Topic: Movie thread.

I watched The Wild Robot in "Real D 3D" today with two of my brothers. My word, it was beautiful! The story, music, animation... All of it was top tier! It is apparently based on a book series, so a sequel (or two) is/are possible, and let me just say, I would watch them! Solid 9/10, maybe even 10/10 IMHO.

@CaleBoi25
Can't wait to see it myself when it opens in my country tomorrow. Heard many great things about The Wild Robot. About those possible sequels though, I'm afraid they won't be nearly as good as the original, no matter how hard they'll try. You see, this was the very last production to be completely made in-house at DreamWorks. Going forward, at least 50% of the animation for each movie will be outsourced to other studios around the world in order to keep costs down. Very sad.

@CaleBoi25 Agreed. That movie is peak cinema

Sitting in the theatre after Dune 1, I asked my sister what she thought. "Meh" was the reply. I agreed. We both just shrugged our shoulders.
Then I asked her if she'd see the sequel. "I guess", she replied. I said "Yeah, I suppose."

But we both enjoyed the sequel!

Risky Business, I don't want to spoil the plot for others, but part of my review is:
"This movie is a lot of fun, and I still can't believe it got made."

Anyone order anything during the Amazon Big Deal Days sale?

I ordered ten items across 6 decades of film history.

70's: Superman: the Movie (4K UHD BD)
80's: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (4K UHD BD), Funny Farm/Spies Like Us double pack (Blu-Ray)
90's: Jurassic Park (4K UHD BD), Dragonheart (4K UHD BD)
00's: Tomb Raider double pack (4K UHD BD)
10's: Jurassic World (4K UHD BD), Interstellar (4K UHD BD)
20's: Oppenheimer (4K UHD BD), Babylon (4K UHD BD)

Granted, it'll probably be months before I get to any of it. I still haven't finished everything I picked up during Prime Day back in July, & I've picked up dozens of standard Blu-Rays in thrift shops in-between then & now I need to watch first as well.

Saw two movies in theaters today, Lee and The Wild Robot.
First up, my review for Lee.

Lee is a biographical film about American war photographer and journalist Lee Miller and tells the story about her experiences covering WWII in France and Germany.

It's an important story to tell as her work is seen by many as some of the best war photography ever, especially from that era, and Kate Miller does a mostly wonderful job portraying this extraordinarily brave woman.

The movie however fails to deliver a compelling narrative and only during a couple of short moments did I feel any sadness or anger regarding anything that happened during the war. Quite the accomplishment if you consider the atrocities committed back then. It's all very tame and I couldn't shake the feeling the movie makers were afraid to commit and show us the real horrors Lee Miller witnessed.

As for the technical aspects of the film, it was all pretty rudimentary. The cinematography was fine, the lighting sub-par, the makeup and costumes too clean at times, voices too clear during gunfire,... It all contributes to the overall feeling that this movie wasn't made with a lot of care or attention to detail.

Overall, Lee is an okay biopic but it could have been so much more. Lee Miller definitely deserved better than this.

The Wild Robot is a stunning looking animated movie with a lot of heart.

Crashed on a remote island, robot Roz is in search of an assignment when she finds a duckling that thinks she's her mother. Having found a purpose, she decides to stay on the island to prepare the duckling for migration.

It's a beautiful story that shows the importance of compassion, friendship and love. Unfortunately, the narrative moves at such a breakneck speed I found it difficult sometimes to process everything. I often wished the movie would slow down a bit to give the characters and scenes more breathing room and give myself more time to appreciate all the hard work the animators brought to the screen.

That's the only thing that bothered me a bit about The Wild Robot though. This is a great animated movie that will no doubt stand the test of time.

Everybody working on this film clearly took it as a passion project because my goodness, the visuals were so gorgeous they moved me to tears. Such a shame this was the last fully in-house DreamWorks production. 😢

I'm going to keep this one short because I don't have much to say about Transformers One.

The movie's a complete bore with a story I've seen told much better numerous times before, cringe dialogue, annoying characters and action scenes so ineptly put together I could barely tell what was going on most of the time. It got a bit better after its downright terrible first act, and there are a couple of stunning scenes during the finale, but those rare bright spots weren't nearly enough to save this movie for me.

To think this is one of the better Transformers movies made, which it certainly is, pains me. I was hoping this new medium of animation would change my mind about the Transformers as a whole, but alas it didn't succeed. This IP just isn't for me, I guess.

@stephajnan
I was the opposite, I have watched Transformers One at my local cinema XXI for six times within 1 month.
It was quite good in my opinion to see the history of the rivalry between Optimus Prime and Megatron for me as somebody who don't have that much interest with Transformers franchise and have no idea about trivial things from previous Transformers movies / animated series.

@Anti-Matter
I'm glad you liked it. 😃

OK, OK, I know this is an old movie and not a high budget one, but my siblings wanted to watch Wonder Park yesterday, so we did and while as a film it was lacking, I just wanted to praise whomever worked on the environments for that film! The forest scene was gorgeous!!

