What's the last movie you saw?

[pax]

The Last Duel: Brutal. 7-10.

[Lazy8s]

Yeah man, that's a good one. The games are pretty fun too.

Noted!

Another rewatch: Star Trek Into Darkness.

I don’t understand what so many folks dislike about these remakes. I really enjoyed it, especially Benedict Cumberbatch’s take on Khan. Dude is just vicious and cold as ice, just like Khan ought to be portrayed.

[huskylord]

The Last Duel: Brutal. 7-10.

I'm confused by your comment of brutal combined with a score of 7/10. Does not compute.

[SubCog]

Alien 3. Special edition. 6.8/10. Here's some thoughts, I'm not bothering with spoiler tags, as it's a pretty old film and I think most people have seen it already.

I have really mixed feelings about Alien 3 generally. It's a flawed yet interesting film, in the context of the Alien continuity. I've read that it had a very troubled production, and some have suggested that it's a wonder that the film turned out as well as it did.

Pros:

• The nearly-abandoned mining penal monastery is an intersting setting.
• A nice slow-burn to the story, before eventually discovering that Ripley is infected.
• Much of the acting is top-notch.
• The ending where the corporation guys arrive is pretty cool, although feels a bit half-baked. Could have been developed a bit more.

Cons:

• Biggest problem, is that Alien 3 is simply not a film anyone wanted. They should have made a sequel to Aliens. Even worse, the first 5 minutes un-does the ending of the previous film, which kindof pisses me off (in a bad way). It makes the whole film feel cheap, like it's a mistake.
• The setting is a real downer. The setting is dark, depressed, hopeless... it succeeds at what it's going for, but it's the least "fun" movie in the franchise, and doesn't succeed enough in other merits to make up for how depressing it is.
• They skimped on the alien scenes, maybe the film had a very low budget? The costumed alien scenes look terrible, and the puppet compositing is pretty bad too. Lots of people getting eaten in the dark, off-screen.
• Like most Alien films, the film eventually devolves into action-horror nonsense where people are getting eaten and it's fairly difficult to follow the plot or care.

First time watching the special edition. It's a significantly better movie than the theatrical version. Lots of changes.

• It's a longer, better-paced film, that expands on a number of sub-plots that add a bit more meaning to the story.
• Longer intro-sequence, feels a bit better-paced.
• Alien hatches out of a bull instead of a dog. Actually this is a fairly big plot-point. Not sure why they filmed 2 different versions.
• They removed the part at the end where the alien pops out of Ripley's chest. She just jumps right into the furnace without any pay-off to the alien-baby story. Sure, that scene was a little cheesy, but the special edition loses something important for leaving it out.

--------------


So I'm doing some reading about why Alien3 turned out the way it did. Sounds like the producers at Fox were convinced that a 3rd movie in a series will always make less $$ than the second, so they really just wanted to make the film for cheap. They rejected any scripts that seemed more expensive to make.

Too bad, 'cause there were a bunch of interesting scripts written, that showed more interesting directions for the film to go. I particularly like the treatments where Hicks, Bishop, and space marines explore crazy bio-labs that are experimenting on making new and interesting kinds of aliens with different abilities. Apparently Sigourney Weaver didn't want to do another Alien film, so they explored putting her into a coma, and perhaps bringing her back for a 4th movie. Lots of interesting ideas that would have expanded the universe in fun and meaningful ways. Also interesting to see how some of these ideas eventually trickled into later films.

Despite discussion that Fox wanted to keep the production budgets low, I'm also seeing that the budgets consistently go up, and Alien 3 was actually a MUCH more expensive film than Aliens, which is kindof bonkers to me. But maybe the cost of filmmaking has just gone way up generally.

Production budgets:

• Alien: $11 M
• Aliens: $18.5 M
• Alien 3: $50 M
• Alien Resurrection: $70 M

I wonder how much it would have cost to make a proper Aliens sequel? $75M? $100M? Feels like a giant missed opportunity either way.

-------------

Upon further reading, I see that there's actually alot happening with the original William Gibson Alien3 script. Looks like Audible released a full radio-play of that script, starring the voices of Michael Biehn & Lance Henriksen reprising their characters from Aliens. Dark Horse announced that they're creating a comic book version as well. Perhaps that's going to lay the groundwork for Disney to make something good happen for an upcoming Aliens sequel?

[Meteor_of_War]

Noted!

