NEW: List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

[thestrangebrew1]

Watched the first 4 episodes of The Bear on Hulu. So far it's interesting and I'm digging it. All the yelling between Carmy and Rich get kind of annoying but it still seems like a great show. I'll finish off the season and rate but so far I'm liking it.

 

[DigDog]

Sorry - can't help that you dislike it...

i dont mean nothing by it.
i think if you got brendan gleeson, you should focus the film on him, he's kinda wasted in a long tv serial. had the same feeling about olivia colman being diluted in a tv show.

 

[DigDog]

The Nursery 8/10 good acting better than other horror movies!

Yeah?
this 3.5/10 rated film on IMDb?

The Nursery (2018) - IMDb

The Nursery (2018) Reference View

www.imdb.com

 

[DigDog]

Holy fuck, Shogun is spectacular. This is up with The Newsroom as some of the best TV i have *ever* seen.

 

[HomerJS]

Nymphomaniac Vol 1 and 2

Girl named Joe found beaten. Taken in by Seligman to heal. She tells her life story of how she became a nympho. It’s a Lars Von Trier work of art however rough and sad. Wait till the ending for the twist

7.5 / 10

 

[DigDog]

i watched back to back two films that hold a special place in my heart;

Not Another Teen Movie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277371/reference/ (unrated version)

and

Van Wilder - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283111/reference/ (unrated version)

Both come with tons of titties.
NATM stars none other than "Capt America" Chris Evans, while Van Wilder stars "Deadpool" Ryan Reynolds.
NATM has Jaime Pressly (sadly, not nude, but still spectacular) while VW has Tara Reid; now, i know she hasn't aged gracefully, but this was PRIMO Tara Reid, she is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Between the two films you will find Mr. T, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Breaking Bad Aaron Paul, Kal Penn, TBBT Simon Helberg, Cerina Vincent (the fully nude foreign exchange student), Randy Quaid, Eric Estrada, Daniel Cosgrove, Emily Rutherford, and a bunch more i recognize but dont actually know who they are.

Both are spoofs of the college sex/romance comedy, both have their own take on it, both are fun.

... now .. my rating may have been a bit high for these films. Yes maybe they don't deserve such a high rating, but i think they are both films that take some balls to take from script to finished product, and both were done properly. Van Wilder even has some genuine heartfelt romantic dialogue in it, while NATM has the "growing up is part of life" trope. NATM does hit harder on the first viewing than it does afterwards, because it really bites into some tropes that should no longer exist, while VW is a bit more straightforward, but easier to re-watch. I would recommend both - because of the jokes, and because of the tits. Oh yes, the so.many. tits.

7.5/10 each

 

[DigDog]

i also watched The Madness Of King George - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110428/reference/

starring the excellent Nigel Hawthorne, better known for being the foil in the show Yes Minister!, and co-starring Dame Helen Mirren, and the fabulous Ian Holm.
While the film is competently made, with lavish costumes and sets, and the acting is absolutely excellent (Hawthorne won a Tony for the same role on the stage play), the film is quite self-serving, almost a soliloquy until Ian Holm jumps in to give Hawthorne something that can match his acting. Or, in other words, it starts slow but get better.

Personally, i wouldn't really recommend it. The acting should serve the story, not the other way around. You would be better off watching Amadeus, or Yes Minister!, unless you are really just interested in classical theatre acting, in which case then you absolutely should watch it.

The plot is just that. George III, King Of England etc has an attack of porphyria (although historically it has now been accepted that it was bipolar disorder or mania) and goes insane. With his political power weakened, both his own son, George Prince Of Wales (George IV), and the Whigs of Parliament, seek to undermine him. Kinda. Because while this plot is in the film (and historically accurate) it is really feeble compared to everything else.
And then George III gets better and the film ends.

So, great performances, but not so great direction and a script that doesn't work well to capture the interest of the audience.
Currently 7.2/10 on IMDb, i would say

7/10 - not for everyone.

