Veltigar

I feel like they mellowed a bit with age. Old Rick and Morty was the college kid with no responsibilities, now they are on their second job and have learned a lot about themselves so to speak. I'm also going to use this place to give more love to the Pope. Loved Mort: Ragnarick the most of all the episodes this season.

Watched the season finale of Rick and Morty season 7. Not as good as the Pope episode that came before, but still highly enjoyable. If they can keep up this level for the remaining seasons, I'd be happy, as it is very comforting to spent time with these characters. That sounds like a diss When Deadlines dreams about the Snyder Cut, he isn't dreaming of an extended version of the Justice League!

Man, I am not on here for one day and the board has basically torn itself to shreds with these pointless discussions... Of course Top Gun: Maverick is awesome. For shame that I need to intervene again after stopping the Scott Civil Wars. I hope you all find it in your heart to be better in 2024. I feel like that's a reveal that warrants spoiler tags

I tore through the remaining episodes of Blue Eye Samurai. It's very good, though not quite on the same level as Arcane. I could pretty much copy-paste my review from the first three episodes, as I think it holds up rather well now that I have seen the whole thing. Amazing animation, excellent action and good characters. One thing I didn't remark on is that it clearly loves Samurai films and much of its more ridiculous moments stem from an obsession with paying homage to those roots. Accepting it on those terms however, is not very hard. I have come around to the idea that while the star forged sword and magical flowers annoy me a bit, I still can enjoy the result a lot. I think the show is better when it focuses on simpler, more realistic things but even outside of that, it's still a towering achievement. There are a lot of individual scenes and story telling devices that I'd like to give a shoot out to I think the best episode featured the story of the Oryo and a bit more information on Mizu's back story. I was also very happy to see that

Based on the recommendation of the board, I decided to give Blue-Eyed Samurai a try. I am now three episodes in and I have been enjoying myself so far. That being said, there are elements in this series that I both hate and love. On the love side, I think the visuals are great. Love the aesthetic and the way the action is rendered. I also think the voice work is very strong and that the characters are well-drawn out for now. It sort of feels like an R-rated update of the type of story ATLA season 1 tried to tell, which I also think is quite a good basis for solid entertainment. On the bad side of the ledger, the series relies a lot on tired cliches. I roll my eyes whenever someone uses a sword to do something completely impossible like cutting down a thick tree of chopping down a table in half. Since this show tends to do that quite a lot, it does break my immersion. I also puked a little in my mouth when the story chose to foreground the fact that she made her sword from a fallen star... I know meteoric iron was a thing and perhaps I'd be more forgiving if this was set during the bronze age, but the inclusion of this type of cliché does make me a bit worried about the rest of the show.

Given the mentions of Hannibal Lecter in this thread, I was triggered to give The Silence of The Lambs another watch. I barely remembered it (I think I read the book and might have never seen the film in full) and have a much better recollection of its sequels, which used to be on television constantly. It's safe to say that I found out that the sequels are really inferior compared to the genuine article. I thought the film was really strong, with convincing performances by Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. I also thought the story was developed rather nicely (with perhaps the one exception of the first victim of Bill, which deviated from the book and is a bit puzzling) and that the focus on the roadblocks and advantages Clarice Starling had in law enforcement were executed exceedingly well. Sadly enough, despite the positive progress we have made since 1991, I think this is still far to identifiable for a lot of women. My favourite adaptation of the story will always remain NBC's Hannibal and Mads Mikkelsen remains my Hannibal, but I appreciate how strong this film was and how it basically paved the way for all what came after.

