Recently Watched Movies

Hotel Transylvania

Kerrick wrote:

Kerrick wrote:

ThomasEversole wrote:I liked the movie Eli on Netflix.  There's some parts in there that didn't feel realistic to me (cheesy), but it hardly ruins the movie.  Lots of twists in this one.  Like you think one thing thing is going on the first half of the movie, then an hour in you think something else, then the last 30 minutes is like "What the..." - I didn't think the movie was going here.

The trailer didn't really grab me, though after reading this... I am intrigued!  I may have to check it out.

I started Eli last night.    I'll let you know what I think of it when I finish it.  With my busy work schedule, housework, and family stuff... I have to watch movies in short bits over multiple evenings while my wife puts the kiddo to sleep.  I'm not very far in, but so far it seems pretty decent!

So how was Eli? I have it on my watch list for now.

MikeInFla wrote:So how was Eli? I have it on my watch list for now.

Eh...  Personally, I didn't care much for it.  It did have a couple twists towards the end: the first was not surprising at all but the second twist... ha, well I didn't see it coming.  So it gets points for that I guess.  But the whole buildup was pretty standard-fare and cliche IMO.  It relied heavily on the usual jump scares and ghost tropes that actually didn't make any sense when it came to the story.  And the ending was totally ridiculous.

There are far worse movies out there, but there are also many other better ways to spend your time in my opinion haha.  I did appreciate that it was not overly foul, had no sex/nudity, and as far as horror movies go, was not too violent or gruesome (though there are a couple intense parts towards the end).  But without giving too much away, don't expect it to be theologically correct...

I have a movie related long time goal, and that is to work my way through IMDB's Top 250 Movies. Of course, this list changes as new great movies come out, but like I said, it's a long time goal. This past weekend I watched two of the movies on the list to get me up to 60%. Or actually just a little more, since I've watched 151 of the 250. The two movies were Prisoners and Cool Hand Luke. I enjoyed both

HenrikB wrote:

Andreas89 wrote:I watched Miss Congeniality with my wife. We both liked that movie before we even dated (which started in 2011), but somehow we never watched it together.

We still enjoyed it after all these years

That's one of the movies my wife and I never get tired of Have you watched the sequel? Not as good, if you ask me, but still definitely worth a watch if you like the first one.

Yes we both have (also very long ago). Not as memorable as the first part, partly because of the surprising elements being not so surprising anymore. But I think that as soon as it hits Netflix in Germany that we'll watch it again.

HenrikB wrote:I have a movie related long time goal, and that is to work my way through IMDB's Top 250 Movies. Of course, this list changes as new great movies come out, but like I said, it's a long time goal. This past weekend I watched two of the movies on the list to get me up to 60%. Or actually just a little more, since I've watched 151 of the 250. The two movies were Prisoners and Cool Hand Luke. I enjoyed both

Cool Hand Luke is great!  I've seen that one numerous times.  Paul Newman was amazing in it.

I've never seen Prisoners but thought it looked pretty good.  You'd recommend it?

Kerrick wrote:Cool Hand Luke is great!  I've seen that one numerous times.  Paul Newman was amazing in it.

I've never seen Prisoners but thought it looked pretty good.  You'd recommend it?

Yeah, I'm not surprised at all that Cool Hand Luke is in the Top 250 movies. Really good movie, sort of a feelgood movie despite the pretty sad setting and really sad ending.

I posted about this on another forum the other day, and one of the members on there wrote a spot on comment, so I'll actually quote him: "Prisoners is a top notch drama in every department.  For me it has Hugh Jackman's best performance of his career so far, as well as being another showcase for the formidable talents of Jake Gyllenhaal and director Denis Villeneuve". Jackman really does an excellent job portraying a desperate father, and one thing that stuck with me about Gyllenhaal's performance was his facial tics. Can't be easy to keep doing it for an entire movie.

Finished up Mindhunter on Netflix and watched a few episodes of Prank Encounters. It's not great but OK and the episodes are pretty short (if they were any longer the show probably wouldn't be very good).