 

[DigDog]

Three Body Problem (Netflix) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/reference/

.. there's got to be a cast of a thousand, and i can't find who the director of photography is, but whoever they are, they deserve an oscar because the photography is just fucking amazing. There's not 10 seconds of tape that aren't lit and shot properly, properly framed, with correct color grading, even, i dare say, artistry.

But otherwise i didn't find it terribly enjoyable.

Half the story is about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966, where all the 'gnorant people killed everyone else just to get to a handful of rich guys. One of these is a physics professor, whose daughter is then the protagonist of the other half of the story - back in the Good 'Ol US of A, she studies cosmology and starts having visions.
There is also an obligatory subplot based in Engheland (complete with incorrect police uniforms and "crime scene" tape that we don't use).

The chinese dudes in 1966 do some kind of Philadelphia-Experiment shit and this reflects back in time in 2024. It's only the first episode so obviously Netflix needs to dilute the plot as much as they possibly can.

Idk, i'll give it another 2-3 episodes but i don't have great expectations.

 

[soulcougher73]

i watched back to back two films that hold a special place in my heart;

Not Another Teen Movie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277371/reference/ (unrated version)

and

Van Wilder - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283111/reference/ (unrated version)

Both come with tons of titties.
NATM stars none other than "Capt America" Chris Evans, while Van Wilder stars "Deadpool" Ryan Reynolds.
NATM has Jaime Pressly (sadly, not nude, but still spectacular) while VW has Tara Reid; now, i know she hasn't aged gracefully, but this was PRIMO Tara Reid, she is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Between the two films you will find Mr. T, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Breaking Bad Aaron Paul, Kal Penn, TBBT Simon Helberg, Cerina Vincent (the fully nude foreign exchange student), Randy Quaid, Eric Estrada, Daniel Cosgrove, Emily Rutherford, and a bunch more i recognize but dont actually know who they are.

Both are spoofs of the college sex/romance comedy, both have their own take on it, both are fun.

... now .. my rating may have been a bit high for these films. Yes maybe they don't deserve such a high rating, but i think they are both films that take some balls to take from script to finished product, and both were done properly. Van Wilder even has some genuine heartfelt romantic dialogue in it, while NATM has the "growing up is part of life" trope. NATM does hit harder on the first viewing than it does afterwards, because it really bites into some tropes that should no longer exist, while VW is a bit more straightforward, but easier to re-watch. I would recommend both - because of the jokes, and because of the tits. Oh yes, the so.many. tits.

7.5/10 each

I love NATM. It is about the only spoof movie I ever found hilarious. Haven't seen VW in years, don't remember a ton about it. Maybe I'll give it another watch soon.

 

[Bitek]

Three Body Problem (Netflix) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/reference/

.. there's got to be a cast of a thousand, and i can't find who the director of photography is, but whoever they are, they deserve an oscar because the photography is just fucking amazing. There's not 10 seconds of tape that aren't lit and shot properly, properly framed, with correct color grading, even, i dare say, artistry.

But otherwise i didn't find it terribly enjoyable.

Half the story is about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966, where all the 'gnorant people killed everyone else just to get to a handful of rich guys. One of these is a physics professor, whose daughter is then the protagonist of the other half of the story - back in the Good 'Ol US of A, she studies cosmology and starts having visions.
There is also an obligatory subplot based in Engheland (complete with incorrect police uniforms and "crime scene" tape that we don't use).

The chinese dudes in 1966 do some kind of Philadelphia-Experiment shit and this reflects back in time in 2024. It's only the first episode so obviously Netflix needs to dilute the plot as much as they possibly can.

Idk, i'll give it another 2-3 episodes but i don't have great expectations.

I listened to the audiobooks, and the series is awesome. I'll have to check out the Netflix series, but some of the reviews I've read have been critical of the "globalization" (some may say wokification) of the story and the cast, which would be a shame. Part of what I enjoyed about the story is the Chinese perspective, history and characters, where most scifi/fantasy you get is Western/medieval or Japanese/anime.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time adaptation on Amazon turned out like that. Great books, but modernizing it, globalizing it, diversifying it and also and also simplifying the story made it just lose the flavor of the novels.

