to you?

[Thorzdad]

Well, I’m not a fan of musicals, for one. They just don’t click with me.

[subego]

Oh, then you’re fine missing it.

[Thorzdad]

Thanks!

I blame my mother. The soundtrack of my childhood was an endless playing of every 40s-50s-era Broadway musical original cast recording known to man. She kept a stack of them on the record changer and played them all day. To this day, I just can’t with musicals.

[subego]

Does the Wizard of Oz get a pass?

[Thorzdad]

Mostly, yeah, though I tend to zone-out to all the songs except Somewhere... for fairly obvious reasons. The rest of them are forgettable ditties that only slow things down.

[subego]

I think I’ve mentioned before that Jersey Boys is a great musical for people who don’t like musicals, unless you can’t stand the Four Seasons.

It’s a compelling story, and you already know all the songs so they don’t feel like filler.

Bonus: young Joe Pesci is a character, and everybody hates him.

[ghporter]

I’ve read Wicked, so I kind of know what happens, but I still want to see the movie.

[andi*pandi]

my husband has read the books and be warned the musical/movie vary greatly from them.

That said we saw part 1 and it was fantastic.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by subego 

Moon

Has great ideas, but doesn’t really build a plausible framework around them. Rockwell is fantastic.

I love Moon, the atmosphere is so incredibly well done and as you said, Rockwell nails it.

I just watched Alien: Romulus the other night and loved it. Doesn't reinvent anything in the franchise but sticks to the basics while keeping a respectable amount of gore and body horror elements.

[Laminar]

The Holiday

You know the cast is stacked when Kate Winslet is like the 5th hottest actor.

I think Jack Black was supposed to be fun-loving and fanciful, but he came across as creepy. Not sure if it didn't age well or it was always like that.

I got in trouble for snickering maybe 3 times? This represents significant growth on my part.

It's about 45 minutes too long to be a fun annual holiday watch, but is probably worth revisiting every few years for the feel-good vibes.

[The Evener]

Just a short post! It's been a few years that I was last on the site. I don't have any movie reviews to share for the moment. Saw this was the most active forum so I popped in here. Glad I remembered to check the forums.macnn.com domain - I started with macnn.com and got "hello me," and then I remembered some mention that the forums would still be kept up.

Cheers!

[subego]

Welcome back! Loves me some Elevator Action! One of the few arcade games I was halfway decent at. That and Mappy.

[subego]

Ridley Scott’s Rashomon The Last Duel

Good, but rapey.

[subego]

In the Heart of the Sea

It’s really good as a whaling procedural but gets kinda silly.

Hemsworth sucks. I blame Opie.

The whole thing makes me want a movie about the Wager mutiny instead.

[ghporter]

We saw Wicked yesterday afternoon. We really (repeat several times) liked it.

For a musical, it has an awful lot of non-musical action. However, I think this story was a good fit for a musical since it is about feelings as much as facts, and the songs really got those feelings across to us.

Note: I like musicals - most of the time - and being brought up with show tunes as part of our family's music mix gave me an appreciation of the music itself, as well as the genre.

[subego]

Thoughts on how it diverges from the book?

[ghporter]

It’s been quite a while since I read the book, but the musical seems to track with the important parts I remember. And I’m trying to avoid spoiling anything, so I won’t go into too much detail, but Elphaba’s arc in Part 1 feels very much accurate.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Anyone else seen Flow?

Animated movie, but totally different than any movie I’ve ever seen. There’s not a single word spoken for 90 minutes — and somehow it works. A really cool achievement. Also — should be right up the alley of any cat or dog lovers.

[Laminar]

Kind of like Shaun the Sheep? No dialogue at all?

[andi*pandi]

I want to see it.
Also heard the new count of monte cristo is good. French tho.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Kind of like Shaun the Sheep? No dialogue at all?

Yes, that’s the closest I can think of, except 1) it’s a full movie, and 2) there’s no “pretend dialogue” like you have in Shaun the Sheep where they’re talking to each other but we can’t understand it.

This is literally watching some animated animals behaving more or less realistically. (There’s some anthropomorphising going on at certain parts but it’s pretty minimal overall compared to almost anything else you’ll see.)

[subego]

September 5

This is excellent. Even without the compelling historical events, it’s a fascinating procedural on 50-year-old network television. The guy playing Peter Jennings doesn’t look much like him but just nails the voice.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Can’t wait, watching it this week!

[subego]

Bernie

Very strange, low-key, true crime comedy movie starring Jack Black as one of the most genuinely nice and likable murderers ever.

[subego]

Extraction

The Thor one on Netflix. Half-hour too long. Crummy writing and acting, but stuff blows up good. Has an epic-tier chase scene that goes for 11 minutes straight without an obvious cut.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Anyone else seen Flow?

Animated movie, but totally different than any movie I’ve ever seen. There’s not a single word spoken for 90 minutes — and somehow it works. A really cool achievement. Also — should be right up the alley of any cat or dog lovers.

Watched it with the kids last night. 7yo was enthralled, 12yo realized about halfway through that there would be no talking and read a book instead.

 

When the cat was first exploring we spotted a boat up in a tree and were like LOL why is there a boat in the tree?? Then we found out. Based on the wood chips and paper in the cat's house it seems like that was the first time the house had flooded, but there had clearly been flooding before. Maybe this was the worst one so far?

The first time Dog Boat showed up was hilarious.

I don't fully understand Bird Jesus. Did the bird sacrifice itself to the gods in order for the flood to go away? Reddit seems to think the bird committed suicide.

[subego]

How is movie watching negotiated in your household?


Edit: this question is really for everyone.

[Laminar]

Semi-dictatorially? The kids don't often have requests, but on occasion if there's something they want to see we'll do it. I think they mentioned wanting to watch The Wild Robot so we saw that over winter break.

I tried looking through D+ to find a "New Releases" section but they don't seem to have one. They have lots of categories and they have "Recently Added" which is meaningless to me - I don't care what you've recently added to your streaming service, I want to know what new movies are now available. They don't seem to have that.

Somewhere along the line they saw Sonic 3 was streaming and wanted to watch that, but I made them watch Flow instead.

Yesterday we watched Remember the Titans and the 12yo was annoyed and just wanted to watch Sonic 3.

[andi*pandi]

SO will watch the new releases section at the *library* and request things. Kids and I will spot things on the streaming services and bookmark them, or scroll endlessly.

[Laminar]

We checked out The Greatest Showman from the library and it's probably the first disc we've checked out in years that hasn't skipped due to scratches.

The kids were confused as to what made Zendaya an outcast and it took us a second to remember that she's biracial and then explain hypodescent to them.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Somewhere along the line they saw Sonic 3 was streaming and wanted to watch that, but I made them watch Flow instead.

People have been brought up on charges in The Hague for less.

[subego]

Runaway Jury

Watched because Hackman. Mostly good cast. Lots of twists. Not bad, but didn’t quite gel. Exhibit A is the face-off between Hackman and Hoffman in the can. This should have been epic but was only okay. Biggest strike against it is John Cusack.

[andi*pandi]

Robot Dreams. ***.
Animated, PG, and also no dialogue... but perhaps not aimed at kids. Most of the movie is melancholy and characters experiencing loss. Parts were charming, parts were sad, and I'm not sure I like the ending.