Things you just watched on netflix/streaming video...spoilers all over the joint...

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rtrefz

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  • #25,761
    Nope, her previous boyfriend. TBH, I would have done the same thing. It was the 4th Doctor.

    Edit: probably not, since we had a long-distance relationship. We only saw each other every 3-4 weeks. If we lived in the same city? Yeah, I can see my stupid young self doing that.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,762
    As part of my vacation, I made a goal of trying to watch a film an evening. My primary plans were scuttled by heat and an unexpected expense, so I figured this was a good thing to do that won’t cost a lot.

    Tonight was the first night. The film? Godzilla Minus One. Rented on AppleTV.

    I have thoughts. I took notes. That was a superb film.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,765
    Thoughts on Godzilla Minus One, in no particular order.
    Notes while watching:
    • That first entrance on Odo was epic as hell!
    • Sumiko blaming Shikishima the minute she sees him - talk about just compounding the guilt.
    • That conversation with “The Kid” wishing the war had lasted longer, and Shikishima giving him the glare and the “You better not mean that.” ? I’ve had a very similar conversation with some young green suiters in the last few months. Multiple times.
    • I really appreciated the PTSD angle.
    • The heartwarming scene with the family unit after the Bikini Atoll scene, followed immediately by that deliberately awkward as hell dinner? Whoa.
    • The heat ray on the Takao when it attacks.
    • How stilted Godzilla looks walking around normally with his arms at his sides, as opposed to every other movement looking dynamic and fluid as hell. I’m pretty certain that was an artistic choice - it resonated pretty hard with the traditional Godzilla music.
    • The devastation after the heat ray is used on the tanks, Noriko’s sacrifice, and even MORE guilt.
    • The silence AFTER the blast in Ginza and before the roar / Shikishima’s scream? Poignant as hell
    • Shikishima gets really annoying around that point, looking for the Tachibana.
    • Does Noda remind anyone else of characters playing similar roles (the smart dude with the semi plausible but also silly idea) from other old monster flicks?
    I had some follow up thoughts:

    Why is Godzilla attacking Tokyo? I’m not really sure why that is happening, or if it’s being glossed over on purpose.
    Is Toho going to do a sequel for this one? Because I would 100% watch it.

    I’m not sure I like it as much as the cohort of aficionados and fans of the older films from the 50’s/60’s/70’s. But for a monster flick that treats a gigantic kaiju monster as the natural (unnatural?) disaster that it would 100% be? And for a film that honestly felt a LOT like, “What if Jaws, but Godzilla?” …

    Final thought: That was a VERY good film. 100% would recommend. Watched on a rental from Apple.

    Up next? Something campy and nostalgia laden: Ghostbusters - Afterlife.
     
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    MichaelC

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  • #25,766
    Diabolical said:
    How stilted Godzilla looks walking around normally with his arms at his sides, as opposed to every other movement looking dynamic and fluid as hell. I’m pretty certain that was an artistic choice - it resonated pretty hard with the traditional Godzilla music.
    Click to expand...
    I am fairly certain it was deliberate. It's a stark contrast to when he is in the city and decides to tear apart the buildings. He just erupts in a flurry of rabid action, his head tossing, his arms flailing. That was one of the more striking scenes for me.

    There is talk of a sequel. Not sure if it is confirmed.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,767
    MichaelC said:
    I am fairly certain it was deliberate. It's a stark contrast to when he is in the city and decides to tear apart the buildings. He just erupts in a flurry of rabid action, his head tossing, his arms flailing. That was one of the more striking scenes for me.
    Click to expand...
    That exactly. Everything else he was so much more dynamic that it had to be an artistic choice. At least in my mind.
     
    Scifigod

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  • #25,768
    Diabolical said:
    That exactly. Everything else he was so much more dynamic that it had to be an artistic choice. At least in my mind.
    Click to expand...
    I agree, the same goes with the final battle with the fighter plane . There were no wires but you can just feel that it's a model being spun around.

    I didn't know if this will ever get a physical release but if it dies it'll be a day one purchase for me.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,769
    Well, that was a silly movie. Leaned a little too hard into the nostalgia. Maybe more than a little.

    I have thoughts, I took notes. But overall? I felt it was worth the $4 it cost to rent, and the two hours of time I put in making fridge magnets and working on pixel doodles while watching.

