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

My kids are watching The Matrix for the first time right now. I had forgotten just how weird that show was the first time around. They have been heavily schooled in manga and anime, however, so it will be interesting to see what they think. I was 33 when I first saw it, by myself, and walked out of the theater and went into an Office Max where everyone was wearing Agent Smith-like white shirts and ties. It freaked me out.

Watched Mr. Holmes which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

I wasn't sure I liked it at about the half way mark but having seen it to it's conclusion I'm almost sure this is a great movie.

Be advised the pacing is slow. Slooooooooow, Slow like a movie about a man in his nineties ought to be.

It does have a few mysteries to be solved and a few "Holmes explanation" moments but this is a movie more about isolation, empathy, and resolutions. In the end I liked it quite a bit but don't go in expecting any slo-motion fight scenes or car chases as you might be disappointed.

I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time since I was a kid.

This is a great animated film. I say animated because it's,without question the most important part of it. It's a movie that couldn't exist otherwise beyong the obvious. The characters, the logic, the movement...it needs to be animated to exist. I love one small scene when Jack sings "What's this" and goes on the carrousel


There's so much going at once: The poses, the song, the town that looks out of a Lionel Trains postcard, Jack's spider-like walk...it's a lot of fun.

I did notice, though, that the plot or storytelling is not quite there. That is, it's there and it does not lead towards incongruencies but it's mainly held up by the show-stopper songs and the strong artistic design. For example, the part of the story concerning Oogie Boogie and Santa seems a bit of an ill-fit and some sections seem like could have been smoother.


On a related matter, lately I've been thinking about seeing films on the big screen. No, not just new films, films in general. The reason is that, well, I've started to realize that films tend to be designed for the big screen and some of the artistic intent is lost on a smaller one. The big close-ups of Sergio Leone films or the famous dune shot of Lawreance of Arabia are the best examples but it's pretty generalized (It's noticiable when characters adress the screen, TV shows the upper body, movies show the whole thing).

I should check out if there are some classic cinemas in Madrid and see if something interesting comes up.

Talking about watching movies on the big screen and Tarantino, I saw Reservoir Dogs on 35mm in a cinema this week-end.
I've never watched this movie on a big screen, and liked it a lot.
I remembered how when this movie came out, the (professional) critics were raving about it being a "gritty take" on gun violence and crime, but on this viewing I thought it owes more to Japanese and Hong Kong movies than any other of those of Tarantino, with the concept of "honor" taken to an absurd samurai-like extreme.

My favorite part is the story a policeman is telling to other policemen in the bathroom. It is a fictional story within a fictional story (told by Mr. Pink to the gang), within a flashback (Mr. Pink talking to his handler) that takes place within another flashback. And all this in the 3rd act of the movie. Not to forget that this is his first movie. And amazingly, it still holds my attention.

Nothing better than movies on the big screen.

Lady Klis and I are going to see Covenant tomorrow evening. Can't wait. Trying to manage expectations so I don't have another Prometheus.

I watched T2: Trainspotting this weekend. Obviously the sequel to Trainspotting. It's beautifully shot, and it's fun to see those characters again. However, the film is overly long and overall I'd say it's just depressing. It essentially shows how their misspent youth has affected their adult years, and as it went on, I was just looking forward to it ending. I'm not saying it's a bad film, but I'm not saying it's good either.

I'm watching some Michael Myers movie with the last starfighter in it, it's weird

I shouldn't be watching this by myself

I watched John Wick 2 last night, and really enjoyed it. Sure there was some retreading old ground- no doubt the club scene in the first movie was a big talking point, so they put another one of those in, but there's also a nice homage to Enter the Dragon, a nice nod to Jackie Chan style combat, and what I am personally sure was a dedication to They Live which is almost played for comedy as two characters try to quietly murder each other in a crowded subway station.

Ruby Rose looked great as the deaf/mute bodyguard, Ares and Peter Serafinowicz was perfect as The Sommelier. More Ian McShane is always great. He'll always be Lovejoy to me, whatever he does, though.

I was a bit concerned with the opening scene using a lot of fast cuts through the action, but thankfully the camera calms down for the most part, and I never felt like I lost touch of where all the kinetic energy in the fights was coming from and going to. Also the lighting is excellent.

They are clearly going to make a third one.

