The last movie you've seen thread 2016

[WVdemocrat]

So glad I found a thread to discuss Jurassic World in.

So, if you can't tell by my sig, I am the biggest goddamn Jurassic Park fan in the world. I've seen all three films a million times (I've even seen JW twice now), I own 3 copies of all three films, I own both novels, and I am just all around a huge fan. The novels and first two films have some great philosophizing about the ethics of what InGen does and some great scientific discussion.

Anyway, onto JW. I saw the new film at a 7:00 showing on June 11, at a nearby Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas. I wore one of my many Jurassic Park t-shirts, and I got there. Boy, was there a long line. I arrived two hours early, and most everybody was already there. BTW there was a dude dressed in a pteranodon outfit. Seriously. He was f***ing awesome, I got a picture with him. Anyway, so the movie: it was really good. Overall, that is. The characters were trite and there were a number of cheesy moments, but overall it was a very welcome installment and the second best sequel.

The first scene was what I was hoping a lot of the movie would be like. I was hoping they would talk about the Indominus more in depth and give a little more background on her and for Pete's sake make her more sympathetic, but they really didn't. She acted like a serial killer, which I didn't like. One of the main points of the series is that the dinosaurs are animals. Even if they filled in the genome with the DNA of other animals, and even if the Indominus is a genetic bouillabaisse, it should still act like an animal. However, there was one scene where Owen discusses the fact that Indominus was raised in isolation, and how that has had devastating effects on her psyche. I wish the film portrayed her more as a scared animal which is seeing all of this for the first time, and is lashing out at everything around her, but it didn't.

The trained raptors subplot was executed very well actually. Going into the movie, some people had qualms about turning the vicious raptors of the original trilogy into tamed, docile pets would be cheesy - turns out it wasn't like that at all. Owen is far from having them eating out of his palm (as Hoskins would say). I will say though, I didn't buy their switch to being subservient to the Indominus. These are the velociraptors. They are the stuff of nightmares, and throughout the film they constantly switch sides between two creatures (Owen and Indominus) who they should know have their own interests. It felt like Trevorrow had clearly defined good and bad dinosaurs with this plot point. The fact is that they are animals, they aren't good or bad, they kill indiscriminately and take orders from no one.

Hoskins was a good, if trite, villain. His plan (which I thought would appear in a JP movie someday, but definitely not in JW) was very interesting. The Navy uses (or used) dolphins for discovering bombs underwater, why couldn't we use velociraptors? I was very happy with Henry Wu's role in the film. I was especially happy with his scene with Irrfan Khan's Masrani. The dialogue in that scene was taken directly from Michael Crichton's original novel. I was very happy to see that included. InGen, interestingly, has sort of become a private security firm (read: evil) under Hoskins. Maybe all of InGen hasn't gone that way, and maybe it's just whatever division Hoskins is the head of. Wu escaping the island was a very tantalizing sequel hook, I'm interested to see where they go with that.

Jurassic World didn't feel like a Jurassic Park movie and I don't know why. It's very obviously a Marvel-era film. It has a lot of Marvel-esque humor.

While I did enjoy the nostalgia trip of returning to ruins of Jurassic Park, I wish they did more with it. There were rumors that the characters would encounter a dilophosaurus (the frilled dinosaur that kill Wayne Knight's character in the first film), it didn't end up happening. Which leaves me with the question, "Why is this area restricted in the first place?" Shouldn't Masrani have bulldozed over this stuff during the construction of the new park. It felt sort of shoehorned in. Also, for most of the movie, they are away from the visitors. I feel like the whole appeal of the open park storyline is that you can see some high scale carnage. The attack by the flying reptiles was nice (Zara's death was f***ing brutal BTW), but I wanted to see more of that. Quick note on the flying reptile attack, I loved the Westworld-style irony when the kindly voice comes over the loudspeaker and says, "Visitors, due to a malfunction in containment, we ask that you take shelter immediately," and then a swarm of f***ing PTEROSAURS comes over the Innovation Center. I wish there was a more satirical tone, like what we got in that scene. It was really great.

Gee, I've been criticizing this movie a lot, haven't I? I want to talk about the things I liked.