    And when they made that first capture and got out of the car at the bridge?
    First thought? “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”
    Second thought? “We’re the best, we’re the beautiful, we’re the only…. Ghostbusters.”
     
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    Bagheera

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  • #25,770
    Stopmotion is not a good horror movie. The premise is good: A woman is the daughter of a famous stop-motion animator. When her mother is hospitalized from a stroke, she tries to take over production of her latest film. The stop-motion characters start to influence her life.

    It's too slow, too predictable, with flat and uninteresting characters.
     
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    blahpony

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  • #25,771
    Bagheera said:
    Stopmotion is not a good horror movie. The premise is good: A woman is the daughter of a famous stop-motion animator. When her mother is hospitalized from a stroke, she tries to take over production of her latest film. The stop-motion characters start to influence her life.

    It's too slow, too predictable, with flat and uninteresting characters.
    Click to expand...
    No, no it asn't.

    I probably shouldn't have watched it late at night. I woke up and had to re-watch the end. It still sucked.
     
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    jandrese

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  • #25,772
    Bagheera said:
    Stopmotion is not a good horror movie. The premise is good: A woman is the daughter of a famous stop-motion animator. When her mother is hospitalized from a stroke, she tries to take over production of her latest film. The stop-motion characters start to influence her life.

    It's too slow, too predictable, with flat and uninteresting characters.
    Click to expand...
    There are movies where I really want to find the director and remind them that the failure mode of tension is boredom. Tension has to be earned, you can't just have nothing happen for long stretches of time and call it tension.
     
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    fitten

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  • #25,775
    Yeah... Godzilla Minus One was like that for me, too... I made the same comment about how stiff Godzilla looked walking around (arms literally locked into place, steps like a robot). I liked some of the historical ship references (the CA and destroyers). Overall, I was looking forward to it because of the hype but I just didn't see it.
     
    Hound of Cullen

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  • #25,776
    Bagheera said:
    Stopmotion is not a good horror movie. The premise is good: A woman is the daughter of a famous stop-motion animator. When her mother is hospitalized from a stroke, she tries to take over production of her latest film. The stop-motion characters start to influence her life.

    It's too slow, too predictable, with flat and uninteresting characters.
    Click to expand...
    I kept comparing it to "Censor" from a few years back. Censor is a much better movie, with the unreliable narrator staying ambiguous for longer. They're not the same story, but they're similar, and Censor just does it better.
     
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    Ecmaster76

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  • #25,777
    fitten said:
    I made the same comment about how stiff Godzilla looked walking around (arms literally locked into place, steps like a robot).
    Click to expand...
    That was clearly homage to the original. The music and sound effects were also from the original so there is no doubt of intent

    He moved completely differently on Odo island when he was still in his "natural" form
     
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    Bagheera

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  • #25,778
    jandrese said:
    the failure mode of tension is boredom.
    Click to expand...
    I really like that phrase. It makes me wonder....

    The late 70's/early 80's made some really ground-breaking slasher films: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street. The rest of the decade had hundreds of copycats that had the general formula of those films without any of the skill.

    In the last half of the 90's, a cluster of horror comedies with light-hearted millenials came out. Scream, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer. For the next decade, it seemed like every scary movie had (a)a cast of models all under 30, (b)an obscure killer who turned out to be one of them, and (c)a ridiculous twist at the end.

    Maybe it's slow burners turn? Maybe with the success of Get Out, Hereditary, and The Quiet Place, horror movie scripts are getting treatments to add lots of long stares and slow walks.
     
    crombie

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  • #25,779
    The worst horror I have found that delves into boredom is Skinamarink. I was seeing it offered as this 'great' tension-filled microbudget horror that kept you on your seat the whole time. I rarely skip ahead in movies, but I skipped ahead in that movie. I just could not sit there through the horrible cartoon or other scenes that would just replay for minutes at a time. I sat through a repetitive scene once in that movie, and then any time it was used again I would just skip.
     
    Hound of Cullen

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  • #25,780
    Bagheera said:
    I really like that phrase. It makes me wonder....

    The late 70's/early 80's made some really ground-breaking slasher films: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street. The rest of the decade had hundreds of copycats that had the general formula of those films without any of the skill.

    In the last half of the 90's, a cluster of horror comedies with light-hearted millenials came out. Scream, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer. For the next decade, it seemed like every scary movie had (a)a cast of models all under 30, (b)an obscure killer who turned out to be one of them, and (c)a ridiculous twist at the end.