I had the good fortune to attend a screening of Godzilla Minus One. If you had told me at the beginning of this year that I would end up enjoying a Toho Godzilla film over Ridley Scott's Napoleon, Gareth Edwards' The Creator, Fincher's The Killer, Gerwig's Barbie, Scorcese's Killers of the Flower Moon and Nolan's Oppenheimer, then I would have declared you crazy, but it is exactly what ended up happening. This film is absolutely amazing. I was expecting a lot based on the positive reviews, but the film still managed to outperform even my wildest expectations. Really impressive to see how they were able to keep my attention engaged even though the titular monster only appeared in about 9% of the film (figure from IMDB Trivia). The characters were incredibly well-drawn, the themes were clearly articulated (I particularly enjoyed its praise for transparency, civilian oversight of military matters and in general its belief in the power of citizens to make a difference) and the action was amazing. The fact that this film cost only 15 million USD to make is utterly bewildering. That's lower than the budget of the American Godzilla from 1998 (unadjusted for inflation) and more than 10 times lower than Gareth Edwards Godzilla from 2014 (again unadjusted for inflation, so if you do that, the discrepancy is even higher). You can harp all you want about the historically low position of the Japanese Yen or the differences between the various systems, but if you see how good this film looks, there are a lot of people in Hollywood who should really do some introspection. If I have to offer three points of criticism I watched this scene on YouTube. I definitely never saw this film, because I would remember that

I was in the mood for some more action last night and after a quick search, I decided to try out Extraction 2. I have to say I had my doubts, since I thought the first Extraction film was rather unspectacular, but I was pleasantly surprised by how the film turned out. It definitely retains some of the same problems as the first film, namely that the protagonist is incredibly generic and that the villains are hilariously powerful (it is implied they basically own Georgia) until the actual fighting starts, but I did really like the first 2/3 of the film. The film can be divided into three action set pieces, with the first two being really enjoyable to watch, with lots of creative kills (and these are not just reserved for the protagonist, I thought his supporting team members were also given good slices of action). Unfortunately, it does run out of steam in the final act where it chooses to reduce the size and scale of the action for the standard morality play type ending we get a lot in action movies. Sadly, since I did not care for the main villain, nor the stakes, nor the protagonist really (despite a marked improvement in comparison with the first film), it just failed to really capture my attention. This, unlike the earlier henchmen-consuming melees and shoot-outs, which I would have loved to see more off. I also think it was a mistake to Anyways, this has given me appetite for a third Extraction film, which I didn’t think I would ever desire, so it is worth a watch if you like this type of film. I think I have seen it. Not sure whether I remember much from it, or confuse it with scenes from Escape from NY.

It's actually on my list to watch both the first and the second one this Christmas, as I have seen neither of the two Paddington films.

Terminator 2 can't even hold a candle to Terminator, which in and of itself is not as good as Aliens. This one gets closer, but still Aliens for me! I mean, sure, and the example is apt since they basically changed genre. But it hardly bats in the same league as Empire Strikes Back, Godfather 2, Top Gun 2, Road Warrior, For a Few Dollars More and naturally Aliens. I never actually dared to finish this but if this one counts, I'll be forced to nominate Grease 2 and no one wants that! Come on Ran, no love even for the Pope?

This is awkward, I have enjoyed season 7 so far. I agree that it’s not the best they have ever been, but the level remains reliably high and I came here specifically to say that I feel that the latest Papal themed episode they made was the first classic of the season! For the rest, I also watched Aliens. This film slaps so hard. Truly a masterpiece that would exhaust my entire arsenal of superlatives if I tried to describe it here once again. By far the best sequel ever made.

Rewatched Ridley Scott's Alien (I wonder what gave me the idea). It's a film I admire, but that I do not really love. Still, I tend to rewatch it every so often, since I feel like you cannot watch Aliens (my personal favourite in the franchise), without first watching Alien. This time around I paired my viewing of Alien with a long video essay about the film which I thought was rather good. It's always fascinating to see a breakdown of a classic like this, it always adds to the viewing experience when you get to discover the sources of inspiration for the film and what other people perceive to be the subtext.

Given the fact that most of the other material he starred in during that period is a variation of Dirty Grandpa, we all saw it as a given Load up the trebuchet boys!

