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

hotseatgames wrote: It's a good movie, but I don't think it's good sci-fi. Nothing about the story dictates that it should be set in the future, and in m opinion, the best sci-fi says something about our current times; this doesn't do that.

Probably because it started out set in modern times and morphed into a sci-fi movie after the fact.

Vlad wrote: Annihilation

In short, this is basically Tarkovsky's Stalker + Cronenberg's Fly. Very disturbing, in a good way if you're into that kind of thing. It almost made me remember Ex-Machina (same director, and chances are if you liked that one, you'll like this one, too) like a light romcom.
What I particularly enjoyed is that this is some serious, uncompromising sci-fi. Completely auter, no over-explanations (barely any explanations for that matter), a wtf-is-going-on 3rd act (2001 comes to mind, too).

I'll tell you what, the trailer for Annihilation looks positively awful. Here's hoping there's more to it than that. Another trailer where machine guns play the starring role, apparently a necessary condition to get Americans to the theater now.

I liked Ex Machina, and I like my science fiction broody and slow. How does this work from that perspective?

A quick tangent while I'm here -- is anybody using MoviePass? My wife is thinking about picking it up, looks like a good deal for an avid movie-goer. It appears you can't purchase in advance away from the theater, you need to be at the venue and reasonably close to a showtime, which is a challenge for Annapolis because they've converted to those limited-seating theaters with assigned seats. But a friend is making it work.

Anyone else using it?

My buddy is using it and loving it.

As an aside, I thought the trailer for Annihilation looked fantastic. The trek into the jungle, finding weird shit, a surreal atmosphere. Looked like Apocalypse Now meets Arrival.

Sagrilarus wrote: I liked Ex Machina, and I like my science fiction broody and slow. How does this work from that perspective?

If there are two things this movie is, it's definitely broody and slow. Still not sure how I feel about it.

My wife and I use MoviePass and we like it. Yes, you need to be near the theater. It says 100 yards but we've tested it a bit farther away and have got it to work about 1 mile away. Not much different in the grand scheme of things though. Not sure about advance time. Still haven't tested that.

Sagrilarus wrote: A quick tangent while I'm here -- is anybody using MoviePass? My wife is thinking about picking it up, looks like a good deal for an avid movie-goer. It appears you can't purchase in advance away from the theater, you need to be at the venue and reasonably close to a showtime, which is a challenge for Annapolis because they've converted to those limited-seating theaters with assigned seats. But a friend is making it work.

Anyone else using it?

My son lives in Portland and bought something similar that he uses to go to all of the independent theaters, but I have a hard time finding one movie per month worth watching, although I do like the recliners and sound system in our local theater, and Imax.

It looks like there is a mixed response to Annihilation, although I am a big fan of Jane the Virgin.

cranberries wrote: I have a hard time finding one movie per month worth watching

I've mentioned it before, but when I originally got the pass, I thought that it would be great to go see a bunch of movies I didn't even care about because they were free. But it turns out that it is completely not worth my time to do that, even for free.

i can help you guys decide what movie to watch. That sounds like a really fun deal.

Watched Avatar this weekend with my son. His first time, and my first since seeing it in the theater in 2009.

Wow, the CGI in this movie still holds up incredibly well. I mean, even my son said this looked like a 2018 movie.

I still have no idea why the 11 year delay until the sequel...

Was it ever confirmed that this took place in the Alien universe?

Annihilation was brilliant. Best film I've seen in theaters (alongside Blade Runner 2049) of the past five years.

Mr. White wrote:
Was it ever confirmed that this took place in the Alien universe?

No, never confirmed.

I think Cameron at the time clearly wanted them to be:
-honestly the most compelling thing is Giovanni Robinsi (medic from Private Ryan) wearing a tie. This just SCREAMS Carter Burke to me. Everything about the character screams Burke. I think Cameron's vision of the future is pretty focused that corporate influence is fighting with morality.
- the dropships have the same noses (the timing of the movie settings are close enough for this to make sense too. I think it's 2179 and 2154. Which is almost exactly how far apart Aliens and Avatar were made apart too, btw.
- the cyrosleep tech is the exact same, as are the after-effects (taste in mouth).
- they both have mechwarrior-type tech

So I think it was intended to be the same but then Cameron seems to have decided he wants Avatar franchise and all to himself. So any similarity to Aliens will make licensing difficult so I think he's giving up on them being in the same universe.


Quick question on the Oscars last night: Was Icarus ever released to theatres? I hear it's a Netflix movie but it must have had a theatrical release, right? TV movies aren't eligible for the Oscars so I'm wondering what the story on Icarus is.

charlest wrote: Annihilation was brilliant. Best film I've seen in theaters (alongside Blade Runner 2049) of the past five years.

I keep hearing good things about this. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking it looked dumb and that Natalie Portman was using the phoned-in performance she'd been saving for Thor 3.

I thought it was her best performance since Black Swan. This film isn't dumb at all, in fact, it may be too smart for its own good. I think Paramount wanted the director to dumb it down, but they managed to keep it unaltered.

You need to like contemplative, artistic sci-fi to really enjoy it. It's very open to interpretation and one of those types of movies you could discuss for hours afterward.

charlest wrote: I thought it was her best performance since Black Swan. This film isn't dumb at all, in fact, it may be too smart for its own good. I think Paramount wanted the director to dumb it down, but they managed to keep it unaltered.

You need to like contemplative, artistic sci-fi to really enjoy it. It's very open to interpretation and one of those types of movies you could discuss for hours afterward.

I'm gonna have to go see it now.

charlest wrote: This film isn't dumb at all, in fact, it may be too smart for its own good. I think Paramount wanted the director to dumb it down, but they managed to keep it unaltered.

Paramount felt the movie was "too intellectual" and "too complicated," and since they lost the fight to change it, they decided to cut their losses and sold the international distribution rights to Netflix. So all you non-North Americans can watch this on Netflix in a couple of weeks.