    Maybe it's slow burners turn? Maybe with the success of Get Out, Hereditary, and The Quiet Place, horror movie scripts are getting treatments to add lots of long stares and slow walks.
    Click to expand...

    Horror has a lot of trend following. Halloween directly lead to the "slasher boom" of the early 80s.

    "Scream" lead directly to the "self-aware, ironic horror" of the late 90s.

    "The Blair Witch Project" lead to the found footage boom that still plagues us today.

    I feel like a lot of the recent stuff is more of a throwback to the 70s. Hereditary wouldn't have felt out of place as a Polanski film from 1976. I think what is central to the "elevated horror" (eww) trend of recent years is that Blumhouse and A24 are willing to throw the dice on new properties and new directors. Horror seems to be one of the few places where you can toss an original IP at the mid-market and have it be successful without having it be a franchise.

    Which isn't to say there aren't horror franchises or horror bombs (or, as in the case of "Exorcist: Believer," both!). But weird mid- and low-budget horror is fertile ground for an aspiring filmmaker to make a statement without being tied to a franchise.
     
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    crombie

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  • #25,785
    GaitherBill said:
    Works for me.

    Looking forward to a season 2.
    Click to expand...
    With so many "Jason1" on "Earth1" shouldn't there be a mass consideration. Or is 100s of Jason's still a rounding error? I mean, the audience knows this "Jason1" is the one we have been following and is likely Jason1 Prime... except mathematically there would be no way to know.
     
    Diabolical

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  • #25,786
    Thoughts on Ghostbusters: Afterlife:
    • Upon further thought, I think it leaned quite a bit too far into the nostalgia buttons. I mean, it’s basically a twisted retelling of the first movie. The little twists they put on the story were neat, but I am bummed that it wasn’t something more new.
    • Phoebe is dope, and I loved her jokes. The Cigarette/Hamster one was hilarious.
    • I liked the chess match to really introduce ghost Egon.
    • ”Are you a god?” … “Oh, c’mon Ray!”
    • The Harry Potter scene. :rolleyes:
    • I loved the Sigourney Weaver appearance at the end.
    Basically, anytime that Podcast and Phoebe were chewing the scenery? I liked it. Everything with Finn Wolfhard as the focus I ignored the film and really paid attention to what I was doing with pixel art. The huge number of references and nostalgia bait? Eh. Turned me off.

    I reiterate that I’m glad it only cost me four whole ‘Murica funny moneys on Apple to rent. I don’t know if I’m going to give Frozen Empire a look.

    Up next in my ‘watch a lot (for Dia) of films in a short period of time’? I’m leaning towards either Tenet or…. renting Godzilla x Kong to do a compare and contrast after my recent viewing of the most excellent Minus One.

    I haven’t decided yet.
     
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    Delor

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  • #25,789
    Bagheera said:
    Stopmotion is not a good horror movie... It's too slow, too predictable, with flat and uninteresting characters.
    Click to expand...

    Yeah, agreed.

    I was strongly reminded of and comparing it unfavorably to The Advent Calendar, which is another somewhat slow and quiet, probably fairly small budget, psychological horror movie on Shudder about a lady who experiences escalating levels of weird stuff that tie back into her personal hardships. If someone is looking for more of that sort of thing I'd toss it out as a good alternative to Stopmotion, which ended up being extremely unsatisfying and felt like it went nowhere.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,792
    whoisit said:
    Godzilla x Kong vs. Minus One is like comparing McDonald's to a perfectly cooked steak.
    Click to expand...
    Diabolical said:
    …. So?
    Click to expand...

    I owe you an apology, whoisit.
    It’s worse than that.

    It’s like one is that perfectly cooked steak, and the other one is a bad knockoff prop version of an off-brand not-actually-McDonalds cheeseburger.

    I’ll have more thoughts tomorrow. ‘Cause yes, I took notes. Needless to say? I want that time and $5 back for Godzilla x Kong, please.
     
    GaitherBill

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  • #25,794
    crombie said:
    With so many "Jason1" on "Earth1" shouldn't there be a mass consideration. Or is 100s of Jason's still a rounding error? I mean, the audience knows this "Jason1" is the one we have been following and is likely Jason1 Prime... except mathematically there would be no way to know.
    Click to expand...


