movies What's the last film you watched? And rate it!

I didn't bother reviewing this for a while, because I was sure someone else would do it and save me the trouble, but it's been weeks now, so I guess I better review it.

Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

I liked this movie a good bit. It was shallow and predictable, but it also had a lot of great aspects including likeable characters, top notch viz effects, amazing color and cinematography, and an enjoyable core performance by Cumberbatch.

Unlike the Eternals, this film is one that I'll likely watch once every few years.

Also I have to say that between this and Spiderman No Way Home, and Loki, Marvel is finally doing the multiverse concept some justice, with these new films exploring the territory in a more interesting way.
 

Crimes of the Future.

Never reaches its full potential but I dug this. I often feel bad for Kristen Stewart. She is sometimes dismissed as that Twilight girl but she is an excellent actor. But you gotta be a Cronenberg fan for this one.
I love Cronenberg but I give Crimes of the Future a 6 out of 10. Kristen Stewart craving all the time was one of the best parts of this movie. I was waiting for the movie to begin and then the credits rolled. To say something positive about it, it was better then the doctor strange and the multiverse of madness. Naked Lunch, The Fly, Videodrome, and eXistenZ have some good ideas and dialogue in them. This movie did not have a real conflict and no stakes. The protagonist did not question reality or fought against it. I did not hate this movie.... but my expectations where to high because he is .....David Cronenberg.
 
I didn't bother reviewing this for a while, because I was sure someone else would do it and save me the trouble, but it's been weeks now, so I guess I better review it.

Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

I liked this movie a good bit. It was shallow and predictable, but it also had a lot of great aspects including likeable characters, top notch viz effects, amazing color and cinematography, and an enjoyable core performance by Cumberbatch.

Unlike the Eternals, this film is one that I'll likely watch once every few years.

Also I have to say that between this and Spiderman No Way Home, and Loki, Marvel is finally doing the multiverse concept some justice, with these new films exploring the territory in a more interesting way.
Rumours say that the original cut was 2 hours and 40 minutes. I think the shorter cut version has a tonal problem and a strange unnatural pacing. Biggest problems for me are 1 In WandaVision the series end with Wanda Maximoff taking responsibility for her manipulating a entire town to live in her fantasy world. In Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness we learn quickly that she did learn a ting from all of her time in Westview....this makes the entire WandaVision series pointless.....

The other point is that what is the main conflict of Doctor Strange is paper tin. What is his struggle and conflict? That he did not get closure from his relation with Dr. Christine Palmer? Perhaps also a result from a shorter run time...

Stakes are very low in this movie. What happens when Wanda murders America and takes over her power so she can be in another unknown dimension? .....Noting..... And the movie does not give time for me to care about America. Her character is never explored and also....paper tin....

The film started to feel good after the zombie doctor strange part. Here we have the best part of Sam Raimi come out....wish we had more of that.

Sam Raimi deserved a better movie, Doctor Strange deserved a better movie, Wanda Maximoff deserved a better movie and the audience deserved a better movie.
 
Rumours say that the original cut was 2 hours and 40 minutes. I think the shorter cut version has a tonal problem and a strange unnatural pacing. Biggest problems for me are 1 In WandaVision the series end with Wanda Maximoff taking responsibility for her manipulating a entire town to live in her fantasy world. In Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness we learn quickly that she did learn a ting from all of her time in Westview....this makes the entire WandaVision series pointless.....

The other point is that what is the main conflict of Doctor Strange is paper tin. What is his struggle and conflict? That he did not get closure from his relation with Dr. Christine Palmer? Perhaps also a result from a shorter run time...

Stakes are very low in this movie. What happens when Wanda murders America and takes over her power so she can be in another unknown dimension? .....Noting..... And the movie does not give time for me to care about America. Her character is never explored and also....paper tin....

The film started to feel good after the zombie doctor strange part. Here we have the best part of Sam Raimi come out....wish we had more of that.

Sam Raimi deserved a better movie, Doctor Strange deserved a better movie, Wanda Maximoff deserved a better movie and the audience deserved a better movie.
I thought Dr. Strange was garbage, i can't remember all my cricisms but i do seem to remember that the director didnt even watch Wandavision, that's how little effort was put into this movie lol. It seemed to me that it completely disregarded ALL PAST events and just threw everything out the window.

