The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Also I didn't know it was based on an older TV show, I have no awareness regarding the original.
I'm in the same boat, really quite liked it. I knew about the TV show, but I'd never seen an episode, or really knew anything else other than it's existence.
The original show is mixed bag, it's very '60s hollywood in that you can tell it's mostly shot in California despite how "global" the show is. There were also a lot of "celebrity" guest stars, one early episode guest starred Shatner and Nimoy, another episode had Sonny and Cher. One episode starred the actor that played Dennis the Menace as a teenage super genius. Some of the bad guys even toted around what looked like Megatron in his fully decked out gun mode.
I was mentioning this movie to my Mother and she remembered my Uncle reading "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." comic books when they were kids.
Just saw the LEGO movie. I have a lot of gripes about how they did the ending, but the fact of the matter is that I watched the whole thing, and I haven't watched a whole movie in over two years. Reaching the credits is the greatest endorsement I can give.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Eh, it was okay - Tina Fey's performance was great, not quite as funny as you'd think for a movie marketed as a comedy, but still a pretty good movie. Margot Robbie starring as her friend, but I don't think English accents are her strength, it was all over the place.
We are moving out of the area and trying to cram in time with friends we won't be able to see as often. When trying to plan out a visit, lunch, a walk, and a movie was suggested. Sadly, the movie these friends wanted to see was Suicide Squad.
It was straight-to-video bad. It wasn't even the 'it's so bad that it becomes funny/entertaining' sort of bad. No, no. It was the 'who gave this much money to a team of teenagers who failed creative writing to make a movie' sort of bad. The plot is non-existent. The conflicted nature of villains doing something heroic is never addressed. There are too many characters to even properly introduce them all, and the ones who get an introduction are inconsistent, uninteresting, and their so-called powers do not in any way make them useful for fighting the boss at the end of the film.
For a film with such a diverse cast, it contains some incredibly racist and sexist imagery, stereotypes, tropes, and dialogue. I could write a book of criticism regarding the handling of Katana alone.
Oh, and all the 'Harley and Joker are fun and entertaining in this movie' rumors are complete BS. Harley Quinn is a one-dimensional cliche from a a bad porn film and the Joker, who barely appears, is all makeup and poorly written dialogue. Even Jared Leto's wealth of talent could do nothing with that character.
I want my time back. I want my money back. I want the image of Harley's butt cleavage purged from my mind.
Saw Florence Foster Jenkins last night. For the uninitiated, Jenkins was an NYC socialite back in the 30s and 40s who was a massive patron of music (probably the most generous patron of that time period). So she was friends with most of the world's major musical figures. However, she's best known for performing vocal recitals to benefit the arts, culminating in a performance at Carnegie Hall -- the problem being that she was terrifically, awe-inspiringly tone-deaf.
The movie itself is a BBC production with Meryl Streep(!) and Hugh Grant. Streep's ability to mimic Jenkins' style of singing is incredible, and with her and Grant's performances, it's at turns hilarious, tragic, and touching. I'd recommend it.
I finally got around to watch Zootopia today. I heard lots of good things about it but it still blew away my expectations. So much attention to detail and making a city filled with animals of various shapes and sizes work. The moment this really clicked with me was the arrival of the train when Judy leaves her home and there being three different doors to accommodate different animals. The animation was stunning and the voice-acting was spot on by pretty much everyone.
I also very much liked the message and the story. Yes, the movie is a bit obvious with it but it is a movie targeted at a younger audience so that is kind of expected. However, the message being wrapped into a buddy cop movie was brilliant in my opinion. It both ties into the current political climate with highlighting current topics of prejudice and its relation to law enforcement, as well as placing the message a layer below and the movie working as a regular film outside of this and could give it even more longevity because of that.
Some of the jokes were also very funny, e.g. the whole "naturists" scene and a lot of well executed references ranging from obvious (The Godfather) to more subtle (Breaking Bad). The only joke I found a bit overdone was the Sloths at the DMV, but it's possible that is because I saw that joke before.
However, the movie has two plotholes in hindsight: 1) If it was the goal for the main villains to create panic and divisiveness to utilize fear as a political weapon, why didn't they dose their victims and turn them savage in more public settings. This could be explained away by the cover-up things up but the villains could make it that it wouldn't be possible to do a cover-up at all. 2) Why exactly was an otter targeted and why was he does where he was? Otters aren't exactly thought of as dangerous to other mammals. Considering the large variety of predators choosing an otter seems bizarre. This could be explained in attempting to make all predators a potential threat, but it still seems odd. Worse is them targeting him while in Mr. Big's limousine at night. Wouldn't it have been easier, and to 1) above, more panic-inducing to target him during the day at his job as a florist?
