Topic: Movie thread.

@Sunsy I bought Spaceballs this winter👌 when it was on sale for $5.

This will be great if we can still get another mel brooks movie. I hope spaceballs 2 is decent.

@WoomyNNYes Hope so, seeing Mel Brooks involved hopefully it's in good hands. Not a bad deal, hope you like the movie. Spaceballs is one of my favorites.

Saw Horton Hears a Who! a few days ago on YouTube, and it’s my most recently watched movie lately.

I have seen some film adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ books in the past, that being Illumination’s adaptations of The Lorax and The Grinch (albeit I didn’t finish it) and even the disastrous and hilariously strange live-action The Cat in the Hat film that did so bad that it led to future adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ books to being animated only, but I hadn’t seen Horton before. I’d only seen snippets of the film online in out of context clips but saw it was one of the better received adaptations, and YouTube made that and The Lorax, free to watch, so I saw it, and really enjoyed it!

This came out in 2008, and unlike the later animated Dr. Seuss films being mostly done by Illumination, Blue Sky did Horton, and I would say they did a far better job with this adaptation.

First off, the animation is great. It holds up pretty well and did a great job of translating Seuss’ art into 3D. This was actually the first adaptation of his books to be in 3D, and his characters look awesome animated in this style. While I think the animation in Illumination’s adaptations are good and thought those did a fine job turning the artwork and environments of the book into 3D, the designs in this film did a better job closely resembling Seuss’ art, and you can definitely still see his whimsical art style and designs even in 3D. For Illumination’s films, I thought the art style in those was more of a blend between their style and Seuss’ art, but here it better closely resembles the original. I especially liked how the Whos looked and were animated, as well as the look of Whoville. There were even some short parts of the film that were done in a different style, including a short 2D segment animated in the beginning that resembles Seuss’ original art style, and, pretty hilariously, a scene where Horton and the rest of the characters are supposed to look and be animated like ANIME CHARACTERS. The change in style, on top of the humor and the strange voice acting used in the scene just makes it perfect.

Speaking of that, the humor was way more hilarious in this one. A lot of the jokes landed far better, and I thought it really captured and fit the wit and whimsy in Dr. Seuss’ books, on top of the narration with the rhymes being way more prominent in this adaptation. There was some small slapstick added in that I thought fit in, and while the film isn’t a gigantic knee-slapper, it’s still pretty funny, and maybe the funniest adaptation of a Dr Seuss’ book I’ve seen. The final act where all of Whoville has to make a bunch of noise to capture the attention of the animals to avoid having their home speck destroyed and boiled in oil was so perfect, and the one scene in the film that I think especially captured the tone of Seuss’ books well, plus it was a way more exciting final act compared to some of the other Dr. Seuss adaptations I’ve seen before.

Oh yeah, and the voice cast is awesome too! So many of the casting choices fit the characters so perfectly, especially Jim Carrey as Horton and Steve Carell as the Mayor, the former especially, given Horton is an extremely goofy, friendly, and eccentric character in this, and his performance captured Horton’s character traits really well.

It’s just a pretty good film that, compared to the other adaptations of Seuss’ work, adapts the source material faithfully and sticks close to it, on top of being pretty hilarious. Definitely recommend it! Not sure what I’ll watch next, but I saw A Minecraft Movie is coming to Max soon, and I am absolutely gonna watch it, even if it isn’t good lol.

@Pastellioli Yes! Another Horton convert! I have loved this one for ages, despite not really caring for 90% of the other Seuss adaptations. My family quotes it all the time! ☺️

@CaleBoi25 It definitely is a good film, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it already! It’s in my opinion, the best and most faithful Dr. Seuss adaptation I’ve seen But, I am surprised that it’s the only film I’ve seen so far that actually bothered being faithful to the book it’s based on, which is something I think past and later adaptations did a poor job doing.

EDIT: Sorry if I might randomly ramble here lol.

