Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back

[Frostillicus]

Wasn't the entire point of Ready Player One to beat nostalgic game references down your throat? 

I won't belabor it, but if that film wasn't aware of how ham fisted it was being it would have been entirely unbearable to watch (though the book was worse)

I suppose, but I didn't quite think of it that way. Nostalgia is the movie, but it didn't feel to me that it was being excessively forced. Greatly used and acknowledged, ...but not forced.
I guess I'm saying that we've all encountered plenty of modern media that tries to get through to consumers by pathetically implying "Hey, remember this?", and that's all there is to it. I felt as though it was done better here. There was at least a little bit more to it than that.
See? You've already got me thinking too much about a movie that doesn't require it. Dangit, Rucks.

EDIT: One key thing I forgot to mention, I was very high when watching it. ...Which probably more than explains my viewpoint.

[Rucks]

EDIT: One key thing I forgot to mention, I was very high when watching it. ...Which probably more than explains my viewpoint.

that part was implied

[Frostillicus]

^ Indeed. I'm sure everyone figured that is usually the case with me when I said I enjoyed Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. A deliciously guilty pleasure, that one.
I loved how much Grim disliked that movie.

[Rucks]

^ Indeed. I'm sure everyone figured that is usually the case with me when I said I enjoyed Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. A deliciously guilty pleasure, that one.
I loved how much Grim disliked that movie.

A very self aware film.  I actually loved it...

[Hathen]

From Hollywood, I saw Ant Man and the Wasp and Mission: Impossible Fallout. The former was another McDonald's Hamburger from Marvel, and the latter was probably the best action movie I've seen since Fury Road.

Though I'm more interested in talking about two East Asian movies I saw recently- the two Along with the Gods movies from Korea, one released in 2017 and one was released a few days ago. Apparently there are two more sequels are planned and I would not mind watching more of them, because these are easily the best East Asian movies I've watched in many years. At least as far as ones released recently, anyway. Admittedly I don't watch that many (though probably more than most around here :P), but I put this miles above the crappy blockbusters coming out of Mainland China nowadays (Some notable ones I've seen are Red Cliff, Legend of the Demon Cat, The Mermaid and Wolf Warrior).

Basic premise is: Guy dies and has to be judged for his life's deeds in the underworld before he can qualify for reincarnation. I have read that some believe the story gets a bit melodramatic, and I would agree to some degree but I think the movie earns it. I recommend it.

[Arvis]

Watched Netflix's Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society the other night.  I can't believe something this beautiful, compelling and wholesome was made in the last year.  If you're as sick of Netflix's usual uber-dark, TV-MA nonsense as I am, I highly recommend this.  It's very much like a good, 2-hour episode of Downton Abbey (with 4 Downton cast members in it, to boot, lol).

[Goblin Shark]

I watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them today.  I enjoyed it as a popcorn flick.  I was more interested in seeing it, because I want to see the sequel Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindenwold.  I think Jude Law is pretty cool and I want to see his portrayal as young Dumbledore.   

Anyway, the plot of Where to Find Them  was pretty cliche and progression felt patchy at times, but the visual design was creative (particularly

Spoiler: show

Newt's pocket dimension

).  It stoked my imagination the way the Harry Potter films do and I liked that it was more about adult wizards on an adventure rather than kid wizards.  However, some of the "romantic" interactions came off as adults acting like awkward teens.  I also think that some thematic elements that were barely a blip on the radar and heavily glossed over could be expanded upon to create more grown-up lore for J.K. Rowling's wizarding world.  For example, in examining the way Arthur Weasley and Queenie view muggles/no-majs... both are clearly fascinated by them/us, but how much of their muggle/no-maj enthusiasm is fetishism?

Speaking of expanding J.K. Rowling's world, I hope that Rowling realizes that America is a BIG country (at least 10 states are bigger than the UK) and every region is wildly unique. I hope that the America based magical school Queenie briefly mentions in the film is not the only school of its kind in America.  America is vast and a veritable mosaic of cultures, so it would make sense to me that there would/should be more than just one magical school in this country. 

If you look at Native American mysticism, different tribes have their own unique views, lore, practices, mythologies, traditions, etc. because of their varied and widespread geography.  We typically associate peyote and going on "vision quests" after taking it as something Native American tribes did, but that's limited to tribes who lived in the more southwestern desert regions where peyote grows, since peyote is a cactus.  And then when looking at the influences brought over from abroad, you get unique regional mysticisms like Louisiana voodoo that's an amalgamation of several traditions from the African diaspora.  Leaving the mainland, there are the Inuit traditions in Alaska and the Polynesian ones in Hawaii.  There's also magical creatures.  Folks who grew up in New Jersey would probably be familiar with the Jersey Devil and the Red Lion.  However, those who grew up in the southwest or Puerto Rico would be more familiar with chupacabras. 

