What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[bikingjahuty]

Jason and the Argonauts was one of those movies growing up that was in regular rotation. I loved the stop motion special effects, the cool adventure story based in ancient Greece, and just thought the movie was awesome overall. I watched a very rough upload of this film on youtube several years ago and since have wanted to see a good quality version of it to see if this movie still hold up for me. I eventually did find the DVD and I can say that the movie is still great, albeit very cheesy a times. There are several lines of dialogue and how they're delivered that are incredibly hammy and the King of Culcus is so over the top in all his lines he comes across as more comical than anything. This does little if anything at all to distract from this movie's charm and also the things I mentioned above which still hold true to this day. After watching Jason and the Argonauts it just made me wish that there were still people like Harryhausen doing stop motion effects in live action films; these types of effects just feel so awesome and special despite not looking as good as most modern CGI. Definitely give this one a try if you like films like Clash of the Titans and The Beast from 20000 Fathoms.

[bikingjahuty]

I remember renting one of the Sinbad movies when I was a kid, but I could never remember which one. After a little research, Eye of the Tiger seemed to be everyone's favorite so I decided that I'd reintroduce myself to this adventure series through this one. Also, if you didn't make the connection from my previous entry in this thread, I wanted to see more Harryhausen special effects, and the creature effects in this movie are often considered some of the best he ever did, so it was a no brainer to watch this specific Sinbad movie. Too bad all the Harryhausen effects and creatures in the world wouldn't make this movie enjoyable.


I will say right off the bat, yes, the creature effects are excellent in this movie, especially the Troglodite vs Sabertooth Tiger battle at the end. There is also a stop motion baboon which is also very well done. That is where my praise ends. The story is very uninspired, and the pacing of this film is terrible. I found myself bored as hell through nearly the whole film, again with the exceptions of the Harryhausen stuff. And then there's the acting...oh the acting! I've seen few feature films with acting this bad, especially from people in lead roles. Particularly by the main villain, a extremely campy sorceress, and the love interest of Sinbad, who is played by a very youthful looking Jane Seymour. I have not seen many Jane Seymour films, but I pray that this early role of hers was just a sign of how bad her acting used to be and not how bad it still is. There are also several lines that made me facepalm hardcore, particularly a pretty racist joke that one of Sinbad's crew mates says to another black crew mate. I had to rewind it and watch it again because of how cringy it was, and what made it even better was Sinbad's and everyone's reaction afterwards. It's sad because if the pacing was significantly improved this might be a decent movie, even if it fell into that so bad it's good category. But as is I never want to watch this movie again, and is definitely up there with some of the worst films I've ever seen.

[kamikazekeeg]

Ended up dropping Punisher Season 2 around Episode 9.  Got most of the way through, but honestly I'm starting to skim through parts that are driving me to pure boredom, much like it did with Jessica Jones Season 2.  I think the action can still be good (Though one part had some very obvious bad CG blood) and Bernthal is totally good as Frank, but I just don't care about the subplots.  They are back to 13 episodes, which is a problem, because if they just chop out most of Russo's stuff with the doctor and the federal agents subplot, and made the other plot line with the assassin better, it could be a very snappy and intense 10 episodes.  Too much time spent humanizing Frank and dragging things out.

Very disappointing.  I really have no hope for Jessica Jones now and if these last two shows are cancelled, I'm fine with it.

[bikingjahuty]

Here's another movie review today. For the record I'm sick right now with a terrible virus so I have a lot of extra time on my hands. The best way I can describe it is the worst cold you can imagine along with the life draining qualities of the flu, it's great. But anyhow here's the mini review.





I feel like I had to wash the taste of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger out with a Harryhausen movie I knew I liked. Clash of the Titans was one of those movies that growing up I never got to see the whole thing; I'd catch parts of it on TV and every time I'd get super excited, but for whatever reason I never got to see the movie in its entirety until my late teens. I've really liked this movie since then and seem to rewatch it every few years or so.


