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

Not yet. Hopefully this week sometime.

Oh, yes, three or four times I'd guess. It was his best performance for ages and ages. I think he finally topped it with Logan, probably, but it's still right up there.

 

The Prestige and Prisoners are his two straight dramatic roles that stand out to me. But yeah, he hasn’t had a ton of those roles compared to your average high-profile, respected British/Aussie actor.

 

Legend of the Bat (1978) I am so grateful there are two great Chu Liu Hsiang movies. Makes me glad I can always forget about this one. Now I want to watch Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman again.

 

Toy Story 4

I liked it but I do not agree with those who say it is on par with the original three. It really feels like a needless epilogue at best. It's just a movie that is in the shadow of a far superior preceding entry. It isn't a bad film by any stretch as there is certainly a lot to like here. The movie has some very funny moments( from Ducky and Bunny especially) and the animation from Pixar keeps improving with each picture. The color palette is breathtaking and the characters are more emotive than ever. The problem really has to do with the script. I think the existential crisis that Woody goes through isn't really earned and it just doesn't feel organic to his character development through the original films. Toy Story 4 also poses a lot of questions about a mythology that seemed pretty established. It never really was explained how toys came to have lives of their own and so it was kind of interesting to see Forky's origins. I guess I just thought that what gives the toys their life and soul was their kids. It's kind of odd just to have them on their own.

 

I agree basically. I thought Toy Story 4 was good and entertaining, but unnecessary. Not one I would probably love to rewatch like the others. Plus I thought the ending of 3 was so perfect that I kind of wish that had remained the end.

 

Ghosts Galore (1983) - my favorite Shaws China vs. Japan wuxia flick. Considering what a crowd pleaser Five Element Ninjas is, this is just as much fun in a more colorful and fantasy way. And Lo Lieh vs. Heang Jang Lee is perfect. I love this one.

Hmmm... I smell a double feature!

 

The Square (2017) – Ruben Ostlund

As this film opens, we watch as an old statue is taken down from in front of a building; it’s one of those ornate “general on horseback” statues and as the crane lifts it down, it falls to the ground with a loud clang. Behind it is a poster for the art exhibit that is replacing it, an art exhibit called Piles of Gravel; it is what the sign says. So, yes, we’re in for a not particularly subtle satire on the world of modern art. Well, satire doesn’t always need to be subtle and that’s a good thing, because this one isn’t. Claes Bang portrays the harried curator of a museum of the ultra-modern variety. He’s struggling to define himself in the context of society and much of the film is about the ways in which modern humans fail to ever really help each other. A young woman with a clipboard petition for something approaches a man in an early scene and asks him “Would you like to save a human life?” to which he brusquely responds, “Not right now.” Look, I said it wasn’t subtle. But what Ostlund has in spades is a merciless eye for the awkwardness of human interactions and the thousands of little cruelties people dish out every day. This film works best when its mining those elements. Elizabeth Moss is, per usual, absolutely fantastic as an American journalist who finds herself being charmed by Bang’s dashing curator; she’s only in about four scenes in the film, but every one of them is a knockout, most especially an incredibly awkward post-coital conversation revolving around, well, you’ll see. Terry Notary is phenomenal in a tiny role as a performance artist that pretends to be an ape; there’s a scene revolving around one of his performances that is the best of the film and could function as a brilliant art-lampooning short film all on its own. I absolutely loved Ostlund’s previous film, Force Majeure, and with The Square he’s made a much more ambitious film. Force Majeure was kind of laser focused on the breakdowns and cruelties of just a handful of characters and, if it did have something pretty nasty to say about human nature, it wasn’t self-consciously trying to explore things like societal responsibilities, political correctness and the folly of modern art. So The Square meanders and at nearly two-and-a-half hours long, it drags in the final third and ultimately suffers from being too scattered and too ambitious for its own good. Still, Ostlund’s crafted a film that, when it works, is like a well-oiled machine and is often both very funny and cringe inducing. At the end of the day, while this isn’t the masterwork that Force Majeure was, it’s still a striking, engaging and interesting film. And if Ostlund’s going to be making mistakes, being too ambitious isn’t a particularly bad one for him to make. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – satire about modern society & modern art is too ambitious & meandering for its own good, but great performances & some brilliant scenes mean it’s still a film worth wrestling with. 3 ½ stars.

 

Deadpool 2

Brolin did a great job and they made Cable look great, although I think they should have CGI'd his biceps to be bigger than his torso.

Domino's luck was really fun, but why not go all in on the face paint?

Shatterstar was kinda wasted, I thought they should have kept him around.

