Movies We've Seen Recently

[Victor Laszlo]

I just spent a week watching that Han Solo movie.  Good Lord what a piece of garbage from start to finish.  Wrought is correct about how fucking obvious everything was.  And the "scoundrel with a heart of gold" stuff was ham-handed to say the least.

Donald Glover did a very adequate Billy Dee Williams impersonation, which is the best thing I can say about the whole stupid movie and its whole stupid plot. 

Oh, and the depiction of the "Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" thing, which seems to have been the kernel at the center of this terrible piece of popcorn?  Didn't work, the solution is as much gibberish as the first line was.  Should've left it alone.


I know there is some Star Wars fanboy/fangirl on this site that always springs up to defend these movies.  Come on, dude, let's hear it.

[EYE OF ZA]

But we got to find out where Han Solo got his famous name!!!

[Nikaer Drekin]

I know there is some Star Wars fanboy/fangirl on this site that always springs up to defend these movies.  Come on, dude, let's hear it.

And interrupt your weird fit of righteous indignation about a children's movie? I wouldn't dare!

E: Wait, why did it take a week to watch a two hour movie?

[Wrought]

I watched Born Into Mafia and Last Vampire on Earth...and so can you! Because they're on youtube.

These are two of the best worst movies I've ever seen. They're so intensely weird they almost defy description. Born Into Mafia is about a man who's the son of a Russian Mafia Boss who gets shot at a meeting at an expensive nightclub (read empty Olive Garden) and his father's killer sends assassins after him when he moves to America, trying to escape his father's shady crime business. Last Vampire on Earth is Twilight, but if Edward Cullen looked like a forty year old man dressed up as his teenage son and Bella Swan had aids.

My favourite part about Born Into Mafia is that 80% of it is totally ad-libbed by untalented actors with shallow as fuck characters, and so all the dialogue in the movie sounds exactly the same regardless of who's talking. Any scene where the main character talks for an extended length of time is genuinely so fucking hilarious it makes me cry.

Conversely, Last Vampire on Earth is terse and weird because it is just a rewritten script for Twilight, but the execution still makes it hilarious. Everyone acts like the vampire, Aurelius (fucking sick name dude), is some cool mysterious guy like how Edward Cullen was treated in Twilight, but he's just so dumpy looking in reality that it can't possibly work. I can't say much more without totally spoiling everything about the movie, but trust me, they're both great. Highly recommended.

[Nikaer Drekin]

Honestly, it's fine to not like Solo. I agree that some of the callback moments were pretty dumb (did we really need a scene to tell us why Han gave Chewbacca a nickname?) but overall it was a fun heist romp. 7.5 out of 10. But, since Victor seems to want me to get pedantic:

Oh, and the depiction of the "Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" thing, which seems to have been the kernel at the center of this terrible piece of popcorn?  Didn't work, the solution is as much gibberish as the first line was.  Should've left it alone.

The Kessel Run thing makes total sense in context of the movie. Getting to Kessel is a very difficult thing that requires an exact, long route, and Han achieved something unusual by taking a shortcut. It usually takes 20 parsecs, he did it in 12. Simple as that.

Also, there's no kernel at the center of a popcorn piece, the whole thing is the kernel.

Anyway, I also saw Upgrade which was a pretty enjoyable B-movie! It felt to me like a dumbed-down, more violent take on the themes of Ex Machina. Some of the dialogue is clunky and stupid, but it's directed well and has some solid visual flair. Go check it out if you like low-budget sci-fi. Also a 7.5 out of 10.

[EYE OF ZA]

I know the canon explanation about the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs thing has always been that Han took a shortcut that's too dangerous for other ships to take, but there's two problems with that. First, Han brings it up explicitly when talking about how fast the Millennium Falcon is, not how maneuverable it is. ("Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?")  Second, the actual script of the movie straight up says that Han is lying:

                                     HAN
                         It's the ship that made the Kessel
                         run in less than twelve parsecs!

               Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with
               obvious misinformation.

So it actually makes sense that he's saying nonsense. He's making something up to brag about his ship to a couple of rubes.  The trouble is that no writer for the Star Wars EU ever realized that, because the original trilogy was the one source of gospel truth for them.

[Nikaer Drekin]

That's fair, I forgot the speed element. Though, one could argue that speed is implied, because you need to be pretty fast to escape the Maw. Of course, then you'd be arguing over one line from a forty year old movie, and why would anyone on the internet want to do that?

[Cleretic]

More Marvel!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is probably the best movie the series has had thus far in my watching. Basically everything it tries it excels at, which is a rarity from these movies. Solid fight scenes, some real fun usage of details already put into action both in the universe of the movies and outside of it (there's some intersting combinations of Cap's patriotic horns leitmotif with the Winter Soldier's windy howling during fight scenes) and of course fantastic use of Black Widow by just letting her be in her element for the whole movie. And I couldn't help but adore "Since when did Captain America know how to steal a car?"