I think you can get it (the game) free right now if you have Amazon Prime:

https://gaming.amazon.com/loot/worldwarzaftermath

[Lazy8s]

I think you can get it (the game) free right now if you have Amazon Prime:

https://gaming.amazon.com/loot/worldwarzaftermath

Oh my wife has it! Thanks for the heads up!

[Meteor_of_War]

Oh my wife has it! Thanks for the heads up!

No problem. Think there's a few more you can get too, Jedi Fallen Order being one of them.

[Lazy8s]

No problem. Think there's a few more you can get too, Jedi Fallen Order being one of them.

I’ll be browsing that soon

So we just watched Eternals.

Overall … I didn’t think it was as bad as what reviewers were / are saying. I would even be generous enough to give it a 7/10

The slower pace was a nice change, and it is just impossible to not fall hard for Sersi lol.

I enjoyed that 2nd after credit scene as well, very much. Lots to look forward to if they don’t screw it up.

[pax]

I'm confused by your comment of brutal combined with a score of 7/10. Does not compute.

The film is well made and written. I thought Scott had lost his touch but not here. Man I want an extended version of this like he did for Kingdom of Heaven. If he makes it 30-60 min longer that 7-10 will go up. Its one of those 2.5 hours films that feels short.

The reality of 14th century life the film portrayed is brutal. A more psychological than graphical portrayal but it works. Its hard to make you feel about a time and place but this here does it.

Hard to believe they didnt shy from it considering the times. You usually only see this on edgy pay channel cable shows now and even then.

The film is being ignored for the awards season but its probably the best AAA film of 2021.

[huskylord]

Thanks for clearing that up.
Will definitely watch.

[acroig]

Thanks for clearing that up.
Will definitely watch.

It's on HBO Max I believe

[Kain]

This looks pretty awesome/weird.

[yt]wqbZlAEUb5w[/yt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqbZlAEUb5w

[JZL]

It's on HBO Max I believe

I have this on my watchlist because I don't know how long we'll keep HBO Max. At least long enough to watch Raised by Wolves.

Ridley Scott was on a recent episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast. He was pimping House of Gucci more than this one, but it was discussed. Maron knows his cinema pretty well. In the prologue, Maron commented, "Ridley Scott loves all his own movies," and it was apparent in the interview. He's done a lot that I didn't know were his, like Thelma and Louise, GI Jane, and Black Hawk Down.

[SubCog]

Alien Resurrection. 7.2/10. Entertaining, often fun, but not exactly "good". Not really a return-to-form, but definitely a lighter tone, more fun movie than Alien 3 was, and that's certainly welcome.

The acting is alot sillier than previous installments. Feels more like a Chronicles of Riddick film, which can be good.

Lots of interesting plot twists. The story doesn't ultimately go where I wanted it to, and that albino alien baby at the end didn't really work, but there's definitely things to like in this film.

Now the wife and I have completed the Alien Quadrilogy. Maybe next we'll try to make it through the AvP films? Although I suppose we should watch through Predator 1&2 first. Maybe we should also throw in the Terminator movies? or Robocop?

[KAC]

The Unforgivable. When plastic surgery goes wrong / 10. Decent movie though.

[Sundance Kid V2]

Eternals 4/10. Way too long...

[ugly]

Being the Ricardos - not worth your time - I don't hold biopics in high regard, there was nothing special about this one.
Bruised - awful - a basic boxing movie but with MMA instead. You've seen this story before but done better. Too long.
Mass - pretty good for what it was. Small budget, basically a one-room, all-dialog movie. The first 10 minutes or so are pretty rough, but it gets better from there. But it's a movie you have to be in the mood for and I probably wouldn't recommend it to everybody.

[Trunks0]

Eternals - Not bad, not great. I think because of all the hate directed at it my expectations where low, so I actually liked it overall.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - wow ok... um holy ****ing fan service and as a long time spider-man fan I absolutely loved it

[acroig]

Eternals 4/10. Way too long...

Eternals - Not bad, not great. I think because of all the hate directed at it my expectations where low, so I actually liked it overall.

Gemma Chan makes this long borefest worth it/10.

[Meteor_of_War]

Finally watched Dune (2021). The visuals and sound were incredible. Probably best sci-fi production values I've ever seen to date. It was certainly better than the 1984 Dune, but I felt it was just too slow going. I actually like slow burn sci-fi, but this one they could have easily shaved off at least 45 minutes and it still would have been able to accomplish the same thing. I started dozing off a couple times. Maybe its just the source material, I have never really been a big fan of Dune.