 

[mikeymikec]

Dune Part 2 (2024)

Like the first film, it left me cold. It was very professionally executed, I actually liked the variations in the plot and attempts to give Chani some character; one of the plot variations tied in extremely well with Paul's quandary about how to avoid holy war / genocide. The film-makers made some decent efforts to make the book's point about religion being a tool of control as well (without which, there is no point in portraying Dune in another medium at all).

However, the character of the Baron was a waste of Stellan Skarsgård's talents, a total cardboard cut-out of a character. The emperor wasn't any better, the Bene Gesserit reverend mother was a bit better but behind a veil again inhibits injecting a bit of humanity into the role. Basically all the bad guys were cardboard cut-outs, possibly with the exception of Feyd (though I doubt that many find a psychopath to be a relatable character).

I actually agree that Timothée Chalamet wasn't right for the role of Paul. He seemed to have three modes of acting: blasé, crying, or angry. Admittedly though I have no idea whom I would pick instead because most better actors are older actors (certainly the ones I know at any rate).

- edit - Having thought about it further, I think it wasn't so much that TC was the wrong guy for the role but the role was the problem; for example I don't remember a particular scene where the actor had the chance to knock it out of the park and came up short. There's so little space in this film for a character-depth-exposing conversation, and I think Paul's character got the short end of an already short stick.

IMO if you want to see Dune done right, watch the 2000 mini-series. It's low budget, some of the acting isn't great, the CGI is low-budget too, but the characters are portrayed in a much more likeable/relatable/human/complex manner and particularly the Baron gets a lot more to work with. When the topic of vendetta between Harkonnen and Atreides is addressed in the mini-series, it's believable. In this latest version, it's like they're enemies because there had to be an enemy, so an enemy is supplied and nothing more than absolutely necessary.

 

[sdifox]

I listened to the audiobooks, and the series is awesome. I'll have to check out the Netflix series, but some of the reviews I've read have been critical of the "globalization" (some may say wokification) of the story and the cast, which would be a shame. Part of what I enjoyed about the story is the Chinese perspective, history and characters, where most scifi/fantasy you get is Western/medieval or Japanese/anime.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time adaptation on Amazon turned out like that. Great books, but modernizing it, globalizing it, diversifying it and also and also simplifying the story made it just lose the flavor of the novels.

The Three-Body Problem (TV Series 2023– ) ⭐ 7.6 | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

45m | TV-14

www.imdb.com

 

[manly]

1883 - 8/10 . Jennifer Lawrence's younger doppelganger is a star in the making.
1923 - 7/10 . Three stories rolled into a short 8 episode season, overall pacing seems too fast.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Watched the movie Black Mass recently. Good movie.
Johnny Depp looks very scary there. I looked up the real whitey Bulger , he looks scary. But Johnny Depp looks very convincing with that stinger gaze. And for me almost unrecognizable.

Dakota Johnson also played very good. They all did of course , all actors and actresses.

I found the scene amazing where the discussion took place about the future of their young boy.
I am still fully convinced that the scenes with both stars were filmed seperately. And the combined shots were also filmed.
And later all combined. To perfectly capture the emotions both stars presented so wonderfully.

 

[DigDog]

I actually agree that Timothée Chalamet wasn't right for the role of Paul.

1883 - 8/10 . Jennifer Lawrence's younger doppelganger is a star in the making.

Isabel May? Yeah she is quite something.

I watched the horrible Oz, The Great And Powerful - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1623205/reference/

I'm gonna start by pointing out that this Sam Raimi film had both Johnny Depp and (comically) RDJ turn down the role of the protagonist, so Raimi hired Discount Johnny Depp instead, James Franco, and has his pretend to be JD, which DOES NOT WORK.

