Last Good Movie You Saw

[deanb]

Minority Report

I think someone mentioned something on Reddit so I gave it a rewatch. It's overall held up quite well, though I think in part because it pioneered many modern "digital" filming techniques. Some of the 3D, especially with the cars, is pretty suspect though. (though on 3D and the cars, given time has now passed and we're more familiar with 3D printing I noted that in the scene in the Lexus factory they're using stereolithography to print the cars in a pool of polymer liquid).

Another interesting element in watching it years later is recognising so many of the actors now. When it first came out I was quite young so picking up on actors wasn't really a thing for me at the time (heck most of what I watched was cartoons, and Tom Hanks may be a super famous actor but my siblings only recognised him when I covered their eyes and they realised the guy talking was Woody). So yeah Peter Stormare as the dodgy eye surgeon (<3 Stormare, first lodged into my mind in Prison Break, which was ~10 years ago now I think), a brief shot of Ethan from Lost as the receptionist. The head of the PreCrime unit is more recently has been "totally unexplained guy" in TFA who is all "to me she will always be a princess".

Oh the jetpack police were way lamer than you'd think from the phrase "jetpack police". Tom Cruise was all Tom Cruisey though. Damn his space religion, he's a great action star.

I'll be honest, no idea how they planned to scale it up to a nationwide system except maybe cloning? It was explained that they were pretty much a fluke.

I feel it could have cut out a little bit of the world building, and shorten the jetpack police sequence to maybe include a bit more internal musing on the fact they're arresting people based on predictions. It obviously was fine within the films world cos they'd won the vote to roll it out nationwide. Cruise only took issue with it when he found out there was a "minority report" where in some cases there would be differences in their predictions.

[TheMightyEthan]

I mean, the fact that he only takes issue with it when he finds out about the minority reports kind of makes sense.  When you think the predictions are 100% accurate (a conclusion that is supported by the fact that murder has been eliminated) then it's easy to believe that people, especially cops, would prioritize stopping those crimes over the moral concern of imprisoning people who were 100% guaranteed to be about to commit murder, even though they hadn't actually done it yet.  As soon as you find out about the minority reports though it throws into question how certain you can really be that they were actually going to commit the crime, and all of a sudden you're not imprisoning people who were definitely going to commit murder, you're imprisoning everyone who might have committed murder, which is much more morally problematic.

[Hot Heart]

I really liked Minority Report. The "bleach bypass" (think that's the term) look of the film was really cool and Tom Cruise is good.

 

Anyway, a bunch of films I had on my Amazon wishlist all reached that low price sweet spot, so I finally got around to watching Iron Monkey.

I had forgotten how much I love cheesy martial arts films and Iron Fist left me hankering for decent action. Fortunately, this has better action in the first five minutes than that entire series did. It's an old film by Yuen Woo-ping (greatest martial arts action director ever) with a young Donnie Yen. From what I remembered of hearing about it, I was expecting something a little more epic but it doesn't disappoint in any way. It's a simple tale of the "Iron Monkey" who plays a Robin Hood-like role in this small town with corrupt officials. Donnie Yen's character gets caught up in it as he is forced into capturing the Iron Monkey due to his skills and it goes from there.

It's just got everything you want from a martial arts film. Great action, some silly humour and straightforward drama. Nothing really drags on too long except maybe the kind-of-too-ridiculous final fight sequence but it's still inventive and fun.

[deanb]

Chef

So this has been on my list a while, seemed a fun film and it is quite like a snuggly warm blanket. The only "bad" thing is Dustin Hoffman as the pushy restaurant manager. His food truck does great, everyone loves his food, the divorced parents are not only amicable but help each other out, and the kid doesn't turn into an alcoholic.

It's a feel good film with a huge chunk of food porn in it. Also I quite liked the twitter animation they had (the tweets hover in the air as they're typing, then it sorta origamis into a bird and flies away tweeting to itself as it does. It is going to age itself one day though given the kid is going around making vines. But I think it's quite good in that it actually explains what these services are and for (it's a bit of a plot element that Favreau doesn't understand Twitter at first), so that might help to a degree.

I kinda liked the father-son relationship, while my dad is no chef I did enjoy helping him out with his race car as a kid so easy to see something of myself in there.

It's hard not to see it as an allegory for Favreaus experience with Marvel. Having two actors from Iron Man 2 kinda helps cement it a fair bit. Favreaus chef wants to try something new, but Hoffman, twice, is all "no stick to the menu, it works". So he quits and goes on to run his own small independent food truck, much like Favreau leaving to do his own small independent film.