I recently finished watching the Chinese suspense flick Hide And Seek.  (It's a remake of a Korean movie which is supposedly better but Netflix only had the Chinese one.)  I thought it was quite good.  It gets a little over-the-top towards the end, but overall I thought it was decent and I'd recommend it.  The basic plot is a wealthy family-man's long-estranged brother goes missing and there's a mysterious person masked with a motorcycle helmet (maybe his brother, maybe not...?) committing violent acts who's somehow linked to it all.

Terminator: Dark Fate

LOL, this franchise has also gone all female. Perhaps it should be called 'Girls Night Out'.

I watched a couple silly vampire comedies lately.  The first was Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat.  It was a lot of fun.  Super corny and pretty light, though quite enjoyable.  While overall it was fairly predictable, the conclusion to the big vampire battle at the end was pretty unique I thought.  The second was Bloodsucking B@st@rds which tried to blend Office Space with vampires and while it had some fun moments, overall I thought it was just too derivative and not particularly well-written to fully enjoy.  There are far worse flicks out there, but I probably wouldn't recommend unless you're especially bored haha.

Diamonds Are Forever. My wife and I are very much into old Bond movies. Actually almost anything until Daniel Craig got the part.
Yes, we like our promiscuous killer classy and subtle.

Yesterday (2019).

Star Wars:  The Rape of Skywalker......errr.....I mean the Rise of Skywalker.


Just for the record, I have found this new trilogy to be completely unnecessary and mostly uninteresting.  Disney/Abrams/Johnson have mastered lazy storytelling and fan service with this.  They have ignored even their own Disney canon set forth in the new books.  George Lucas should cry himself to sleep every night for selling this.

Last night we went to Star Wars:  The Rise of Skywalker

It was well worth the 2 year highly anticipated wait!
This will rank 5 in my personal top 5 Star Wars flicks.
Top 2 of the modern era Star Wars flicks just behind Solo.
It was a wild ride! That's for sure! There was a LOT of fan service- which of course was AMAZING! But there still is a lot of unanswered questions that made the story a bit jumbled.
However, I definitely recommend you see the movie in theaters, if you haven't yet! But it's not really kid friendly (there are several moments that would scare them).
Still can't believe the Star Wars trilogy sagas are over!
I am so impressed with the soundtrack too. I'm listening now on YouTube until it becomes available for purchase.

We have been sick the last couple of week, all four of us. Combined with Christmas, we have had quite some movie viewing.

Dunno if I remember all of them, but at least we saw It's a Wonderful life, Elf, The Ugly Truth, How to lose a Guy in ten Days, The Princess Diaries, Moonraker, A View to a Kill, You Only Live Twice. So yeah, Christmas movies, rom coms and James Bond movies.

Muppets Most Wanted

Runaway. That Tom Selleck vs Gene Simmons and his army of tiny robots film from the 80s, better than you'd think.

Ha! I remember that! Well, not really because I have never seen it but I remember the trailer for it. man, it looks dated.

oldschooldoom wrote:Joker

Joaquin will get noms and awards

And 4 months later watched BIRDS OF PREY.

Warning, do not waste your time or money on this Harley Quinn biopic. It's nothing like the first and definitely not like Joker. Senseless profanity and violence throughout.

oldschooldoom wrote:Joker

Joaquin will get noms and awards

Saw it too recently. Good film, but incredibly dark and downbeat (which was the point, admittedly ).

What a delight from 1957
Funny Face
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050419/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FznWwWrOIQ

Everyone telling me I gotta see
Contagion (2011)
I don't want to see any Hollywood hyped up apocalyptic sensationalism, so I avoided it...until today. Glad I watched it. You should too. For being almost 10 years old, this star studded movie has striking similarities to what the world is going through now. Almost uncanny as if the script for the current C19 virus was written years ago. It shows what the next steps could be. It's a movie to watch to the very end.

We've promised my youngest we'll watch Frozen II this evening now that it is on Disney +.

All three Jumanji movies


Freaks (a Netflix movie)


Breakthrough