In Spiderman we see Dr. Strange cast a spell that wrecks total havoc on the multiverse, collapses the barrier between universes, has the potential to do insane amounts of damage to ENTIRE UNIVERSES and then in multiverse of maddness he is all baffled like 'You guys can''t possibly think I'M DANGEROUS???" like wtf are you some kind of god damn moron dr stange do you have ZERO SELF AWARENESS OF YOUR PAST EVENTS??

I also thought it was dumb how they started making up rules about zombie strange, i literally rolled my eyes and sighed during that scene because of the way they introduced "rules" to how animating dead bodies works.

Mostly though the villian was not captivating, the director didn't appreciate her character, and neither did I. lol
and there wasn't even a multiverse it was just like... ONE alternate dimension. I mean technically TWO is a multiple, but come on....

Please explain to me how there were more characters from different multiverses in Spiderman No Way Home than there were in MULTIVERSE OF MADDNESS
 
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I thought Dr. Strange was garbage, i can't remember all my cricisms but i do seem to remember that the director didnt even watch Wandavision, that's how little effort was put into this movie lol. It seemed to me that it completely disregarded ALL PAST events and just threw everything out the window.
Wow...I did not expect Sam Raimi not give a fuck. That explains a lot. Disney should stop employing people that don't give a fuck or understand and respect the material ...like Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy.

This video sums it up good.
 
Ok, so trying to consolidate the above, I'm sensing a just a tiny bit of pushback on the idea that DS2 is a decent movie.

Here's my perspective on Marvel movies. What I'm looking for in a Chuck Palahniuk movie is a surprising and intelligent plot orchestrated to create a multilayered extrapolation a philosophical viewpoint. What I'm expecting in a Marvel movie is WWE RAW with 5 million dollars worth of one liners and 100 million dollars worth of special Viz effects. So similar to Moonfall or Geostorm, but with familiar characters to reassure me that I'm watching an actual story. I don't like professional wrestling, so I think it's not a great creative muse for "the only movies that ever get funded past 2014" but you know, it's what I'm stuck with. I'll boil it down for you "Mwahaha, I am eviltron, and I demand riches and power" Good guys "Not on my watch, I will clobber you in a fistfight with lasers" bad guy again "I have a special trick, and will win" good guys "we were not smart enough to foresee your trick, but we are an attractive group of people that know how to punch things, and will win via the earnestness of our character" AAAAnnnd scene. Anything better than that, and I'm "shocked by how unexpectedly good the writing was for a marvel movie"

Basically, my logic is that if some person down the street made a pile of 300 million dollars and set it on fire, I would definitely go watch it burn just for entertainment. That's my level of expectation going into one.

Sometimes I'm caught off guard by a decent plot, I think the last time this happened was Captain America Civil War, and you know, the first Dr Strange wasn't too bad. Honestly, it felt like the current Spiderman trilogy just accepted what it was, and like DS2, just went about gleefully spending the money on set pieces, without stressing out too much

As far as Star Wars episode 8. It's a different story. The first SW trilogy was great, and so we have a legacy of movies that were actually great stories. So when they intentionally crash one because they got super excited about feminism one year and decided to make an action movie about elderly women scolding people for "not being responsible enough during the battle", I feel like we as an audience actually lost something that could have been great.

If you don't know the story, Kathleen Kennedy became a militant ideologist priest sometime during her turn controlling the SW franchise, and when it was time to find a director for episode 8, she interviewed several highly skilled and proven directors for the job. Each one that came in was asked to make the film a neo feminist version of star wars, with pop politics first, and the legacy Star Wars story an afterthought. Since the first several directors interviewed were too smart to think that this was a good idea, which obviously it isn't, she passed on these legendary directors, and kept interviewing until she found a guy that would just make the film her way. That was indie film director Rian Johnson, who just agreed to anything Kennedy said, because for him this was a gigantic promotion.