[Mickeymac92]

Thor Ragnarok - Still an extremely fun watch from start to finish, even though I've seen it 3 times now. It feels like enough of a self-contained film that it's easier to rewatch and enjoy than a few other Marvel films. I watched in on Netflix, but I'm gonna have to pick it up on Blu-Ray someday, this might be up there with Guardians of the Galaxy as something I could see myself repeatedly going back to this whenever I need to kill a few hours.

Batman: Bad Blood - a lot of people died. O_O

Blame! - The lighting contrast in this hurt my eyes for some reason, so I didn't finish it. Story seemed alright, but it's not worth suffering over.

Coulda sworn I saw something else between Batman and Blame!, but I can't seem to remember it in any detail. Anywho, I got Prime Video again, so I'm gonna watch a bunch of old-school Sci-fi horror movies next week to celebrate Halloween.

[Hathen]

Few weeks ago I saw Venom, which I thought was on the bad side of passable. The movie changes genres halfway through, the movie has a lot of clearly unfinished/halfbaked plots in it (but at least it's not the plot tornado of Spiderman 3/TAS 2 so at least Sony didn't make that mistake again), and a lack of Spiderman still makes me think this entire enterprise is a stupid idea from the get-go, but Tom Hardy acting like a crazy person is pretty amusing just by itself.

After that I saw three movies on a plane ride, so they might be pretty heavily censored versions of said movies, but I doubt that'd change much of my opinion on them:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was a massively stupid movie that really wants you to think it still has something to say. Though to be brutally honest I have my gripes with the original Jurassic Park's themes/ideas too, but I won't go on a huge rant here. Like Venom, this was also a movie that apparently decided it wanted to change genres halfway through. To be fair it's probably entertaining enough on its own, and it does have a few good moments here and there, but it mostly felt tired and pointless to me. It's probably bad when I want to say I'd probably would've liked it more if it was just an up-front stupid action movie without any pretense, which brings me to:

Rampage- also a really stupid movie but doesn't feel the need to pretend it's anything more than what it is. As far as a movie based on Rampage goes, I would first say "please don't", but since they made it I'd say this is probably about as good as it could've been, so take that as you will. Of course your enjoyment of the movie will probably depend on how much you like Dwayne Johnson's unique charm.

Annihilation- another great Sci-fi movie from Alex Garland. Can't talk about it too much without spoiling everything, so probably not much to say aside from that if you like this kind of movie, you'll probably enjoy this one too. Honestly I hear a lot of people talk about how Disney's ruining everything, but even if you hate the mass of superhero genre movies (and other pulpy ones like Star Wars) the past few years I think scifi's been doing pretty good- Since Interstellar we've had Ex Machina, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, The Martian, and this movie. Plus that whole rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy was pretty great too. Obviously Superhero movies and the like are typically going to rake in more cash, but that's been the way it's been for forever now.

[Frostillicus]

It [2017] - I'm a huge fan of Curry's performance in the otherwise blah 90's miniseries version, so I was a bit skeptical about anyone else taking on the role of Pennywise... Skarsgard definitely made it his own, and his version of Pennywise is creepy as fuck. Consider me sold. Still, I prefer Curry's version, because his assault was more psychological; really messing with the kids' heads through nearly simultaneous silliness and scariness. While Bill's Pennywise is inherently more scary on the surface, the character is more streamlined, with the whole "I'm gonna getcha! Hee hee! I'm gonna getcha!" approach.
Anyway, as far as the movie itself goes, this was unsurprisingly miles above the original miniseries. The acting and and tone are great throughout. The beginning scene with Georgie really clues you in as to how much of a different beast than the original this is. However, I would have liked for Pennywise to have talked more (less CGI, please), and for there to have been a bit less reliance on jump scares. Still, a pretty good movie.

[Goblin Shark]

A couple of days ago, I saw the film Bohemian Rhapsody in my local recliner theater.  I had a great time watching it.  Rami Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury was out of this world.  I also loved that the film was not a heavy-handed documentary but rather a rollicking rock opera.  It took some creative liberties, to be sure, but what movie doesn't?  This was meant to be a rock opera film, not a heavy handed thesis level documentary.  Basically, the reason I liked it is the reason many critics hated it.  I often felt that exhilaration I felt either seeing live bands or performing on stage myself, and that feeling is not easy to replicate in a movie (which is a more passive experience to me.)  And learning that Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara (a Parsi whose parents were from Gujarat, India) makes him even cooler!  One of the greatest rock stars to ever walk this Earth was essentially my ethnicity.  Boss!

Queen is simply one of the greatest bands to ever walk this Earth.  Forget about Freddie's multi-octave vocal range for a second.  Brian May is easily one of the finest guitarists alive.  Roger Taylor is an incredibly dynamic drummer.  And John Deacon is one of the most underrated bassists out there.  If you take the bass out of any Queen song, it's trash.  Dude has the groove, the pocket, and the chops.