Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

How? The climax of the film was everyone yelling "LEAP OF FAITH!!!"

Which I assume is some special move from the video game, but they gave absolutely no context to in the actual story.

 

Yeah, it really wasn't good. Being a big Assassin's Creed fan myself, I felt insulted with what they made. And the leap of faith sucked. They couldn't even get that right.

 

It felt like a film that was getting ready to be decent but then they never got around to it.

 

If they’d focused more on the past instead of the boring stuff in the present, it definitely would’ve been good.

 

I don’t know. The plot threads were as unenviable as they were unwieldy. They had to explain:

A) what this crazy contraption/conceit was and why anyone would use it
B) the modern day conspiracy around it
C) the past events they were trying to uncover that was necessarily the substance of the previous two

It’s a lot to fit into two hours on a budget and with an actual plot.

 

Angel Face (1953)

It's a classic and deserves to be. It gets straight to business and goes from A to B to C. It doesn't get cute or fancy, it just takes the next logical step, over and over, and stays focused, so you don't even have time to be taken out of the movie. The ending is predictable, but that works in its favor. You know what's coming but you can't save the hero from destruction. All you can do is watch and go, "I knew it". Simmons has the angel face, the Queen's English, and the scheming killer behind it. You can see the murderous thoughts behind that face. Mitchum is Mitchum, he's nobody's sucker but still he hangs around the spider's web for just seconds too long. It's comforting to watch him cynically see through everything, he makes a great audience surrogate by saying everything you're thinking, it's like he can hear the warnings you're yelling out to him, but he just can't get himself out of the way fast enough. I don't think it's tragic, but there's something satisfyingly predictable about it, like when you watch a slasher movie and warn the victim not to go in the basement, but they do and when they get killed you go, "told you so". You go in the basement, you get slashed. You hang around a femme fatale, you get killed. It confirms that that is indeed the way things work.

Classic film noir from RKO starring all time classic film noir actor Robert Mitchum. Obviously recommended if you're into either film noir or Mitchum.


Not sure how I feel about film noir in general. I know I'm not a huge fan. Much of it does not speak to me. I get the cynicism, but I guess passion and lust just isn't my weakness. I'm really not that passionate about women, especially not some dame I just met and already I've been shot at and my home has been burgled. I just don't care about your sordid secrets, I'm not killing your husband or my wife or anything like that. No thanks, I'm out. You can keep your legs and the red dress. Still, I find them enjoyable, even if they're not right up my alley.

 

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) While nowhere near as good as Ghost Protocol (which remains my favorite of this series), Rogue Nation was a decent time killer. I thought the opera sequence was the best part; very clever (multiple assassins to ensure the hit goes through).

 

That scene where she replaced Sacramento with San Francisco had nothing to do with whether or not NYers knew where it was. It just had to do with SF being more like Manhattan. If she was from Long Island and moved to LA, she'd probably lie and say she was from NYC. Same thing.

 

Saw Interstellar yesterday and had no idea what it is about. It was a really good story until the point where McConaughey drops into the black hole just to end up behind the bookshelf of his daughter. From that point on - the last 25 minutes of the movie - the rest of the story forced me to do a best-off compilation of my personal facepalms.

 

And they all had guns made of musical instruments, which actually looked kind of cool.

 

My son and I have kind of had a "no more superhero movies" rule for a few years now, but we happily made an exception to that this past weekend and saw Black Panther. It was really good... we both liked it a lot.

 

Saw The Commuter this weekend.
Nice state of the art Liam Neeson movie.

 

Yeah, I’ve seen virtually Marvel movie from X-men onward. I think I might be done after they wrap up the Infinity War arc.

 

Though you'd never know it from watching Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke can act. Her talent is buried under a mountain of bad editing quarry rubble in The Voice from the Stone. We already know this film's fog-enshrouded manor from The Others, so we expect an escalating creepiness to overtake the generic atmosphere of nonspecific gloom, but nothing happens for the first two-thirds of the movie. Everything needed to move the plot forward to its inevitable conclusion as outlined transparently in the opening scenes of the movie is then compressed into a confusing 20-minute orgy of vapid and hammy editing.

 

The House had its moments and I did laugh, but it was kind of a mess. Will (Ferrell) and Amy (Poehler) have some good chemistry, but I didn't believe them as husband and wife. Their characters were very inconsistent throughout, and then they each adopt weird alter egos. Concerning these two powerhouse comedians, it was hard to care about them or their cause for their daughter. Personally, I cared more about Jason Mantzoukas's character of Frank and his quest to better his life and get his wife back. That was the heart of the movie and since he was the one that thought up the idea of the casino, he was also the brains of the movie. There lies the unbalance. Jason carried the entire movie on his back while Will and Amy were along for the ride.

The daughter character was nice, but under developed and under utilized. Then the writers add public figures like the idiot police officer with a heart of gold, and the jerk city official that is corrupt; then mix in a random crime boss with no connection to either, you're not really sure what's happening, the writing isn't making much sense and therefore you get the mess I alluded to in my opening statement. Like I said, there are some funny parts, and I did laugh, but I wouldn't recommend you go out of your way to see it.

 

Monkeyshines, No. 2 (1890) – William K.L. Dickson, William Heise

First sequel in movie history is also the first sequel to improve on the original. It’s still very blurry, but you can actually distinguish that this is a person, waving their arms and lifting their hat. You can even, very vaguely make out facial features. Within the space of a calendar year, Edison’s camera technology has taken a big leap already. We’ll see what 1891 holds shortly. 0 stars.

tl;dr – a large technological improvement over Monkeyshines, No. 1; still, there’s no other merit to it. 0 stars.

