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Movies seen in 2023

Aftersun - sweet, touching, heartbreaking. Paul Mescal is my new spirit animal.

The Son - Tense, domestic drama with a tragic ending. Not sure what Hugh Jackman was doing in it, I rarely can lose myself in one of his performances, there's always a try-hard aspect to them. Devastated by the end, was almost sorry I had watched it after.

The Banshees of Inisherin - what Wacky and Menty said. Barry Keoghan is amazing, although he seems kind of the same in real life when he's accepting awards so maybe it wasn't such a big stretch, lol.
 
Mirah said:
I watched White Christmas with my mom the other night. It might have been in 2022, I don't remember. But it was an enjoyable movie. I liked it.
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I've told this story before, but I knew someone in the cast. One of the featured dancers, most prominently seen in the artsy Danny Kaye number "Choreography". She was the mother of a friend of mine who has also been an actress and cabaret singer. We did "Godspell" together in the early 90s, which is how I got to know them.
 
I am currently 3/4 of the way through Jurassic World Dominion after attempting to view it in 4 sittings.

I don't think I'll be finishing it.

I loved the first film when I was younger, thought the 2nd movie was okay. As for the rest: I vaguely remember JP3, saw the first Jurassic World flick and thought it was average and probably best to call it a wrap on the franchise. But all good things are not allowed to end anymore, so they made another (which I haven't seen) and now Dominion.

It's one thing I didn't expect from a Jurassic flick, and that's boring. The dinosaur scenes were better realized and choreographed in the original. And I read they're still not done. Guess it's like Bay's Transformer films - they're rubbish, but they still pull in the big bucks. <shrug>

Although in defense of Transformers - they're dumb movies, but dumb can still be fun and there's plenty of eye candy (CGI and otherwise).

Except the last one with Hopkins; that was just unbearably retarded. Really liked Bumblebee though.
 
Yes, genetically engineered to eat all crops apart from the ones biocine make, but noone figures out biocine is behind them.

I also saw murder mystery 2, if you didn't like the first one, you probably won't like this one, but it does have four decent laughs in it, so better than most of his recent films.
 
whisky said:
YI also saw murder mystery 2, if you didn't like the first one, you probably won't like this one, but it does have four decent laughs in it, so better than most of his recent films.
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Very relatable. I too have trouble not eating whole wedges/blocks of cheese.
 
Scream (2022) - Yeah it should be called Scream 5 really. The name does kind of make a bit of sense by the end at least. I liked the first Scream but all the sequels kind of merged into one. This one was pretty good though. Quite funny and a lot of brutal stabbings. I would say the weakness was that there were too many characters. It tries to inroduce a whole new "requel" cast while also featuring the three main characters from the originals. The new cast struggle a bit by all somewhat being new versions of characters from the old movies. Neve Campbell only comes in for the third act and really you could have left her out the movie and it wouldn't have made much difference? David Arquette on the other hand actually gets a good part and does some good acting. Anayway I enjoyed it well enough and hopefully the new cast get to shine in the next one without having to share screentime with the old people (and with half of them dead.)
 
Operation fortune, a Guy Ritchie film about spies, with Audrey Plaza doing ADSM.

It's ok at most. It thinks it's cleverer than it is.

Some what I presume is an English rapper is in it, but he sounds distracting like Ryan from Doctor Who.

Lots of violence but for some reason very little blood.

Jason Statham phones it in, Hugh Grant at least gives maximum sleeze.
 
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) - I enjoyed it. Very old fashioned in how it looked and the soundtrack (DANGER ZONE) and the topless beach homoeroticism and that's what the public want! The plane stuff all looked really great as of course you know Tom Cruise demanded to nearly fly a plane into a mountain himself with no safety net the crazy fucker. The Val Kilmer scene was handled well. It doesn't really do anything clever or subversive but if you just want fun eighties' style action it will satisfy you. It was funny how they purposely didn't name whatever country the enemy were, or even show their faces in the dogfight at the end. I guess so they could release it anywhere in the world and say "no, it wasn't about Russia, honest!"
 
whisky said:
Operation fortune, a Guy Ritchie film about spies, with Audrey Plaza doing ADSM.

It's ok at most. It thinks it's cleverer than it is.

Some what I presume is an English rapper is in it, but he sounds distracting like Ryan from Doctor Who.

Lots of violence but for some reason very little blood.

