The Latest Movie/TV show You Watched Topic 2.0

[HedorahIsBestGirl]

I found Parasite to be really over-rated, definitely don't think it deserved Best Picture.

Why is Parasite overrated? I like 1917 a lot, too, but I think Parasite absolutely deserved the Oscar. Phenomenal writing, acting and directing, original story, seamless blend of comedy and tragedy. 1917 was an immersive experience with fantastic cinematography, but the actual plot and characters were paper-thin; Parasite's plot and characters were rich and engrossing.

For me....it was like many films that have won Best Picture in the last 10 years, you watch them once....say "oh that was good", and then never really feel compelled to watch them again. That's just my opinion.

Also....something doesn't have to be complex to be of a very high quality. Some of the best films and shows are actually simple. There is 100% a place for minimalism...and minimalism does not exclude artistry.

Look at Primal, not a spoken line of dialogue...but that doesn't make it any less of a masterpiece. Gravity had essentially 2 characters and the experience was no less exciting.

There is a place for purity and minimalism...and truly amazing cinema can still be achieved while embracing both. Complexity and depth is not inherently superior, or required for a superior piece of cinema

You and I agree that a great film can be made with minimal dialogue and simplistic storytelling. My favorite film of the decade is Mad Max: Fury Road, which is basically just one long car chase with very little dialogue. And I really do think 1917 was great, just not as great as Parasite. I would argue that, in general, a film with well-developed characters and a layered story is better than a film with simple characters and a simple story, but that's certainly not always the case.

I agree with your assessment of most of the 2010s Best Picture winners, which is exactly why I challenged your views on Parasite. I think Parasite broke the mold by being the first Best Picture winner since The Hurt Locker that I found truly thought-provoking and am eager to watch again.

[KManX89]

The Invisible Man.

I just saw the Invisible Man 2020, great movie. Great pacing and suspense with a very well-told story, and Elisabeth Moss was great as the lead. Universal FINALLY has a classic monster film in the modern era that's actually quite enjoyable. Dracula Untold, The Wolfman, The Mummy (2017), I Frankenstein, all mediocre-to-bad movies. Blumhouse is finally back on track as well after two straight duds in Black Christmas and Fantasy Island.

8/10

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

Son of Kong

Hey guys I last watched the 1933 movie Son of Kong.

Notice something there? Yes 1933 the same year as the original King Kong. It's no uncommon opinion, but even though the movie itself is fine you can tell that some more time to give the script a few more passes over and some further time in production would have benefited the movie greatly.

The Willis O'Brien stop motion effects however are quite good which is great considering the time constraints.

Something regarding the Son of Kong is that the ape is quite friendly and sometimes slapstick. Quite a contrast to King Kong himself. Making Jaws 2 about a dolphin that does tricks would be a fair comparison.

[kingkevzilla88]

VFW

Watched this last and it was fucking amazing! It's one of the best films of the year, so far for me.

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

Anchorman 2

Hey guys I last watched the movie Anchorman 2.

When they got to the Chicken of The Cave scene - Fried Bats - I started to lose breath I was laughing that much. Very topical.

Don't start on the Cruise Control camper crash scene because by then I swear I died for at least a second as I had run out of air trying to stop laughing.

I believe it's also the only movie to feature both a Werewolf and a Shark, not in the same scene though.

Probably the funniest movie I've seen, based purely on laughs per second.

[Leviarex]

Watched 'Frozen 2' last night. I consider it okay at best, and pretty much like the first movie more. Elsa does look great with her hair down though.

[gottatalktothefake]

Rewatched contagion for the first time in 6 years, its so fucking good.

IMO it’s what Shin Godzilla should have been, it’s a mix of the government, citizen and scientific response. And dat ost doe

[Rody]

The Prince of Egypt - I've grown up watching this movie, but I finally sat down to check out the Blu-ray. Even without nostalgia, this is a very good, even great film. I'm delighted that this was made as an animated film, too; this could easily have been another live-action remake, but it stands as a testament to what the animation medium is capable of for storytelling. More people should be talking about this film today.

Dragonslayer - now here's a film I've been curious about for a while - another film I rarely see mentioned, but always favorably. Honestly, having seen it for myself now... Yeah, I can see why this film has become obscure, but it's definitely good. There's interesting stuff going on in the text, albeit a little more subtley and even subversively than normal. A lot of stuff happens, sometimes it seems abruptly; but there's a deliberateness which becomes clearer over time. Of course, there's also the dragon itself, which is cleverly built up and teased before the full reveal in the 3rd act - and it very impressive, between the big animatronics and stop-motion so fluid it almost looks like CGI. This is certainly a film worth checking out for monster fans. Hopefully it gets a home video upgrade someday.

