Topic: Movie thread.

Good timing mentioning Marvel, I've just finished watching Phase 1 of the MCU. Got interested in it again after hearing about RDJ's second casting as Doctor Doom, and began with Iron Man, ended with The Avengers.

Phase One is the simplest phase but there's arguments that it's the best. Pure exposition compared to the rest of the MCU but each movie has such a unique identity compared to the generalised state of the next phase. Iron Man's a rockerboy movie with an AC/DC vibe, Thor's a dramatic, theatrical movie, Captain America's a period piece.

Not too excited to power through some of the more mediocre MCU movies, but it's a committment. I did skip Incredible Hulk though... really couldn't be bothered there.

@Yousef- If you enjoy Deadpool, you won't fail to love this movie.

As an objective standpoint - the movie is a chaotic cocktail of fan-service and quippy dialogue, but in the best possible way!

Try your best to go spoiler-free, as there are some tremendous cameos and call-backs.

IMO, Ryan Reynolds also has great comic timing... and really knows how to set up a good joke. Not every line 'works', but some of the setups & punchlines are fantastic. Particularly the pay-off of 1 particular joke, which doesn't land until post-credits

Have fun. As a piece of 'popcorn cinema' it was genuinely a really fun 2 hours. The audience lapped it up, and the film serves as a reminder that not everything we watch needs to be 'high-end cinema' - sometimes a couple of hours of forgettable fun is great

@Zuljaras thank you! Yeah in sure!

@Pastellioli I don’t watch the MCU. I’m just a Gigantic Deadpool fan!

@CJD87 You are absolutely right and I wholeheartedly relate to what you wrote there.

@jedgamesguy I have heard that the first few phases of the MCU are its best. My sister and cousin I believe binge watched all the MCU films and shows that were released up to 2022 a few years back and they really liked them, but I didn’t stay to watch them, and my dad was also recommending that I watch the MCU too, but I also didn’t do that either.

If I remember, the only MCU films I’ve watched are Captain Marvel, Eternals, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Captain America: Civil War, some of the first Ant-Man, and the two Black Panther movies. Out of all of them, Quantumania was the worst one, had such an awful tone and unfunny jokes when I watched it. They tried to set up a new villain for the current MCU phase in that, but the guy playing the villain got fired for some serious allegations and his character has got written out entirely and is now just some random one-note character. He was supposed to be the villain of the upcoming Avengers films, but he got removed after his actor got fired and he is probably never coming back. With shows, I watched WandaVision and liked it, and I did see some of Moon Knight but didn’t finish it. A lot of the MCU content I watched was a bit random. Lots of people say the current phase had mostly mediocre or bad movies, but it’s more important that we make our own opinions on those rather than following what most people say.

Wow, I have been finding myself staying in the living room and watching a lot of Fox's X-Men movies, and I am not even a big Marvel fan. My brother has been watching a lot of X-Men media after seeing Deadpool and Wolverine, and I have been staying in the room and watching them with him and my family. Anyway, I'll just list down what I have seen recently.

Puss In Boots - I saw this last year when I rented it on my Xbox after seeing its sequel Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, and after re-watching this movie on YouTube, it is a pretty decent Shrek spinoff. I like its telling of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale and some of the humor and comedy was nice, though I think The Last Wish blows this out of the water with its story and themes. Still would recommend watching this though, but it isn't really a requirement to watch it to understand the story in The Last Wish, since that movie didn't reference anything that happened in the first Puss In Boots film.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Saw this yesterday, thought it was super cool and the time travelling was one of the interesting parts of it for me. The story and characters were so captivating, and I really got into the film and got so excited a lot. I was so attached to the characters that I actually felt things when stuff got super desperate for the X-Men nearing the end. I got to see that iconic Quicksilver scene for the first time in full, so that was cool too.

X-Men: First Class - Really liked this one. It was a pretty good prequel and I also liked the story and themes here too, like with Days of Future Past. I don't really see or hear about superhero movies that are set during significant real life events, so the blend of fiction and superheroes with a real life event was pretty interesting and handled well.

X-Men: The Last Stand - I had seen some parts of the first and second X-Men movies, so I may not know all of what is happening in The Last Stand, but I know the general consensus behind the stories and man this movie was honestly not that good. I can sort of tell from its tone. My brother also thinks this is the weakest out of the trilogy when he saw it.

Movies I've watched over the past couple weeks:

Blazing Saddles (Blu-Ray) - Definitely delivers quite a few laughs during it's runtime (I especially liked the Looney Tunes-esque bits), and I can definitely see why it would have been such a seminal satire for it's era, but like most films made before the 80's I kinda found it hard to really connect to it on a personal level (just a bit too far culturally removed I guess). Still a pretty good film though.

Heaven's Lost Property the Movie: the Angeloid of Clockwork (Blu-Ray) - Anime film that follows up the two HLP TV series. Kinda disappointing as the first half is just an abridged retelling of the preceding shows, and once it does get to the meat of things it feels more like a side step narratively than a way forward, but if you liked the shows (which I'd only recommend if you like raunchy comedies), it may be worth a watch.

