Topic: Movie thread.

Welcome to Cinema Nihongo Thursday! (on a Friday because reasons)

This week I watched I Wish (Netflix/Japanese language film).

Two brothers are split apart because their estranged parents have split up (though not officially divorced yet), and while they try to make their new lives apart work, they hatch an ambitious plan to make a wish on two passing bullet trains for their parents to hook back up (according to elementary school gossip, there's so much energy between the trains as they cross that it can grant wishes).

It's sort of a coming of age story, as well as a look at everyday life in Japan. There's also some side stories, such as the boys' grandfather trying to rekindle his aging Kurakan Cake business, one of thier friends trying to become an actress, and one who even has a serious case of puppy love for the hot librarian, lol. Everything mixes well together, and I thought it was an interesting watch, though I know it won't be for everyone. For those interested in coming of age stories, the everyday lives of people, or those into Japanese cinema.

Watched Conan the Barbarian 1982 (Netflix) earlier today!

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the titular character as he fights his way to revenge against those who killed his entire village & enslaved him as a child. It has a real sense of epic scale, which is really cool considering it's age (and limited special effect ability), and was quite good.

As long as you can put up with (and old enough for) some violent scenes and nudity, I'd heartily recommend this for anyone looking for a film with a quest in epic scale.

...You're the only one posting here now? :c
...Well anyways, saw Inside Out. It was awesome, as expected because, well you know...Pixar. lol

Watched Terminator (Netflix) earlier today! Actually never watched the original before, though I've seen the others at least once. Nice to say I've seen them all now, other than the newest one that's still in cinemas.

Personally I didn't like it as much as 2 or 3, but that's probably because I didn't see it back when it was innovative, and since it didn't have any surprises in store (since I knew about them all).

Well to be fair, this IS a gaming site first & foremost, so it's no surprise most here are spending their free time gaming. As for me? Well, I don't have a new game to play at the moment & we have a Netflix subscription, so I gotta spend my free time doing something, lol.

There's always "that one movie fan" on every gaming forum I've gone to whose posts make up the majority of the main movie thread (if there is one).

Then again, I've been "that one anime fan" more than a couple of times, so I know the feels.

I watched Life After Beth last night and it was pretty decent with Aubrey Plaza being brilliant (it just makes me wish for more Parks & Recs tho) but they should of recast the evil kid from Chronicle, I don't think I've seen him in anything where he's likable and just he just grated on me throughout the film.

Saw Ex Machina

...well, that'll be my nightmare fuel for the week...

Well, it's Cinema Nihongo Thursday again, and this week I watched Caterpillar (Netflix/Japanese language film).

Set in a small mountainside Japanese village during the early days of WWII, it sees the return of one of the village's own return from the war early, having both his arms & legs amputated, but still alive. It features the struggles of his wife as she tries to take care of him & keep up appearance as "proper Japanese citizens", while he's slowly tormented by the deeds he's done in the name of country, and thus disillusioned by it (it's shown that he took part in the infamous "Rape of Nanking", where Japanese soldiers commited atrocious crimes against the normal citizens who lived there). The film itself (despite being a 2010 production) is purposefully made to look like you're watching it on an old film reel.

I'd say it's definitely an acquired taste (I don't think I'd watch it again, though I don't think it was ineffective), and it's not one for younger audiences (it doesn't shy away from showing his actions during the war, or how he still tries to have marital relations with his wife).

watched american beauty yesterday. again. first time in english though. native german speaker here. think i'm gonna try to watch movies in english from now on, if the movies were originally made in english of course. kinda helps learning the language even better.

german synchronization is good though most of time.

Possibly my favorite movie of the year so far. Alex Garland is definitely an up-and-comer to keep an eye on. Wrote 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine, and Dredd. Ex Machina was his directorial debut, which he also wrote. All great movies.

Also, love the new Spectre trailer and Jurassic World 2 announcement makes me happy. Jurassic Park, along with Star Wars, was among the first film series I ever got invested in as a kid and I still love it.

@CaviarMeths: It's the first movie in a while to give me mixed feelings, that's for sure. It was difficult to sit through, yet I don't hate it. It made me think, yet it had a lot of scenes I'd rather forget about. It's different, at least, so I'll give it that, and I don't totally regret watching it.

Any classic horror fans on NL? I'm looking for suggestions on old Vincent Price movies. Got House on Haunted Hill and The Fly picked out. Maybe House of Wax as well?