I've also rewatched What We Do In the Shadows as a bit of a background film. I've also attempted to start on High Rise but I usually put a film on during tea(dinner/supper/evening meal) and got this far before putting something else on:

[deanb]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

It's a bit alright. I'll probably post most of my musings on the MCU thread though. I think they've done quite well in using the time given from not having to do origins n set-ups or what not to instead delve more into the characters. It's pretty fucking colourful too, and certainly is like "oh yeah, comic book movie" (of which one segment, which also has a defining Stan Lee cameo in, that's stupidly silly).

It also has a pretty dang good villain (though as per MCU only around for one film) that in one sentence manages to make you go from "yeah okay I kinda see their point" to "kill em, kill em now".

 

[Hot Heart]

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

Great sequel. Lots of humour and it builds on the characters from before. I think there are some missteps with certain aspects but the thematic throughline is pretty strong and actually quite touching. Really pretty film with some decent bits of action (and some messy not so good stuff). I think Mantis was really good and fit perfectly with Drax whose every line is golden. A bunch of funny cameos and I even spotted the dude from Farscape among the Sovereign. Another great soundtrack and it was actually used as a sort of story point even. Kind of a shame they never used the second part of The Chain outside of the trailers. Fun end credits, too.

[Hot Heart]

Shaolin

I'm a sucker for martial arts epics and heard this was good. Andy Lau plays a warlord who seeks refuge in a shaolin temple after tragedy befalls him, but enlightenment and a full atonement is still to come.

It has a good cast, with Jackie Chan doing his thing for a bit too, and a decent story alongside the action. For an epic it felt "short" at just over two hours, which I discovered is because they chopped a great deal out of it that you find in the deleted scenes. I thought they'd all be fairly short things but it turns out the last one is 19 minutes long. It's really good stuff though with more comedic moments and a whole couple of subplots for some of the "main" monks that really should have been in there.

[Mister Jack]

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2

Opinions seem divided on this one, but I thought it was pretty good.  True, not all the jokes land and it gets a little silly in the first half, but it also does a lot of things right in my opinion.

Spoiler

Ego is the first interesting MCU villain since Loki, which was a pretty long ass time ago.  His personal connection to Quill made for a much more compelling dynamic than Ronan's generic ethnic cleansing in the last film.  This is also the first Marvel film since...perhaps ever to actually make me care when a character dies.  I had actually grown pretty fond of Yondu, and his sacrifice genuinely made me sad.  I was actually hoping for a deus ex machina to bail him out at the last second because I didn't want to see him go.

I also like that Rocket got his own character arc since he's my favorite character.  Nebula's increased presence was appreciated too.  Actually, the film did a good job of balancing each character without making any of them feel overshadowed or forgotten.  On a grading scale, I'd give it a solid B.  Maybe a B+.

Oh, and sitting through the credits was worth it just to see Groot as an emo teen.  That might be my favorite bit in the whole film.

 

Edited May 10, 2017 by Mister Jack

[deanb]

The personal relationship I think is the main biggy for why Loki and Ego are compelling villains. And it makes me worry that Thanos will fall flat, the only personal relationship there is with Gamora and Nebula and they hate him. Though there will be four year passed between Nebula leaving off to get her big warship and Infinity War so we'll see if that is developed. Winter Soldier I guess is another closely related villain, but he's more of a not-quite-hero atm and the main villain there was Hydra.

Yeah Yondu was great, and I too was like "well their ship will come pick em up and they'll be fine", but nope his daddy dies.

Groot related credit thing I liked (and only noticed I'd sort of "spoiled" when posting a pic online of guys leaving) was the "I am groot" replacing some of the names and roles. Also the Jeff Goldblum dance if only because I seem to be of the small percentage that noticed him.

[TheMightyEthan]

I liked both of the Groot things referenced above.

[Mal]

Schindler's List

About time I watched this. 

[Hot Heart]

Ip Man

A few people had said these were good and they star Donnie Yen. I had watched a different Ip Man film before and, compared to that, this seems far more "realistic" although I believe neither are actually truly biographical. As expected, it's got some good action - Yen pulls off the "calm" style very well - and a decent enough story. It's on Netflix (in the UK at least) if you want to catch it.

[deanb]

Rush

 

Watched this with my dad the other night. Figured it'd be a good film since I've heard it's a decent film, and from his angle it's Formula 1 which he's into (did mean he knew most of the main story beats since it's biopic). One thing I'd not noticed when it first popped up a few years back is the other guy is Daniel Bruce (of Inglorious Bastetds and Civil War).