The plot is that a rather scummy fair magician somehow finds himself himself in the Land of Oz, complete with obligatory AND OVERLY LONG introductory B&W segment, and here he is to find and defeat the evil Wicked Witch. He does so by pulling the same trope out of his ass that's used whenever the protagonist is weaker than the villain, they set up a weird thingamajig of smokescreens, traps, illusions and because the bad guys are dumber than a bag of hammers, they get defeated.

But ..

I could leave it at that and the film would just be bad. If you are a child, you could find the SUDDENLY EXTREMELY LOUD VOLUME to be entertaining, or you could ooooh at the neverending greenscreen, but if you were a snotty film reviewer you would fucking rip this film to shreds.
No spolier tag because the film is shit anyway.

The most noticeable fail, and the damnation of this film is that it's centered on this scammer magician who is supposedly charming, rogueish, witty, only-in-it-for-the-money, dastardly yet adorable; and Franco is none of these things. I don't know about his drmatic roles but he is just a horrible, horrible fit here, and you can clearly tell the part was written for Johnny Depp and not for him.

There's also Zach "Scrubs" Braff that is your Wish-clone of Donkey from Shrek, Tony Cox the dwarf who's been in a million dwarf roles, and they have a weird doll that tags along for idk what reason if not to be annoying to children and out of place for adults.

The dialogue is flat out terrible.
There is a character that is completely nonsensical, and it's played by one of the worst actresses of this generation, Mila Kunis, here being just as shit as in every other film. See, there are 3 witches in this film, two good witches that the Wizard meets when he arrives - Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz (who was actually good with her role) - and one evil witch. However it is revealed halfway that the one "bad" witch is in fact Glinda, the good witch, and Weisz is the evil witch.
Ok bear with me.

Weisz reveals herself as the villain, and tries to KILL the third sister, Kunis, but instead merely transforms her into an horrible hag, and Kunis, who has been revealed that her evil sister Weisz has lied to her her whole life, killed her father, and now turned her into an evil-looking monster, DECIDES TO JOIN FORCES WITH HER.

This is just one tiny example of how fucking nonsensical the script is, like nobody checked wtf Raimi was doing during work, nobody called out any of the bullshit they were working with.
This man made Spiderman. He made Evil Dead 2. He wrote The Hudsucker Proxy, and directed Darkman, and Army Of Darkness. How the fuck did this happen !

Anyway, junk film, you deserve better, 4.5/10

 

[snoopy7548]

I saw Dune at the IMAX today and I was totally blown away. It was definitely better than Dune, and absolutely destroyed Dune. The storyline of Dune was much more focused than Dune, and the action was miles ahead of Dune.

I'd probably rate Dune a solid 9/10. While Dune is a 4/10, and Dune is an 8/10. Comparing Dune to Dune to Dune, of course.

 

[DigDog]

i'm on E05 of The Three Body Problem and the show has gotten better... which is something i wasn't expecting. The story now makes sense, the characters have clear goals, although there's still mystery involved, the plot has actually moved along, and the show doesnt waste time on bullshit side-character stuff.

 

[Thump553]

A partial review of Amazon's Roadhouse remake: 5/10 based on approximately 45 minutes watching. The original Roadhouse was a guilty pleasure for me. Part of it's redeeming qualities was the great side characters-Sam Elliott was perfect, Jeff Healey as the house band (compared to the generic group in the remake), Kelly Lynch as love interest/eye candy and the evil villian.

The new band sucked. Every character was PC and cutesy. If there equivalents of the Kelly Lynch or Sam Elliott characters didn't hang around long enough to see.

I was in the mood for mindless entertainment and was hoping to enjoy this but never saw anything to draw me in. I will defer my opinion to someone's who actually sat through the whole thing. I'd rate this as a waste of time (as opposed to outright crap).

 

[DigDog]

i've watched all of Three Body Problem, and while it was certainly good, there is a hitch around mid-point, that really confused me and ruined for the best part the plot.

Obviously, spoiler tag for a show that is currently running.