You'll notice that on number 9, they went back to using a AAA director, and toned down the feminism way down to the level of, "Luke Skywalker is inferior to a teenage girl" so, you know, it really went out on a logical note, nicely tying up the story we all began watching in 1979. Can you imagine if Kathleen Kennedy had released episode 8 in 1993. All the jedi wearing flannel shirts with Pearl Jam playing in the background of the space battles. In 1500's Africa, morbid obesity was considered the highest marker for culture and intelligence, and athletic people were "stupid people who just don't understand what cool is" 1982 USA, the exact opposite. Since no one in Hollywood knows this yet, I'll tell them, "good stories are timeless stories"

I have probably talked more than enough politics lately, but here's an easy way to spot some idiot pop trend. Oversimplification. Hey guys, we just figured out that all the left handed people are the best, and now every movie is supposed to be about that, or you're a bigot. Hey guys, we just figured out that all the Canadians are the best and everybody else is the enemy, so every movie needs to be about that, or you're a maplephobe. Can you imagine if they had forced pop culture all over the Indiana jones sequels? Indy swinging through jungles on vines in hot pink parachute pants, listening to "can't touch this" by mc hammer. Every one liner is about cold war politics of the day, and the Digital Underground is performing "the humpty dance" inside the temple of doom when they arrive. Anyway, that's how I perceive SW episode 8, I think that their job was to make a movie about Star Wars, and instead they made a movie about 2017. Look how special I am, I can say the same thing everybody else is saying right now.

Anyway, Dr Strange 2 was ok, if you go in understanding that Marvel movies are fireworks shows, not novels. I think it could have been worse.
 
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And moving on, does anyone have any thoughts on those 2 Stranger Things movies they just released on the same day? The ones that were as long as Zach Snyder's Justice League remake.
 
And moving on, does anyone have any thoughts on those 2 Stranger Things movies they just released on the same day? The ones that were as long as Zach Snyder's Justice League remake.
I watched every episode of stranger things, then stopped halfway through the 2.5hr episode.
It was too boring and slow, didn't care to even finish the show
 
I watched every episode of stranger things, then stopped halfway through the 2.5hr episode.
It was too boring and slow, didn't care to even finish the show
Lol, that's exactly where I'm at right now. I intend to watch the second half of the last episode, but the long ramp up just got kind of tiring after episode 8 and half of 9. Note to self, don't start the climactic final scene 4 hours before the end of the film.

There have been some great CG moments in this, and I feel like I've now seen 80's nostalgia at it's apex with Eddie playing Master of Puppets on top of the Mobile Home.

The new season overall was decent, but the story is starting to feel a little stretched, even though the execution is on point. I have to say that the colorist work and art direction in this season was flawless, like a masterclass in textbook technical filmmaking.
 
Lol, that's exactly where I'm at right now. I intend to watch the second half of the last episode, but the long ramp up just got kind of tiring after episode 8 and half of 9. Note to self, don't start the climactic final scene 4 hours before the end of the film.

There have been some great CG moments in this, and I feel like I've now seen 80's nostalgia at it's apex with Eddie playing Master of Puppets on top of the Mobile Home.

The new season overall was decent, but the story is starting to feel a little stretched, even though the execution is on point. I have to say that the colorist work and art direction in this season was flawless, like a masterclass in textbook technical filmmaking.
pisses me off they spent 30 million an episode, that is like two or three other shows that could still be employeeing hundreds of people and pumping out differnet content. sure i liked the season but its also way too much like last season. keep eleven away from everyone all season, bring her in at the end to yell with her arm out. i get it.
 
pisses me off they spent 30 million an episode, that is like two or three other shows that could still be employeeing hundreds of people and pumping out differnet content. sure i liked the season but its also way too much like last season. keep eleven away from everyone all season, bring her in at the end to yell with her arm out. i get it.
You can actually build a pretty big apartment building for 30 million dollars. It's about 3 million per story for a really nice one.

With 1 billion hours viewed as of this week, I think they are spending in the neighborhood of 50c per viewed hour, considering that the early ones didn't have such high budgets. I guess you can do that when you're the top draw of the world's largest network.

Still, I see your point, 1 episode of this show costs the budget of 250 sci fi channel original movies.
 