Still, do I think this is the best Disney movie ever? Yes, I do.
Stargaze is a movie I owned in VHS back in the day, so watched it many, many times. But not for about 18 years or so!
I find it impressive that some things that used to be a cause of awe and wonder can now feel so provincial or basic. A wormhole to another world? In Stargate that's worth about thirty minutes of screen time.
I guess there are things that seem impressive in movies now, but in 20 years time will just be common plot points. Maybe things like going into the brains or memories of people, like Inception or Inside Out.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is a movie I'd considered watching for years. I'd heard good things about it, but mostly middling to bad reviews.
Last night we wanted to tick off a "long movie" which we never feel like watching if we pick something from the Netflicks list late at night. It could have been Zodiac, it could have been The Aviator, both of which I'd seen before and both great movies. But I'd not seen A.I. so we settled on that.
The first 30 minutes is passable, but then it goes down hill fast. It also has the worst John Williams score ever.
I'd also heard that if you stop the movie 30 minutes from the end, when the voiceover starts when David is underwater, it feels like a different movie, and isn't so bad.
So I paused it then, and went to the toilet and stuff. And you know what? It wouldn't have been so bad. Not a good movie, but a movie with a troubled production and all the flaws that brings.
And then we pressed play again. Within 20 seconds I turned it off again. It gets REALLY bad REALLY quickly. I wish I hadn't have seen even those 20 seconds, and my opinion of the movie and everyone involved would have remained slightly above rock bottom.
Juliane wanted to carry on though, so we played it to the end, as it got worse and worse on both a story, acting, directing and general movie-making level.
Holy fuck, that's a bad movie. It's only the second movie this year to go into the "I heard/remembered it was bad but was worse than I could imagine" category. Comparable only to the Incredible Hulk. I guess William Hurt was in both? Poor guy.
I watched A.I. ages ago, and only once, but found it deeply boring. While I don't plan on re-watching it, the Movies with Mikey episode on it was pretty good.
I've pushed most of it out of my brain, but your description is accurate. Beginning good, then WTF.
The beginning wasn't good. I said it was passable. As in, if the movie had stayed that quality throughout, or finished at that point, I would have said it was an okay movie. But it didn't stay at that level. And it didn't end! It kept on coming up to the end of the movie, and then there would be another ending after that, and then another after that!
I put on Godzilla (2014) as background watching a few nights ago. Watching it turned into my main activity about half way through. I was underwhelmed by it in the cinema, but it kept my attention throughout this time. Maybe lowered expectations help a movie on the second watch.
I was disappointed by the (low) amount of Cranston in that. Seemed like dude was only in it for 15 minutes and then the rest was his son I don't care about.
Finally watched Tale of Princess Kaguya last night (Netflix delivered it late last year). I liked it quite a bit, mostly for the style and animation, not so much for the story or characters. Katie didn't like it so much, the ending was one that retroactively made the whole movie worse for her. She couldn't get around the whole disconnect between what Kaguya was saying at the end (life is great and happy!) versus what the movie showed (life is happy sometimes, but mostly sucks). I understand that feeling, but I bought fully into the fact that the story is based on a folktale, and those rarely end in a happy place, so I didn't expect anything else.
Overall I think it's definitely worth a watch, but not something I would go out of my way to watch again.
Now just need to watch When Marnie Was There and I'll be back at 100% Ghibli films.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was better than I expected it to be. It had a few dud moments, but some scenes had me in hysterics.
Along with this and the latest Mission Impossible movie giving me all the spy action adventure I need, I don't mind the utter garbage that was Spectre being such a snore-fest.
Compared to Life of Brian, the enduring quality is nowhere close.
I watched Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, which was more of the same of the first movie, which is a very good thing. The visual comedy was very strong, and I enjoyed the many movie references.
Comments
It was straight-to-video bad. It wasn't even the 'it's so bad that it becomes funny/entertaining' sort of bad. No, no. It was the 'who gave this much money to a team of teenagers who failed creative writing to make a movie' sort of bad. The plot is non-existent. The conflicted nature of villains doing something heroic is never addressed. There are too many characters to even properly introduce them all, and the ones who get an introduction are inconsistent, uninteresting, and their so-called powers do not in any way make them useful for fighting the boss at the end of the film.