Most people have an issue with a lot of Seuss films missing the point of the original books, or straying too far away from them. I thought The Lorax was an okay adaptation, but I do think the themes of environmentalism, capitalism and greed were downplayed a bit (plus the marketing and The Lorax being used to sell stuff like SUVs absolutely contradicted the message) and although I think some of the songs are catchy, I really don’t know why they made it a musical. There was actually a scrapped song for that film called “Biggering”, which was the original song for the Once-ler, and it was a darker and more serious song about greed and expansion, before it got replaced with the, I’ll admit catchy “How Bad Can I Be?” but only because they thought the original song was going to scare children. But, I feel like Biggering fit the original theme and tone better and even highlighted more of The Onceler’s greed but they just decided to play it safe anyway and removed it…the film could’ve been so much BETTER but they watered it down in the end. It just misses the themes of the film, on top of not really being funny.

Then the Cat in the Hat is an adaptation that I think people can get ironic enjoyment from how hilariously bad it is, and I’ll admit that the costumes and sets are nice to look at, and the Cat’s strange and unhinged behavior at times, paired with Mike Myer’s performance is sometimes hilarious, and both of those are kind of the film’s few saving graces. It works as a movie you can watch for fun and laugh at how much of a disaster of an adaptation it is, but it doesn’t work as a faithful adaptation of its source material. It’s full of innuendos and
humor that would absolutely NOT fit in any adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book, a bit too much gross out and crude humor and the plot isn’t good. They do capture some of the whimsical elements of the book with the look of the sets, costumes, and overall look of the film and at the beginning of the movie, but ironically, when the Cat is introduced, it’s when the tone and mood of the film starts to feel less like the book it’s adapting and starts getting increasingly cruder.

It surprises me that most Dr. Seuss adaptations either play it too safe and water down significant themes from his books, or just don’t stay faithful to the source material and take a completely different route when adapting his work, and Horton so far feels like the only one that actually kept both the original theme and stayed faithful to the book.

Not a movie but I watched a whole performance of WICKED Broadway to get into WICKED For Good storyline.

Sure, the Broadway version still lack the things that can be done in the movie version but while waiting for WICKED For Good, I can watch the Broadway version to get sneak peek what will happen in part 2.

The Honest Trailer did a good job skewering it:

"You love Captain America. You love the Hulk. Now, their palette swapped versions are squaring off, in the least anticipated clash since New Coke vs. Crystal Pepsi...”

Watched Snow White on Disney+ tonight, the 2025 live action one. Long story short, my mom wanted to watch it as Snow White was a part of her childhood, she even has a vintage Snow White tea set from the 1950's. I had no intention of watching this one, but watched anyway since I didn't want her to watch the movie alone.

To my surprise, I liked it. The dwarfs looked odd, passed that the movie wasn't as bad as others made it out to be. I'm someone who's not really into the Disney live action stuff being someone who likes animation. High points for me was Whistle While You Work, and Princess Problems.

Yeah, possibly the only positive opinion on this movie. Also, this movie is an example of why I have trust problems with critics. Sorry, but if critics tell me "worst movie ever," and then it's not when I see it, why should I trust them?

Saw Dangerous Animals tonight. A shark horror movie.

A decent good time out at the movies. A combination of things you've already seen before (probably best not to know much about the plot going in), but it worked.

@Sunsy Don’t trust critics. They’ll say anything. They’ll scrutinize the Mario movie for being a boring, lackluster movie and praise Barbie for… I don’t even know why that movie was so popular. And even worse, they’ll stone Mega Man X7 to death for being too slow and clunky (it’s not thaaat bad) and praise Mega Man 2 for giving their 5-year-old brains something to do. Don’t listen to the lies.

@Sunsy Honestly, I think nobody should trust any opinion from critics, or other people when they are going to watch or play something. I think it’s best for people to just watch something on their own, experience the movie, and form their own opinion on it instead of acting like a movie is good or bad because a critic or another person said so, and I think when people do that, their opinions are insincere, and if the critic’s opinion is really negative and they choose to agree with them that a movie is bad and choose not to watch it, they could even be missing out on a movie that they might actually like if they gave it a chance. I pretty much avoid doing that, because I remember actually kind of doing that with a show I did eventually watch in the past, albeit it wasn’t me following negative opinions from critics and instead from fans of the show. I felt embarrassed afterward…

EDIT: I’ll add this, critics giving their positive or negative opinions is fine of course, but I don’t think a person should be heavily reliant on them all the time or copy the same opinion as them on a movie they hasn’t watched. For me, I don’t read or watch critic reviews (or any reviews in general) before watching something, it’s when I finish watching the movie and forming my own opinion that I do watch/read reviews to see how everyone else felt about it, mostly for fun.

