What was the last movie you've seen?

[samsonlonghair]

I finally got around to watching Gemini Man. I got the impression this movie was panned on initial release. The plot is a by-the-numbers spy thriller. You know how it goes. The super spy gets betrayed by his own government. He has to go rogue to survive. It’s that whole song and dance with a cloning gimmick thrown in.

Sometimes I think Will Smith can’t catch a break. Every time he tries to play a character who isn’t clowning, the audience turns against him. He’s in his fifties now; he clearly doesn’t want to play another iteration of the fresh prince forever.

What really makes Gemini Man stand out is the action choreography. Holy bejesus! I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that Gemini Man has the best action choreography of any film I’ve ever seen. It’s better than any terminator, or matrix, or marvel movie in terms of the fight scenes. The action feels borderline superhuman, while still grounded in reality. The physics of it all feel hyper-real. Everything has weight and momentum.

If you like action choreography, then stop whatever you’re doing and watch Gemini Man.

[Ack]

Yeah, Gemini Man falls into a tradition of action stars facing themselves in movies and fighting against or alongside their doubles. We find it hokey, but it's still managed to get some heavy weights in the genre to do it:

Jet Li - The One
Arnold Schwarzenegger - Terminator: Genisys
Jackie Chan - Twin Dragons
Jean Claude Van Damme - Double Impact

It's a smaller trend of a variety of films where actors play two characters, generally twins or siblings. Edward Norton, Adam Sandler, Tom Hardy, Mark Ruffalo, and Lindsey Lohan are just a few actors that have gone for it. Let Will Smith do it; he deserves it.

And it's way better than The Clones of Bruce Lee.

[Michi]

I love Q. Especially how nobody seems to see a giant freaking lizard bird flying over NYC.

New Yorker's obliviousness, coupled with the claymation and continual bird motifs makes Q the monster movie that keeps on giving.

[Michi]

New write-up of the week:

Murder Mansion (1972)



A fun little murder mystery, Italian/Spanish co-production with good acting and great atmosphere, but also filled with plot bits you've seen 100 times before. Amazon doesn't have the best video quality though, so you might want to find a better version somewhere.

[marurun]

It really a movie, per se, but the wife and I watched Hamilton on Disney+ last night. I listened to a podcast about all the crazy audio engineering they had to pioneer for the show and sadly it does’t come across in the recording. Still, the songwriting is fan-flipping-tasting. The acting and singing are pretty strong, too. Definitely worthy for any fan of musicals, history, hip hop, or awesome in general.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Sweet. I’ll have to watch it sometime. When the show came to Charlotte, ticket prices were astronomical. While. Wouldn’t have minded seeing it, I’m not that big a fan of musical theatre.

.....

Last night, my wife and I watched Sucker Punch (2011), and while it’s not good, per se, we didn’t hate it either. I respect what it was trying to accomplish, even if it failed at its goal, and the action sequences were all pretty great, especially the WWI steam punk one.

[Ack]

Oh man, Prfsnl, I'm sorry you didn't get to see it. I saw the traveling show with my wife when it came to the Fox Theater here in Atlanta. It's an incredible live performance.

[MrPopo]

I've missed seeing it live twice now. The first was I moved from Seattle to Irvine two months before the Seattle date (ended up giving the tickets to my old boss). Second time was this year when the LA show got Covidded.

[Ziggy]

I've been trying to catch up on my huge, never ending and ever growing list of movies I want to watch. I always forget to post in this thread though, but I'll post a bunch of them right now!

In no particular order...

The Thing from Another World


I've always heard about this one, but I never got around to watching it. Then after James Rolfe posted a review of it, it pushed me over the edge to finally watch it. And I'm glad I did. It is very well done and definitely holds up today. It's very much a product of that era, space age, sci fi, et cetera. Only it isn't cheesy. I couldn't say anything better than Rolfe's review, so just watch that if interested. I love Rolfe's closing in the review... "Next time someone mentions The Thing, I want you to ask, "Hawks, or Carpenter?" And if they go, "Huh?" That's when you school 'em!"