Kingsman: the Secret Service (Blu-Ray) - Perhaps the best action flick of the 2010's? Every single action scene is just as exciting today as they were when it first released, it successfully modernizes the "Bond" archetype movie going experience by making dapper chaps in suits with fancy gizmos awesome instead of cheesy. It maybe loses a bit of something once Colin Firth is written out, but is still highly enjoyable.

Troy (Blu-Ray) - the Extended cut. Absolutely fantastic historical epic. Top notch acting performances from everyone involved, incredibly immersive epic scale recreation of Troy & the battles surrounding it, and some great action (especially that fight between Hector & Achilles). My only criticism is that I got a little tired of how constantly brown/beige the whole color pallet looked, but that's a small issue.

Watchmen (*Blu-Ray) - The Director's Cut. I have quite a bit of nostalgia for this one, though I'll admit I didn't quite like it as much this time as I did in the past. Still a great film though, and much more interesting take on the superhero genre than most of the "cinematic universe" superhero films we get these days.

I watched David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone (1983) last night. Supernatural thriller starring Christopher Walken and based on the Stephen King novel. Very emotional film with some great acting from Walken and the supporting cast. The fate of Martin Sheen’s evil politician character is incredibly satisfying.

Films I watched over the weekend.

Alien Romulus (Cinema) - No overwrought lore and overbearing technical jargon kept to a limit, this is a back to basics affair that follows a group of scared youths fighting for their lives against unimaginable horrors amongst the decaying husk of an orbital research station. It's absolutely stunning, brutal, tense, icky, and the best thing I've seen in theatres since Dune Part 2. If you have even a passing interest in deep space/future sci-fi you owe it to yourself to see this.

Gran Torino (Blu-Ray) - Every once in awhile my parents will introduce me to a movie that I otherwise wouldn't watch but end up loving, and this is one of those films (though this isn't the first time I watched it). Clint Eastwood plays the role of a crotchety (& kinda racist) old man who forms a connection with a new immigrant family next door, and in his own way tries to keep their teenaged children from falling in/victim to the local gang(s).

Heaven's Lost Property Final (Blu-Ray) - What a load of crock. Following on from the preceding two TV series & film in the HLP franchise, this film seeks to be the big finale, or at least the title would lead you to believe so. However in practice this has to be the most ill conceived/mismanaged efforts in closure I've ever seen (even by anime standards of "we're cancelling the series before reaching the manga's conclusion", it's terrible). Starts out in the middle of the big climactic final battle with no context as to what's going on, precedes to have a 40 minute long flashback (which is like 90% of the film's runtime) that never gets around to addressing how the final battle begins, then in it's final moments returns to the "present" only to not show how things end either.

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (Blu-Ray) - For the first ever feature length animation this has a lot of elements that still impress (like a lot of the water effects, such as when the camera is looking up at the titular heroine from the inside of a well), you can really tell that the animators really poured their heart & soul into this as they had everything riding on it. That said it's characters don't have much in the way of character, especially Snow White (and her "Prince Charming", who shows up like twice), although the dwarfs have a few good comedic relief bits.

We watched the Divergent Series and I must say ... what a load of crap It is even worse than the Twilight saga

Me and the wife were disappointed. Only the first one was a pinch interesting.

The best part is that they will never release the final part as the series finale is cancelled

Although you can’t see the text, today it has been announced that the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will be released tomorrow! In the photos, the film is being marketed in multiple countries. There currently isn’t a time set for when the trailer will be released though.

Star Trek 2009 (Blu-Ray) - I may be a bit biased as it's one I watched in theaters when it first came out, but this one is a blast. The cast has great chemistry & seems to be having fun, and it's a big fun roaring sci-fi film. I can't really speak on it's qualities as a "Trek" film as it was never really an important franchise for me growing up, but on it's own merit I always have a good time watching this.

Cutthroat Island (Blu-Ray) - I hadn't heard of this until now, but as I didn't yet have any seafaring/pirate movies in my collection, I picked up the BD when I saw it at a thrift store. Nothing particularly noteworthy, but it's a fun enough swashbuckler (I really liked the big ship battle in the climax though).

Well, not really a movie but I bought the Beetlejuice Complete Series on DVD in anticipation of the new film. Funny enough, it arrived the same day as the new movie did. Could I call THAT a coincidence...?

Anyone know what movie this is ? Last clip in this yt video. Chinese ?

@Artonide I used Google Lens to find it, it took a few attempts but in the end it worked.
It's called "Sifu: At The Cost of Time". It's a short film made to promote the game Sifu.

I haven't seen it, but it was a notorious box office bomb, and Geena Davis' career went down with the ship.

@CinnamonRobin thank you 💚

The only upcoming horror movie that matters >
I just wish i hadn't seen so many of those YT interviews centred around the entire cast for T2. As always, it completely sucks out the believability and mystique from most of the characters. That movie magic illusion kind of gets tarnished. Almost every big modern Gen Z/young millennial actor over exposes themselves through YT. Most of the Stranger Things & Cobra Kai Cast being the perfect example.