morningsong said:

rdhull said:

I give GT a 4.5

too predictable, especially the ending. That grapefruit scene, though, omg.

It was pred but still a lot of laughs with some great actors onscreen.

We came home Friday night and for some reason my wife ordered "Ghost in the Shell". I watched about fifteen minutes of it, which consisted mainly of ScarJo looking pensive and confused.

Then I fell asleep and would probably have not awoken but a buddy texted me. So I woke up, and there was still 20-30 minutes left of the movie.

Unfortunately, instead of taking a shower and going to bed, I stayed and watched the end of it.

It was another 20 - 30 minutes of ScarJo looking pensive and confused.

I thought this movie was stupid and unless someone can convince me that the middle 1.5 hours contained anything other than ScarJo looking pensive and confused, I rate this movie as 1 Dude With No Eyes out of 10 Dudes With No Eyes.

Serious question - With the possible exception of "Back to the Future II", has ANYONE ever made a movie where the future is bright and happy?

Irrelevant point - Unless Dish updates their pay-per-view movies tomorrow (which, dang it, they probably will), we are completely out of Dish pay-per-view movies that anyone in the house wants to see. In fact, the other day we also watched "The Boss Baby" but I fell asleep during that one, too. The only memorable line was when Alec Baldwin told some other baby "Cookies are for closers!" I was the only one in house that got the reference. So anyway, this means that now all we get to watch are Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell and The Rock action movies that I am stealing from the internet (and would gladly pay for, if NetFlix wasn't worthless and filled with nothing but Hitler documentaries). yay me!

namepeace said:

War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The weakest installment to date. The second act brought the film to a near halt. Billed as a "final showdown" movie, it was really Then Ten Commandments with apes. The effects were amazing, and the nods to the original series were neat, but still, it's the most disappointing film of the year thus far.

.5

I watched the first 2 installments on Foxtel the other night, and watched the new installment today. I agree with you about the special effects they were simply amazing.......especially that avalache scene. I too picked up on the Ten Commandments meets Apocalypse Now with apes theme eg. Woody Harrelson's The Colonel with very Kurtz like, and the Graffiti reading "APE-OCALYPSE NOW" on the wall was a nice little nod to the classic 1979 film. Nevertheless, I found the pacing a bit slow and predictable in the second half of the film, so I will give it a solid 4 out of 5, and the overall trilogy a 4.5 out of Looking forward to the next films in the series.

[Edited 8/1/17 0:01am]

RodeoSchro said:

unless someone can convince me that the middle 1.5 hours contained anything other than ScarJo looking pensive and confused

With the possible exception of "Back to the Future II", has ANYONE ever made a movie where the future is bright and happy?

The only memorable line was when Alec Baldwin told some other baby "Cookies are for closers!"

damosuzuki said:

peedub said:

wow. even with the dark tone, the culture and community on display really illustrates why western culture is so sick. but, yeah, what a great movie. kind of makes me interested in reading/watching 'death of a salesman' (which i haven't experienced since high school) to better understand what allusions/references i might've missed. 5/5.

i thought that movie was truly great. have you seen 'a separation' or 'the past' (also by farhadi)? if not, i think you'll find them very much worth watching. sexton will back me up on this, i'm pretty sure.

[Edited 7/28/17 19:52pm]

i haven't, yet. there was a whole farhadi section included with my filmstruck subscription, but i failed to take advatage of it before they switched up the menu. but i will for sure get them from the library. i enjoyed 'the salesman' immensely.

i've been watching all my favorite LA movies (and listening to their soundtracks) in advance of my brief LA vacation this fall...i'd forgotten how this one ended, and was initially shocked and then amusedly accepting of chance's fate. he was kind of a dick. great movie, great soundtrack. go friedkin! 4/5.

2045RadicalMattZ said:

kpowers said:

Finally got around to see this movie on DVD, give it a B. Was better than what ALL the Marvel haters out there said.

Why's it gotta be about "brand loyalty"... the MARVEL films have just been more consistently entertaining, and better.

DC started it with BATMAN (1989) but then ran that into the ground after Keaton and Burton departed. MARVEL picked it up with Spider Man (Tobey MacGuire) but also had the FOX properties (pieces of shit) X-MEN films... it's a remarkable achievement that LOGAN turned out to be such a great film.