Jason Statham phones it in, Hugh Grant at least gives maximum sleeze.
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I managed an hour before I had to turn it off. It feels like everyone is there for a paycheck. It's supposed to be an unserious, breezy spy film, but it's just devoid of any charm at all. Guy Ritchie, Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza and Hugh Grant is quite the line-up of talent but this one just doesn't work at all. Everyone looked bored. Doesn't help that I recently rewatched the masterpiece that is Snatch a few weeks before either.
 
ABORTED

Ghosted (2023) - Gave up about 35 minutes in when it became clear that even the action scenes were going to be bad. The lesson here: don't watch a movie just because Ana de Armas is in it. Watch Blade Runner 2049, Knives Out or even No Time To Die but definitely read reviews for any of her other films. This was bad and not worth my time.
 
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In what seems like forever, I decided to watch a new Marvel movie. This time Quantumania.

My enthusiasm for the franchise started to slide as Phase 4 rolled out. Enjoyed WandaVision and Loki; didn't half-mind The Eternals & thought Shang-Chi was great. COVID had knocked us out of the habit of going to the movies, so we finally made the effort to see a Marvel flick post-lockdown - Dr Strange 2. Very disappointing. We had Disney+ so decided we'd just wait for them on the streaming service. I tried persisting with the Disney+ shows. I pushed through to the end of Ms Marvel. Managed half an episode of Hawkeye before I realized I just didn't care anymore. When Thor: Love & Thunder came to Disney+, my already waning interest took a Thelma & Louise off a cliff.

So, I came into Quantumania with low expectations and no vested interest. Honestly, it was okay. A very unchallenging watch with lots of pretty CGI to stare at and a few moments that made me smile. But as I was watching, I started to feel like I'd seen it all before - particularly towards the final act. Okay - time for the colorful CGI extravaganza. Again.

The movie's performance does not reflect the quality of the movie, IMO. Had this been released pre-COVID, I think it would've got bums on seats. I genuinely think there are many fans such as myself who have Marvel fatigue and either wait for the streaming debut or have just checked out entirely. Certainly so far as the casual audience, there's not the same hook anymore. Previously you had the top tier lineup in Iron-Man, Thor and Captain America heading the franchise, with the looming shadow of Thanos gradually manifesting across the three phases. The conclusion to the first 3 phases was a triumph. And now, we just keep going and we're asked to patiently wait for the next multi-phase arc to get going. Well, this it - Kang is revealed. And ... meh. He was acted well enough by Majors, but so far as setting up the next Big Thing, I just didn't feel it. The post-credit scene didn't make much of an impression. Apparently something bad is coming. The Multiverse is dying. I mean, those stakes are off the charts - it's not really relatable.

As of now, nothing has really come of this Multiverse thing that they've been trumpeting for the past few years. Lots of colorful portals and circles of light and incursions / variants, but it doesn't feel like there's any larger narrative actually moving forward. I don't even know what's next for Phase 5; I hope they get some momentum again and perhaps get away from such a predictable formula.
 
Hard ticket to hawiiee, 1995.

Saw a terrible film with my friend while we drank beer. The film has no known actors, terrible writing, and tits every ten minutes.

It's stupid enough to be entertaining despite itself
 
Hitman, the Timothy Olyphant version.

I liked it, very authentic to the game, not sure how much anyone who had not played the game would like it.

Desmond from lost has a small part, ironically as someone's brother.
 
Tetris (2023) - It's a movie about the rights to a video game, so how exciting could it be? Well it involves the fall of the Soviet Union, KGB agents and the infamous disgraced businessman Robert Maxwell, so pretty exciting! It's based on true events but a lot of it is obviously exaggerated, particularly the KGB stuff (there's a car chase! There was no car chase in real life!) Taron Egerton is very good as Henk Rogers, the man who secured the rights to the game for Nintendo, but it is kind of wierd they cast a white guy as a real life person who isn't white? It's well acted and well made, but there are still a lot of scenes (especially early) of people standing n a room saying things like "I have the computer rights, not the console rights!" which might be boring or confusing if you aren't into video games (or even if you are.) I enjoyed it anyway.
 
Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Heartwarming, funny....all the feels. I'm glad the rumors of them killing off two of the Guardians wasn't true. That's how you do a Marvel movie.....I'm looking at you Quantumania and Thor: love and thunder.
 
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