Recent Movies You Saw

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 13th, 2025, 5:36 pm

Watch Gladiator 2 and Alien Romulus on Prime over the weekend. Both were okay but paled to the originals.

Gladiator 2 had that "made for TV" look. Maybe too much CGI.

Alien Romulus felt like AI made an Alien film. It just had little bits and pieces of all the others. And it was not a good idea to resurrect actor Ian Holm's likeness for this. He looked awful.

Zack Burner
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby Zack Burner » May 13th, 2025, 9:39 pm

Now for a classic, "The Great Santini" (1979) with Robert Duvall as Bull Meechum, a gung-ho Marine who brings his life into his family which can bring tragic consequences, especially with his teenage son, and he often has difficulty separating the man from the marine. Nice drama without feeling too heavy, even though it drags a bit in some areas.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby BlasteroidAli » May 14th, 2025, 8:38 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Watch Gladiator 2 and Alien Romulus on Prime over the weekend. Both were okay but paled to the originals.

Gladiator 2 had that "made for TV" look. Maybe too much CGI.

Alien Romulus felt like AI made an Alien film. It just had little bits and pieces of all the others. And it was not a good idea to resurrect actor Ian Holm's likeness for this. He looked awful.

Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon got there first. This book has him being the dastardly chap he was, way before Romulous was thought about. I liked it but the pulse rifle the chick had was way more powerful than anything in Aliens to which the movie is supposedly a prequel.

https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Alien-Out-of-the-Shadows/B08GC48XJH?ref_pageloadid=dmeHeSmx0WQM31he&pf_rd_p=7e7340a8-8768-4798-a0ce-83f879c09110&pf_rd_r=GD54R67QT1KYREY9A4ZR&plink=ydVCAzHlphRw2NuM&pageLoadId=cPfjDtjAuMNJEsFN&creativeId=14d6a1c2-a3f8-499b-900a-1ae788c317b1&ref=a_library_t_c5_view_podcast_episodes_3 A link to the audible podcast.

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Stalvern
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby Stalvern » May 15th, 2025, 12:25 am

The Death of Stalin. A brilliantly cutting satire of the Soviet Union and Stalin's legacy, as long as you don't know anything about them. If you know that Stalin's great purges were before World War II instead of after, you have too much of a clue for this movie. If you know that the USSR was a bureaucracy, you are several steps ahead of this movie. If Monty Python sketches don't strike you as especially Russian, you are not the audience for this movie. Superficially funny but deeply annoying in how hard it pretends to have something to say.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby BlasteroidAli » May 15th, 2025, 10:00 pm

Stalvern wrote:The Death of Stalin. A brilliantly cutting satire of the Soviet Union and Stalin's legacy, as long as you don't know anything about them. If you know that Stalin's great purges were before World War II instead of after, you have too much of a clue for this movie. If you know that the USSR was a bureaucracy, you are several steps ahead of this movie. If Monty Python sketches don't strike you as especially Russian, you are not the audience for this movie. Superficially funny but deeply annoying in how hard it pretends to have something to say.

A good farce. I enjoyed it. I hear the Ruskkies were not happy at all when it premiered there.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby BlasteroidAli » May 16th, 2025, 8:28 pm

Mac and Me. I watched a preview for this on VHS maybe 30 years ago. It looked awful but it was aimed at Children. Then I saw the critic really dissing it. I mean, how could I resist a watch. Obv trying to be ET part 2. I mean, how bad can it be? As bad as new Who is the twerking doctor? That is not possible. I fell asleep watching that show.

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Stalvern
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby Stalvern » May 18th, 2025, 11:40 pm

Брат (Brother). Great '90s Russian Mafia movie. Been meaning to watch it for well over a decade and finally found a good time to see it with friends. All the most miserable stereotypes of Russia you can think of, but what else should be expected from one of the most miserable times in Russian history?

BlasteroidAli wrote:A good farce. I enjoyed it. I hear the Ruskkies were not happy at all when it premiered there.

I would have enjoyed it more if it contented itself with being a farce. Life of Brian didn't act as if it was teaching me anything about the Romans. But The Death of Stalin seems to think it has serious points to make about the USSR, even when it's just making up clueless garbage.

mbd36
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby mbd36 » May 19th, 2025, 10:09 am

BlasteroidAli wrote:Mac and Me. I watched a preview for this on VHS maybe 30 years ago. It looked awful but it was aimed at Children. Then I saw the critic really dissing it. I mean, how could I resist a watch. Obv trying to be ET part 2. I mean, how bad can it be? As bad as new Who is the twerking doctor? That is not possible. I fell asleep watching that show.


It's a feature length McDonald's commercial in addition to being a sorry ET ripoff.

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Stalvern
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby Stalvern » May 22nd, 2025, 9:07 pm

Boogie Nights. Great movie, but what a cop-out of an ending! I'm not saying that things needed to end up worse for the characters, but if you're going to make a U-turn, you have to at least brake. I don't care that the movie I'm wishing for would have been three hours long; those three hours would have been perfect.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Recent Movies You Saw

Postby BlasteroidAli » May 25th, 2025, 9:10 pm

mbd36 wrote:
BlasteroidAli wrote:Mac and Me. I watched a preview for this on VHS maybe 30 years ago. It looked awful but it was aimed at Children. Then I saw the critic really dissing it. I mean, how could I resist a watch. Obv trying to be ET part 2. I mean, how bad can it be? As bad as new Who is the twerking doctor? That is not possible. I fell asleep watching that show.


It's a feature length McDonald's commercial in addition to being a sorry ET ripoff.
I managed about 20 mins and said, I know why the critic hated this. Embarrassingly bad. Maybe 5 year olds might get some play out of it.


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