I see that in my absence, the Scott Civil Wars have threatened to tear this board apart. As the self-proclaimed Pope of the Church of Scott, I would like to ask you all to look deep into your hearts. If you do this, you shall surely find room for both Tony and Ridley. The next step on your anatomic exploration, should be the mind. There I urge you to purge all memories of Days of Thunder, Domino, Exodus, Napoleon and so on. Just remember that Tony gifted us Top Gun and Ridley reciprocated with Gladiator. Let's now take a page from US Democracy and detach from reality to protect the Pax Frater Scott.

I guess we'll have to wait for the 4 h version to find out, but you'll have to do a lot of convincing for me to give that a chance.

The trick is, you don't go to see his bad ones Like, I have never seen Exodus and the Counsellor. All The Money in the World is a short so that doesn't count either. If you just follow that guideline the quality of his output markedly improves

I'm pessimistic about this because I don't think Phoenix works at all as Napoleon. Even if we did give that character more room to breathe, it would just be more of the same, since I don't see any meaningful evolution in his performance for the entirety of the film.

I have caught up on the seventh season of Rick and Morty. Good season so far. I don't think any of the episodes will become classics, but I also haven't watched any duds yet. It's just a reliable good time throughout, and as long as they keep at least this level, I'll be very happy to tune in every week. Also did not notice that they swapped the voices out until someone reminded me, so that's also pretty wel done. For me it was House of Gucci (no better place to release style over substance than there) and The Last Duel right before that I really thought was great. I want to believe @polishgenius I think that has been my problem all along. Seriously though, I always assumed I could tell which one of his many movies would turn out good (The Last Duel) and which one would turn out to be bad (Alien: Covenant, Exodus). Napoleon has shattered that assumption. I think pretty much all his children are in on the family business. He's still responsible for a lot of the storyboarding though. Apparently, he makes these drawings called "Ridleygrams" to map out his vision for a film. There was a good article about all this stuff in the Napoleon thread. Over the last couple of years he was doing fine though. So sad that he falters here. It was written explicitly to invoke the music of the time, so don't feel too bad about it

Most likely yes, otherwise the lawyers will have their field day. Good article you link to, as it gives even more context to why this choice is so baffling. I was just mad since I love Pride & Prejudice, and it felt wrong to have its most recognizable musical piece being defiled in this shit film. I feel like Ridley just wants to crank out as many films as possible and is not overly concerned with quality control anymore.

I don't think it's possible to save this train wreck.

I went to the theatre last night to see Napoleon and now I feel betrayed by Sir Ridley. Such a terrible film, I actually fell asleep a few times during whatever this was supposed to be. It's really a massive let down in comparison to Gladiator or The Last Duel or even the almost 50 year old The Duelists. I'm usually quick to excuse Scott's historical inaccuracies. His approach is not ideal, but if the story he tells is exciting, then who cares that he twists some historical facts the wrong way around. It's the overall vibe that counts. This film, however, baffled me by defecating on history without actually offering anything compelling in return. Like, the battle scenes in Gladiator are historical bull crap, but at least you get pumped when Maximus leads the opening charge in Germania. Here I was looking at the muddled interpretation of Napoleonic warfare and constantly asking myself what am I looking at? Who am I looking at? Why are they even fighting? And why should I even care? There are no stakes. Nothing is exciting or memorable. Phoenix gives one of the worst performances of his career and Vanessa Kirby is kind of there as well, but I simply failed to care for her, her relationship with Napoleon and that doomed this film since it's clearly the only thing it cares for. I also hated the score. Terribly lazy. It used 'Dawn' from Pride & Prejudice (2005) twice and it made me angry. That's such a special song, how dare they smear shit all over it by associating it with this raging garbage fire.

Let's not slam it immediately. I also thought some of the things in the trailer looked a bit funny (and I'm not just talking about the Hemsworth), but it's early days still and they might have a lot of work left to do on making the effects blend in as seamlessly into the practical stuff as in Fury Road. Plus, the fact that this will obviously be accompanied by a double billing with Fury Road might alone make it worthwhile :p

Or at least happier characters. Thanks for sharing the info. Hope your analysis ends up being wrong of course, but only time will tell

I got back from a trip with the incredible urge to reread the Dunk & Egg tales. Seeing how we cannot control the outcome, I try not to think too much about the long gaps in between ASOIAF content from GRRM, but finishing these three stories hit me hard. I really would like to get more stories about this pair. In fact, I think that in some ways I'm more invested in their story now than in the main story. Odd isn't it?