My friends and I watched Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) dir. Francis Ford Coppola a few nights ago, a gloriously trashy masterpiece. It stars Gary Oldman as the count, Keanu Reeves as Harker, Winona Ryder as Mina, and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing. An epic that constantly toes the line between high brow art and low brow smut, I don't know if I can call it a good movie, but it's certainly entertaining. Highly, highly recommended.

I also recently watched His Kind of Woman (1951) dir. John Farrow and Richard Fleischer and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, and Raymond Burr. It's a film noir that starts off very dark, dreamlike, and surreal, but in the second half becomes somewhat farcical. The movie was almost entirely reshot because producer Howard Hughes couldn't stop meddling, and it was a huge box office bomb. But despite all of that I liked it a lot and Robert Mitchum is maybe my favorite actor of all time, so this is also highly recommended.

I watched The LEGO Movie today and yesterday. I love this movie a lot, and I really like it when there’s fun movies like this that can entertain both younger and older audiences. I love the comedic tone, a lot of the jokes, while sometimes dumb, land a lot and made me giggle a bit. The stop-motion esque animation is perfect and well done, and the characters are all so silly. It is definitely one of the best films to come from Warner Bros. and it’s such a good time. I don’t really have anything else to say besides the fact that it’s a good movie.

It was nearly a decade ago ever since I watched this, but I saw that YouTube was offering this movie for free alongside a few other animated films, so I thought I’d watch something fun and silly and it was great! I know that there was a sequel for this they released a few years ago, but I only saw half of it and never finished it. I also never saw that LEGO Ninjago Movie (but I remember seeing that awkward first trailer for it with Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood playing) but I have seen The LEGO Batman Movie and also liked that too. Shame that Warner Bros. cancelled the sequel for it, that could have been fun.

Watched a new film called Poupelle of Chimney Town today. YouTube seems to have updated its free film and TV selection today, and I have actually heard of this movie, but only through its name in a Wikipedia article and I went into the film blind.

It’s a 3D anime film aimed toward younger audiences, but it’s very enjoyable for older audiences and is so gorgeous. The film is an adaptation of a children’s book, and the plot centers on a boy living in a dark town with skies obscured by chimney smoke and his friendship with a man made of actual garbage named Poupelle. It’s a really cool premise, and there is a bit more to the premise but I won’t say anything else on it since I don’t wanna spoil anything.

The art style and character designs are my favorite part of the film, and for a film that’s set in a town filled with chimney smoke, a lot of the shots and the character designs were colorful, mechanical, and whimsical, with the design of Poupelle the Garbage Man being my favorite, as well as some of the costumes worn during the opening Halloween dance sequence. The outfits were very cool and funky looking, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t get creative inspiration from the film’s visuals and bright use of color! The final shots in the final minutes of the film are so astonishing and pretty to look at. I loved the mechanical, steampunk-esque setting for it, and the story is pretty heartwarming, it it was a bit sad and deep, especially with the ending and a lot of moments midway though the movie between the main character and Poupelle.

I don’t really have a lot of criticisms for it, the animation is pretty good looking, but the only smallest criticism I have for it is that sometimes the 3D animation’s frame rate would get really choppy during some moments, and the animation sometimes shifting from 3D to 2D for some scenes did look off sometimes. But, that is all the criticisms I really have to say for it. I really liked it a ton, and it now is probably one of my favorite movies in terms of visuals, colors, and character designs.

I’m still on a movie roll! Today I watched Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie on YouTube TV once again.

I have watched VeggieTales media before, but only really Silly Songs With Larry (which are bangers by the way), those VeggieTales in the House and In the City shows on Netflix, and another film called The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie. It’s a very small amount, and I have not really kept up with newer VeggieTales media besides the Netflix shows.

I am a bit surprised I never really watched their film on Jonah, as can only recall the opening part with the vegetables singing in the car, but my brother said I did watch the entire thing before. Strange that I can’t remember it a lot. I just today I found out that there are only two theatrical VeggieTales films, which is this movie and the aforementioned Pirates movie, and there is a third VeggieTales movie planned to release in 2026. I thought there were more movies…

The film tells two stories, the first being a car mishap that occurs with a group of vegetables on the way to a concert, and the next being an adaptation of the story of Jonah, with the two stories being linked with their themes.

I really had a good time watching it. For a film released in the early 2000s, the animation REALLY holds up and aged really well. Usually, a lot of animated films released in the early 2000s tend to have animation that hasn’t stood the test of time because of how newer the technology was (though with a few exceptions) but Jonah’s animation is really impressive for a 2002 film. There is a lot of detail with the animation and the characters are well-animated. Next, I really do like the themes the film had of mercy and compassion, since that is sometimes something I forget, and I’ll definitely be thinking about it more as I do want to improve on myself as a person, and though the film is aimed toward younger audiences, I think that the themes it teaches are very important and good for both younger and older audiences. I was actually a bit surprised by the ending for Jonah’s story, that shocked me a little bit.