That said.. SUICIDE SQUAD is one of the biggest pieces of crap I've ever seen... And I've Seen MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE, BONES (snoop dogg), The Pest (Leguizamo), Planet Terror (absolute p.o.s. - THE EXEMPLAR OF WASTED POTENTIAL)

Wasted finances, wasted momentum (coming off of those great Christopher Nolan BATMAN films, and the underappreciated BATMAN VS SUPERMAN) wasted actors, wasted advertising campaigns, wasted characters (with the gay-ass "joker's" scenes being deemed so awful they were excised like tumors from the film)....wasted potential

that "film" was the most CONDESCENDING, PANDERING piece of juvenille wannabe-corporatey-meeting-sourced-wannabe-hipster-material piece of excrement I've seen on the screen. It was as if you got a bunch of 50 year old execs and asked them to write something "HIP" ...funky fresh....with it, ma brotha. Fo shizzle.

Nobody expected anything good from another piece of crap like "Sausage Party" (how does this guy's films even continue to be made??)

...but suicide squad was God-awful.... geez...even got me thinking of that horrible ending with the gyrating mess of CGI turqoise enchantress...the moronic "girl power" condescending lines "you pussy!" (to a guy...WOW! Don't go there sister!)

The generic Prune faces.... the fact that there was no epic battle scene (probably more removed Joker stuff) and that the battle vs the prunes could not have more Will Smith reshoots to be turned into a close up action scene (with intercuts)....[if you'll notice, they're all secondary pulled back shots....meaning they were not intended to be featured]

I was pulling that "film" apart as I watched it... the girlfriend wanted to see it... (it figures)... what a piece of crap. I'll probably never get over how bad that film was and how frightened I am of the public that they enjoyed it.

Then again... Trump got elected.


Good God.... why did you bring up that movie? I've been trying to forget it

Coming from the Marvel fan

2045RadicalMattZ said:

kpowers said:

Finally got around to see this movie on DVD, give it a B. Was better than what ALL thevs the prunes could not have more Will Smith reshoots to be turned into a close up action scene (with intercuts)....[if you'll notice, they're all secondary pulled back shots....meaning they were not intended to be featured]

Good God.... why did you bring up that movie? I've been trying to forget it

Because I can

And for you Marvel haters always complaining about CGI, Hulk still looks very fake

kpowers said:

2045RadicalMattZ said:

kpowers said:

Finally got around to see this movie on DVD, give it a B. Was better than what ALL the Marvel haters out there said.

DC started it with BATMAN (1989) but then ran that into the ground after Keaton and Burton departed. MARVEL picked it up with Spider Man (Tobey MacGuire) but also had the FOX properties (pieces of shit) X-MEN films... it's a remarkable achievement that LOGAN turned out to be such a great film.

No. For the modern age of motion pictures it was Superman (1978) that started it, with the 3 following sequels spanning all the way until the late 80's (plus the Supergirl movie). And yes the last 2 Superman movies sucked especially part 3.

For Marvel it was Howard the duck

[Edited 8/1/17 17:47pm]

2045RadicalMattZ said:

Kpowers...that was coming from a FILM fan. SUICIDE SQUAD is a mixture of acid, bile and turd chased with piss and turmeric. Other dude. .yeah i suppose you're right....but modern era? That was 77/78? Wasnt it? If you go that far u might go back to Adam West batman feature film turd. And further the superman and batman matinees. QUEST FOR PEACE meant well, was better than part III but that's only cause III was such a waste of talent. I think the opening credits slapstick and the drunken Superman scenes are the only big positives (not counting knockers and Anette whats her name. ....good gravy if there was ever a reason to watch CAT PEOPLE) If i were a strictly "partisan" DC/MARVEL fan I'd be an ignorant ass.....and probably supporting IMAGE comics and THEIR franchise. ...... (cricket:::::::.....)

Yup talking about the summer big box office movies, don't forget Star Wars was the previous year 1977. Some say Jaws (1975) was the first big box office summer movie.