Even knowing it was coming, Guardians of the Galaxy still kinda took my by surprise. Going by reputation I already knew it's an exceptionally silly action-comedy in a very pretty sci-fi setting, and of course it is that. But the comedy is a lot better than I was thinking, the sci-fi is a little more serious and a lot more imaginative than I expected (those two combined gave me a Red Dwarf vibe at times, which from me is a very high compliment), the visuals got unexpectedly interesting and eclipsed Thor: The Dark World so hard that I now totally understand why nobody gives a shit about that movie. And then of course it also has a fucking enormous emotional core, that more than justified one of my otherwise least-favorite parts of the movie; I hate 70s pop and for most of the movie it's neither especially appropriate to, or interestingly clashing with, the events of the movie, but it still managed to make me cry like a baby at Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

Age of Ultron is somehow a bad movie that consists predominantly of good scenes. It's got fantastic character scenes and individual moments, some really interesting action scene ideas--that admittedly almost all revolve around Quicksilver--and some real nice subplots, but there is absolutely no connecting tissue between those good points and the plot is allegedly pushed forward by probably the worst villain in the MCU. Most of those subplots never quite get resolved, and there's some real important plot shit that really needed to happen that just... didn't. Tony Stark gets the real shitty end of that stick, because the movie straight-up ignores the resolution of Iron Man 3, which is kind of a problem given the fact that IM3's resolution should definitely have meant that Age of Ultron never happened.

I do not recommend Age of Ultron, but I do recommend a theoretical 'Mjolnir Cut' which is just the five or so scenes where Mjolnir is important. Because that is the most fully-formed and interesting story arc in the entire movie, and contains the scene where the Avengers all get drunk and try to lift the hammer off a table, which is the best part of the movie.

Ant-Man (which is surprisingly unavailable to stream or rent digitally anywhere in the world; don't know why, just is) gets a bad reputation as one of the worst MCU movies. I think that's a shame, because while the middle kinda lulls the final act is trying so hard, and it's just impossible not to get caught up in how much fun it's having. The climax where Ant-Man goes subatomic is visually amazing (albeit outdone pretty well a few movies later by Doctor Strange), and the fight with the Falcon in particular stood out as a 'how the hell did you storyboard this' moment. It all definitely could've used being more Edgar Wright-y, though, his fingerprints are really obvious in the best parts of the movie but the rest of it just sorta falls flat and needs something to carry it. And hell, maybe Wright wasn't the best for those moments either, but they needed something, some punch or skill that just wasn't there.

[duz]

The studios have a bad habit of taking movies off streaming in the months leading up to their sequel coming out so that you have to pay full price if you want context for the sequel.

Agreement on Winter Soldier, it's easily one of the best, if not the best of the MCU.

[Kaleidoscope]

I just spent a week watching that Han Solo movie.  Good Lord what a piece of garbage from start to finish.  Wrought is correct about how fucking obvious everything was.  And the "scoundrel with a heart of gold" stuff was ham-handed to say the least.

Donald Glover did a very adequate Billy Dee Williams impersonation, which is the best thing I can say about the whole stupid movie and its whole stupid plot. 

Oh, and the depiction of the "Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" thing, which seems to have been the kernel at the center of this terrible piece of popcorn?  Didn't work, the solution is as much gibberish as the first line was.  Should've left it alone.


I know there is some Star Wars fanboy/fangirl on this site that always springs up to defend these movies.  Come on, dude, let's hear it.

So….wait until the DVD?

[chai tea latte]

Annihilation (2018): very good but still had the now-you-figure-it-out ending all these smart/psychological horror movies seem to be doing now. I went in almost totally blind and it was a great experience that i recommend. The bear was one of the most unsettling things I've seen in a while.

Sicario: this was good as hell and I don't get why they're doing a sequel.

Urusei Yatsura 2: I watched this on recommendation from a friend, who is a weeaboo. I was pleasantly surprised. Pretty pictures, long introspective monologues, nice imagery. Mamoru Oshii seems cool.

First Reformed: It's good, and The VVitch did it better. Still worth a watch, Paul Schrader and Ethan Hawke are very good at their jobs imo.

[ikaribattousai]

My biggest problem with Solo is one that plagues prequels like this in general: Life and death stakes are not very effective when the audience knows for a fact every one of these characters are going to live.