It was a big waste of time to bother with Deadpool's emotions. I don't care. It doesn't work at all, I felt nothing. I'd rather they kept Vanessa around, Morena is one of the few actors in these films that actually has charisma and is able to create chemistry with the unfunny block of wood known as Ryan Reynolds.

Overall, these Deadpool movies are not anywhere near as fun (or risky) as they think they are. Mildly amusing at best.

 

Long one, guys, but I really wanted to dig into this one and talk about why I think it's maybe the smartest MCU film yet.



Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) – Jon Watts

You’ll see, Peter. People need to believe. And nowadays . . . they’ll believe anything.

After the magnificent one-two punch of Infinity War/Endgame, one would be forgiven, or, well, let’s just be frank, I should be forgiven for wondering if another Spider-Man movie was going to really cut it as a continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, forgive me and let’s move on, because what we have with Spider-Man: Far From Home is one of the savviest, most self-aware films in the entire MCU, a movie that I love even more with each passing day. It’s a movie about all the things that make up the MCU: heroic star-power, dazzling special effects, a credulous audience, sentimental nostalgia and the way the smartest people in the room use those things to gain power and control.

The story is simple enough at first glance. Still struggling with the death of Tony Stark, Peter Parker decides to set Spider-Man aside for a while, but when a new hero shows up from another dimension, chasing threats from that dimension, Peter finds himself back on the front lines. Watts has improved on Homecoming in basically every way, and I didn’t even hate Homecoming. Just on a basic filmmaking level, Watts has gotten far more comfortable directing action; the climactic plane scene in Homecoming was one of the worst, least coherent action sequences in the entire MCU, but here Watts feels confident enough to stage just about every action scene in broad daylight and it works. Tom Holland gives his best performance as Spider-Man yet; he’s still the struggling kid, but he’s working toward something big: learning to trust himself even as he has to face that trusting himself has led to mistakes in the past. A late scene with Holland and Jon Favreau, also probably giving his best MCU performance, is quiet and filled with grief, but not in a melodramatic way, but in a way that feels real and understated and ultimately leads to a place of hope and confidence. Jake Gyllenhaal is pitch perfect as Mysterio; more about that later. Zendaya is better than in Homecoming and used in a much better way. It’s also good to see Angourie Rice, who really stole the show in Shane Black’s The Nice Guys, given more to do; she carries it off with aplomb. Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori (given a bit of extra development here), Martin Starr & J.B. Smoove are all excellent in supporting roles. And then there’s that cameo . . . you know the one . . . don’t spoil it please. I had it spoiled and I so wish I hadn’t. Let’s just say that’s brilliantly handled. If there’s a gripe on a superficial level, it would definitely have to be that Marisa Tomei’s vivacious and charismatic Aunt May is once again basically sidelined, used not much better than she was in Homecoming and that was really poorly. I mean, once again, she does a lot with a little, but why have someone this absolutely delightful if you’re barely going to use her?

But let me get to the reasons I really love this movie. I was just a bit thrown off at the beginning by just how heavily Tony Stark loomed over this movie. At least the other casualties get a brief “Getty Images” tribute video at the beginning, but Tony Stark’s Iron Man is a near constant presence at times. It was only later in the film that I realized just how smartly the filmmakers here had made Peter Parker an audience surrogate and the way he goes through his experiences with Mysterio a double of the movie-going experience. Like Peter, we’re used to having the image of Tony Stark loom over us, from posters and billboards and movie screens and, like Peter, we’re looking for the next guy to take his place. Jake Gyllenhaal arrives right on cue and his dashing, charming heroic image is exactly that of the next big MCU hero; it’s only at about the half-point of the film that we realize that he’s been manipulating Peter in just about every way, in just the same ways he’s been manipulating us. You think he doesn’t know how dashing the cape is or how much the beard makes him look like Tony Stark? He knows and he’s self-consciously working to get into that avuncular mentor space that Tony once occupied for Peter. What the film also explodes is the entire notion of celebrity and stardom; it takes, as we later see, an entire entourage of people to maintain the illusion surrounding this one celebrity, as it does in real life. Gyllenhaal’s puncturing his own charming screen image here, but he’s also lampooning the diva director who knows what he needs to provide to get an adoring audience (explosions, special effects, big spectacle), but still wants his own spin on it. “I’m not in love with the choreography,” he sighs at one point while overseeing the creation of a big set-piece action scene. The way this all plays into the central themes of the truth versus manipulated illusion is pitch perfect, and, while this is a meta-commentary on the movies/entertainment industry, it feels absolutely of its moment as well in this era of ever increasing propaganda and political performance art. Would that Mysterio’s lines would inspire at least a little self-reflection in the audience about how easily we buy into pre-packaged narratives. A little far-fetched? Maybe. But then again, there’s that wonderful head fake with the Multiverse and, while it may seem like a throwaway gag, it’s actually an important moment. Weren’t we all just as excited as Peter was when Mysterio revealed that there was a Multiverse? So eager to believe what we WANT to believe. And among my friends the reaction to the revelation that we’d been conned by that, even those of us who knew Mysterio was ultimately going to be a villain, was a kind of sheepish chagrin. The movie puts one over on us, just like it does Peter, and going there was a brilliant stroke. We’re all primed to believe in a Multiverse, ready to see it and ready to be entertained by it.