6/10

(I have to admit it made me LOL twice )

to the bone 2.5/5 anorexic girl tries an unconventional therapy program after umpteen failures. there are a few moments, mostly involving the other kids in the program, where you could feel a more inventive, interesting movie straining against the rote straightjacket this movie strapped the characters into, but far more often it felt extremely formulaic. hearts were in the right place no doubt, made with the best of intentions, and it may well be meaningful to some, but this felt cliched to me far too often.

[Edited 8/2/17 14:45pm]

2045RadicalMattZ said:

SUICIDE SQUAD is a mixture of acid, bile and turd chased with piss and turmeric.

kiki's delivery service 3.5/5 13 yr old witch & her cat leave home for a year of training. simple, uncomplicated fun, & 100% charming. only real flaw: no dialogue from the sarcastic cat in the last third of the movie.

This was supposed to be The Summer of Kurt Russell, with a side helping of Chris Penn. However, I just watched my second Mel Gibson Redemption Tour movie of the summer, which is one more than I have watched from the afore-mentioned Messrs. Russell and Penn. Could this actually be The Summer of Mel Gibson? I doubt it, and at least it isn't:





We watched "Get the Gringo" last night. We were supposed to watch it the night before, but a poker game got in the way. A minor kerfuffle erupted when I insisted that we all bet in order so as to not get confused. However, the other poker players were amateurs and did not realize that doing things like betting out of order, or playing a card when it wasn't their turn; or folding before the bet even gets to their hand, would get them shot in Las Vegas. Actually, I was tempted to shoot a couple people right then and there, but I decided a Second Amendment remedy was not in order.

So we put off "Get the Gringo" until last night, and we had a full compliment of guests alive to enjoy it.

I chose "Get the Gringo" for two reasons: Everyone seemed to be in the mood to watch Mel Gibson; and, "Get the Gringo" is the only movie available on NetFlix even remotely worth watching. How does NetFlix stay in business?

Seriously - all they have available are stupid teen movies from the '80's; the least-popular seasons of middling TV sitcoms; and Hitler documentaries. Man, do they have a lot of Hitler documentaries! But recent good movies, or classically good movies, or just good old fun movies? Not so much. Go ahead - sign onto NetFlix and search for any Arnold or Stallone or Bruce Willis movie, and you'll only get "Kindergarten Cop" or "Throw Momma From The Train". Oh sure, you can ORDER good movies but who waits a day or two nowadays for DVDs? I mean, you might as well be making your phone calls from pay phone booths or something.

So we were stuck with "Get the Gringo".

The movie begins with two clowns being chased by the police along the Texas-Mexico border. With a guest appearance by the Trump Wall! Clown #2 takes a bullet to the brain, thus losing his jocularity. Clown #1 drives like a maniac but can't elude the po-po. There's a mound of dirt along part of the Trump Wall (which is actually just sheet metal), so Clown #1 decides to do his best Joey Chitwood imitation and barrell-roll over the wall into Mexico, where freedom awaits!

Two problems: (1) Clown #1 fails to execute a complete Joey Chitwood-style barrell-roll, only getting as far as an Immelman Manuever but since he's in a car and not an airplane, this means he ends up on the Mexican side but on his roof; and (2) the Mexican police were parallelling the chase on their side of the Trump Wall, and immediately arrest both the alive Clown #1 and the dead Clown #2. The Texas police insist that all clowns belong to them, as the robbery they committed occurred on the American side of the Trump Wall. But the Mexicans see several duffle bags of cash and invoke a point of parlimentary procedure - namely, the Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers Initiative of 1963. They take possession of all clowns and clown-related contraband.

Both clowns are put in a Mexican police truck. One of the clowns is Mel Gibson. Guess which one?

If you guessed dead Clown #2, then you really have no business watching movies. Or probably playing poker in Las Vegas either, where despite my best efforts (SEE ABOVE) you would be sure to be shot for splitting kings at the blackjack table.

Mel Gibson is never tried in a court of law; instead, they just throw him in jail. They make up some charge, which allows the two Mexican police officers to keep Mel's loot. They immediately blow a lot of it on cars, hookers and blow.

Mel is in some kind of holding cell, where he naturally gets in a fight and then gets pummelled, seeing as how he is the only gringo in a jail full of 1,000 inmates. Then he and all the other prisoners get transferred to the main prison, which is a self-contained small town populated by both prisoners and their families. Mexican penal philosophy differs from ours in many ways.