I loved Wu in this movie. He's much more like his character was in Michael Crichton's original novel. I liked that. Wish we could've seen more of him, but it looks like he'll be back for JP5. I like the characters/acting/dialogue. I was surprised by the script. From early reviews, I thought it would be awful and cringeworthy. It really wasn't. It was far from Oscar-worthy, but it's actually not half bad. I loved Irrfan Khan's performance as Simon Masrani in the film. Too bad he died. Jake Johnson as Lowery was very good. His character worked well as comic relief, unfortunately I doubt he'll return in JP5, and if he does, he'll probably be shoehorned in. I actually loved Jimmy Fallon's and Jimmy Buffett's cameos. They were both really funny and I am so glad to see some of my two favorite things together - Jimmy Fallon and Jurassic Park. How great. Also, the raptors' deaths at the hands of Indominus were very brutal. Indominus really beat the sh*t out of them. Really great stuff.

Oh, and how could I forget? The dilophosaurus cameo (in hologram form) was great. Hopefully in the next film, we'll see it in the flesh.

Overall, the film is an 8/10 for me.

That places in the ranking of the JP films...:
1) Jurassic Park (9/10) - Obvi.
2) The Lost World: Jurassic Park (8.5/10) - I know this one gets a lot of hate, but it's a good movie.
3) Jurassic World (8/10) - See the previous million paragraphs.
4) Jurassic Park III (6/10) - It was a cheap cash in. There was a lot of unused content from the novels around which to base a third film, but this one was just pointless. And the Kirbys were annoying as f***. They wasted William H. Macy's talent here.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Last week I rewatched Kill Bill and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of the 2000s, and Fury Road was great fun and refreshing for all the reasons people have been saying it's refreshing (which isn't to say it's a work of genius).

I also saw Young Frankenstein. I'd forgotten how inexcusably paltry and objectified Mel Brooks's female roles are. It's not that he isn't funny, but I think it should be taken as a serious blight on his ability as an artist.

[bedstuy]

Last week I rewatched Kill Bill and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of the 2000s, and Fury Road was great fun and refreshing for all the reasons people have been saying it's refreshing (which isn't to say it's a work of genius).

I also saw Young Frankenstein. I'd forgotten how inexcusably paltry and objectified Mel Brooks's female roles are. It's not that he isn't funny, but I think it should be taken as a serious blight on his ability as an artist.

Frau Blücher!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Last week I rewatched Kill Bill and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of the 2000s, and Fury Road was great fun and refreshing for all the reasons people have been saying it's refreshing (which isn't to say it's a work of genius).

I also saw Young Frankenstein. I'd forgotten how inexcusably paltry and objectified Mel Brooks's female roles are. It's not that he isn't funny, but I think it should be taken as a serious blight on his ability as an artist.

Frau Blücher!

NEEEIIIIIGH

(In all seriousness: Not objectified, but still kind of paltry. Still immense fun, though. Cloris Leachman is wonderful.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Wicker Man, Dracula, and The Curse of Frankenstein as part of my private Christopher Lee memorial marathon.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I can't remember for sure, but I believe it was The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with Ingrid Bergman.  I'm thinking I may go to see Love and Mercy, the new Beach Boys movie.

[Middle-aged Europe]

More Christopher Lee... The Devil Rides Out

[checkers]

I caught The Forbidden Room last Sunday night. My first Guy Maddin. I thought it was beautifully filmed, and I loved his use of old movie tropes to create a dream-like atmosphere, but ultimately it dragged on a bit, and I felt that his dreamscape did not tap into any universal unconscious in a way that some other surreal pieces I've seen do. Without that emotional content it seemed very much surrealism for surrealism's sake, and I didn't think that it was clever or inventive enough to justify itself in that way. Still, worth watching, and I'm eager now to see My Winnipeg.

I also recently saw The Seventh Seal (obviously great) and The Room (obviously not, but among the most enjoyable experiences I've had in a cinema).

[Deus Naturae]

Went to the movie theater for the first time in a while to see Avengers: Age of Ultron Haven't seen any of the others, and I thought it sucked. This makes me wonder if the other ones were overhyped and just sucked as well?

[HillOfANight]

Went to the movie theater for the first time in a while to see Avengers: Age of Ultron Haven't seen any of the others, and I thought it sucked. This makes me wonder if the other ones were overhyped and just sucked as well?