The musical numbers were also a standout and were so catchy and amazing. I don’t know the names of the songs, but the song sung by the angels and the song at the end of the film, as well as the end credit songs were my absolute favorites.

The humor in the film was pretty fun, and VeggieTales has a lot of jokes and moments that are funny, entertaining, and appealing to everyone. I honestly love movies that are entertaining and humorous, as well as having charm to it. It’s a nice movie and it brightened up my day with its important themes and humor. I am a bit in the mood to watch more VeggieTales media now, but I need to find where I can watch it.

1917 (4K UHD Blu-Ray) - It's been a few years since I last watched this (first time on 4K disc though), and it's still as fantastic as I remembered. Wonderful set design and the "single take" gimmick do an incredible job immersing you into the horrors of WWI, and it had just been long enough since my last watch that I couldn't remember if/when either of the two core characters died, so the journey was just as tense as it was the first time around.

Dune (Blu-Ray) - The 80's version. I really wasn't feeling this one. I think it certainly had big ambitions with some really memorable & trippy visual sequences, and many set pieces felt "big", but I think it's just too much book to fit into one movie (IIRC, it's not quite as long as even the first movie of the modern duology), with the last 3rd of the film really moving along at a breakneck pace (with Chani being nothing more narratively than some random Fremen girl Paul loves). There are some other oddities as well, such as the fact that they largely abandon the personal shield generators after their introduction (envisioned here as a bunch of polygons that surround the wearer, making them look like vaguely human shaped polygons, which while sort of impressive how they brought it to life, looks silly), and they spend largely the rest of the movie shooting each other (including with some sort of sound guns, which may be more accurate to the books AFAIK, but again look silly in practice). It certainly doesn't help that the Harkonnen come across as merely generally gross rather than truly intimidating, and a lot of the tech & ship designs personally didn't land with me, often times coming across as lame or plain ugly.

Jonah Hex (Blu-Ray) - More westerns need horse mounted Gatling Guns. I'm admittedly not too familiar with the comics it's based on, but on it's own it's a serviceable enough & sometimes fun post Civil War actioneer with a supernatural twist, if nothing remarkable. It feels 10-20 minutes shorter than it should though (they never explain how those special cannon balls are supposed to work, which is a pretty big deal since the bad guy's plan hinges entirely on them. That, and Jonah was clearly supposed to find himself in that fighting pit against that weird snake guy they set up, and then it just doesn't happen), which doesn't make much sense as it's pretty brisk at just under an hour and a half & it could have easily used the extra time.

Kite (Blu-Ray) - Ultraviolent & taboo 90's anime OVA that I think even surpasses Ninja Scroll & Wicked City in terms of how far it pushes the envelope. Sawa is a teen assassin who kills the absolute dregs of society, but the corruption runs deep as her handlers (a pair of police detectives) are just as twisted as those they order her to take out. The new Discotek Blu-Ray includes three different cuts (all remastered), including two different earlier western releases which cut back on the most taboo content (to various degrees) and condense it to "film" format, plus the completely uncut version (a two episode OVA) how it originally released in Japan. It's definitely not for the faint of heart or those who (understandably) shy away from some very questionable content, but it had a very grungy vibe (not unlike Perfect Blue), which I really dug.

Toy Story (Blu-Ray) - Time to wash the above away with something much more wholesome. I don't think I've actually watched this in it's entirety since I was a kid, but it's still a really fun watch that provides a good amount of laughs. Visually it's starting to look really simple, but I really dug the neon lit interiors of Pizza Planet & some of the glow in the dark elements of Sid's room. I liked noticing some things I missed out on as a kid, such as the Binford tool box (a Home Improvement reference), and the "Whack-A-Alien" game at Pizza Planet that features knock off chest bursters popping out of a bloody Astronaut corpse (this probably wouldn't pass the test in a modern Disney cartoon, lol, though I don't think they completely owned Pixar at this point).

I watched Terrifier 3 yesterday. Great film. Funny, brutal, and gory. The last 20 minutes were poor, but it didn't ruin the experience. The writers dropped the ball by not bringing a character strong enough to keep up with Art when they had the chance in the last film. Great slasher films 9/10.

Art showed the Joker how it's done.

Dark Shadows (2012) w Johnny Depp.

I'm amazed how low it's Rotten Tomatoes score is. It got 33% critic score, and 46% audience. I like this movie. I'd give it at least a 7/10.

I saw Speak No Evil at the weekend and I really liked it. About a family that go to visit another couple they befriend on holiday...and things don't turn out like they expected. It's billed as a horror movie, but it's more uncomfortable than scary to be honest. I've seen James McAvoy in a few shows/movies, but he's mostly played the 'nice guy' in those, but he plays 'unhinged' really well here.

Apparently its a remake of a Danish movie from a couple of years ago, so might look that up and give it a watch too.

Watched one of my favorite movies for this time of the year, The Crow and I am not talking about the ***** remake either. It's amazing how well this movie still holds up and Brandon Lee's proformance was just great. The effects for that time too was something else. Definitely a must watch for this time of the year.