Topic: Movie thread.

That was my introduction to Florence Pugh. I was blown away by her performance, especially during the beginning of the film. I enjoyed it, found it more original than Aster's Hereditary.

I say you're not a true film geek unless you can recite "that" monologue from memory.

The sequels are enjoyable the same way the Rocky sequels are. Cheesy, mindless '80s fun.

The most hilarious bit about the Rambo sequels are when they dedicated the movie to the Taliban. I mean, it doesn't get much retrospectively hilarious than that.

Which reminds me of Orwell's Ninteen-Eighty-Four. I guess spoilers for a 76 year-old book:

I think "the snap" is the best downer film-ending cliffhanger since The Empire Strikes Back.

@MontyCircus Oh yeah, I also finished watching Rambo III, and I definitely agree they can be very fun to watch from how cheesy, a bit corny, over the top, and action-filled they are. I think the sequels I’ve seen so far do a good job at accomplishing that, but aren’t as well written as the first one, which was so fantastic and subverted my expectations. Even though I feel the sequels aren’t too well-written and do a mediocre job at being good sequels, I won’t deny I had some fun watching them.

@MontyCircus yeah she was quite good. I liked the scene where they all take mushrooms and she has a bad trip. Felt very genuine.

Okay, finished Rambo III earlier in the morning and I was trying to type up my response earlier but didn’t.

Sometime after Part II, Rambo resides in Thailand and has settled down from fighting. After hearing news that Colonel Trautman has been captured and held captive by the Soviets in Afghanistan after a failed mission, he goes on a mission to save him with the assistance of a group of Afghan rebels who are also embroiled in a battle against the Soviets occupying Afghanistan.

This one, out of all the Rambo films I’ve seen so far, is maybe the one with the most action, brutality, violence, and especially explosions. Like Part II, the action here is far more nonstop and a lot more over the top here, and it does make for some decent excitement and entertainment, and some of that corniness from the previous installment is here, but there’s way more of it. It’s something I forgot to mention for the previous films, but I think here, and in the previous two, parts of them are genuinely shot well, and have very nice and detailed-looking locations and sets, especially Thailand and the monastery Rambo resides at.

But this one carries similar issues from Part II, except they’re even worse here. The film is very slow and kind of boring for the first, if I’m remembering, 30-40 minutes, and it takes a while for some action to happen and the characters to start attacking their enemies and attempting to rescue Trautman, and before that part it feels like nothing is really happening. There is a stick-fighting scene in the start, but no more action proceeds to happen until many minutes later. The previous two were better paced and a bit faster when getting onto the action and plot, but III takes its sweet time instead and it bores you for the first couple of minutes.

Then this one focuses too much on the plot and is way more plot-heavy, resulting in almost all the characters in this movie either feeling one-dimensional, generic, or undeveloped. Rambo is almost exact same typical action hero as he was in Part II, and yet again, has no development or character flaws to make him feel developed or realistic like he was in the absolutely fantastic first installment, and I’d say that out of the original 1980s Rambo trilogy, this is the one where he’s the most flat and blandly written. While I still did have issues with how they portrayed him in Part II and how I felt he was almost invincible, at least there were a bit more moments in there where he was vulnerable, like being outnumbered by the enemy when trying to save a POW and being taken to their camp, here he’s almost invincible for nearly the whole thing, and it makes him so flat and removed any stakes or suspense, also because you know what’s exactly going to happen almost each time. I’m pretty sure the only injuries he suffers here is a splinter that stabs him in a part of his torso and getting shot in the leg, but his wounds are downplayed a whole lot and he’s fine immediately afterward, which just feels really unrealistic. And then Stallone’s acting here is far more wooden and bland compared to the previous films, which doesn’t help at all.

Once more, the new cast of characters here are not memorable and forgettable instead, and I wasn’t interested in any of the characters because of how flat and minor most of them were. Same goes for the villain here as well, and I can’t believe that the villain colonels and captains in these sequels, who you’d expect to be WAY more scary and threatening from the position their in, aren’t even that threatening and memorable like the sheriff and police officers from the first. The plot isn’t even really interesting, and as people pointed out, it’s almost the exact same plot from Part II, except instead of saving American POWs, it’s saving Trautman.

Just a very disappointing sequel that worsens the problems Part II had and probably the most boring out of the original three. There’s two more sequels after, but I’m going to have to stop here since those aren’t available for free on YouTube. And I didn’t realize it until someone here pointed it out, but wow the ending kind of aged poorly…

Giving a movie you were in 3.5 stars is honestly really funny.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/mole-man-actor-g...

It is! Thanks for sharing.

