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

We went and saw 10 Cloverfield Lane. As soon as the credits started rolling, my wife said, "That was super weird. I liked it, but it was weird."

I agree with what was said here before.

I liked it but would have preferred it if it was 10 Anywhere Else Lane.

I saw two movies I really liked last year again, Spotlight and Creed. They held up quite well.

I saw 4 movies this weekend... from best to worst:
10 Cloverfield Lane - I really enjoyed this movie. Super tense, keeps you guessing. Highly recommended.
Death Race 2000 - I hadn't seen this since I was a teenager. Holds up Still ridiculous, still fun.
Killing Them Softly - this mob movie is on Netflix and technically I didn't quite finish it yet but I will. It's kind of boring but has great people, including many Sopranos cast members.
Only Lovers Left Alive - after seeing it mentioned a few times in the vampire movie thread, I figured I'd check it out. What a snooze. I like movies where things happen.

So my wife's away for the weekend, and I spent it together with my 2yo toddler.

We watched Frozen. It was surprisingly good.

I'm sick of hearing Let it Go, but the movie version is much more enjoyable. But the other songs are good too, such as Do You Want to Build a Snowman & For the First Time in Forever. The movie also breaks some tradition, such as having family love instead of man-woman love. Also some secret messages (girls, don't marry the guy you just met!). While there's a main villain, but the movie is mostly about internal & family struggles. Two thumbs up!

Of course it's not without some flaws. The meet & marry thing is pretty silly, and the cover up for the main villain is ridiculous. It goes to the point that the villain makes a warm smile when no one's watching, that I feel it's there just for the sake of gotcha-plot-twist.

So about the "Cloverfield" part in the name of 10 Cloverfield Lane...

I've heard the idea thrown around in a review that Cloverfield as a series could end up being like the original intent for Halloween.

When the idea to turn Halloween into to series came up, the idea was that each movie would be completely unrelated, just separate horror flicks with Halloween being in there somewhere to tie them together. They only did this once, with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, but by that time it was too late, the second film was a continuation of the first, so everyone was confused as to why SotW had nothing to do with Michael Myers (for the record, I kind of like SotW).

So that's what we might have here with Cloverfield. An anothology series of somewhat experimental horror/sci fi films with mystery marketing JJ Abrams as the producer and only the vaguest of elements to tie them together. I hope so, that could be really cool.

Josh, what I meant by my comment is:

bfkiller wrote: Josh, what I meant by my comment is:

Warning: Spoiler!

I thought the movie took a nosedive after Michelle escaped the bunker. The monsters didn't work for me at all. I thought it would have landed the ending so much better if it ended with something like her hearing birds chirping; roll credits. I like the idea of loose tie-ins to the Cloverfield franchise, but then they'd better make their monsters as fun and scary to watch as John Goodman.

I think I agree with this, which is what I alluded to in my original comment. I say "think" because I did kind of roll with it and enjoy the ending, as is, in the moment. And I'm seeing it again tonight, so maybe I'll have a different feeling. But...

I think that the ending

Then I guess I just don't appreciate that end goal.

Bridge of Spies: It wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it should've been, but it was still a good film.

Pulp Fiction: Finally let my 14 year old see it, and now she knows why it's my all-time favorite film. I only ff'd through one scene because I didn't think it was appropriate for her (Butch and Fabienne's dialog in the bedroom). She loved it. She immediately started asking about the soundtrack, which was one of my sub-goals of her seeing the film.

Room: Meh. Not that shit hot. Emotionally-charged, but still, it's not a novel story.

Fault in our Stars: Meh. Tripe.

Age of Adeline (or whatever): Really thought this was a slick film, despite it not being that new an idea.

So the pillow talk was out, but the ass rape was okay?

Yeah, that wouldn't be the first scene that comes to mind when I think about Pulp Fiction. I tried watching that with my mom once and the whole cunninglingus discussion between Jackson and Travolta near the beginning made me turn plum red.

Too bad Room didn't connect with you. That movie made me FEEL everything.

Josh Look wrote: I think that the ending

Warning: Spoiler!

is intentionally ridiculous. Hell, it's obvious given that Michelle says something along the lines of, "You've got to be kidding," and the possibility of it was sort of a joke through the rest of the movie. There's no way you can tell me that the movie was still taking it serious as soon as that first spaceship is shown. The takeaway of the movie is that people are scarier than movie monsters. With Cloverfield in the title, an expectation for monsters was set, that takeaway is impossible without any of that. It's heavy handed, sure, but I'm not sure how else you could have reached that end goal.

The problem with your takeaway line, as poignant as it is, is that the same point would have been made, regardless.

I watched the new Pee Wee movie on Netflix...maaaaaaaaan. I don't know if I've ever seen a more uneven film.

Parts of it are A-W-E-S-O-M-E if you love Pee Wee. Some of it is DEAD ON in capturing that goofy, whimsical, innocent, surreal, gently acerbic sense of comedy. I mean, between Paul Reubens' look (is he a vampire???) and completely nailing the kinds of things that made PWBA and Pee Wee's Playhouse so great. But it is modern, so there's some obvious updates.

It starts off BAD with this too-long, more awkward than funny ET spoof. But then it goes into this wake-up/gadgets/hello town segment that is PERFECT. We find out about Pee Wee's band "The Renegades" and his affection for Scuba Cop novels ("And they're HAMMERHEAD sharks, those are the kind that Scuba Cop hates the most!"). But then it gets off-key again when "famous" (?) actor Joe Mangienella shows up and finds his soulmate (I guess) in Pee Wee.

It mostly mirrors PWBA in a lot of ways, it's a road trip with a different goal and of course lots of other weird, charming and scary characters. Some of the encounters are GREAT. Some are not at all. Lots of gags linger way too long...which is kind of odd to say, because I think some of Pee Wee's gags that hinge on going too long are his best (his dog eating a bowl of dog food in real time on Playhouse for example). But then there is one of these kinds of jokes that is one of the best (if most annoying) in the entire film.

Meeting up, basically, with the three chicks from Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! is interesting...but then it turns into this kind of stupid thing that feels just a touch too adult.

But yeah, I never expected to see Pee Wee Herman hanging out with a mobile salon crew on their way to a hair show. That was inspired. And again, it somehow feels just right.

I don't know how to take it all in. I guess all things considered, it's sort of par with Big Top Pee Wee (which I do like- especially the line "It's that Pee Wee Herman- and he's in there with MONKEYS") and it has that same kind of awkwardness that manages to be charming more than off-putting, but toes the line an awful lot.

Now that we have two Pee Wee films to compare against PWBA, it really shows how much Tim Burton brought to the film- and character.