What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching? ARCHIVE

Egg Shen wrote: Avengers 2 - I very much enjoyed it. I think it was better than the first one. Ultron was great and Spader did a wonderful job chewing through his lines. They made Hawkeye enjoyable which was nice. Some of the action scenes in the first act are edited to quickly too see what is actually happening. Thankfully a lot of the "team up moves" in the final act were fucking awesome. Overall. it's not a revelation or anything, but these are primo popcorn flicks. Glad to see the quality is still there...bring on Ant Man.

Pretty much my reaction too. I thought it was thoroughly entertaining. By this point, I love the cast and characters, and am always happy to hang out with them for a couple of hours.

Hawkeye was really the MVP of the movie, which surprised the shit out of me! Turns out when he's not mind-controlled by Loki, he's actually a great character. I loved his world-weary, "Just another day at the office" attitude, which was hilarious in the context of fighting against a crazy evil robot supervillain.

Probably my only real complaint was the way they shoehorned in the threads for the Thor sequel. That subplot with Thor's visions didn't make any sense. I feel like some key scenes got cut.

Joebot wrote: Probably my only real complaint was the way they shoehorned in the threads for the Thor sequel. That subplot with Thor's visions didn't make any sense. I feel like some key scenes got cut.

Yeah from what I've heard Whedon's first cut of the film was like an hour longer. There are actually pictures online of some woman getting into that murky pool that clearly didn't make the final cut. None of that shit Thor did made much sense. It will be interesting if they restore any of that footage in the Blu-ray/DVD release of the film.

I saw Ex Machina based in part on all of the positive responses here. It was good. I probably spent nearly as much time thinking about it in my bed afterwards as the movie itself. I had just read some articles in the Economist about AI earlier in the week, so it was pretty timely.

Mad Max... Just pick a superlative, really. The most intense and intricately directed/staged action film ever, I would think. And such a unique vision and style throughout (disturbing though it often is). I feel like a "making of" will be required viewing for a follow-up.

I didn't intend to see it in 3D, but that was the only showtime I could make, and it turned out to work pretty well with that. Didn't detract at all, and kind of augmented the dizzying nature of everything. I hesitate to ever specifically recommend a 3D showing to anyone, but in this case it's not a negative, at least.

Also saw Age of Ultron earlier in the week and it was great fun. More depth than the first Avengers, but I'd probably give the first one a slight edge overall.

Having superhero burn-out, I haven't seen a Marvel property since the first Avengers move. Well, I indulged myself over the past two weeks.

Daredevil - Incredible show. I gorged on this over two nights while I was in Chicago for a training. They got everything right about the character and his world. I love how the battle from the Avengers was the MCU tie-in and enabled Hell's Kitchen to not be the gentrified area it is today. The only two missteps I thought the show took were when Matt let Nobu burn to death. That didn't make much sense to me. The other part was when Foggy found out Matt's secret identity and was all huffy and puffy for a few episodes. Man, those episodes druuuggg out. The show needs Foggy's humor to balance out the rest of the grim dark. I too, preferred the black mask garb to the final red devil outfit, but that black mask is too similar to what Iron Fist wears. Great show overall and D'Onofrio killed it.

Guardians of the Galaxy - I think the hype got to me on this one. I was expecting to be blown away, but I thought it was just 'ok'. A few funny bits for sure, but eh, I dunno, also pretty predictable. I was all stoked to see Lee Pace as Ronan, his Thranduil is one of my favorite parts of the Hobbit series, but this just wasn't good. Easily the weakest of all the MCU baddies. Maybe it was the terrible costume design. It needed an overhaul. The blue face was fine, but adding thick, black lines on top of it didn't work. Oh, I did read the entire run of the Jim Valentino run back in the day, but wasn't really attached to any of the characters outside of Vance, so had no problem with Rooker's Yondu. In fact, I thought his Yondu as space hillbilly was the best part. I enjoyed this film the most when Yondu was on the screen.

Avengers - Age of Ultron - I saw this last weekend, and recall really enjoying it, but thinking back now...outside of a few Ultron lines...I'm not finding it super memorable. I thought the Black Widow story was fine, Thor did some weirdness I don't understand, Vision was created in some bizarre manner, the heroes easily faced down an army of mooks again (this is two films in a row suffering from the Law of Inverse Ninjutsu) and a hero bit the bullet when Whedon led us to believe it was gonna be another. Speaking of Whedon...why does he refuse to give us the lines we want in this series? I don't think we watch these MCU flicks for original storytelling, so where's the harm in 'Ultron, we would have words with thee.' or finally give us an 'Avenger's Assemble!' in full. Blueball city. Also, the Hulk was great and the shot of him sulking in the quinjet was one of my favorite parts. I guess I was hoping he'd take off and we'd get Planet Hulk or he'd be the GotG tie-in. Doesn't seem to be the case though.

I hear Winter Soldier is pretty good, so I might give that a shot. Ant-man actually looks sort of decent.