King Kong (1976) - another monster film I'd never seen before - and another which I can understand why it isn't remembered well. I liked the modernized premise, and I liked Jack Prescott and Fred Wilson as the new leads and their dynamic. The Kong suit was pretty good, and the animatronics for the face and the giant arm were cool. However, the plot and dialogue often felt hasty or just clunky; there were numerous moments when I felt the full intended impact/drama fell short. Dwan was also very hard to watch for most of the film; she's a worse damsel-in-distress stereotype than the original Ann Darrow, and it felt like the writers wanted to make her look as foolish (and just sexy) as possible, before changing head in the third act. I wouldn't say this is a bad film, but it's a weaker attempt for sure; and I think some of the ideas introduced here were better done in the later 2005 film.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

Rewatched contagion for the first time in 6 years, its so fucking good.

IMO it’s what Shin Godzilla should have been, it’s a mix of the government, citizen and scientific response. And dat ost doe

See that's pretty much the movie I was hoping G14 would be.

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

The Crazies

Hey guys I last watched the 1973 movie by prophet George A. Romero titled The Crazies.

If the template for zombie movies he created with the Dawn of the Dead trilogy wasn't an obvious enough metaphor, then The Crazies is an actual movie about Pandemic, Martial Law and Lockdown.

[eabaker]

However, the plot and dialogue often felt hasty or just clunky; there were numerous moments when I felt the full intended impact/drama fell short.

I think the major problem here is that Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the film as a comedy, and director John Guillermin did not get it and had the movie played far too straight. So it's not that the full intended drama fell short, it's that mock-drama was passed off as straight drama, and fell flat.

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

Lorenzo Sem,ple Jr. wrote the film as a comedy.

The oil shortage satire?

[LSD Jellyfish]

The Crazies

Hey guys I last watched the 1973 movie by prophet George A. Romero titled The Crazies.

If the template for zombie movies he created with the Dawn of the Dead trilogy wasn't an obvious enough metaphor, then The Crazies is an actual movie about Pandemic, Martial Law and Lockdown.

I’ve seen the remake. Was the original any good?

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

It's great. It's at least up there with the Dawn of The Dead Trilogy and Martin.

[Rody]

However, the plot and dialogue often felt hasty or just clunky; there were numerous moments when I felt the full intended impact/drama fell short.

I think the major problem here is that Lorenzo Sem,ple Jr. wrote the film as a comedy, and director John Guillermin did not get it and had the movie played far too straight. So it's not that the full intended drama fell short, it's that mock-drama was passed off as straight drama, and fell flat.

Ohhhhhh; I didn't pick up on that at all, but that does make sense. How did they manage to miscommunicate that badly about the film?
Now I'm curious what the film would have looked like as the comedy it was intended.

[Jeff-Goldblum2]

Outbreak - 1995

Hey guys I last watched the medical thriller Outbreak by Wolfgang Petersen starring Dustin Hoffman.

Very topical. A Hollywood movie though. Very much a 90's disaster movie.

It's basically Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman yelling at each other a lot and Donald Sutherland trying to shoot Dustin Hoffman down in a helicopter. All while people are dying from a 100% mortality rate virus where they melt into a gorey goop. Yuck.

Fun fact - The monkey in the movie is the same one used in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. The monkey is cute too, sure, carrying a virus capable of killing the entire United States. But so cute!

I also noted Mutahba Virus Monkey killed a town of 2600 which is a higher death count than King Kong. A more dangerous movie monkey than King Kong himself.

[eabaker]

However, the plot and dialogue often felt hasty or just clunky; there were numerous moments when I felt the full intended impact/drama fell short.

I think the major problem here is that Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the film as a comedy, and director John Guillermin did not get it and had the movie played far too straight. So it's not that the full intended drama fell short, it's that mock-drama was passed off as straight drama, and fell flat.

Ohhhhhh; I didn't pick up on that at all, but that does make sense. How did they manage to miscommunicate that badly about the film?
Now I'm curious what the film would have looked like as the comedy it was intended.

Good question. I think Guillermin was very much a hired hand on that pic, and he and Semple may not have had much direct interaction.

It reminds me of how director Jack Sholder supposedly had no awareness of the gay subtext (which is barely subtextual at all) in the script for A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2.

Added in 21 hours 58 minutes 17 seconds:
I started my morning off with the English dubbed/American re-edited version of Black Sabbath. The Italian-language version (I tre volti della paura) is one of my all-time favorite movies, but somehow I've never gotten around to watching the AIP version before.