I agree with you on the visual aspect and Cumberbatch as a actor. The problem I have with the marvel universe is that in time I have started to love these movies. Phase 1 are all decent, Phase 2 have some good story telling like The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Phase 3 has a weak Ant-Man and the Wasp and a terible Captain Marvel but most of them are good and watchable. Phase 4 has Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.....Shang-Chi and Spider-Man: No Way Home where ok. But the rest? It feels that the start to care less about quality and more about quantity. But perhaps that's an illusion because marvel always had some stronger and weaker movies. Perhaps the problem is that I cant keep up with the speed of Disney Pumping out new content.
 
It feels like this thread should be back in the headlines, since so many new movies have been released lately.

I can't do all of these, so I'm going to do a few

Elvis - Pretty great editing in this. They manage to tell the story in a way that covers a lot of ground while keeping the pace up. There was nothing too surprising here IMO, but from a lot of angles, this is a well made film.

The Grey Man - Like Red Notice before it, this thing was well executed, but felt a bit templated. It felt like they made a chart of things that made films successful and then just went by the chart. Kind of like a 200 million dollar tv episode in a way. I didn't hate it, I just felt like I'd seen it all before.

Prey - This was pretty good. Just a pretty straightforward sci fi action movie that didn't innovate, or make any mistakes. Sometimes color by numbers just works.

Batman 1989 - Hadn't seen this in a long time. Retrospectively, I see the decision to have Prince do the soundtrack as a mistake. Overall, it was better than "The Batman" from this year. Prince was a great talent at times, but new wave 80's funk is just not a substitute for James Horner.

The Batman 2022 - I literally watched this twice last week and can't remember a single thing that happened in it. Do you think that's a good sign?

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers - I watched this because it was surging unexpectedly high on the global viewership readout, which I of course check every day. You know, this was actually quite good. It kind of came out of nowhere, and while it's a kid's movie, it was one of those that I think parents could enjoy watching with their kids. Probably a big score for this director, like when they tried to get rid of Whedon by handing him BTVS, a guaranteed failure, and he kind of knocked it out of the park.

Tomb Raider 2004 - I have no idea why I watched this. I guess I was curious if this was as mind numbingly boring as the new ones. Pretty much. I never actually liked Angelina Jolie, but Alicia Vikander seems to have taken generic to a whole new level. This 17 year old popped up like 5 minutes ago, and has been in enough movies to displace the GNP of Malaysia, and I have yet to retain consciousness through 5 consecutive minutes of her acting. What is going on here. I can go and see extremely average people act completely normal at the grocery store. I'm starting to think I haven't given Nicholas Cage enough credit. To be fair to Vikander, I was completely sold by her performance as an android in that film about a small house in the woods with 2 people in it. That said, it seems like she should have mixed it up a bit, and not used the exact same style in every other film.

Schindlers List - I hadn't seen this for a while, still incredible, I had forgotten a lot of details. A masterclass in dramatic direction.

The Unbearable weight of Massive Talent - Quite forgettable, and kind of uninspired, for something that has a title that intentionally creates the expectation of an inspired story. After watching this, I feel like Cage and Pascal were at a hollywood party together, got really high, and then at the apex of the buzz, swore a solemn oath to each other that they would make this movie, which feels like it was sketched out in 14 minutes by the two of them.
 
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did you add that in afterwards, or did my eyes just skip over the words Nick Cage completely? I'm actually really sick today, and haven't been able to sleep in a while. It's not covid, but whatever it is has just an entire orchestra of symptoms. ok, yeah, I can see that it was never edited. This is bad, my brain is on the fritz.
 
Ah. Yup. Yes, edited, but didn't realize it. Sorry. I always end up going back and fixing an ambiguity, a comma splice, etc., and get a little confused (four edits now for this little post; I, as well, am screwed :) )

edit #5: I think I'll start posting in a separate notebook, then re-read and edit, then wait a day, then do it again, then copy and paste, and then hit post. Spontaneity is, I think, over rated, and is something I have never been very comfortable with (or very skillful at) in the first place. :)

#6: Three smiley faces in one little post? Seriously? Removed one.
 
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