This movie is truly Harryhausen's masterpiece when it comes to creature effects and design. Particularly the Medusa scene which is probably one of the most famous pieces of 80s special effects there is. The scene is still very tense, very atmospheric, and Medusa just looks freakin amazing! And that's just one scene. The whole movie is filled with cool creatures and effects, and the story, acting, and plot itself is also pretty cool and interesting itself. I also like the portrayal of the greek gods in this movie too as it seems to be more consistent with how they are often portrayed in old greek literature as being petty, jealous, and spiteful beings, even among themselves. Overall the movie is just great and definitely a must watch.


I think I'm going to take a break now from Harryheusen films for now, unless of course I stumble upon Valley of Gwangi somewhere soon, but seeing how this movie was just brought to DVD/Bluray for the first time recently I doubt that'll happen.

[Cartagia]

Not been keeping up with this lately!

Future Man - Season 2
Not nearly as good as S1.

Glass
Pretty good, but some real questionable choices in there.

The Punisher - Season 2
Starts off pretty great, but generally loses steam by the end.

Bird Box
Liked this a lot more than I thought I would.  Not great but pretty enjoyable.

Roma
Gorgeous and emotional, but also about 10-15 minutes too long.  It feels like a 1950s French New Wave Film, with all the pros and cons that come with.

[Cartagia]

I saw Vice last night.  Christian Bale and Amy Adams are fantastic - most of the supporting cast is great as well, but a couple lean too much on just doing impressions.  However, the tone is all over the place.  It can’t decide if it wants to be a romp through Cheney’s history or a somber reflection on his legacy.  Still good enough, but could have much better if it chose a style and stuck with it.

[bikingjahuty]

I know a few people on here wanted to know my opinion on Solo: A Star Wars Story. Since I absolutely refuse to give Disney another cent of my money I essentially had to wait until either a) it showed up on Netflix, which I had little faith in happening since Disney is in the process of removing all their content from the service given their ambitions to start their own streaming service, or b) I found it used on DVD for under $5, since buying it used would mean Disney wouldn't get any of my money. Luckily, depending on how you look at it, Disney extended an olive branch to Netflix and gave them the rights to offer Solo streaming, which is more of a smallpox blanket rather than a gift.

Before I get into what I thought of the movie, which you can probably already tell where this is going, I went into watching Solo with as open of a mind as possible, and trust me it was not easy. The Last Jedi killed nearly all my interest in the future of Star Wars and certainly killed my faith in any and all future contributions Disney made towards this once legendary franchise. But still, I cleared my mind, calmed my anger and pessimism and began watching Solo expecting not to really like it or hate it either. One more thing; there will be some spoilers ahead so if you have any interest in watching this movie and have not, I recommend stoping now.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is at the very best a below average space fantasy movie about uninteresting space outlaws trying to repay a space crime syndicate by stealing space petrol. At the worst this movie is a terrible Star Wars movie that feels like Star Wars maybe 10% of the movie since none of the established characters, save Chewie, feel, look, act, sound, or behave like the characters we're being told they portray. Combine these two aspects and you have the making of a crappy space cowboy movie masquerading as a Star Wars movie, and the second worst Star Wars movie I've seen, second only to The Last Jedi.
As mentioned, none of the established Star Wars characters in this film resemble their original trilogy counterparts whatsoever, or at the very most, barely do. Let's go for the low hanging fruit first; the guy who plays Han looks nothing like him, and his mannerisms, the way he talks, and various things he does in the movie are nothing like Harrison Ford's Han Solo, especially since in Disney's Star Wars canon, this movie is supposed to take place like 10-years prior to A New Hope. In no way does the Solo Han resemble the Han in from the original trilogy, nor can I by any stretch of my imagination see how he becomes the guy we are being told he is supposed to be. This really kills any belief throughout the movie that I am at all watching an origin story about one of the most important characters in all of Star Wars. Lando is barely any better. The guy who plays Lando poorly impersonates Billy Dee Williams' Lando, but worst of all they've established him more as an awkward curiosity that's sexually attracted to droids than the character we see in Empire Strikes Back. Speaking of the droid Lando is "into" in this movie...