 

Thor: Ragnarok. Probably the best Thor movie of the Avengerverse. The Sanctum Sanctorum scene was really funny.

 

How incredibly narrow is this recommendation? It is perhaps the best movie about Thor that is also a movie about Marvel's Avengers? As if that's some huge category? And you still can't be entirely certain about your determination?

Perhaps some ancient Egyptians possibly used to believe.

 

Batman Vs Superman (2016)
I found it kind of joyless. Not a bad film, but it just didn't do anything for me.

 

Return of the Jedi (1983 ) Needs more Wookies.

 

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt 2 (2015) It was long and it dragged, especially at the end. Predictable too. And the resolution of the love triangle was just dull. As with the others, the acting was better than the material deserved.

 

The Great Race (1965) I watched this because I grew up watching Hannah-Barbera's Wacky Races. I knew within 10 minutes that I didn't like the movie's humor, I was ready to quit before the race even started, but then Natalie Wood showed up as a loud/funny suffragette/feminist, and I decided to stick around for the full 160 minutes. Yes, you read that right, its 160 minutes long, and the laughs are few and far between. The race even gets completely sidetracked for a 30 minute long parody of The Prisoner of Zenda, including swordfight, and ends with a gigantic pie fight.

It's way too long and not very funny, but it was almost worth it to see Natalie Wood get pelted with pies while she was in her undergarments. Oh, and Lemmon's laugh as the prince, god I laughed almost every time right along with him. Still. Not very good. Definitely not a classic, and not recommended.

 

Let's get some discussion going.

What doesn't make sense to you?

Well, no, not really. Most of the kids are just innocent kids, they don't know what they're doing. Only the kids from Districts 1, 2 and 4 (they call them Careers) have actually trained for the Games prior to being selected (they actually volunteered). In the books, I think it's actually technically illegal for anyone to train, it's illegal to own weapons (yes, even Katniss' bow is illegal, which is why she leaves it in the woods), it's illegal to leave your District (Katniss and Gale are breaking the law when they go out hunting), but the above districts get away with it.

Most of them had like a couple days of training before the Games, and the book says (and you can kinda see it in the movie if you pay close attention to the kids during training) most of them didn't prioritize the survival training (they favored weapons), and points it out as a mistake. Pretty sure the movie points out the wisdom of paying attention during survival training, but I don't remember exactly how (maybe Haymitch? someone said it). Even the Careers blew off survival training, because they were overconfident in their martial strength.

But what mistakes did they make? I don't know jack about wilderness survival so it's not like I would have noticed.

 

1. Wouldn't it be quite provocative to ritually execute someone's children? How does this help pacify anything?

2. How is anything that Katniss did revolutionary? Didn't she just play the game and murder other children? Are we saying she's the first to have formed an alliance? Or?

2b. Doesn't that fly in the face of the other alliances and outright couples we saw as winners of previous games?

3. Why does everyone get so angry at the death of one of the contestants in the first film, when presumably people have been dying like that from that same district every single year since the inception of this contest?

4. If most districts participate unwillingly, don't train, and in fact see it as punishment, how are they also cheering for it so wildly and as involved in the drama of the whole thing as the upper class?

5. What is the logic of the upper class involving their own children in the game, anyway? If it's about punishing rebellious districts, shouldn't the ones that didn't join in the initial rebellion, you know, not be involved? Is the combat prowess of 11 year olds supposed to prove something about how an actual armed conflict would unfold?

6. What was so unique about Katniss to spark a whole revolution centered specifically around her person?

 

Yes. It's also intimidating.

Well, for about 75 years it kept the districts in fear, until it blew up in their faces. So ultimately it failed.

Have you seen Star Wars? How does blowing up a planet help pacify anything? It doesn't, but villains think it does.

I don't know that it is, but it may not have to be. You just said that the Games are provocative. The situation is a powder keg, it may not take much to set it off.

The thing Katniss did was defy the Capitol by refusing to kill Peeta in the end when she was expected to. Katniss and Peeta threatened suicide before they would kill each other, and it forced the Capitol to cave and let them both win.

This shows people that the Capitol can be defied, and it gives them courage to defy the Capitol as well.

What alliances and couples? The couples I know of became couples (or friends) after their individual Games. They didn't compete together.

But maybe I just don't remember other examples, it's been a while.

I'm assuming you mean Rue, the 11 year old girl? Maybe it's because she's a little girl, and a particularly innocent and cute one? Eleven year olds in the Games are very rare because they don't have as many tickets in the drawing. The odds are against them being chosen. This is mentioned early in the movie before Prim (Katniss' little sister) is chosen.

Most of them don't? First, they are forced to watch, it's the law. You're not allowed to ignore it. Second, I believe most of them look on it solemnly. But you can't fault them for taking a rooting interest in someone from their own district, because the winner is rewarded and the district sees a piece of that reward indirectly.

They don't involve them? None of the Capitol kids participate.

No.

She defied the Capitol on live tv. Most were too afraid to defy the Capitol at all.

Oh, and I think people liked her dress? She became popular because of the whole tragic lovers thing, because she showed compassion for the death of a small child (Rue), because she helped Peeta when she could have just killed him, etc. She made for good television, I suppose.

You don't see how a reality television star could spark a revolution that was already set up by decades of brutal oppression?