For a film with such a diverse cast, it contains some incredibly racist and sexist imagery, stereotypes, tropes, and dialogue. I could write a book of criticism regarding the handling of Katana alone.
Oh, and all the 'Harley and Joker are fun and entertaining in this movie' rumors are complete BS. Harley Quinn is a one-dimensional cliche from a a bad porn film and the Joker, who barely appears, is all makeup and poorly written dialogue. Even Jared Leto's wealth of talent could do nothing with that character.
I want my time back. I want my money back. I want the image of Harley's butt cleavage purged from my mind.
Man, this is going to absolutely FUCK traffic.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/6580232
The movie itself is a BBC production with Meryl Streep(!) and Hugh Grant. Streep's ability to mimic Jenkins' style of singing is incredible, and with her and Grant's performances, it's at turns hilarious, tragic, and touching. I'd recommend it.
I also very much liked the message and the story. Yes, the movie is a bit obvious with it but it is a movie targeted at a younger audience so that is kind of expected. However, the message being wrapped into a buddy cop movie was brilliant in my opinion. It both ties into the current political climate with highlighting current topics of prejudice and its relation to law enforcement, as well as placing the message a layer below and the movie working as a regular film outside of this and could give it even more longevity because of that.
Some of the jokes were also very funny, e.g. the whole "naturists" scene and a lot of well executed references ranging from obvious (The Godfather) to more subtle (Breaking Bad). The only joke I found a bit overdone was the Sloths at the DMV, but it's possible that is because I saw that joke before.
However, the movie has two plotholes in hindsight:
1) If it was the goal for the main villains to create panic and divisiveness to utilize fear as a political weapon, why didn't they dose their victims and turn them savage in more public settings. This could be explained away by the cover-up things up but the villains could make it that it wouldn't be possible to do a cover-up at all.
2) Why exactly was an otter targeted and why was he does where he was? Otters aren't exactly thought of as dangerous to other mammals. Considering the large variety of predators choosing an otter seems bizarre. This could be explained in attempting to make all predators a potential threat, but it still seems odd. Worse is them targeting him while in Mr. Big's limousine at night. Wouldn't it have been easier, and to 1) above, more panic-inducing to target him during the day at his job as a florist?
Still, do I think this is the best Disney movie ever? Yes, I do.
I find it impressive that some things that used to be a cause of awe and wonder can now feel so provincial or basic. A wormhole to another world? In Stargate that's worth about thirty minutes of screen time.
I guess there are things that seem impressive in movies now, but in 20 years time will just be common plot points. Maybe things like going into the brains or memories of people, like Inception or Inside Out.
Last night we wanted to tick off a "long movie" which we never feel like watching if we pick something from the Netflicks list late at night. It could have been Zodiac, it could have been The Aviator, both of which I'd seen before and both great movies. But I'd not seen A.I. so we settled on that.
The first 30 minutes is passable, but then it goes down hill fast. It also has the worst John Williams score ever.
I'd also heard that if you stop the movie 30 minutes from the end, when the voiceover starts when David is underwater, it feels like a different movie, and isn't so bad.
So I paused it then, and went to the toilet and stuff. And you know what? It wouldn't have been so bad. Not a good movie, but a movie with a troubled production and all the flaws that brings.
And then we pressed play again. Within 20 seconds I turned it off again. It gets REALLY bad REALLY quickly. I wish I hadn't have seen even those 20 seconds, and my opinion of the movie and everyone involved would have remained slightly above rock bottom.
Juliane wanted to carry on though, so we played it to the end, as it got worse and worse on both a story, acting, directing and general movie-making level.
Holy fuck, that's a bad movie. It's only the second movie this year to go into the "I heard/remembered it was bad but was worse than I could imagine" category. Comparable only to the Incredible Hulk. I guess William Hurt was in both? Poor guy.
Overall I think it's definitely worth a watch, but not something I would go out of my way to watch again.
Now just need to watch When Marnie Was There and I'll be back at 100% Ghibli films.
Along with this and the latest Mission Impossible movie giving me all the spy action adventure I need, I don't mind the utter garbage that was Spectre being such a snore-fest.
I watched Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, which was more of the same of the first movie, which is a very good thing. The visual comedy was very strong, and I enjoyed the many movie references.