It is a petty good film, it flows quite well, and some really nice shots. I quite liked the bits when it showed from the drivers view with the kind of tunnel vision . Both the main guys come across as arseholes, though that's largely par for the course I think for a majority of drivers. God's gift to the track n all that lot. It's played quite well. 

Oh n it has Natalie Dormer fully in the nudge within a few minutes of the start so there's that.

[Mister Jack]

Wonder Woman

I debated on whether this belonged here or in the OK thread, but it squeaks by into this one because I wasn't bored while watching it.  Is it cliched? Totally.  It hits all the story beats you would probably expect it to.  However, it's still fun to watch.  There's some questionable CG in there, but not so much that I couldn't deal with it.  I'm still getting used to Gal Gadot's accent, but she was better here than she was in Dawn of Justice so I guess she's starting to feel more comfortable in the role.  Either that or she got some better direction.  There are some nice actions scenes, though these DC movies still have too much fucking slow-mo for my taste.  Despite being Wondy's first film, it also showed some restraint and didn't get obnoxiously political, which is a relief because it would have been so easy for them to just make this two hours of all the men being sexist idiots only to get proven wrong by how awesome Wonder Woman is.  The supporting cast feel more like actual people than a bunch of strawmen, which ultimately makes the film stronger.  If I were to compare it to Marvel movies in terms of quality, I guess I'd stick it somewhere around the level of the first Iron Man film.  I definitely liked it more than either of the Thor films.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

I've been kinda stuck in-between games this week. Tried a few things but nothing really grabbed me and there's nothing on my backlog that I particularly feel like starting right now, so I spent the last few nights catching up on movies instead.

Keanu

I marathoned all five seasons of Key & Peele about a month ago, so watching this seemed like the logical conclusion to that. It's basically an extended skit from the show, so it's a pretty good comedy if you were a fan. I don't know how well this one did but I really hope they'll keep making movies as a duo. I love these guys.

Get Out

Probably the best one of the bunch. I had heard really good things about it when it first came out and it did not disappoint. It's not a perfect movie by any means and the trailer gave way too much away but it's just really effective at what it does. It does a pretty good job of putting you in the main character's shoes and making you feel as uncomfortable as he is. 

10 Cloverfield Lane

I enjoyed the original Cloverfield when it first came out and actually rewatched it not long ago in preparation for this. It wasn't quite what I expected but I really enjoyed it. 

I kept expecting it to tie in to the original in some way, so the reveal of aliens at the very end was pretty surprising. I'm a sucker for a good/dumb twist, so I loved it. I guess that means this is more of an anthology thing, though. I imagine God Particle likely won't have any real relation to either of the first two.

Split

I was unfortunately spoiled one element of this one, you know the one. It actually increased my interest in watching it, and what I assumed would be the climax of the movie turned out to be more of an easter egg, but it definitely affected how I perceived the movie the entire time. What would've been kind of a WTF third act and cool reveal became more of a "Yeah, seems about right." I still loved it but I can't help but really wish I hadn't been spoiled.

 

So, that was a fun few nights. Haven't been watching movies as much in recent years, so whenever I get in the mood I usually have a few great ones to pick from. Think I might do Doctor Strange and Star Trek Beyond tonight.

[deanb]

Regarding 10 Cloverfield Lane;

it only connects to the original in the title. Other than that it started life as a standalone indie film and they stuck the Cloverfield name on as an afterthought to increase marketability. Hence it not having the same monster, any of the original characters nor a "found footage" style of the original.

[Hot Heart]

These aren't exactly new (or new to me), but I've been "upgrading" some of my favourite films from DVD to blu-ray and in case anyone's interested in martial arts films, these are some classic Jet Li entries. Both are fight-directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping (basically, look up any film with amazing fight scenes and chances are he did them), with the first directed by him fully.

Tai Chi Master (also known as Twin Warriors)

The first of the early Yuen Woo-ping films that got him noticed by Hollywood sees Jet Li as a shaolin temple pupil growing up alongside a more rebellious kid he's introduced to at the start when eventually his impetuousness gets them expelled. From there, they embark on different paths. Jet Li's character gets mixed up with freedom fighters while the "bad" one joins up with the governor's army and gradually becomes SUPER EVIL. It's got an odd sort of tone that goes between slapstick and seriousness but it pulls it off, and it has lots of incredibly creative fight scenes... even though high definition makes the wire work super obvious on some occasions.

