What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Empire Magazine's review of Armageddon from the year 2000:



It gave it a 3/5.

You can read the full review here:

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/armageddon-review/

Who are Empire magazine & why do they matter? They were the best selling movie magazine in the UK at the time & had a popularity because they were generally honest and not obviously shill-like. A lot of their reviews read like how most popular Youtubers approach film reviews today. You get a sense of the meta as much as the films themselves.

It's funny how I can say, hey things were shite back then as well, and someone disagrees citing a certain film, which makes be look up a historical review for that film, which reinforces my point. It's, like, it's not even me doing the cherry picking that took me to that page that I didn't know existed until the person I was debating took me there.
Yes, Armageddon was not a good movie in my opinion. 3/5 is too much for me. It was brain dead entertainment worthy of being seen with mates just to see the cool effects and explosions. Not much else.
 
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
1,957
Location
Sweden
The target demographic of Ready Player One is 40 year olds. It's entirely built around recognizing its myriad references.

Not exactly. It's targeted at 40 year olds with kids, who can take their kids to see something that has content they can also relate to and engage in with the kid. It's not designed for 40 year old man-children going on their own or with mates, lol.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
It's not designed for 40 year old man-children going on their own or with mates, lol.
Don't belittle my inner child. :p

I thought the book was brilliant. Ticked all my boxes. The movie was, uhm, just okay, in retrospect. Liked it overall, but its impression on me faded over time. I thought it suffered from not being able to reference and indulge in every trademarked little thing like the book did.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
3,486
Yeah I completely agree with how good an author Michael Crichton was. I can always re-read his books, and most of his works that got turned into television or films are at least bearable to watch.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,799
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
I wasn't arguing for better or worse.

2000 doesn't have a matrix or a Fight Club either. Neither does 2001, nor did 1998. The Green Mile was a good movie, but I think you escalate it beyond it's true comparative value, you could say harsh things about Green Mile quite easily, but Hanks was at his Hanksiest in 1999, he could make anything watchable back then, and kinda still does, just to a lesser extent.

You are still not answering. Do you think the movies are better or not? The 7 I listed vs the 5 or so 2019 movies you listed?

And here is where I disagree with you. Yes, no Matrix in 1998 but it did have other amazing/truely great movies, so did 1997 and 1996 etc etc, and not just a few, a numerically superior amount:

Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Last of the Mohicans
Saving Private Ryan
Jurassic Park
Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
The Usual Suspects
Reservoir Dogs
Braveheart
Fargo
Terminator 2
Goodfellas
Good Will Hunting
Heat
Se7en
The English Patient
I could go on and on. The 90's was a hell of a decade for movies.

And yet it also had all the equivelent popcorn style movies of varying quality to keep the unwashed masses happy i.e. Demolition Man, The Rock, Last Action Hero, Total Recall, Con Air, Bad Boys etc etc.

And I have to disagree with you on Fight Club. The unrealiable narrator approach has been used to great effect in quite a few epic movies i.e. Usual Suspects, Memento. Having a narration has no real impact on the quality of the movie as far as I am concerned as long as it is done well.

To be honest I am not really trying to have an arguement here. My opinion is we are already in 2022 and this decade is not looking good so far. I have to exclude that handful of great movies you have from 2019 because let's face it, they are from 2019 :)

What I originally asked for is a list/recommendations of great movies (and hopefully a few real gems). Last Duel was a good start, keep them coming I need more good movies to watch :) Tenet didn't make the cut for me. Dune, I am on the fence - I will have to see Part 2 before passing judgement.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,090
Location
Sigil
As said I don't watch many movies, but Bjorn, have you tried these ones ?

Nope. Thanks, some of them look like they might suit me well, especially The Mauritanian.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,090
Location
Sigil
And here is where I disagree with you. Yes, no Matrix in 1998 but it did have other amazing/truely great movies, so did 1997 and 1996 etc etc, and not just a few, a numerically superior amount:

I must admit, I'm struggling to understand why you are comparing an entire decade of movies to 1.5 years of movies & I'm struggling to understand why you're personal taste is counted as evidence of quality?

What is it factually that makes you believe something incredibly corny like Last Action Hero is in any way objectively 'better' than Shang-Chi?

Again, the Empire review for Last Action Hero:

This is an attempt to be both a high-octane actionfest and a satire on such films, the result of which is the weirdest concoction: the metaphysical blockbuster. No wonder it tanked.

rated 3/5 & it still carries a 6.6 on IMDB. I mean, you've got an entire decade of movies to cherry pick from, and you're still including movies that were cinematic garbage then and are still cinematic garbage today.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
I'm not comparing an entire decade. We literally just did one year against one year. You then said 1999 was a special year i.e. due to the Matrix. I then gave a bunch of examples of why it isn't. Many of those movies are even better than the Matrix. And I am not talking from just my opinion - review aggregators also show a similar result. According to the two biggest review aggegators 2020 and 2021 and performed well below previous decades so far.

So far I have done 1991 and 1999. Do you need another year? When I asked you to provide all the great movies of 2020 and 2021 (or 2022) you did give some great movies but most of them were from 2019. If I did the same my list would include Fellowship of the Ring, Memento and a couple of others.

You seem unwilling to answer a simple question though.

I never said Last Action Hero was good. I said it was good for the unwashed masses i.e. junk with big explosions to keep people entertained. I never said it was good as Shang-chi. I lumped it in with a whole bunch of average-good movies to show that it wasn't just cinemaphiles who were well catered for in the 90's.