The original characters in Solo are terrible and forgettable, well that is with one exception, the droid L3. This droid might be the most obnoxious, pointless, and profoundly stupid character in all of Star Wars. Political pandering and social agenda allegory aside, L3's thing is she is all about "droid's rights" and this is done in the most ineffective way you can possibly spread your beliefs; by screaming it at others. Yes, that's exactly what this droid does and just about all it does during the 25-minutes or so it's in this movie. But wait, there's more! The droid is hilariously killed during a large slave uprising that it initiated, and during a large firefight that ensues, it shouts "Rebellion" and "Resist" out in the open with no mind to the lasers buzzing past its head and the explosions all around it before it gets shot multiple times and destroyed. I laughed out loud at this part, partially because of how comical its death was, but also how Disney was obviously using this droid to politicize Star Wars yet again. But it gets even better! You thought all Disney could do is ruin established, beloved characters while trying to push uninteresting, underdeveloped characters on us? Wrong! In an attempt to save L3 after it dies and also to get out of a predicament during the Kessel Run scene, they upload this obnoxious political mouthpiece droid into the Millennium Falcon. While this allows them to navigate out of Kessel area, it is also makes L3 one with the Millennium Falcon; that's right, every time you see the Millennium Falcon now, you now know that possibly the most annoying character in all of Star Wars is the brains and soul of the Falcon. Thanks Disney! Other than this, every other original character is pretty much forgettable and at no point during the movie was I at all interested or invested in what was happening to them.

There are various other issues I had with this movie including Disney's insistence on claiming that all ships run off "Hyperfuel" which was the catalyst for a slow speed chase scene in The Last Jedi, weird continuity errors even when this movie is looked at just through Disney's contributions to the Star Wars universe, and the movie just being plain boring most of the time. However, I did not hate the entire movie. I liked the Kessel Run scene, minus the Falcon being turned into a Big Red, I thought the final conflict between Solo, Beckette, and the main bad guy was okay, however my final gripe about this movie will be the big surprise at the end where Qi'ra, Han's boring girlfriend, communicated via hologram with Darth Maul who for reasons ignites his trademark double bladed lightsaber mid conversation with her before disappearing again. This scene, which could have been a lot cooler, came across as very lazy fan service and barely got a reaction from me. But then again, barely anything else in this movie felt like Star Wars so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing even if it was little more than Disney essentially being like, "oh remember him! He was cool, remember!?"

What's sad is Solo: A Star Wars Story does damage to the established franchise just like The Last Jedi, however so much damage was already done during the The Last Jedi that any additional damage from Solo was in essence like someone stabbing a corpse. Sure it's irritating, but what's done is done; Disney has killed new Star Wars and sadly I don't even know if Episode IX actually being as incredible as Empire Strikes Back could resurrect this franchise. Of course, we all know it won't be that good and personally I am counting on pretending that Disney's Star Wars doesn't exist and the old EU they retconed wasn't essentially turned into professionally done fan fiction. Star Wars is dead and in a coffin 6-feet under, Solo was simply a dog walking by and taking a crap on it's grave.

[pzeke]

AMC had a gangster movie marathon of sorts, and they recently aired A Bronx Tale. I had forgotten how good that movie is.

TNT also aired A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, so I of course watched them.

[kamikazekeeg]

Got to the Tangled world in Kingdom Hearts 3 and realized that I had never seen the movie.  Rather than see a chopped up version of the film, figured I'd just go watch it.  Overall it's not bad.  The humor really stood out, along with the animation, which reminded me abit of what Hotel Transyalvania would do after this, though that was much more cartoonish.  The musical stuff didn't really do much for me, not that it can't, there was a thing or two I liked in Frozen, but the songs here just never really clicked like those did. It's a good watch though.

[kypherion]

This movie rocked. Glass was such a good way to end the trilogy and as always with M. Night Shyamalan the movie had a great twist.
Personally I thought James McAvoy did an incredible job portraying all the personalities in the movie. I thought he really captured what a person with DID acted like (to a degree). Overall a 9/10 and would recommend.