So, all in all, I think this is one of the smartest movies the MCU has given us to date and one of the few that comments in a really powerful way on the pertinent issues of the time. And it doesn’t skimp on the entertainment either. The smartest guys in the room are still killing it. 4 stars.

tl;dr – one of the smartest of the MCU movies is thematically compelling and brilliant; improves on Homecoming in every way: performance, style, tone and ideas. 4 stars.

 

I enjoyed your review. It's great to hear Holland hones his talent, because he performed well in 2017's biography of Percy Fawcett in The Lost City of Z as Fawcett's son. Did anyone else here see Lost City of Z? "Search" says zip, zero, nada, but I'll bet I'm not searching correctly.

 

Spider-Man: Far From Home

I thought it was great. The Spider-Man movies are near the top of my favorite Marvel movies. Watching the MCU out of order has faults (spoilers from Avengers: Endgame, for instance) but I'm ok with that.

 

I did see Lost City of Z and gave it a very positive review. I'm sure the review is nigh impossible to find here, so I'll link you to my site, in case you're interested. I didn't find Holland particularly good in that movie actually; he was about the only thing I didn't really like. He was . . . okay, but not up to everyone else in the movie I thought, which isn't a huge criticism because of his youth, I suppose. That mustache though . . .

 

aLion King (2019)

Timon and Pumbaa are funnier in this one than the original.

 

Shazam!

I rented this movie, and I feel terrible about it. So many people said it was good I figured they couldn't all be wrong, but no, they're all wrong. What were they thinking? I really tried to dig in to find the charm of the movie that everyone said was there, but it's just not there. If you know me, you know that I'm not about punching little kids, but every single kid in this movie made me want to punch him or her. Their characters were terrible, and they were terrible actors. All the 18 and 19 and 20 somethings pretending to be children: I wanted to punch them too. Djimon Hounsou. Normally I never want to punch him, but I wanted to punch him. Mark Strong, maybe most famous recently for playing a character who punched girls. I would like to watch him punch everyone else in this movie, and then punch him. I would like to punch everyone responsible for the visual effects and the musical score. Just everyone really.

I'd especially like to punch this dog that shows up every time I type "Shazam" into IMDB.

no I take that back. It's not the dog's fault. Here's his imdb bio:

Shazam Schwartz, US born canine, Shazam is famous for his unprecedented razor sharp body movements and his undeniable facial expressions brimming with sensitivity and emotion. The ten-time AKC and UKC Award winning border collie recently completed his break out role as the family dog in The Dissemblers (2018) along side Director and Writers and Producers Daniel Norinsky, Mitch Norinsky and Christopher Lane.

Shazam Schwartz was born on May 4th 2007 in Rochester Washington ( Hob Nob Border Collie Farm ), son of Scandal and Edge DeMello, handled by Michelle and Gregg Schwartz resides in Chicago Il. Shazam was the first delivered of his 6 siblings born and quickly became the leader of the pack. After moving across the US from the simple rural farm life to the fleeting bustling streets of Chicago, Shazam rapidly adjusted to city living and was immediately enrolled in the Call of the Wild School for Dogs. His intensive training there under the expert tutelage of Jennifer Boznos, Shazam would persevere to become not only AKC and UKC acclaimed status but one of Chicago's most recognizable therapy dogs in Chicago. Needing to break through the immeasurable shadow of his sister Prada Schwartz (the longest serving therapy dog with Chicagos famous Canine Therapy Corps) , Shazam had become the most sought after therapy dog in the city working with RIC and Northwestern's most critical patients providing animal assisted therapy to many affected with brain trauma and other horrific afflictions

As you can see, Shazam Schwartz's IMDB bio is a lot more entertaining than Shazam! the movie, with more genuine emotions. It's more likely to make you laugh and/or cry. You'll feel better after reading it. Learning about Shazam, the dog, will make you want to be a better you, the human, unlike Shazam! which will bring out the very worst.