Some ten-year-old kid introduces himself to Gibson by asking for, and then receiving, a cigarette. He tells Gibson that he is "special". Gibson takes this to mean that not many ten-year-old kids can smoke like he can, but what it really means is that the kid's liver is a match for that of the Boss Of The Prison, who has liver disease. To make matters worse, the kid's father had also been a match but when the original liver of The Boss Of The Prison failed, The Boss Of The Prison took the liver out of the kid's father. Seeing as how there was no replacement liver for the kid's father, he died. The kid naturally swears vengence. Mel Gibson naturally swears to help him. Awesome!

Gibson makes a couple of smooth moves, including dragging some dude off the toilet, bouncing his head off the commode to render him unconscious, and then stealing his gun and money. Because Mel did all this from outside the stall, the dude has no idea who conked him.

Then Mel robs all the cash from the Heroin Hut, which is where everyone goes to get some heroin. He creates a diversion by blowing up an ancillary building and while everyone runs around screaming he enriches himself, thus proving once again that the There's Always Money In The Banana Stand Theorem is scientific fact.

Now Mel has money and a gun. All he needs is a good woman! He finds a woman by hanging out in a small space just outside the good side of the prison. The good side is separated by an iron fence and on the good side, The Boss Of The Prison and all his buddies live like kings. Well - they live like kings of a slum, but still - they are kings. A woman, presumably a hooker, leaves the party and goes to Gibson's hidey hole. She doesn't know Mel is there until he blows some cigarette smoke in her direction. As a reward, she socks him in the jaw and then leaves.

But it turns out she is NOT a hooker. She is the special kid's mom! Mel finds this out when he goes to the special kid's prison home and smokes cigarettes with everyone there. There's a lot of smoking in this movie.

Remember those Mexican cops who stole Mel's loot? They are having a great time until some of Mel's criminal buddies find them. They understandably want all the loot back. After capturing and torturing the Mexican cops, they set up a video call with their crime boss. It turns out Mel and Clown #2 stole about $4 million, but the cops only found $2 million of it. And they spent $300K on cars, hookers and blow. No one believes the Mexican cops when they tell this to Mel's buddies, who finally get tired of their begging and blow them away.

For some reason that I forget, Mel hooks up with The Boss Of The Prison and tells him, "Hey man, you have a problem and I don't mean your upcoming liver failure. My boss is sure you have the rest of the money I stole and he's coming after you. But if you give me a car, some guns, and some money, and get me out of here, I will go to Los Angeles and kill him". Deal!

Gibson gets a Yugo, some old pistols and two grenades, and $20. Plus a new shirt and apparently a suit, which is good because in Mexican prisons you don't get a prison uniform. You have to wear whatever you were arrested in and the only way to ever clean your one set of clothes is to take a shower in them. Like I said, the Mexican penal philosophy is different than ours.

Mel pulls a pretty good double-blind trick by calling various people and pretending to be Clint Eastwood, and wanting a meeting with everyone at some agent's office. This includes his crime boss. Everyone falls for it.

The next morning Gibson gets to the meeting first. He ties up the agent and places him safely in the bathroom. Then his boss shows up with his own agent, and Mel terminates them with extreme predjudice, i.e. he hand-grenaded them.

Now, you would think that with all his problems solved Mel would hit the road, right? Wrong! He goes back to the prison, because The Boss Of The Prison is about to undertake liver transplant #2. Liver transplant #2 involves The Boss Of The Prison and the special kid. Much like a WWE Chain Saw Match, only one participant is going to survive. And it won't be Mel's smoking partner.

To make matters worse, the Mexican government has just then decided to shut that prison down and transfer everyone to somewhere else. Therefore, mass confusion is already occurring when Gibson shows up. He uses that confusion to his advantage to stop liver transplant #2, kill The Boss Of The Prison, also kill other associates of his who have somehow shown up - no wait, he did that earlier. That's why the Mexican government is closing the prison.