Forbidden Planet


This one I have always heard about too, but not details. Just that Leslie Neilson is in it, and it's not a comedy. I knew nothing of the plot going into it. This one is also very much a product of this era, space travel sci fi. Only I don't think it holds up nearly as well as The Thing From Another World. For starters, I just laugh when I see mankind traveling around in flying saucers. Like, that's really what they believed we would travel in space with! The dialog is long and drawn out, mostly for exposition, which is kind of typical of this era. But it gets boring at points, where as the dialog in The Thing is also fast and witty. I think the over all plot if very good, it could have been a Star Trek episode. In fact, there's a few Trek episodes I can think of that Roddenberry might have used this as inspiration for.

Scanners


The first time I ever heard of this movie was from the first Wayne's World movie. This scene. That always interested me, this movie has been on my list to watch for literally decades! A woodworking YouTube channel that I like to watch referred to something as a "shotgun and cornflakes method" and then explained that this references how they accomplished the head exploding in Scanners. So this finally drove me over the edge to watch it, and I'm glad that I did! Definitely an awesome sci fi plot, but then it's slightly horror as well. Definitely a fun flick.

Terminator: Dark Fate


Terminator 2 is one of my favorite movies of all time, and definitely my favorite action movie of all time. So you could imagine how let down I was by every Terminator movie since then. Well, except for Genisys. I don't compare Genisys to Terminator 2 because it'll fall way short, but it's an enjoyable movie on it's own. When I heard that they were making a sequel to 2 that throws all the other sequels out the window, and that Cameron would be involved, I nearly shit my pants! But then I reminded myself not to compare it to 2. So when I watched it, I took it for what it was. And it's definitely a fun movie, better than Salvation. I was excited to Linda Hamilton come back as Sarah Conner, but I must say, the character was poorly written. She was such a strong person in the first two movies. In Dark Fate she just comes off as whiny and self important. Maybe you could argue that her sons death changed the character, but I think she was just poorly written. My only other complaint was that it was WAY too CG. It always amazes me that the CG from Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park still hold up today, and these movies are approaching 30 years. It's because they used it sparingly, and used practical effects whenever possible. Dark Fate, like too many other movies these days, uses CG for everything. And I just don't like that way it looks. I still enjoyed watching it. But if it had more practical effects and Sarah Conner seemed more derivative of the character from 2, then I might have loved it.

Re-Animator


This one I'm gonna have to watch again. I went it expecting something else, but I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now. I think it's growing on me. I think I was expecting more zombie action, but the movie isn't about that. It's more about the characters. And man, Herbert West was such an awesome character! I started to watch Bride of Re-Animator but fell asleep. I think I'm going to rewatch the first one, then I'll watch Bride. Also, I love how the sequel's title references the classic monster movies.

Cat's Eye


Cat's Eye I had seen on TV at a very young age and I always remembered it, but I could only remember bits and pieces of it. I knew it was a sort of anthology movie, with the cat being the only constant. It's not bad, but it's not the best horror anthology I've seen.

Fright Night


This one I really liked. It definitely has that 80's horror feel to it. It uses all the classic vampire cliches (crosses, holy water, sun light, et cetera) and has some great practical effects going on. There's a huge concentration of action and gore in the final act compared to the rest of the movie, but it's still a fun time. Not as good as The Lost Boys if you want some 80's vampire action, but still worth watching.

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker


SPOILERS

OK, so if you took the Star Wars out of Episodes 7, 8 and 9 and it was just some original action/sci-fi trilogy they really wouldn't be horrible movies. But they are Star Wars movies, and they are a huge let down. I wont get into 7 and 8, even though I have a ton to say about them. 9 was definitely better than 8, maybe on par with 7. But they're all just throw away movies. Clearly made for the cash, and not the passion like the first 6 were (or at least the original 3 if you want to argue that).