 

I'm quite interested, thanks for the link; it's good to read a favorable review. Other reviews (from IMDB) stated how the raft miraculously floated upstream and ha, I didn't even notice that bit! The character study that was this movie carried me along and I didn't care about that unrealistic part. Fawcett has fascinated me since reading Bernard Heuvelman's "On The Track of Unknown Animals" as a teen. Per fawcettadventureDAHTKAHM, "Another claim of an extraordinarily large anaconda was made by adventurer Percy Fawcett. During his 1906 expedition, Fawcett wrote that he had shot an anaconda that measured some 18.9 meters (62 ft) from nose to tail.] Once published, Fawcett’s account was widely ridiculed. Decades later, Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans came to Fawcett's defence, arguing that Fawcett's writing was generally honest and reliable."

 

Welcome to Marwen (2018)
A loosely based true story about a man who suffered a severe beating by a group of thugs outside a local bar, lost his memory, and takes up a new hobby of collecting action figures and dolls to pose for photographs. The theme of the movie is somewhat heartwarming; but I can understand why it got relatively mediocre to lousy reviews as a good portion of it is devoted to portraying the man's wild imagination in CGI. The dolls come to life, and you get the feel for a movie like Small Soldiers or to a lesser extent Toy Story.

 

Lion King(2019). Looked great, some of the songs were pretty weak though, in my opinion. Overall, pretty decent.

 

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Brilliantly funny movie.

 

@Rylo Ken, your review of Shazam! made me very sad.

@Rogue1-and-a-half, @solojones, your thoughts on Toy Story 4 made me very sad.

Stop making me very sad itt. thx

 

To Catch a Thief (1955)
Considered to be a weak Hitchcock entry, but when you've got Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as your leads, weak is a relative term. I've always enjoyed it, despite preferring "the other woman" (French actress Brigitte Auber) to Grace Kelly's mannequin-like heiress, even if the film does coast on Grant's charm.

 

Revisited The Kid with the Golden Arm Very comic book Venoms mob film, and even more fun if you go in expecting something simple. Lo Meng is great as the title character, the head of the Deathly Valley gang who want the gold a security bureau is escorting through their territory.

A classic Shaw Brothers flick, and one I definitely remember enjoying in the early ‘80s while watching Shaws-centric Kung Fu Theater on Saturdays. I miss that, but am happy I can recreate it now. Any day.

 

First Man (2018)
Figured I'd take it out as a Redbox rental on this day in anniversary of the moon landing. It's really incredible to see everything that took place from the astronaut's perspective in full HD. Of course there's been dozens of documentaries and the TV series about the moon program; but this one really puts you in the driver's seat like no other. It also gives you a nice glimpse into Armstrong's life. It's gotten pretty good reviews overall; but there have been critics who apparently have a problem that it didn't show the American flag being placed on the lunar surface.

 

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Groaned at Ferris Bueller chase. So lame. Funny the suit had a parachute, reminded me of the action figure. Also had that stupid flashlight.

Keaton is great as the working class villain with a legit grudge and compelling view. He stood out as the star of the movie and really carries it. Great twist, too. Really chilling.

Tomei brought some personality and surprising believability as the new cool Aunt May. Too bad they didn't show a closer relationship with Peter. There's potential there, though. Love that final scene, wish it had happened earlier in the movie. It was a refreshing choice.

It's a bit off putting that Peter sucks so badly at being Spider-Man, but it allows us to watch him grow and mature, and the strength he gains by the end makes up for the lackluster action required for such a tale.

I think it's really something that the best stuff is all outside the action, and the action isn't there for thrills but lessons and character growth. It sets it apart from most Marvel movies. It's also something that Peter's most intimate relationship is with his suit's AI.

The action and comedy really fall flat, but the coming of age tale makes up for it. The best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2.

I hated ASM, so glad to have a good Spidey back.

 

The Empire Strikes Back

Picked up the 1995 THX OOT version on VHS for $1 yesterday.

It was really fun seeing the original version again after quite some time; in spite of the limitations of the VHS format.

It was a nostalgia trip; especially seeing and hearing the original Emperor and hearing Boba Fett's original voice, which is more menacing.

The tape I got is in terrific shape, but the quality sucks when you're used to watching blu rays, obviously. It had been a long time since I'd watched a VHS tape and it's startling how much worse it looks compared to what I remember, although, truth be told, it still looked decent enough and sounded good for a tape that is almost 25 years old.

I was doing the math, and counting VHS, DVD, and blu ray, this is the 6th different version of Empire I own a copy of lol.

Hopefully one day I can add a 7th copy when/if an HD version of the OOT is released...