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

I saw King of Comedy, which apparently was a major inspiration for Joker. And it's impressive how many of the plot points they reused in Joker. But Joker does take a considerably darker turn at one point, and overall I think I enjoyed Joker more. But King of Comedy is also pretty great. I also liked the way it handled its ending.
 
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Re-watched "Oldboy" (2013) with Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson. Very interesting film with a really good twist here and there. Got slammed by Rotten Tomatoes, but I think it's 8/10...
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
I saw King of Comedy, which apparently was a major inspiration for Joker. And it's impressive how many of the plot points they reused in Joker. But Joker does take a considerably darker turn at one point, and overall I think I enjoyed Joker more. But King of Comedy is also pretty great. I also liked the way it handled its ending.
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I pointed this out to @lackblogger because at the time everyone seemed to think when Joker came out that it was inspired by Taxi Driver.
Robollix said:
Re-watched "Oldboy" (2013) with Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson. Very interesting film with a really good twist here and there. Got slammed by Rotten Tomatoes, but I think it's 8/10...
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So I'm guessing you never saw the original?
 
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Ripper said:
You're remarkably non-verbose this time around. I hope you're feeling alright. ;)
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It's not like there's a shortage of feedback on this one, if you're trying to determine if it's worth seeing.

To me, it's an agenda-pushing cartoon trying to pass itself off as something non-cartoonish. It has terrible characters and terrible writing.

It does have good music and decent intensity in terms of the action, though it's held back by tv-level CGI.

There's a great dog in it, though - but I'm biased in that way.

But, as I said, it's quite popular - even among many who're usually critical of modern Hollywood - so I wouldn't put too much stock in my opinion.
 
Philistine said:
I pointed this out to @lackblogger because at the time everyone seemed to think when Joker came out that it was inspired by Taxi Driver.

So I'm guessing you never saw the original?
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To be honest, I didn't know that there was an 'original' version of Oldboy. But since you mentioned it, I looked it up on IMDb. I see what you mean...:)
 
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Robollix said:
To be honest, I didn't know that there was an 'original' version of Oldboy. But since you mentioned it, I looked it up on IMDb. I see what you mean...:)
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I thought the John Brolin version was okay as well. I like the prison bit the most and I thought that was done better than the Korean original. The ending was a bit weak though. I'd give it a 5.5/10 and I wouldn't give the original much more than that as well - maybe a 6. Either is good for an evening when you have nothing else to do.
 
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I watched Top Gun: Maverick and found it very enjoyable.

The impressions I've read before were a) very good overall b) too much for 2 hours and c) music was pale in comparison to the 1st movie. I have to agree except I didn't find the music was an issue.

Impressive and generally plausible flight scenes. 2 or 3 big technical mistakes, hard to avoid in any movie and not a real concern.

The intro made me smile but it's fine. However, the main plot was a little hard to swallow and unimaginative, that's the only reproach I'd make.

An underground U enrichment plant by a country (which is obviously Iran) in violation with a "unilateral treaty by NATO"? An assault plan instead of using economical sanctions and other methods? Come on.

Then there's the impossibility of a guided missile strike because of "GPS scrambling" - lasing from a drone seems to be the best option and GPS would be unnecessary. But no, sending a few green pilots with an old man is how we do it.

I liked the references to the first movie and the consequences of the past events on the story, it felt like a genuine sequel and not a pretext to make another movie based on an earlier success. I wish they had stretched the length a little and took more time to develop some characters and their relationship.
 
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I re-watched Alien for the nth time, since my SO hadn't seen it. And a couple of things were surprising. I forgot how wonky some of the scenes have aged, especially those where you can clearly see the xenomorph. It's so obvious there's an actor in the costume. But regardless, it was still pretty great. And a nice comparison to what I had seen in Alien: Isolation. I now know why they chose to put in terribly long and convoluted animations for some things (arming the self-destruct device in particular). Since the movie did it the same way. So it's more of an homage to it. Otherwise, it looked great.
 
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Top Gun - 5/10

Wanted to watch this again before I saw Maverick - since it's been several years since I last did so.

It's very much a Tony Scott film, that's for sure.

Style over substance in every possible way.

Quite intense and very well paced for what it is. It's also very much a product of its time - as in it's a totally cringe 80s action fest with tons of testosterone and endless clichés.

Best part would be the score and the sound design.

It's also silly and highly implausible in terms of what's actually going on - and the characters are as cardboard and stereotypical as you can get. Half the film seems to consist of the same handful of real aviation shots cut together in whatever way was deemed the most fitting for the action. That must have taken some doing to gain access to - but I guess it didn't quite work for me today as well as it once did.

The nostalgia factor is certainly in play - and that's probably why I'm being lenient with the score.

But I can't see past how dumb it really is - as much as I'd love to. Oh, and having a spelling mistake in the very first text intro to what "Top Gun" is - sort of says it all in terms of how seriously I'm going to take it :)
 
Top Gun: Maverick - 3/10

Oh my - this was bad.

Ok, so the action sequences were more convincing - but that's about it.

Characters were, if possible, even more cardboard and stereotypical than the original movie. Zero chemistry between main protagonist and love interest. Zero tension between the people who were supposed to have it.

For some reason, the guy supposed to be the son of Goose was at least 10 years too young for the part. Not sure they could have picked a more cliché conflict - or a less convincing way to execute upon it.

The "bad guy" in charge of the operation had less character than a rock - and his role was even more cliché than the aforementioned conflict.

The premise was absurd.

The tone was typical modern Hollywood - as in partially serious and partially a joke. It didn't work well for me. For heaven's sake - just pick one. Are we to take it seriously or not?

Music was inferior to the original as was sound design.

I have absolutely no idea what the hype is about - I really don't.
 
I've always thought Top Gun was massively overrated and never understood its popularity. I've had several invites to see Maverick which I've politely declined. :)
 
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I could never sit through Top Gun, for many reasons. Some simple, like being bored out of my mind; but I guess you could look at it as a so bad its good. And others are for the fact that it's very thinly veiled propaganda. I keep hearing the us air force saw an increase in people joining after seeing the first one? That is so stupid. (rofl)

The only good thing I hear about the new top gun is that the flight scenes are better. That is not enough for me to slog through the rest of it.

In other news, there's been an official teaser for Last of Us on hbo.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DZXqSHOAM


I'm not sure how I feel about it. It felt a bit off, at first sight. After seeing it a couple of times, feels a little bit better. I'm mostly talking about the dialogue and how it's performed. We'll have to see how this turns out. It needs more context. I just hope it doesn't feel like fan-fiction videos.
 
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Robollix said:
Re-watched "Oldboy" (2013) with Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson. Very interesting film with a really good twist here and there. Got slammed by Rotten Tomatoes, but I think it's 8/10...
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You've watched the Korean original, I hope?

edit: continued reading the thread and I see this already came up
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
I re-watched Alien for the nth time, since my SO hadn't seen it. And a couple of things were surprising. I forgot how wonky some of the scenes have aged, especially those where you can clearly see the xenomorph.
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Yeah, once you really see the "jazz hands" alien that kills Dallas, you can't unsee it. That's the only scene that looks that dorky to me. The scene with Lambert and Parker is obvious wire work, of course, but I think overall it still works. And the scene with Brett is as terrifying as the day the movie was made.
 
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Yeah, I was never a fan of Top Gun, and I'd need to be fairly bored to attempt the new one. And i love a bit of cheesy action from that era

I always felt it was more like an aftershave commercial extended to feature length. Just very flat, with obnoxious, shallow characters.
 
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