[Nikaer Drekin]

The more I think about it, the more I was kinda disappointed by Incredibles 2. I saw it back-to-back with the original in IMAX, and while the first one shows its age to a degree on a visual level, it still holds up so well otherwise. The character writing and world building are exceptional, the pacing is perfect, Syndrome is a terrific, compelling villain- every element of this movie has a purpose.

Incredibles 2, on the other hand, is kind of baffling to me, because it feels like a sequel that would be made a year or two after the original to cash in on the hype, not something that took fourteen years to gestate. The focus on legalizing superheroes again is odd, because that's a question I never really had after the original; the implication was pretty clear- there'd be some bureaucratic roadblocks, but it would happen eventually. It's not a compelling purpose for the story in the way Bob's mid-life crisis was in the original. I appreciate that the movie tried to be Elastigirl's story this time around, but her plot doesn't feel tailored to her character in any real way. It's just a generic superhero story with an uninteresting villain and basically the same twist as Big Hero 6. I guess the action was cool, though? Unless you have epilepsy, of course.

Bob's half of the film feels more like The Incredibles did, and there's some fun Jack-Jack stuff, but even that isn't written with the same finesse I know Brad Bird is capable of. It's not a bad movie, per se, but considering how good the first one is, it can't help but be a big letdown. I've been saying for years that The Incredibles never needed a sequel, and I guess I was right, but I'm not especially happy about it.

[Agent (gobble, gobble) Coop]

Saw Sorry To Bother You, check it out!!!!

[Cleretic]

Oh shit, right, I finished every Marvel movie currently rentable a while ago.

Captain America: Civil War sucks and holds up to no scrutiny whatsoever! It's honestly two different movies that are smashed together, and one is awful while the other is just kinda 'meh'. You've got the civil war, but that has the problem that when drafting up the movie, they had Cap and Iron Man take up the same sides as the comic event, but then fucked it up completely by making the inciting event something aimed squarely at the Avengers. So Cap isn't fighting for individual liberties, he's fighting to not be personally inconvenienced, while at the same time the most authoritarian person in the MCU is the one fighting for himself be regulated. There's a bunch of other alignments that don't make much sense either, like Black Panther being on the side that'd outlaw the exact revenge path he's on, and Ant-Man teaming up with an outlaw despite wanting to go straight. Then you've got the Bucky plot, which is a different and potentially better movie that just doesn't get time to breathe.

Doctor Strange I skipped in this watchthrough, because I'd already seen it! I love that it becomes more and more of a Doctor Who story as the movie goes along, and of course the action scenes are absolutely fantastic. Being that I didn't watch it this time though, I don't have much to remember.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a movie that's doing everything it wants to do right. The setting of Ego is amazing, the slow reveal of who the villain of the movie actually is is awesome (helped out a lot by the fact that this isn't one of the big recognizable Marvel stories and characters, so you don't immediately know not to trust someone purely from name unless you're a nerd), the interplay between characters is fantastic, the soundtrack actually works well with the action instead of being an almost total miss like the first one was. I remember the action scenes being good, too, but they all get overshadowed by the actual fight against Ego. And that's fine, because that fight scene is utterly fantastic.

Spider-Man Homecoming was... good, really good, but despite thinking Spider-Man was probably the highlight of Civil War I didn't really get into it. I think it's just because the themes of Spider-Man never really resonated with me, so while he's an undeniably fun character and I can appreciate a really good Spider-Man, I just don't really enjoy it on as direct a level, it feels like a really good story that's just not for me. He does have the best supporting cast of any MCU hero, though.

Thor Ragnarok is great to compare with Civil War, or even the original Thor. Because while those felt like two movies that weren't mashed together well, this feels like two movies that WERE mashed together well, probably because it is. Using Planet Hulk as a setting for Thor to get tossed off to randomly is a fantastic contrast, and a perfect justification to actually make a Hulk movie that they otherwise can't because of legal weirdness. It's probably the most fun film of this whole batch for me; the fight scenes are brilliant, Jeff Goldblum steals the show as he should, both settings are really fun to just be in, and the new depiction of Thor's powers is far more interesting and dynamic than when they had Mjolnir. Unrelated singular points that I can't figure out how else to segue into: Doctor Strange's one scene is fantastic, and while I appreciate The Immigrant Song it's overused, given how its second appearance suits a different song so much more.

Black Panther is very weird to watch as an extremely white Australian, because it's speaking very directly to a lot of things that don't really exist for me culturally. It feels really weird for me to say that I absolutely love every single other part of the movie that isn't that, because that sounds like it's dragging it down, but it's really not; this straight-up isn't a film that's meant to be for me on any level, that's okay, and I loved it anyway. The highlight for me was probably all of the really unique visual design and special effects, but I'm also aware that a lot of what makes that stand out is because it's inspired by stuff that I never knew, and in fact that probably makes it even better!