Spoiler

the main plot focuses on an alien race that humans have made contact with. These aliens provide a tool to the humans so they can communicate with them, while the actual alien fleet is en-route to the earth, with a 400+ year travel ahead of them. ok.

Then the aliens have a single conversation with a single human and based on this decide that actually no, they will not be friendly at all but will actually destroy humanity, and then proceed to explain exactly how they are doing this, revealing what they have already done covertly to win.

I haven't seen this bullshit since James Bond, who at least was tied balls-first to an industrial laser cutter.

Anyway, the show is good, entertaining, decently acted. You could say the protagonist - Eiza Gonzales, "protagonist" only because she gets more screen time - is not as good as everyone else, but overall the decent Sci-Fi plot kept me interested for the whole 7+ hours.

 

[MrSquished]

i've watched all of Three Body Problem, and while it was certainly good, there is a hitch around mid-point, that really confused me and ruined for the best part the plot.

Obviously, spoiler tag for a show that is currently running.

Spoiler

the main plot focuses on an alien race that humans have made contact with. These aliens provide a tool to the humans so they can communicate with them, while the actual alien fleet is en-route to the earth, with a 400+ year travel ahead of them. ok.

Then the aliens have a single conversation with a single human and based on this decide that actually no, they will not be friendly at all but will actually destroy humanity, and then proceed to explain exactly how they are doing this, revealing what they have already done covertly to win.

I haven't seen this bullshit since James Bond, who at least was tied balls-first to an industrial laser cutter.

Anyway, the show is good, entertaining, decently acted. You could say the protagonist - Eiza Gonzales, "protagonist" only because she gets more screen time - is not as good as everyone else, but overall the decent Sci-Fi plot kept me interested for the whole 7+ hours.

I was talking about this show to my brother-in-law when my family came over for dinner tonight. He had read the book and didn't know there was a show. He said the book was dense but he liked it and it had a good ending and was curious to see if the show pulled it off.

So since they left after dinner I have binged the first three episodes. Very interesting story, I do think the acting can be hit or miss, but if they pull this off it could be really good.

Thank God the special effects aren't as terrible as that joke of visuals that the new dune is 😛😇😁

But seriously this is addicting and this has been a great year or two for sci-fi. Silo, severance, constellation, foundation, and a few more.

I'm really happy this genre is taking off. I'm assuming now That creating decent special effects is cheaper and easier than before so that it can translate to profitable series, there's more investment into the genre.

And I'm here for it.

 

[JujuFish]

Based on Dig's spoiler comments, it seems the show is quite a bit different from the book.

 

[DigDog]

Based on Dig's spoiler comments, it seems the show is quite a bit different from the book.

well .. i read the Wikipedia pages for the book, the original chinese tv show, and i watched the Netflix remake.
I think they are decently faithful at least to the core of the story. There are minor differences, the probe doesn't exist in the book, the events are more compressed towards the end of the book but are otherwise the same, the ETO is less prominent in the Netflix show.

 

[stargazr]

The Signal 6/10 Netflix Limited Series (There is an older movie The Signal)

Sci Fi, but a review said it's more psychological mystery, and I would agree. A woman goes on a mission into space. Mostly about her husband and daughter dealing with the aftermath. It's German, dubbed in English but the main problem is shitty acting.

Having said that, the mystery of it all kept my interest enough to finish it. The ending was pretty cool and kind of saved it for me; pretty cool story but not well executed.

 

[dank69]

Road House remake. Gyllenhaal is a very good actor. That said, zero stars. The writing makes Star Wars sequels look like Shakespeare.

Equalizer 3 is to Equalizer 2 as Equalizer 2 is to Equalizer. Linear decline. 4/10.

 

[stargazr]

Road House remake. Gyllenhaal is a very good actor. That said, zero stars. The writing makes Star Wars sequels look like Shakespeare.

Equalizer 3 is to Equalizer 2 as Equalizer 2 is to Equalizer. Linear decline. 4/10.

About what I expected on Road House. Some movies should be left alone. This is the second bad review on here, probably won't bother watching it.