Fist of Legend

A remake of Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury" but actually a more thoughtful story than "murder everyone" in which Jet Li's character returns to the martial arts school where he was raised after hearing news of his master's death in a duel with a Japanese fighter. He soon discovers that his master couldn't have lost without foul play and works to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, there is tension due to the backdrop of the First World War with Jet Li's character even having a Japanese girlfriend who is not accepted by his school. Again, it has some brilliant fight scenes and does a good job of remaking the original but changing it in positive ways. For example, taking on the Japanese school is an impressive fight but actually has purpose (this is where Jet Li discovers his master couldn't have lost fair and square) compared to the Bruce Lee version where he goes to return an offensive sign (and literally make them eat it) and beat everyone up. Not that the latter isn't also cool to watch.

Oh, and if you have these films on blu-ray you don't have to put up with the terrible dubbing.

[Hot Heart]

And another Jet Li great Fearless

If I recall, when I first watched this 10+ years ago, I was a little disappointed. Possibly because it was sold as Li's last "martial arts epic" which I guess it kind of is, but I was probably hoping for some huge fight scenes or something. I think the main difference this time, however, is that I got to see the director's cut, which has nearly 40 minutes of extra material, which helps to both bookend it and flesh it out, so it really feels more like an "epic". You get modern-day scenes, featuring Michelle Yeoh that really captures the spirit of the film.

It's a compelling "historical" tale of Huo Yuanjia (a real life figure who was actually the master/surrogate father of the Jet Li character in Fist of Legend, mentioned above) who was a martial artist in the last days of the Qing Dynasty and tells his story from childhood to death. It's not an action-packed extravaganza but what fight scenes it has are generally superb (except for maybe the O'Brien fight) and it's essentially the tale of this man's misguided pursuit of martial prowess leading to his downfall before he learns the "true meaning" of wushu and does his country proud. In some ways, you could say that a lot of Hong Kong martial arts films feel like Chinese propaganda, but at least this is a good personal story.

[deanb]

Baby Driver

It's not entirely what I expected, though not sure I'd be able to put my finger exactly on it but I guess a certain type of Edgar Wright type film. It does however still have a lot of noticeable flourishes of his such as the humour and the attention to detail. Which for this film centres around the sound design, from the tinnitus opening, to matching action (both in motions and bullets), and a decent choice of songs. Not a GotG Vol 1 by any means but decent.

Actors were all great for their roles and great tension in the unpredictability of some of the gang; they're hardened criminals who will get the job done. So while there is humour and charm, there is also a fair bit of tension too. I quite liked the deaf foster parent as a side character, not exactly a common role you'll see in a film and I think helped you lean more positive on Babys actions than his GF does.

Also the ending

with him being caught and going to jail

Was pretty good to have.

[Hot Heart]

Hero

Hadn't watched this since the time it saw release over here (about 2004/2005) so I had forgotten a lot about it. The blu-ray version is strange, because some images are... suboptimal. I'm not sure if it's an effect of the colour-grading but I was noticing a grainy sort of look on some of the closer images of people's faces, particularly during the "orange/red" section. Overall, it's still the beautiful, highly-stylised, feast of colour it was before and most of the visual effects hold up well.

Anyway, it's a moving tale about heroism and sacrifice with a sort of Rashomon-style of storytelling. Having said that, this version still carries the "mistranslation" of the two words by Broken Sword being "Our Land" rather than "Under Heaven" which sort of gives the film a pro-autocracy vibe at the end.

[TCP]

I saw Baby Driver last week. It was fantastic and I recommend it to everyone.

[Mr. GOH!]

I saw Baby Driver on Tuesday and Edgar Wright gave a Q and A afterwards. The movie is super fun and Wright is hella adorable.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Mr. GOH!

[TCP]

I saw The Lego Batman Movie last night. It was fantastic and I recommend it to everyone.

[deanb]

14 hours ago, Mr. GOH! said:

I saw Baby Driver on Tuesday and Edgar Wright gave a Q and A afterwards. The movie is super fun and Wright is hella adorable.

Sweet. And yeah he's a fun dude and really into Baby Driver too. 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

You should give this a listen then:

 

 

It's the episode of the Adam Buxton podcast with Edgar Wright. I'd recommend the whole podcast series. It's very hard to not like Adam Buxton and a lot of his guests have a similar vibe, e.g. Louis Theroux, Richard Ayoade, Garth Jennings, Rob Delaney, Kathy Burke.