Like the comics, it seems the movies are as good as their villains. Here are my top 5 from the films based on marvel properties:
1) Green Goblin - Say what you will about the costume (I liked it and the design made sense to me), but Dafoe did an amazing job and had some really choice lines. Great performance.
2) Magneto - The first two x-men movies were astonishing and no small part to Ian Mckellen.
3) Fisk - Daredevil was as much an origin story for the Kingpin as it was for Matt and D'Onofrio's 'I am the ill intent' was a great way to transform Fisk into the Kingpin.
4) Loki - I thought Loki on the big screen would be too goofy to pull off, but Hiddleston did it.
5) Ultron - I actually like the MCU Ultron better than Loki, but Spader had to do less work than Hiddleston. Ultron has some great lines though. Still, not sure I'd give a robot a moving mouth, but see complaints on the Green Goblin costume as to why they did it for film I'm sure.

The WTF category - where the hell is a decent DOOM!?!?!

Road Warrior - I'm prepping myself for Fury Road this weekend. Damn...I miss the days when crazy car scenes were only limited by how fucking crazy your stunt crew was. No CG...no fake crashes....just balls to the wall, tense, car mayhem. It's easy to forget how quiet the middle act of the film is. The opening and the ending are where the insane driving action mostly occurs. Gibson is fantastic with a brooding, and almost subtle performance. He really comes across as a shadow of a man. Hats off to the guy who plays the Gyro Copter captain....he's so fucking odd...I love it though. Also that chick with the crazy intense eyebrows is kinda smoking hot. I wish her role was expanded a bit.

I love how basic the film is. There is no convoluted plot...no dense back stories. Everyone is given just enough framework to be interesting. This is especially true of the two main bad guys. I love how The Humungus is so weird. You never see his face...but the film hints that he's messed up looking. There is that little tid-bit about the gun case with an old photograph in it....doesn't tell you much and I like that. Bad guys don't need to be over explained. I never needed a prequel about Michael Myers' white trash upbringing that caused him to become a killer. Same goes for Darth Vader...didn't need to see his backstory explained in detail. Sometimes mysterious is good. Not looking forward to learning anymore about Boba Fett either. Oh well. Time to watch Beyond Thunderdome tonight. Then Fury Road tomorrow!

I understand that Fury Road is mostly stunt work as well. The trailers look gonzo crazy so I don't see how people aren't dying here unless there's cgi.

We'll see though...

From what I've heard it's a mixture of stunt work and CGI. I'm fine with CG effects if they're used to enhance a stunt or a practical effect. Hopefully, it's mostly just good old fashion camera tricks and daredevil stunt work...with a dash of CGI.

Egg Shen wrote: From what I've heard it's a mixture of stunt work and CGI. I'm fine with CG effects if they're used to enhance a stunt or a practical effect. Hopefully, it's mostly just good old fashion camera tricks and daredevil stunt work...with a dash of CGI.

Well, the cars are all real: Jalopnik

Even the stupid speaker truck, which is named the "Doofwagon". No extra joke necessary.

That link also spends some time discussing the lack of CGI, although even if a film is shot without intending to use it (already a rarity), I think it's like a "live" album that just can't resist a few overdubs.

Mr. White wrote: Also, the Hulk was great and the shot of him sulking in the quinjet was one of my favorite parts. I guess I was hoping he'd take off and we'd get Planet Hulk or he'd be the GotG tie-in. Doesn't seem to be the case though.

I was also hoping for a GotG tie-in. Unfortunately we won't see any Hulk standalone movies for a while because even though Marvel has rights to use the character, Universal still has distribution rights to any "Hulk" movie. Disney isn't going to make an investment to give a competitor that kind of payday.

Egg Shen wrote: Road Warrior Also that chick with the crazy intense eyebrows is kinda smoking hot. I wish her role was expanded a bit.!

The chick with the bow later played the blue woman on Farscape. Not really relevant just a fun fact.

I also watched Road Warrior last night. The newer blu-ray looks fantastic. Like seeing the movie for the first time In a way. I had forgotten just how awesome the cinematographic composition is. Its like almost every shot is a postcard for the outback.

The host on TCM described Night Moves as "the best movie you've never seen," and though I am unwilling to go that far I would say it's pretty damn good.

A film noir from the mid 70's it stars Gene Hackman as an ex football player turned private eye. He gets hired by a washed up actress to find her wayward runaway daughter. The acting is superb. The story is deep and multi-layered. If you like noir or if you like Hackman or if you want to see a teenage Melanie Griffith naked, I highly recommend this movie.

Mad Dog wrote: I also watched Road Warrior last night. The newer blu-ray looks fantastic. Like seeing the movie for the first time In a way. I had forgotten just how awesome the cinematographic composition is. Its like almost every shot is a postcard for the outback.

I gotta get myself the blu ray.

Egg Shen wrote: Road Warrior Hats off to the guy who plays the Gyro Copter captain....he's so fucking odd...I love it though. Also that chick with the crazy intense eyebrows is kinda smoking hot. I wish her role was expanded a bit.

Australian veteran character actor Bruce Spence. Due to the brief craze of making big budget films in the southern hemisphere in the early noughties, I think he is the only person to have appeared in a Matrix film, a Star Wars film and a Lord of the Rings film (no superhero film yet though). I was always disappointed with the way they reused him in Beyond Thuderndome but playing a different character with no mention of him looking similar to someone else Max had encountered.