Side-note. I kind of love how literally 33% of everyone in New York city is a hired assassin.

Covenant wasn't good. I enjoyed Prometheus more. Agree on the notion that we didn't need lore explained. The whole damn movie is exposition and trying to explain away concepts from earlier films. It reminded me of when Lost went the direction of providing answers on the Dharma initiative.

With that being said, Fassbender's character is very interesting.

Friday night we watched Split. I love M. Night Shyamalan's movies with the exception being The (Nothing) Happening. I really like the way he shoots his movies. Anyway, this one was amazing thanks to James McAvoy's ridiculously good portrayal of the bad guy with disassociative identity disorder. He switches characters flawlessly. The twist at the end was great. I hope they continue this.

Sunday night was Logan. That movie was pure awesome. Very dark and gritty. DC, take note. This is how you do a superhero movie.

Wife and I were scrolling through mindless movies to watch and opted for Great Wall. A shit movie. Matt Damon with a terrible accent and Antonio Banderas' stunt double. Even the fighting was unimpressive.

Kimmel making fun of that at the Oscars was a highlight

A while back, I picked up the Mad Max boxed set which includes the black and white version of Fury Road. With trepidation, I finally watched Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for the first time since I saw it in the theater way back when. Although my reaction wasn't as harsh this time around, I still disliked it for all the same reasons.

The story is crap, so the dialogue and acting are at a constant disadvantage. Characters move from scene to scene on the thinnest of reasoning. Characters seem fairly amoral until suddenly a visible change of heart occurs. Tina Turner has great presence which is quickly squandered in her desperate negotiations with a dwarf. The basic rule of Thunderdome is violated twice in one scene, so that if we are really honest, the rule should be changed to three men and one woman enter, and all but one leave. The Thunderdome fight is interesting, though it's difficult to explain Blaster's canny fight tactics once it is revealed that he is some innocent simpleton. Max gets exiled into the desert, but a prisoner that he briefly met suddenly has a highly-trained monkey who delivers water to Max after somehow finding him in a sandstorm at night.

Then the super-annoying kids show up. Played differently, this scene might have presented an interesting critique of religion, but it was so damn irritating instead. Though I am not generally happy to see my heroes punch teenage girls, in this case it was a welcome relief by way of ending another annoying scene. Then pretext after pretext brings folks back to Bartertown, the mysterious trading center in the middle of a vast desert wasteland. Stuff happens, and then there is an exciting chase involving a train and then a plane. The bad guys catch Max alone at the end, and let him go for no reason at all. Overall, the story was slightly better than Prometheus, but still riddled with nonsense.

One thing that I enjoyed about the first two Mad Max movies was the sense of a distinctive setting, before and after the apocalypse. Though Thunderdome had the superficial appearance of the same setting as The Road Warrior, it was tainted by the influence of Hollywood in the '80s. The script felt like it had passed through too many hands and then stitched together like a Frankenstein Monster. Story was a secondary consideration compared to appearance. And a key dramatic scene was marred by the arbitrary presence of a saxophone, the official musical instrument of the '80s. At one point, Tina even tells the sax player what kind of song to play, making it impossible to ignore his raspy and flatulent notes.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was so awful that I ignored all the subsequent talk of a sequel, right up until I started seeing amazing reviews of Fury Road. I am looking forward to watching that again, though I will probably give the black and white version a try first.

the_jake_1973 wrote: Wife and I were scrolling through mindless movies to watch and opted for Great Wall. A shit movie. Matt Damon with a terrible accent and Antonio Banderas' stunt double. Even the fighting was unimpressive.

There was a preview of that showing on Hulu REPEATEDLY. Like I would catch it three times during an episode of Agents of Shield. Sweet Christmas it looked like crap. Glad to hear it fulfilled it's promise of delivering nothing but a wasted two hours of life.

hotseatgames wrote: I watched T2: Trainspotting this weekend. Obviously the sequel to Trainspotting. It's beautifully shot, and it's fun to see those characters again. However, the film is overly long and overall I'd say it's just depressing. It essentially shows how their misspent youth has affected their adult years, and as it went on, I was just looking forward to it ending. I'm not saying it's a bad film, but I'm not saying it's good either.

I watched it also over the weekend. I had the same feelings. Great to see everyone back together, but there was really nothing to the story. It left me going, "eh, cool, ok".