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

I really enjoyed the remake (and I don't usually do). I like the original but the remake is admittedly much better paced.

 

Just finished Promising Young Woman

Utterly excellent; watch it now, please.

 

Into the Blue (2005)
Treasure divers in the Bahamas discover a crashed plane loaded with cocaine. There's lots of sea creatures and underwater action. Paul Walker and Jessica Alba give their usual performances. The scenery is nice (by which I mean Jessica Alba spends most of the movie in a bikini). The plot is pretty much what you'd expect. As for airplanes, the drugrunners were trying to fly a DC-3 through a thunderstorm when it lost power, accompanied by the usual flashing lights in the cockpit and electronic warning sounds. But the DC-3 was designed in 1935; alarm bells and buzzers would have been a lot more fitting than synthesized beeping noises.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog

Completely forgettable, didn't even give me my theme song nostalgia outside a short, slow piano hint during the denouement. Strongly recommend not checking this out.

 

Now I have to see it.

 

Spies in Disguise (2019)
Will Smith stars in this animated film as a world class spy with all the gadgets and gizmos he could hope for; but things get messy when a young scientist accidentally turns him into a pigeon. Outside of a couple of poignant moments, the movie is pretty forgettable.

 

Yeah I enjoyed Sonic. Not a great movie but at least decent, which is a lot coming from a video game film.

 

Sonic was probably the most fun film I've seen all year. Not as good as Mank, most certainly, but a film revolving around a disgraced and disgruntled screenwriter slowly drinking himself to death is probably not a "fun" film by any means.

 

The Karate Kid

In spite of having a predictable story, see Rocky, this movie still holds up.
Bill Conti created a good score, especially the pieces that feature pan flute. And the cinematography is actually quite nice, notably the outdoor shots at the lake and the beach.

The heart of the movie is the father and son like relationship between Miyagi and Daniel.

After having just watched all of Cobra Kai, I was surprised by how few scenes they actually appear in.

This is a terrific movie and was very fun to revisit.

 

Creepshow 2.
Ok it's not The Godfather but you could do a lot worse. Short story compilation based on S. King short stories with a screenplay by George Romero. Nice comic book style intro to each story. Kind of fun 80's style horror. Contains one of my favorite King short stories The Raft, about 4 teens who swim in a remote lake only to be stuck on a floating raft/dock while a killer oil slick or something stalks them.

 

Just rented and watched Greenland. It was better than expected..like a decent version of a Roland Emmerich film.

B

 

I felt similarly; it was a somewhat realistic, “what might it actually be like?” sort of take on a comet disaster film. Still terribly unbelievable at parts, of course.

 

Yeah I would have changed a few things on a script level. But mostly it was decent.

 

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
A good cast make little impression in a rather mediocre entry in the franchise. I don't think it's bad, it's just unengaging.

 

Midnight Cowboy

A film with several humorous lines and scenes, but overall it's a pretty dark and gritty examination of NYC at that time that also includes many creepy flashbacks to some scary events that took place in Texas.

This film is definitely entertaining althpugh quite melancolic, and the production design is effective at creating different moods depending on whether the scenes are taking place in an idealized version of a Florida paradise or the sleazy and often filthy New York settings.

The two lead actors deliver great performances.

 

Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)
A lot of the comedy didn't quite land for me, but James Garner and Harry Morgan carried the day.

 

I really enjoy this one and its spiritual sequel, "Support Your Local Gunfighter". Great, well-cast Western spoofs, while not going to ZAZ extremes with the humor.

 

Going In Style 2017
3 old guys decide to rob a bank.

The movie relies entirely on the charm of its leads, Micheal Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, who are just lovable as all heck.
The rest, the heist, well it's fine, but nothing gets too intense. It just rumbles along mildly humorously and leaving you feeling like "That was nice."

A low stress movie.

 

Kim. In this adventure film, an orphan in India bounces through a series of adventures and ends up helping prevent a Great Game Russian gambit. It’s not a particularly memorable movie. Errol Flynn, aging but not yet over the hill, is underused as a charming-rogue-type ally. Everything else is just a big muddle.

 

Judas and the Black Messiah

The title is biblical, but Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Dominique Fishhback elevate one of the low points in modern Chicago history to the status of Theban or Shakespearean tragedy. The traitor stands in worse case of woe, and also has Jesse Plemons looming behind him with his trademark detached otherworldly half grin, and Martin Sheen looming behind him as the implacable dark god of COINTELPRO.

 

Operation Crossbow. This feels very much of a piece with the other World War II movies of this period. It’s a bit stodgy and slow, features a big but underused cast, and mixes gravitas with adventure. George Peppard is likable as an officer inserted undercover as a scientist to infiltrate the German rocket program, but the film around him feels a bit messy and undercooked. It has all the trappings of World War II action, and gets enough mileage out of them to be solid entertainment, but you’re better off just watching Where Eagles Dare.

 

Agreed. Was so bummed about this. We like James Marsden and it looked like it had potential. Then....ugh.

Did watch Kingdom of Heaven the Directors cut last night. Just a fantastic film if you’re into such films. Do NOT watch the theatrical version though. It’s a far worse film and is the reason why it doesn’t have as old a reputation as it should have, IMO. It’s one of Ridley Scott’s best movies next to Alien and Gladiator.

 

The Masque of the Red Death

Vincent Price and Edgar Allen Poe go together like peanut butter and jelly, near perfect combination. Price simply oozes dark satanic charisma and is easily the best part of this horrror period piece.

My personal favorite of Roger Corman's Poe film adaptions.