I got stuck on a plane and you know what that means, bad movie time! I managed to polish off the following movies: Mission Impossible II Get Hard Maffia Mama Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 Fast X I think it was the first time I saw any of these, with the exception of Mission Impossible II, which I had last seen about a decade ago. This is probably the worst streak of movies I have seen in a very long time. I'll review them briefly in turn. Let's begin with MI II. It's an absolutely dreadful film, which doesn't feel connected to any of the other MI films and is definitely more a John Woo film (past his prime) than it is an MI film. The most interesting about it is that the villain in this film was supposed to play the part of Wolverine, but he had to relinquish the role to Hugh Jackman due to the fact that MI II went wildly over time. Also interesting, Anthony Hopkins has a small part in this film that was first offered to Ian McKellen. He turned it down, as he was afraid it would interfere with his casting in LOTR and X-Men. If he had accepted, he would have had to drop out of both. We dodged a bullet there). The plot is stupid, the performances bad and the violence is laughably over-the-top, but feels nerved at the same time (forcing Woo to do a PG-13 film was not a good idea). Don't watch it, unless you are stuck on an airplane. Get Hard was a film that made me sad. I have a higher tolerance for Kevin Hart than most, but the pairing with Will Ferrell is utterly cringe-inducing. The film tells the "story" of a white collar criminal who hires a black person to teach him how to survive prison. It is probably the most homophobic film I have seen in quite some time. Pretty much every attempted "gag" or "joke" in this film was a variation on "you will get anally raped in prison, taking it in the butt is gay, so therefore you are gay". This film would not have been funny in the 1980s, it certainly isn't now. In Maffia Mama Toni Collette plays a fish-out-of-water American soccer mom who travels to Italy to take care of the affairs of her deceased grandfather. Her plan is to have her "Eat, Pray, Fuck" (the movies words, sigh) in Italy, but on arrival, she finds out that she's the grand daughter of an Italian mob boss and has been designated as his heir. I'm explaining the plot to you, because you have probably never heard of this film before and for good reason. None of the jokes land and since the jokes were the only thing it invested in, that leaves you with a black void of a film. Fast X was a relief. A relief since I had originally planned to see this in theatre and now I'm so happy that I didn't spent money on this piece of shit. I'm not the biggest fan of this franchise but I re-joined for Fast 9 and the Hobbs and Shaw spin-off. The spin-off was alright and Fast 9 was so ridiculous with sending Ludacris and Tyrese into space that I couldn't help but like it. This was far worse though and I don't even know where to begin with the critique. It's incoherent and the action has become rather boring, but that you could have said that of the previous two films in the franchise as well. I think the biggest difference is firstly that Jason Momoa's villain just doesn't work. He's annoying instead of menacing and his plans don't make any sense. Secondly, the film also made the mistake of foregrounding Vin Diesel's Domenic Toretto more than in the previous films mentioned (he wasn't in Hobbs and Shaw of course) and he's just utterly devoid of charisma. I have a soft spot for his Riddick, but he just stopped caring for the Toretto character. It's just a way to flex his ego and earn a pay check, but I can't believe out of that entire cast (which was sprawling and included some very talented people) it is him people want to see. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 then, is literally saving the best for last. I saw the first one when it came out and was deeply disappointed, so I never bothered with Volume 2. I popped it in on the airplane and I found it better than the usual Marvel film. It's still a far cry from a master piece and perhaps some of the enjoyment came from the comparison with all the subpar content I had consumed in the hours before, but I liked the performances. Ego was an interesting antagonist, but it was Michael Rooker who stole the show as Yondu