I don't have anything against modern movies. A host of my favourite movies and directors come from the 2000's and 2010's. I love Hurt Locker, Dark Knight is one of my top films. Hell, I even love Captain America: Winter Solider and I quite liked the original Avengers movie - it's just that plot and characters slowly gave way to spectacle and one-liners. "There will be blood" another of my personal favourites.

Yes, we are two and a bit years into this decade and I am happy to revisit this discussion in another 2 and a bit years if that is enough to warrant a discussion?

If you want me to amend my original statement regarding the quality of movies so far this decade I will go with: "So far, in my opinion (and most reviewers) the 2020's have produced less great movies than what we got in a typical year in the 90's". Does that sound more accurate to you?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,090
Location
Sigil
If you want me to amend my original statement regarding the quality of movies so far this decade I will go with: "So far, in my opinion (and most reviewers) the 2020's have produced less great movies than what we got in a typical year in the 90's". Does that sound more accurate to you?

We already established why there's a quantity issue in the first reply. Can I ask who you're citing when you say "most reviewers" with regards to quality?
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
Yes, I've no idea what all that is about, but that's probably enough of it in the main movie thread. Please continue in a dedicated thread.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Feel free to write in the rules somewhere what the conversation post-exchange limit is, so that people can moderate themselves without having to wait for the mod-jack-in-the-box time-up claxon.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
I watched The Mauritanian. I enjoyed it and was great to see Jodie Foster in a good movie.

I think the other conversation has run it course as Lackblogger is in agreement the quantity is lower. We will have to wait another 8 years to confirm the quality :) I have seen similar length slightly off tangent conversations in other threads being much less civil that Lackblogger and I were being that have been allowed to continue so it does seem a bit inconsistent to me. I am guessing it is because we used too many words and this generation doesn't like to read too many words. Next time I will provide a TLDR comment. Anyway discussion complete :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,090
Location
Sigil
I have seen similar length slightly off tangent conversations in other threads being much less civil that Lackblogger and I were being that have been allowed to continue so it does seem a bit inconsistent to me. I am guessing it is because we used too many words and this generation doesn't like to read too many words. Next time I will provide a TLDR comment.

Well, just to be clear, no harm done, and generally I'm not personally too bothered about keeping on topic. But I think in these megathread topics (movies, TV and music), if we go off on a tangent that dominates a bit too much, folks usually call for that to be a separate conversation. I think that's mainly because people like to visit these threads to catch up on what people are recommending and a bit of commentary, but not to read through long debates that don't interest them. It's not black and white, though, and it's no big deal.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Well, just to be clear, no harm done, and generally I'm not personally too bothered about keeping on topic. But I think in these megathread topics (movies, TV and music), if we go off on a tangent that dominates a bit too much, folks usually call for that to be a separate conversation. I think that's mainly because people like to visit these threads to catch up on what people are recommending and a bit of commentary, but not to read through long debates that don't interest them. It's not black and white, though, and it's no big deal.

While I agree with this sentiment, I also think that needing to start a new thread tends to kill the discussion since it's too much of a hassle to create a new thread. At least that's what I felt. But maybe that's a good thing, since then maybe that discussion wasn't that important to be had? But maybe it's not, and a spur-of-the-moment discussion shouldn't just be killed? I don't know.

Personally, I find it pretty easy to skim a message and quickly realize if it's an update to whatever people are watching, or just another post in a discussion I don't want to dive into. And can thus filter out whatever I don't want to read. But that's still a bit of a hassle, I must admit. I guess it could be useful if we could somehow visually flag posts that are directly on-topic or just side-talks. To be able to quicly scroll past whatever we don't care about. I don't know, maybe it's not even worth it. Just an idea.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
Pretty much all my posts in the 'discussion' include specific reviews of individual films, I actually did very little random discussion & most of my content could be read as no different to individual film review.

The conversation wasn't entirely just me and @bjon045;, several other people found comment to be made about the films we reviewed as we discussed a wider topic. One of which was a film I saw just a couple of days ago but hadn't posted here yet.

Some films we discussed at length, and I would say were more reviews of individual films than 'lengthy back and forth' were:

Armageddon (1998)
Ready Player One (2018)
Fight Club (1999)
True Lies (1994)

And lots of other content about films you have probably seen and would likely have an opinion about. I mean, "Is Shang-Chi a high quality film?" is quite a neutral topic that pretty much anyone probably has some kind of opinion over, even if they haven't seen it yet.

I assume when we post reviews of films, from one-liners to round-ups to full reviews we all expect and hope to generate conversation? Isn't that the whole point?
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
Well, I have to try to balance different concerns, and sometimes make a call to keep things on track. Let's leave it now - we're not going to turn the thread into a debate about a debate.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Last night I watched Mr. Warmth, which is a film about the works of Don Rickles. I say works because it actually doesn't tell you much about his life outside of his films/comedic professions, yet it's still a great slice of his life story. Most of the film centers on his career years in and around the Vegas area, and a few mentions of his military service. I was fortunate enough to catch him live back in the day on two occasions, and based on those memories I'd say he was fairly unique as an onstage comedian. This film will give you an idea of his life/works, and then you might consider checking out the biography of him, or perhaps do the book first. Either way you'll be learning something.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,799
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
Back
Top Bottom