I Just Watched (Films)

[Hatredsheart]

The troll is ( in my eyes) the only iffy part of the 4k transfer as all cgi is 2k upscaled and here it's quite noticeable.
Huge upgrade over the bluray though, goodbye to the god-awful green tint and hello to much better colour and black details in hdr.
You'll enjoy Two Towers in 4k, at Helms Deep you can actually see what's going on.

[Animalmother]

Helms Deep and the cavalry charge in the third film are the highlights of the three films for me.

[Abs_McBain]

Anyone wanna watch the greek play Oedipus Rex? Yeah, it won’t let me link the video directly here.

[Lenny Solidus]

School Ties.

Brendan Fraser /Matt Damon /Chris O'Donnell /Cole Hauser / Ben Affleck/ Anthony Rapp and the late Ed Lauter, now that is one hell of a cast if I may begin with such a thing.

Long before Brendan would be universally known and loved as Rick O'Connell he took on the main character of one David Greene, a promising young football player who enrols into a very notable school on a scholarship during the late 1950's. While it is not exactly on par with something such as say Dead Poets Society, the then still mostly unknown much promise of future star quality cast are all there, especially with Damon. It is of course Brendan's highly charged incredibly memorable acting take that carries the movie and makes the underlying message firmly hit home. The friendships, the secrets, that all important (sometimes forbidden) first love and the constant mounting pressure from the on site teachers who show zero empathy for anyone as an actual person, only something to be moulded into another 'Gentlemen winner destined for global recognition' and one that meets all the highest expected standards that fall in line with the name and reputation of the school.

Writer Dick Wolf based everything on his own personal experience here, which makes the on-screen struggle David goes through all the more poignant in nature, this movie was a first real look at Fraser's fantastic dramatic acting ability that would only really begin to be recognised when he joined the cast of Doom Patrol as fan favourite Cliff Steele and before he became, George of the Jungle. Movies such as this and another personal favourite in The Lords of Discipline give us an insight into how these institutions can bring someone in who duly earned the right to be present and witness the oh so nefarious types who will do absolutely everything within their power to see them walk back right out the door.

8/10

[Animalmother]

Everything Everywhere All at Once

I don't really know how to describe this film other than it's very odd but also very enjoyable. A Chinese woman who owns a laundry business that's going down the tubes and is having problems with her family and the revenue discovers she can access multiple universes. As I said very odd with strong Terry Gilliam vibes going on. Some amazing slap stick fights that go to some weird places.

[Raid]

Everything Everywhere All at Once I don't really know how to describe this film other than it's very odd but also very enjoyable. A Chinese woman who owns a laundry business that's going down the tubes and is having problems with her family and the revenue discovers she can access multiple universes. As I said very odd with strong Terry Gilliam vibes going on. Some amazing slap stick fights that go to some weird places.

It's such a bizarre film, but I absolutely loved it.

Spoiler

The sci-fi elements, in the end, don't matter at all. It's all about love. This had me pretty much bawling at points.

This might be the best role I've seen Michelle Yeoh in, I'm not sure how she sells this ridiculous concept this well, and HOLY SHIT THAT'S SHORT ROUND.

I was not expecting to enjoy this half as much as I did.

[Alan]

I bloody loved Everything Everywhere! Fairly sure it’s my film of the year so far. It’s wonderful.

James Hong is always great and it’s good to see him still churning out roles. He’s 93 now! Been a while since I watched Big Trouble….

[Raid]

I think if you can get over the lack of any real logic, the film is basically one long set of non-sequiturs, it's just so much fun. There were several points where I was properly laughing. I saw it last night because it's just popped up on Prime, so I'd say it's a no-brainer if you have access.

I watched The Man From U.N.C.L.E last week, which was also surprisingly good. I wonder if I (and seemingly everyone else) entirely blanked on this one on release because of bad memories of the other kitsch-60s spy series remake (The Avengers) that came out a couple of decades earlier, but I had a very good time with it.

[Alan]

Nope

That was pretty disappointing. It’s good but it’s just good, it’s way down from his other films. It has some great audio visual moments but a lot of the minute to minute falls flat. The guy with the reflective helmet was the culmination of that which left me wondering why they decided to run essentially a bad SNL skit that didn’t fit in at all.

It’s fine.

[Raid]

Thor: Love and Thunder

This is a pretty colossal mis-step of a film, and massively disappointing as Thor: Ragnarok was probably my favourite MCU "solo" outing. While Ragnarok was colourful sci-fi fantasy full of humour, this is a tediously pedestrian "working alongside the ex" story with an entirely unnecessary subplot which actively drains any of the fun out of it.

Spoiler

Who thought that giving Jane terminal cancer was a good idea? Who is is that wanted a miserable condition that affects huge numbers of people and ruins lives in their fantasy escapism? Maybe I could have maybe understood it if being Mighty Thor was some sort of cure or delaying tactic, but Jane's superhero fantasy kills her. There's absolutely no causal link to any of the fantastical elements of the series, no suggestion that Thor or Mjolnir are somehow radioactive, Jane simply has stage 4 cancer, and none of that Asgardian medical magic that gets explicitly shown off a few films earlier is even mentioned.