@CaviarMeths: Check out The Babadook, It Follows and The Conjuring (although the last ten minutes is one big horror cliché). The former two are the best horror movies in the past year or so. They are both quite original too, which makes a rather welcome change.

I also recommend Warm Bodies; it is more of a comedy than a horror film however, it is suitably creepy/jumpy in places and the two main characters have great chemistry, despite the general premises!

Other than those, I find the horror genre lacking as of late. I realised you are checking out classic horrors films, but I thought I'd throw my few recommendations out there. The Fly, The Thing and The Shining are my favourites. You could look up Hammer (film productions) for their line up too. Christopher Lee stars in at least half a dozen Hammer films!

@Peek-a-boo Hmm I don't think recent horror movies are lacking, so much as we tend to view the past through a narrow lens. There were tons of crappy horror movies released in previous decades. Some of them, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th, even became very popular. Horror is a genre that has been filled with garbage in every era. Only subgenres that really seem to have gone away are haunted house and asylum movies. We don't get good ones very often.

TCM and Ft13, by the way, both got 21st century reboots that are not terrific, but still better than the originals. Nightmare on Elm Street remake on the other hand was one of the worst movies I saw that year, despite an interesting interpretation of the character by Jackie Earle Haley.

Anyway, I watched It Follows and The Babadook a few weeks ago, and enjoyed them both. It Follows was pretty unnerving and unsettling just by the concept alone. Atmosphere were quite good too, and it had a good screenplay, rare among horror films. The Babadook wasn't quite as enjoyable... mostly because I hated that f***ing kid. The Conjuring I caught in theater and liked it quite a lot. Shame about Annabelle. That movie was pretty junk.

The Thing and The Shining are both in my top 5 all time as well. Great, great movies.

I do think we have a case of 'rose tinted glasses' with some horror remakes, but I absolutely cannot agree with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre being better than the original; the original film still manages to shock to this day, and I wasn't a fan of the overly gratuitous violence in the remake either. The original film was a good example of 'less is more'.

As for The Babadook, the kid in the film is supposed to be annoying! If you watch the cast and director interview (in the extras) on DVD, you will be verbally told that the kid is purposely written to wind the viewer up, just as he winds his own mother up in the film. We see a role reversal in the later stages of the film where we start to sympathise with the boy more than his mother.

What I can agree with (with you) is that Annabelle was indeed pretty poor, and that that The Thing and The Shining being in your all time top five (horror films?) is a sign of a man with taste. Apart from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre part, of course!

; p

Original TCM is just something that I don't "get" and maybe never will. It was a miserable experience for me, and when I see all the praise it gets, it feels like I watched a completely different movie or something. It's strange. I'm not usually so... out of touch, I guess? Even when I don't like something, I can usually see easily why other people do, but with TCM, I don't.

I dunno lol.

Early Friday the 13th movies, I understand why they're popular. They're dumb movies that are fun to watch with friends and beer. I enjoyed most of them in that capacity too. Except for Part III, which was a little to boring to enjoy in any state of mind.

I watched Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (DVD) last night!

It's pretty much more of the same, but in this case, I don't mind. I've always found these films to be fun, and this one is no different. The ending hit extra hard, due to real world circumstances:

Ok, here's the ending to Pixels. Even the plot for Bad Dudes on NES isn't this ridiculous:

Yup... that ending makes "perfect" sense. 10/10

It's Cinema Nihongo Thursday! This week I watched Sonatine (Netflix/Japanese language film).

A 1993 film, it's an earlier work of Takeshi Kitano (who is also behind Outrage & Beyond Outrage), and like the other two, is a film set in the world of the Yakuza.

Kitano himself plays a mid tier crime boss who is thinking of retiring, though the big boss upstairs has one last job for him. Kitano & some of his men are sent to Okinawa (from Tokyo) to forge a peace treaty between two Yakuza groups that are fighting there. Of course, nothing is quite as it seems in the world of organized crime, and Kitano may just find himself in an unexpected situation!

It has a unique feel compared to the newer two films of his I watched, and while it still knows to get serious & dramatic when it needs to, it also takes some time to have some fun (something neither Outrage or it's sequel really did). I wouldn't say it's better than the Outrage films, but it is on par (whch is still good, since those films were awesome), and unique enough that you should watch this in addition to them.

I also really enjoyed the shots of the Okinawan wilderness, which was quite beautiful, and the look into 90's Japan.