@Bigmanfan at first I thought it was 3.5 out of 10 and I was flabbergasted lol!

slowly trying to catch up on some of my watchlist on Tubi.

breezing through Mystery Science Theater's showing of Space Mutiny

then trying to get to watch Evolution before it expires in the next 12ish days

Watched Coraline on Tubi this morning. Been wanting to see this one for some time, I kept getting reminded of it when I browse the Internet, or when I was shopping and saw the merch. I'm not a horror person, and I really liked this movie. Enjoyed Coraline as a character and her discovering the other world. Other Mother was something, taking Coraline's real parents away, trying to give Coraline button eyes, and just trying to get her to join the other world. Really enjoyed how helpful the cat was.

Watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle tonight. Definitely a really funny one; I always liked the OG (never read the book...), so I'm glad to say it lived up to that — at least in my opinion! The story was perfectly... Acceptable? Honestly, this is one you watch for the giggles, not the lore. As a gamer and (just barely in this age bracket) teenager myself, I think it portrayed the characters realistically. There were only one or two lines where the writers pulled a full "I literally like just can't even like for realsies" with the dialogue — mostly, it was either nicely grounded in teenager-style slang or just regular sentences that anyone would say. The video game aspect on the other hand...? I'd say it was passable — nothing too egregious. I think if it were an actual video game it would suck, but if you're inside it, it works well enough. Cutting to show the antagonist was odd since they established that cutscenes existed, but then just.... Didn't use them? And of course, the character strengths/weaknesses were dumb, but great for humoius gags and whatnot. Overall an 8/10 for me — a blast if you want a fun time, but don't try to figure out the lore.

@CaleBoi25, I watched that movie and its sequel a few months back via renting them from my local library. They don't earn any "greatest story of the decade reward" or anything like that in my head, but they were passable entertainment and a good laugh, I'll probably own them at some point.

@ShieldHero yep, we borrowed it from our 'brary as well. We'll probably check out the sequel, too.

First time in theatres for the 10th anniversary, and I did not throw away my...shot!

What I watched this past weekend.

Air Force One (UHD Blu-Ray) - Action packed political actioneer that sees political extremists hijack Air Force One in an attempt to get the dictator of a former Soviet republic released, and only the president himself has a chance of taking the plane back. Honestly just really fun flick & I can't place my finger on it but I just love the vibe. As an aside I always thought this was based on a Tom Clancy book (similar theme, Harrison Ford was in a few of those adaptations just a few years prior so it lines up in terms of "sequel timing", and the couple of Tom Clancy books I read in High School were at a later point in the timeline where Jack Ryan was indeed president), so I picked up the 3 80's/90's Tom Clancy movies as well as I planned to watch them in order, only to find out this actually has nothing to do with them, lol.

Death Wish (UHD Blu-Ray) - Charles Bronson plays the part of a pacifistic everyman who descends into violent vigilantism after his wife & daughter are assaulted by hooligans & the law seems ineffective (maybe even apathetic) towards finding the culprits. It sure has some messaging that probably wouldn't set too well today, but even so it's a great film. It really captures the grime of the New York of the era, with what would probably be an unconvential at the time outlook showing that law enforcement isn't always competent/infallible.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (UHD Blu-Ray) - Although I know I've seen this once when I was younger, I was always more enamoured with part one since it was more laser focused on paying homage to Japanese media specifically (and yes, I've rewatched that one recently as well & still love it). Giving this one a fresh watch I've really come to appreciate it more & think it's a great conclusion to the saga however. I especially loved the training flashback & how it was filmed to look like an old school kung fu movie.

Super 7 (Blu-Ray) - Off beat Japanese crime comedy that sees a low ranking Yakuza trying to hide out in the "New Mexico Hotel" (an obscure establishment themed after a dingy American motel) after stealing a suitcase of the family's cash, and having to deal with a lot of strange individuals (the hotel's weird staff, an ex girlfriend looking for him to pay off a debt, her new dorky fiancee, etc.). Kind of an acquired taste, and humor can be a tough sell cross culturally to boot, but it definitely had it's funny moments, and an absolutely awesome anime style intro introducing the players.

watching the last half of Mel Gibson's Hamlet movie on Tubi. going to be a long day/night to finally finish whatching that darn movie

Just watched Pokemon 3 on YouTube, that limited time upload on the official Pokemon TV YouTube channel. I loved it, I never saw this movie, not even back during Pokemon's heyday. I remember seeing the first and second movies, but never this one. Good movie, wish I did get to see it when it was new, I slept on this one for a long time.

Edit: Ok, that mid credits scene got me. Molly being reuinted with her mom.