[kamikazekeeg]

Just burned through the first season of Kingdom, the new zombie drama on Netflix.  It's actually pretty solid.  Seems like Korea is nailing it with the zombie flicks with this and Train to Busan.  It's a very solid drama set in I assume the 14th or 15th century Korea, so guns are very few and are musket type weapons, battling more with bows, swords, and spears.  A lot of the drama revolves around dealing with the royal family, fighting for control to rule, while dealing with a growing zombie epidemic.  What works is that it never feels like the the personal drama of the royal family or any other of the main characters takes over any part of the story and drags down the important story of dealing with the zombies.  At times, there's a few points where some of the elements seem a little cheap feeling, but nothing too bad.  I recommend it if you like zombie stuff and don't mind something international.

Also it is confirmed to get a second season, which is great after the cliffhanger they left (Only 6 nearly hour episodes), but sadly won't get that till next year.

[tripredacus]

The Grudge
Another large jump from A to G, due to Groundhog Day... Interesting to watch the making of portion on this, which I have been doing if time permits. I had some mixed up memories about this movie and I'm not sure why. Am I thinking of the sequel or perhaps some other movie? We'll know soon enough.

[kamikazekeeg]

Finally got around to watching the Seven Deadly Sins on Netflix and overall I liked it.  At first I thought it was gonna be like Fairy Tail, but thankfully it's designed more around a normal season feel it seems than ridiculously large arcs, so it doesn't drag much at all.  The downsides are that some characters are super obnoxious.  I hate the lead Meliotas most of the time, as he's either in a mood of "Perky, don't give a fuck" or "super serious tough guy" and when you combine that with his constant groping of Elizabeth, who just lets him, it makes him incredibly unlikable.  Hock (The pig) is another one of those fiesty mascot character types who only gets more insufferable as the show goes on.  Most everyone else is fine, though why everyone puts up with Gowther is fucking beyond me.

What works is that the overall story is fun and gets really dark at certain moments, but sometimes that is undercut by seemingly never letting characters die that should die or stay dead.  Some super minor characters die, but they aren't anyone that you could even remotely care for and feels like a cop-out.  Sure, none of the Seven Deadly Sins are likely going to die, that's the name of the show, but the big sad moments would be more impactful.

It's nothing amazing, but when the show was actually trying to be good, it works.

[Flashback2012]

[bikingjahuty]

Having heard mixed things and having mixed feelings about this movie, I went into watching it last night with fairly even expectation, not really thinking I'd be blown away by it, but also no hating it either. It turns of that this ended up being the best time I've had at the movie theater in easily over a year, maybe longer. Alita: Battle Angel is not only anime/manga live adaptations done right, it's just movies done right. This movie doesn't try to push any other agenda, it doesn't try to be something it isn't, and it does warp the source material into something that suits looking at focus group pie charts and graphs want shoehorned into a movie. This movie is fiercely loyal to its source material, almost to a fault, which is why it is so great to watch. It also shines through that the people behind this movie cared about and loved the source material too since there is so much attention to detail.


The CG looks excellent throughout, with the mo-cap for faces being the best I've seen since Avatar. The sets, props, and characters all look excellent and unique, while still being very true to the aesthetic of the manga. The acting is also pretty good, with a few cringy and edgy pieces of dialogue and scenes here and there, but nothing that takes away from how excellent this movie is. Not mentioning the various action scenes this movie would be an enormous disservice to it; nearly every action scene is just freakin awesome, fast paced, and detailed as hell! It's easy to see why this movie took so long to make given how much effort was put into making sure every shot of every scene captured the awesomeness of the source material. There are certain scenes as well that get you very emotionally invested as well, which is something I can't say many movies are good at doing anymore.


After leaving the theater I couldn't help, but want more and hope that this movie succeeds so sequels can be made and so more movies like this are made, manga/anime adaptation or otherwise. Unless I am forgetting something, this is by far the best live adaptation of a manga/anime I've ever seen, and I absolutely recommend this movie to anyone, even if you are not familiar at all with the Battle Angel Alita manga or anime. I may actually see this movie again in the theater, it was that good!