Recently Watched Movies 2024

[CL82]

Yeah, pretty much. "Hit Man" that is coming out next month is getting decent buzz. After that I'm out I think. Wasn't particularly impressed with the offerings by Amazon the last time I had it, I might just go with no streaming service for a while.

I just started with prime. I'm enjoying it as I work my way through stuff and have a decent backlog of things I'd like to watch.

On Disney +, The Mandolorian and Ahsoka series were both good.

 

[storrsroars]

On that topic, "Madame Web" has been on the top of Netflix list the last several times I've checked, despite it getting absolutely trashed by everyone. Put something on Netflix, people will watch it, no matter what it is.

I'm not an MCU guy and I didn't even know going in that this was part of MCU. I didn't look to see who else was in it besides Dakota Johnson. So I jumped in based on it being the top movie listed that week.

I thought DJ was fine. It actually started off being entertaining. Then it introduced a horribly bad actor as the baddie, and trotted out three buxom bombshells of 27, 26, and 22 years of age playing clueless 16-year olds. I then thought the target audience for this must be incel pedos.

I read up on the movie after watching and noted DJ saying it was not the movie she signed up for, and her promo tour for it was not, um... enthusiastic. But the woman was a trouper and saw it through. About the only positive thing about it.

 

[superjohn]

The Iron Claw- I had to suspend disbelief with the casting choices. They got the hair right but Jeremy Allen White is a tiny guy and couldn't capture Kerry Von Erich who was a physical monster and larger than life. Efron is short but he was good and roided up for the role, the guy who played Ric Flair was terrible, Holt McCallany was perfect casting as Fritz and he gave an excellent perfomance.

It's too bad Efron messed up his face with plastic surgery because that dude can act, he was great and the emotional heart of the movie. There were some really memorable scenes and the final scene with Efron stuck with me. The music choices were also perfect.

 

[nwhoopfan]

It's too bad Efron messed up his face with plastic surgery

I think I heard that was because of a bad accident, not vanity.

 

[superjohn]

I think I heard that was because of a bad accident, not vanity.

That's what he said but he's lying. He said he broke his jaw over a decade ago and had to have facial surgery but his dramatic transformation happened a year ago.

It's too bad...I like the guy, he's handsome, and I think he's a really good actor but I see him going down the Mickey Rourke road in terms of screwing up his looks.

 

[CL82]

It's too bad Efron messed up his face with plastic surgery because that dude can act, he was great and the emotional heart of the movie

I did not know about this. Apparently he broke his jaw and that's what messed it up.

 

[nwhoopfan]

trotted out three buxom bombshells of 27, 26, and 22 years of age playing clueless 16-year olds

Hollywood. That's just so crazy they keep doing this. It's pretty close to impossible to suspend disbelief with this routine, and it just takes you right out of whatever it is they are trying to do.

 

[Waquoit]

The Iron Claw- I had to suspend disbelief with the casting choices. They got the hair right but Jeremy Allen White is a tiny guy and couldn't capture Kerry Von Erich who was a physical monster and larger than life. Efron is short but he was good and roided up for the role, the guy who played Ric Flair was terrible, Holt McCallany was perfect casting as Fritz and he gave an excellent perfomance.

The real story was so sad I could never watch this movie. I'm sure you read they deleted the existence of another brother because the director "didn't feel the movie could handle another death."

 

[nwhoopfan]

Forgive me if I ramble a bit. So I thought Sophie Nelisse really shined in "The Book Thief" in 2013, thought she'd be a young actress to keep an eye on. She's been working steadily ever since, and almost all of it has been completely forgettable. Maybe she just isn't that good of an actress? Nope, that's not it, she's just been given very little to work with. Just watched "Irena's Vow" and she was wonderful in it.

It's based on real people and events. Set in Poland during WW2. Irena is a young Polish woman who harbors 12 Jewish men and women right under the nose of a high ranking German officer. It was very well done, but it's a difficult watch and heartbreaking. Feel I have to warn there is a scene about 20 minutes in that is one of the vilest things I've ever seen in cinema. It's not graphic, but it shows enough to know what happened.

It's a bit odd that her two best roles were set in Europe during WW2. She's French Canadian, so there's not an obvious connection.