It's feels like someone at Disney thought that cancer patients needed representation in film, and didn't want to show a mystical cure because it would be unfair to show the happy aftermath. Thankfully not having any personal experience with cancer (I know a few survivors, but I wasn't around at the time they were fighting it) I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. Jane becomes a superhero and defeats the bad guy despite being destroyed by a horrible illness, maybe it's supposed to show strength despite adversity or something, but it really doesn't do a very good job of describing that to the audience if that's the intent.

[Achtung Englander]

Everything Everywhere All at Once

I lost interest when I could not make sense of it.
2/10

[Wrathbone]

Thor: Love and Thunder

This is a pretty colossal mis-step of a film, and massively disappointing as Thor: Ragnarok was probably my favourite MCU "solo" outing. While Ragnarok was colourful sci-fi fantasy full of humour, this is a tediously pedestrian "working alongside the ex" story with an entirely unnecessary subplot which actively drains any of the fun out of it.

Spoiler

Who thought that giving Jane terminal cancer was a good idea? Who is is that wanted a miserable condition that affects huge numbers of people and ruins lives in their fantasy escapism? Maybe I could have maybe understood it if being Mighty Thor was some sort of cure or delaying tactic, but Jane's superhero fantasy kills her. There's absolutely no causal link to any of the fantastical elements of the series, no suggestion that Thor or Mjolnir are somehow radioactive, Jane simply has stage 4 cancer, and none of that Asgardian medical magic that gets explicitly shown off a few films earlier is even mentioned.

It's feels like someone at Disney thought that cancer patients needed representation in film, and didn't want to show a mystical cure because it would be unfair to show the happy aftermath. Thankfully not having any personal experience with cancer (I know a few survivors, but I wasn't around at the time they were fighting it) I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. Jane becomes a superhero and defeats the bad guy despite being destroyed by a horrible illness, maybe it's supposed to show strength despite adversity or something, but it really doesn't do a very good job of describing that to the audience if that's the intent.

I enjoyed the surface fluff and fun, but otherwise I have to agree. You could simply remove that subplot and the story as a whole would be much the same, only not so tonally erratic.

On the plus side, I thought Christian Bale's performance was excellent - one of the best MCU villains. Russell Crowe's performance... crikey.

[Raid]

Oh I'm entirely certain that Crowe's performance was spot on for what the director wanted - that character was clearly meant to be hammy as anything. Bale was fine I suppose, though I didn't think he did anything particularly interesting, nor did I feel particularly sympathetic for him despite an obvious sympathy-inducing backstory. Frankly it felt like the sword was the main villain.

And while we're on the topic of weapons;

Spoiler

What was with the sudden anthropomorphising of Thor's weapons? It didn't really work for me and just felt a bit tonally-odd - it sorta interfered with the whole ex-girlfriend subplot because there were effectively two identical threads to it and they couldn't make their minds up which ex Thor was pining for. Admittedly that shot of Thor talking about Mjolnir while Stormbreaker jealously crept into shot did raise a chuckle, but I don't recall that ever being a thing in the series before and makes Thor himself look like he's going a bit odd. Do magic weapons have personalities now?

I think despite the problems I had with the subplot mentioned above, I could have enjoyed the surface fluff had it been particularly good, but it wasn't nearly as funny or cool as Ragnarok was. There's certainly no "Piss off, ghost!" (one of the funniest, best-delivered lines I think this series has had) or slow-motion leaping onto the rainbow bridge wreathed in lightning to the soundtrack of Led Zeppelin. The scene with the kids at the end was kinda fun I guess, but as a whole this one felt a bit phoned in.

[Lenny Solidus]

Thor: Love and Conflicted

Every scene that revolved around Bale, that's what the movie should have been for 60 to 70%, that energy right there. Every single one of those scenes was better lit, better staged, better acted and well, just everything. It felt like a superior movie at odds with an inferior one, and it utterly pains me that Taika thought this was the movie people wanted to see after how great Ragnarök was. It misses the mark on so many fundamental levels it's kind of staggering, like Taika suddenly forgot who he was while the entire mock theater experience practically became the actual experience. Yes, Christian Bale was its saving grace and the one thing that kept me from turning it off as his delivery in every scene that focused on him was brilliant, but there just wasn't enough of him and tonally it doesn't make up for the absolute dirge that is the rest of the film.

Thor deserves better than this, was it just me or did Chris Hemsworth resemble an animated fucking toy for most of the film? If I seem bitter it's because I'm quite a Thor fan and have been since Branagh first introduced us to him. There is plenty of space to have all the different aspects of the character without the need to go as far as this does, it's all just a step too far and in the wrong direction.

3/10

[Wrathbone]

If I seem bitter it's because I'm quite a Thor fan and have been since Branagh first introduced us to him.

Same here. The less said about Thor 2 the better, but the first film I think is criminally underrated in the MCU. As much as I like Ragnarok, turning Thor into a full-blown comedy character has cheapened the whole thing. It worked for one film, it even worked with him as the comic relief in Endgame, but the comedy in Love and Thunder is too much clowning around with too little substance. The worst thing is that I don't see a way back from it - if you go back to the more earnest Thor seen in the first film and compare it to what he is now, it's a totally different character. This is what we're stuck with.