    I think we’re just asked to accept that prime Jason one, who we presumably followed start to finish, is the “correct” Jason.

    Just like how Jason and Amanda had the right currency for hotels and food in the worlds they visited.
     
    Hound of Cullen

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  • #25,795
    Backstop said:
    Godzilla x Kong is one of those movies where they started with the box-office projection and worked their way backward through set pieces and casting and finally writing.
    Click to expand...
    I really like both Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens. Both have done superb work (Stevens, in "Legion" is so good!). Both are utterly wasted in GxK. At leas Stevens looks like he's having fun, being the stoner dude means he doesn't have to do a whole lot.

    Hall, unfortunately, is stuck in the "hey, look! It is a MOM role." I hope she gets a fat paycheck and goes back to doing weird movies, like "Resurrection" or "The Night House."
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,796
    Thoughts on Godzilla x Kong: New Empire:
    • It’s like watching WWE fights. There was a feaking suplex at one point.
    • Is Godzilla getting even fatter?
    • The last three films in the monsterverse? I don’t care about the human characters at all. None. I find them annoying at worst, and forgettable at best.
    • Red flesh, but green blood. I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works?
    • The big frozen breath kaiju? So, we’re just cribbing straight from How to Train Your Dragon? I mean, that’s cool, but… really?
    • I was BORED during the big final fight scene.
    • I honestly think that if you remove all dialogue but the color added by random humans and focused entirely on the keeping focus at the monster perspective? This would have been a better film. Dump every character with more than three lines of dialogue. Keep just the ancillary stuff. And I mean the assessment team at the nuclear plant, the submarine folks, the occasional shot inside headquarters, all of which establish a pattern that Godzilla is doing. Then we have monster noises and roars and music and occasional radio chatter, and that’s it.
    • I did the 10s skip thing through most of Bernie’s scenes - he’s a good actor, and he did a great job acting in a role that made me hugely dislike the character.
    • By the end of the film and the final fight? I was doing 10s skips through that too.

    Now, you can’t really even compare this with Minus One. They are COMPLETELY different kinds of films. One is a throwback to the campiest that Godzilla ever was, and the other is… not that, and much better for it. It’s more of a natural disaster drama.

    I’d watch Minus One again, and recommend it to people. I’d do the opposite for Godzilla x Kong.

    Upon reflection? Of the Legendary ‘Monsterverse”, I like three of the properties.

    2014’s Godzilla. Characters that I could actually get behind. It wasn’t camp. It was also a pretty good film. Very well shot and put together. There was some actual writing involved.
    Kong: Skull Island. Oh look, MORE good characters! Not actually camp! Also a pretty good film! Look, more good writing!
    Monarch (TV series). Seeing a trend here? Good characters. Not actually camp. Pretty well shot. And decent writing and pacing.

    The other three films? Eh at best. I’ll stop and watch Godzilla or Kong: Skull Island or Monarch if someone has it on. The other three? See what’s on the news.

    Up next? I’m not sure. It’s “watch old men argue“ night, and I’m thinking I’m going to watch that - but that’s for another fora entirely.
     
    MichaelC

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  • #25,798
    Diabolical said:
    Upon reflection? Of the Legendary ‘Monsterverse”, I like three of the properties.

    2014’s Godzilla. Characters that I could actually get behind. It wasn’t camp. It was also a pretty good film. Very well shot and put together. There was some actual writing involved.
    Kong: Skull Island. Oh look, MORE good characters! Not actually camp! Also a pretty good film! Look, more good writing!
    Monarch (TV series). Seeing a trend here? Good characters. Not actually camp. Pretty well shot. And decent writing and pacing.
    Click to expand...
    Agree mostly. 2014 is in my top 4 or 5 Godzilla movies. I'm luke warm on Monarch but it's entertaining enough to continue. And Kong was just plain fun so it's a good time.
     
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    Diabolical

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  • #25,800
    Up next on my movie watching run? The Spice Must Flow.
    Part 1 AND 2.

    Probably take 3 days to watch it all. Starting tomorrow - I’m going to finish my book this evening.
    Bought the combo deal, since it was too good to pass up. Same with $35 for Fury Road and Furiosa. That’s for after Dune.

    And there is a distinct chance I’ll be watching Mars Express before Dune 1 & 2.
     
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