 

[Monte]

MARTY.......1955....Ernest Borgnine

 

[HuskyHawk]

That's what he said but he's lying. He said he broke his jaw over a decade ago and had to have facial surgery but his dramatic transformation happened a year ago.

It's too bad...I like the guy, he's handsome, and I think he's a really good actor but I see him going down the Mickey Rourke road in terms of screwing up his looks.

Mickey Rourke is the bar by which all others will be measured. Let's hope nobody ever comes close to reducing their physical attractiveness that much. I'd probably look about like a walking dead zombie with a similar decline.

 

[uconnbill]

The New ShoGun on Hulu is solid

 

[Deepster]

The New ShoGun on Hulu is solid

Good discussions on this in the "what are you binging thread", this is a series and not a movie.

 

[Palatine]

Furiosa; a Mad Max Saga (2024) Saw this in a theater. Big movie with big sound. Big visuals. Big budget. No one goes to see this movie without knowing exactly what they are there to see. I love these movies. It delivers. It take place in the wasteland but focuses on the previous introduced Citadel, Bullet Farm and Gas Town. George Miller has a firm grasp on this future world and gives you little pieces of it from time to time just to remind you. There is a tiny homage to Mel Gibson in it. What would really put these movies over the top is Mel himself. Overall, the film was great until the final 20 minutes when Furiosa stops short of killing Dementus and decides she want to talk him to death.

 

[nwhoopfan]

"Lisa Frankenstein." Ugh. I wanted to like it. I just couldn't. Slow, dull, so weird. I just didn't get what they were trying for with this one. Kathryn Newton couldn't save it. Pretty terrible.

 

[Palatine]

Godzilla. Minus One. (2023) This movie has received a lot of pub for the special effects crew of only eight (count 'em 8) people.The effects are very good with a few small exceptions, the opening plane landing scene and the larger ships cutting through the water, but these are nits. The Godzilla stuff is done well and handled in a realistic fashion. They play it straight. It works.

What really deserves more attention is the way they handled the Japanese relationship to the war and its aftermath. They don't focus on the bomb or the Americans. They focus on the human toll that was on the backs of the Japanese people. This is layered and dramatic. It could be a film by itself. The war has a larger effect on characters than the monster. This is very good movie making and a very good story. Yes, it's a Godzilla movie. But it is worth your time and deserves all the praise heaped on it. Three and a half stars.

 

[CL82]

Godzilla. Minus One. (2023) This movie has received a lot of pub for the special effects crew of only eight (count 'em 8) people.The effects are very good with a few small exceptions, the opening plane landing scene and the larger ships cutting through the water, but these are nits. The Godzilla stuff is done well and handled in a realistic fashion. They play it straight. It works.

What really deserves more attention is the way they handled the Japanese relationship to the war and its aftermath. They don't focus on the bomb or the Americans. They focus on the human toll that was on the backs of the Japanese people. This is layered and dramatic. It could be a film by itself. The war has a larger effect on characters than the monster. This is very good movie making and a very good story. Yes, it's a Godzilla movie. But it is worth your time and deserves all the praise heaped on it. Three and a half stars.

I would've skipped this, but you're right up makes me think it's worth a look.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I would've skipped this, but you're right up makes me think it's worth a look.

It's the best movie ever made about the Japanese experience of WWII. Godzilla has always been a metaphor in the eyes of the Japanese.

 

[Palatine]

It's the best movie ever made about the Japanese experience of WWII. Godzilla has always been a metaphor in the eyes of the Japanese.

I watched both versions. The Japanese with sub titles is better than the lip synced English in my view as the translation is literal. The lip syncing is less than perfect and the Japanese adds another layer of authenticity.

The idea of the main character being a coward kamikaze pilot who survived the war works perfectly.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I watched both versions. The Japanese with sub titles is better than the lip synced English in my view as the translation is literal. The lip syncing is less than perfect and the Japanese adds another layer of authenticity.

The idea of the main character being a coward kamikaze pilot who survived the war works perfectly.

Yeah, I won't watch anything dubbed. I watch everything with CC anyway, so subtitles don't bother me.

 

[CL82]

Yeah, I won't watch anything dubbed. I watch everything with CC anyway, so subtitles don't bother me.

I started out watching Shogun dubbed, but eventually switched to subtitles. I get how they would be annoying or distracting to some people, but, for me at least, after a moment or to the disappear and I'd rather listen to the nations of the original performance.