Episode 9 as a lot of action, it never drags. It just jumps from one action scene to the next. Establishing shots are SHORT, and dialog with exposition goes by quickly. So... This movie has no substance. The action scenes aren't memorable at all, and that's all this movie has! Say what you want about the prequel trilogy, but those action scenes were great. The pod racing and light saber fighting in Episode 1 is awesome, especially the 3-way fight at the end. Episode 3 had intense action throughout the movie, and the Kenobi/Skywalker fight at the end is epic and emotional. The action scenes in Episode 9 are just flashy and by the time they're over you can't remember what happened. This movie is all flash and no substance.

The whole Palpatine thing seems tacked on because people hated that Rey was "nobody" as explained in the previous episode. He just seems like an after though (after 7 and 8, I mean). But even then, they really didn't do him well at all. He is such an awesome character in the first 6 movies (minus A New Hope). But he sucks in Episode 9. This is a guy that orchestrated events that caused an entire galaxy to become under his rule, so his plan in Episode 9 just seems kind of stupid. Not only that, but they didn't even give Ian McDiarmid very good dialog. This guy's deliverance of lines is fucking epic, they should have give him better words to speak. Think of a line from the first first 6 films... I bet at least one just popped into your head. "Do it!" or "Your faith in your friends is yours!" Now think of a line from Episode 9. ::crickets:: And I really didn't like the strobe flashing the entire time you see him. It was kind of cool that he was old and decrepit, and basically on life support. But then he sucks the life force out of Rey and Ren. If he had that power, why didn't he finish them off? He sucked life out of them, then let them get up and kill him. They made him all-powerful for a second, then let Rey kill him.

The music was a let down for me personally. Star Wars has had some of the best music score, and some of John William's finest. Such epic themes that'll stick with you forever. But Episode 9 just recycled a bunch of stuff we've already heard. People have themes, and of course we need to hear the emperor's music from Episode 6. But it seemed like that's ALL they did was recycle music we've already heard. There was no new tunes.

CutThroat Island


This movie gets shit on so badly. It's credited as killing pirate movies (until Pirates of the Caribbean) and Geena Davis' career. It is cheesy and full of cliche, and it has horrible dialog, and Davis' deliverance of some lines are cringe worthy (which is weird because I really like her as an actor). But a few years ago I learned that not all movies need ot be "serious" and have academy award worthy dialog and acting. If a movie is fun and entertaining to watch, then that's all that matters. And as many bad things you can say about CutThroat Island, it is a fun and entertaining movie to watch. Want a good time pirate adventure? Then this is a perfect movie to watch. Of course, it doesn't hold a candle to the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Return of the Living Dead


I've seen this one a few times before, but I just rewatched it today. I think it has become one of my favorite horror movies. It's just such a fun movie to watch. The 80's were such a great time for gory horror movies. It was the last decade were everything was practical effects. And this movies got some great practical effects and gore going on. I love Tar Man, especially when they let him out of the basement and he's like "Braaaaiiiins" then they smack his head off with a baseball bat. It has such memory lines, "What do you think this is, a costume? It's a way of life!"

Christine


This one I have also seen before, but not in many years. I knew it was King, but I didn't know it was Carpenter. Maybe I never saw the opening credits? I love Keith Gordon's (Arnie) acting in it. My favorite line, "Well isn't that what you do with shit? Scrape it up with a shovel." The way he delivers that line, then immediately followed by this awesome expression, I just love it.

[Ack]

Hey Ziggy, the best part about the shotgun method for Scanners is that it was also a last ditch act of desperation after repeated failed attempts to get the explosion right. Though the two movies are completely unrelated, a similar technique was used for the point-blank shotgun scene in the movie Maniac.

Also, the hands on the dummy model used for the body in Scanners were actually modeled off the special effects director who fired the gun. They originally forgot the rings the actor was wearing in the scene and had to make some quickly to fix the oversight.