I've seen Iron Man 3, all Thors, all Captain Americas, and both Avengers. Also agreed the Ultron sucked. Nice action, but lots of wasted time at the farm, bar, dream sequences.

Give Captain America 2 a try, it's my favorite of the pack. I like that Captain is not super powerful.

Just saw Inside Out. Maybe because it was a late Saturday, but I was reallly really bored and completely disappointed. Joy (Amy Poehler) was also annoying.

[Eraserhead]

Random Acts of Violence (2012)

Somewhat interesting premise, fairly lousy execution.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Pretty much fantastic.

[Knives]

Inside Out is sensational, it will destroy you tho. I swear at one point the entire cinema was in tears.

[Dancing with Myself]

Watched Manhunter (1986,) recently and loved it.

It's Hannibal + Miami Vice.  It's young Michael Mann + young William Peterson, it's a lot of things mixed together to make an epic 80's flick. Such a shame it bombed in 1986 but in hindsight it was one of the more underrated films of that year.

TBH I prefer it more than Silence because it's nowhere as brutal or violent. Yes the violence is harsh and it's dark but it's much more a police/profiler film. It oddly enough inspired CSI to be possible so Peterson inspired his future job.

It also has one of the best 80's soundtracks too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWq1MtI3vI

[Anti-Bothsidesism]

Avengers age of Ultron. I may watch Inside Out.

[Mr. Smith]

I finally got around to seeing Inside Out, it's safe to say that not only is Pixar back, but back with a vengeance.

[SATW]

Entourage

[WVdemocrat]

Just got back from seeing Inside Out. If Pixar was ever gone, they're back.

This is a beyond fantastic film, and dare I say...Pixar's best film ever. Those are my initial thoughts, I might post an extended review tomorrow, or maybe not. We'll see.

Anyway, it's a FANTASTIC film, well worth the price of admission. Really, really good stuff.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Victoria

A German real time single-shot thriller, set between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. in downtown Berlin. Basically they took the concepts of Twenty-Four and Birdman and ran with it. It's worth the watch, even though the plot naturally requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief.

Despite being a German film, the majority of its dialogue also happens to be in English, because the protagonist is a Spanish woman who doesn't know any German and therefore communicates with the other characters in English the whole time.

[WVdemocrat]

The Big Lebowski.

I actually haven't seen it before and summer is usually the time I binge watch crazy sh*t on Netflix because school's out. Anyway, it was really good as I expected. Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are just fantastic in this. Julianne Moore was also great. I was surprised at how well John Goodman is at playing a crazy-a** 'Nam vet.

It would be an insult to the quality of The Big Lebowski to rate it on a scale of one to ten. Just know that I loved it.

[WVdemocrat]

I saw Terminator: Genisys last night, and while it's receiving mixed reviews from critics, I really think they're being harsh on this film.

This film revists the events of the first Terminator film through a different lense, and then veers off in a completely different direction.

The film returns Arnold Schwarzenegger to the title role (major plus), the T-1000 returns (albeit briefly), and a new nanobot Terminator (the T-3000) is introduced. By the way, if you've seen the trailers, you know who the T-3000 is. It was indeed a MAJOR SPOILER, and yes, the trailers shamelessly revealed it. BUT, I digress. The fight between the T-800s (ie Arnold vs. Arnold), as teased in the trailers, was totally f***ing awesome, as expected. My only complaint is that it was relatively short, only about a minute or so long. This movie jumps around time quite a bit. Some people consider it confusing, I don't. I thought it was done very well.

Nobody can say they phoned this one in. Clearly a lot of effort went into making this movie, and in many ways, it paid off. This movie is fantastic science fiction.

Terminator: Genisys is a 7.5/10 IMO. It's well worth the price of admission.

[Gass3268]

Inside Out

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, it's called Terminator Genisys? Seriously?

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moK7nE_UCqU

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Saw Spy last night--it was pretty good.  Also saw Inside Out and Jurassic World in the last few weeks.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I saw Max with the family on Tuesday.

[Mr. Smith]

Re-watched Independence Day, which I do every Independence Day.

It's a guilty pleasure I guess you could say.