Now the wife and I have completed the Alien Quadrilogy. Maybe next we'll try to make it through the AvP films? Although I suppose we should watch through Predator 1&2 first. Maybe we should also throw in the Terminator movies? or Robocop?

You have never seen any of these? Or the wife has never seen? Or just doing a rewatch after a long time?

AvP movies were pretty forgettable, but I guess fun if you go in not expecting much.

Predator 1 is god damn amazing. One of Arnold's best movies IMO, especially the final act in that movie is soooo good. Predator 2 was OK I suppose. Arnold is not in that one, its Danny Glover instead. Its a pretty decent 80's violent action movie, worth watching once I guess.

Terminators 1 and 2 are mandatory viewing. The others I would only bother with if you really are curious about the rest of the franchise. But the quality really falls off a cliff after T2.

[SubCog]

You have never seen any of these? Or the wife has never seen? Or just doing a rewatch after a long time?

AvP movies were pretty forgettable, but I guess fun if you go in not expecting much.

Predator 1 is god damn amazing. One of Arnold's best movies IMO, especially the final act in that movie is soooo good. Predator 2 was OK I suppose. Arnold is not in that one, its Danny Glover instead. Its a pretty decent 80's violent action movie, worth watching once I guess.

Terminators 1 and 2 are mandatory viewing. The others I would only bother with if you really are curious about the rest of the franchise. But the quality really falls off a cliff after T2.

I've seen all these, wife hasn't. It's fun to rewatch them in sequence though, and wife seems to enjoy it more that way too.

[Meteor_of_War]

I've seen all these, wife hasn't. It's fun to rewatch them in sequence though, and wife seems to enjoy it more that way too.

Since you just watched the Alien movies maybe show her Prometheus? Not that its essential viewing for the series, but its interesting to see where they decided to go with the derelict ship plot line from the first movie - and if anything that movie is always good for sparking discussion.

[dodger]

Don't Look Up - 7/10. Definitely a talking movie so had to watch it in chunks. Pretty accurate the commentary on the current state of affairs.

[Silent-Runner]

Gretel & Hansel (2020). Well, that was creepy.

[pax]

A Quiet Place 2: 7-10 not bad Ill see the third one.

[Silent-Runner]

Monsters of Man. Terrible, just terrible. -5/10

[Nascar24]

Here after - 5/10 - Prime movie

[Dengin]

Bloodrayne, The Third Reich. 1/10. Some movies are so bad that they're good. This is not one of them. Briefly considered a 2 for the bewbs, but nah.

White Snake and the Sorcerer. 5/10 Jet Li movie with some fun fight scenes, lot of Chinese mythology, and the actress who played the deaf girl in Kung Fu Hustle. Not enough to give a higher rating though.

[acroig]

Bloodrayne, The Third Reich. 1/10. Some movies are so bad that they're good. This is not one of them. Briefly considered a 2 for the bewbs, but nah.

That's all I remember of that trainwreck so yeah, the 2 is well deserved.

[Jankan]

Bloodrayne, The Third Reich. 1/10. Some movies are so bad that they're good. This is not one of them. Briefly considered a 2 for the bewbs, but nah.

White Snake and the Sorcerer. 5/10 Jet Li movie with some fun fight scenes, lot of Chinese mythology, and the actress who played the deaf girl in Kung Fu Hustle. Not enough to give a higher rating though.

Uwe Boll Movie?

[acroig]

Uwe Boll Movie?

BloodRayne? Yes.

[UberBeavis]

Encanto - 8/10- pretty to look at, fun songs

[Jankan]

BloodRayne? Yes.

Why would you watch a Uwe Boll movie

[acroig]

Why would you watch a Uwe Boll movie

For the lulz?

[nutcrackr]

Shang-Chi and the 10 rings - 7.5/10 decent enough but nothing great. Action was fine, some wasted potential.

[Elysian]

Licorice Pizza - 7.5/10

[KAC]

The Tender Bar. Medium well like a nice steak/10.

[dodger]

The House - Netflix. 6/10 About 3 half hour segments with the only thing in common is of course the House and the whole thing is done in stop animation. Wish I knew it was 3 things or it was 3 separate episodes. Has some dark themes to it and not exactly a happy film.

[KAC]

House of Gucci. 7/10.

[KAC]

355. Wasted women talent/10.