I'll start with the positives. The big one, of course, is having Boris Karloff voice his own performance. Karloff is a brilliant physical performer, so even dubbed into Italian, his performance shines through. But Karloff's skill with his rich, sonorous voice is a huge part of his appeal, and the movie is very much enriched by its presence.

Also, as someone who does not speak Italian, I admit not having to read subtitles at times makes it a little easier to take in Mario Bava and Ubaldo Terzano's truly sumptuous visuals. But the subs were never that big a distraction to begin with, really.

Alas, Les Baxter's score is, as usual with the Bava movies he re-scored, simply too intrusive. Bava's visual storytelling and the performances of the actors are powerful and atmospheric enough that they need only the accents provided by Roberto Nicolosi for the Italian release; Baxter's score is fun, and not ineffective, but it slightly cheapens the movie.

And then there's the totally re-worked version of "The Telephone" (the first segment of the Italian cut, repositioned as the middle segment for the AIP release). In transforming it from a realistic and more character-driven psycho-thriller into an almost insultingly shallow and straight-forward ghost story, they turn what was already the movie's least impressive segment into a pointless mess of a story.

I'll certainly watch this version again from time to time, but it will always be the Italian cut that I come back to, and that I use to introduce new people to the movie.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

Paradox (2017)
crime drama/martial arts

A Chinese police officer (Louis Koo) travels to Thailand after his daughter goes missing. Now he must team up with two local cops (Wu Yue and Tony Jaa) to stop a possible conspiracy with ties to an illegal organ trafficking ring.

Pretty good movie. Sad and pretty downbeat but with some pretty good martial arts action and strong performance from Louis Koo. - 3/5 stars

[GojiDog]

Stuck inside without much to do but watch stuff, so I'll be posting more of these the next few days.

Yesterday I watched Invisible Man (2020).

Let me start this off by saying that I am a big fan of the old Universal Monster movies, with the 1st Claude Rains Invisible Man film being one of my personal favorites. In recent decades, remakes of films starring these classic characters have gotten progressively worse to the point that it made me practically beg Universal to stop using them in any film projects.

Then this movie comes along...I actually liked it! Its not perfect, but compared to what we've gotten in the last few attempts, it might as well be a masterpiece.

What this movie gets right where most other attempts have failed is that this movie is, at its core, a HORROR movie. Shocking I know, but there have been attempts to reinvent the monsters as big budget blockbuster action movies, which is peculiar to me as these characters were the forefathers of horror icons. They should be used in horror movies.

The 2020 film is also not a straight remake of the original or any other previous version, but rather it opted to use the character in a new way and scenario that would make him scary, and using him as a genius abusive boyfriend getting revenge by victimizing the lover that got away from his abuse? Oh yeah, I can go with that. And I should note that Elisabeth Moss is great in this as her desperation and descent make her sympathetic and she sells it perfectly, which makes the Invisible Man seem like a huge threat even though we can't see him. A premise like this lends itself to every character looking stupid by not believing the victim, but they executed it well here to where it makes sense that they wouldn't believe her right away. There are some terrifically executed scenes in this.

Like I said, the movie isn't perfect:

Spoiler:

One of my issues with Hollow Man way back when was that the invisible man in that film was damn near invincible and it became almost cartoonish. The Invisible Man is supposed to be a normal guy, so to see him have special powers beyond that is just silly. This movie avoids that problem most of the time, but still ventures into it once in a while, like how the Invisible Man makes a knife fly into Moss' hand to frame her for murder. This was also unnecessary since she had touched the knife earlier in the film, so he could have just left it on the table.

Also, the film kind of falls apart a little bit at the end with its reveals and ultimate ending. Its not the worst I've ever seen, but it feels like they were trying to keep us guessing and it never quite paid off as well as I'd hoped.

That said, it was a solidly made horror film and FINALLY we get a respectable remake to one of these things. Good job Universal! 7//10

[LSD Jellyfish]

I can't quote Gojidog because I don't want to see the spoilers, but your post and some other things make me inclined to see it suddenly.

Anyways, I saw Us (2019). Pretty good. I think the film is refreshing at taking a home invasion concept and making it more creepy. I wish a little less was explained, I like the mystery aspect of what's going on. I think the social commentary is good, but I also like how you can enjoy it as a pure horror film. The presentation was good, and the family in the film was realistic and likeable. I recommend it to anyone that needs something exciting to watch right now.

I also saw Midsommar. I liked it too. A bit predictable, but like Us it has fantastic characters, and great presentation. Another good movie to get your mind off things.

Depending on how I feel later I may watch Bye Bye Jupiter.