I'm all in favour of making up your own mind on things instead of taking reviews as gospel, but I can't get behind the narrative that critics are 'lying' and you can't 'trust' them. It's just their job to give their opinion, you don't have to agree with it but it's no more an attempt at deceit than your own opinions are.

@Dogorilla I guess I should have made it a little more silly, but I was mostly joking. I don’t actually think they’re straight up lying, but it is pretty common for some biased opinions to show up in most reviews.

@StewdaMegaManNerd That's fair, I just sometimes see people getting worked up about reviewers having different opinions to their own, and it's like... do people know how opinions work?

Mom wanted to watch the live action Cinderella from 2015 tonight. I have to say, it was a really good adaptation of the story.

@StewdaMegaManNerd I don't, but it does amuse me given most were trashing Snow White online, and the movie was not as bad as others made it out to be, from what I watched anyway. Just nice to watch something mom picked out and we both enjoyed it. It is one of many examples to me where I've seen bad press for a movie, but ended up liking it once I watched it.

@Pastellioli I agree with all of that. Seriously, IIRC, all the negative press had me not wanting to see Snow White. I'm glad my mom decided on it since Snow White was her childhood, we both enjoyed the movie, despite just about everyone on the Internet trashing it. Personally, I was surprised it was musical, the few times I've seen the commercials for it, it didn't seem like a musical outside the song "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go". Movie wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be.

Needless to say, Disney has done movies I haven't liked much. Saw Wish a year after release, and while it wasn't as bad as the Internet made it out to be, my disappointment were the characters. I could not get into Asha's character as much as other animated characters I like. Again, my own opinion.

Bullet Train

Seven degrees of separation, but in comedic action form. Brad Pitt is an assassin who has sworn off firearms and has a nasty bad luck streak. And even though Brad Pitt is the headliner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry control a majority of the scenes. Add to that, a whole bunch of cameos, and I have to admit I was thoroughly entertained.

Just another movie where the critic aggregate score got it wrong and the fan scores are more accurate.

@Sunsy Its great that you enjoyed it! It’s good to not let overly negative reception or opinions of a movie deter you from watching it, because, again, people following opinions like that all the time sometimes can discourage them from seeing a movie they might like, and the same can apply to TV shows, books, and games too! I just sometimes see the general public opinion on a movie out of curiosity, and then watch it, and then read how other people felt about it when I’m done with it.

I agree, and I did feel the same about Wish too, I think it wasn’t super bad, but I’m super mixed on it. I think it was interesting that they tried to go for a watercolor-looking style with the animation and the cast did a good job, especially with singing, but I wasn’t a fan of the songs and thought they were a bit underwhelming (at least in terms of the lyrics), and the characters weren’t too interesting in my opinion.

movies im watching this week and the rest of this month

Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey I and II on Peacock

28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later for DVD

Fantastic Four 2015 movie digitally on my Vudu/Fandango

In honor of the 50th anniversary I watched Jaws tonight. In all honesty I watch this movie everytime around this year since its the quintessential summer movie. Its still one of my favorite movies and it just never ages. Just such great chemistry between Roy Schneider, Richard Dryfuss, and Robert Shaw. And I know that due to all the problems they were having with the shark was the reason behind not seeing it much but I think that just adds to the suspense. And of course the classic theme never gets old, I still get goosebumps everytime I hear it.

Definitely one of the greatest movies every made.

I have watched ELIO last time and....
Again, quite disappointing in my opinion after long deliberation.
The storyline was generic, about a boy wanted to be abducted by aliens but after get abducted, I didn't feel a lot of story progression from other aliens.
It felt the storyline just too focused on ELIO and Glordon, the other characters just forgettable and didn't do much in movie.
The music was not memorable, not even ear catchy like WICKED or Inside Out, disappointing.
Surprisingly, I was cried for a brief when almost the end of story but I was thinking I got melancholy on the wrong timing.
After watching the movie, I didn't feel I want to watch again.
My personal score for ELIO after final verdict is 6 from 10.
Not bad as two disappointing live action Disney movie Snow White, Lilo & Stitch, but still not really a good movie.
Three Disney movies 2025 in a row that really disappointed me. 😑