Anyway, Gibson kills everyone that needs killing, and spirits the kid and his mom out of Dodge. They go directly to a junkyard which contains 750 Volkswagen Doodle Bugs, and the remains of Mel's Clown Getaway Car. Gibson uses the blow torch that he always carries with him, cuts away some panels, and recovers the remaining $2 million that no one had found. Then he, the kid, and the kid's mom retire to a secluded beach. By this time Mel has introduced the kid to nicotine gum, which endears the mom to him.

You will want to take a shower after watching this movie. Mainly because EVERYONE is sweaty all the time. As a guy who takes a minimum of two showers a day, and sometimes as many as four showers in a day, I have resolved never to be arrested in Mexico and sent to one of their sweaty prisons.

So I will rate "Get the Gringo" as 1 1/2 Daily Showers out of a possible maximum of Four Daily Showers. It's not bad but if you want to watch one of the Mel Gibson Redemption Tour Movies, you're better off watching "Blood Father".

EvilAngel said:

6/10

(I have to admit it made me LOL twice )

I'm never going to watch this. I saw the previews and they weren't funny. Plus, even though Michael Pena is the spitting image of our own PurpleJedi, I still can't forgive him for being in Worst Movie of 2016 "War on Everyone".

But the biggest transgression of this film is that poster! Why oh why oh why oh why do studios create movie posters that show two stars but transpose the names in relaton to the picture? Above we see Pnea on the left and Whosis on the right. Yet, Whosis's name is on Pena's side and Pena's name is on Whosis's side. If you did not know who either of these guys are (and I'm sure most of you don't, just like me), then you could go your whole life thinking Michael Pena is a white surfer dude. Since I just told you that Michael Pena is the spitting image of our own PurpleJedi, then you would erroneously think PurpleJedi is a white surfer dude. He's not! He's a handsome New Yorker!

One day I will meet whoever made this poster and ask them, "How #$!^ing hard would it have been to have Pena and Whosis switch sides, thus placing each guy directly underneath his name?!?!?!?!?"

Dunkirk (2017)

This is definitely one of the year's best. Cinematography, sound and score are all top notch. I've read about the movie's inaccuracies, but it's still amazing to see in 70mm IMAX despite those. 5/5

sexton said:

Dunkirk (2017)

This is definitely one of the year's best. Cinematography, sound and score are all top notch. I've read about the movie's inaccuracies, but it's still amazing to see in 70mm IMAX despite those. 5/5

i truly wish we still had our imax theatre here.

& the score is really terrific. i've actually been playing it quite regularly, something i rarely do with film scores.

sexton said:

RodeoSchro said:

EvilAngel said:

6/10

(I have to admit it made me LOL twice )

I'm never going to watch this. I saw the previews and they weren't funny. Plus, even though Michael Pena is the spitting image of our own PurpleJedi, I still can't forgive him for being in Worst Movie of 2016 "War on Everyone".

But the biggest transgression of this film is that poster! Why oh why oh why oh why do studios create movie posters that show two stars but transpose the names in relaton to the picture? Above we see Pnea on the left and Whosis on the right. Yet, Whosis's name is on Pena's side and Pena's name is on Whosis's side. If you did not know who either of these guys are (and I'm sure most of you don't, just like me), then you could go your whole life thinking Michael Pena is a white surfer dude. Since I just told you that Michael Pena is the spitting image of our own PurpleJedi, then you would erroneously think PurpleJedi is a white surfer dude. He's not! He's a handsome New Yorker!

One day I will meet whoever made this poster and ask them, "How #$!^ing hard would it have been to have Pena and Whosis switch sides, thus placing each guy directly underneath his name?!?!?!?!?"

That bugs me too

sexton said:

Dunkirk (2017)

This is definitely one of the year's best. Cinematography, sound and score are all top notch. I've read about the movie's inaccuracies, but it's still amazing to see in 70mm IMAX despite those. 5/5

See, this is what I mean about this movie. I respect your position on this but nowhere did you compliment anything about the movie itself - the story, or plot, or acting. Everything you complimented are things I would list as minor components to a movie; at least, certainly not as important as story, plot and acting.

RodeoSchro said:

sexton said:

Dunkirk (2017)

This is definitely one of the year's best. Cinematography, sound and score are all top notch. I've read about the movie's inaccuracies, but it's still amazing to see in 70mm IMAX despite those. 5/5

See, this is what I mean about this movie. I respect your position on this but nowhere did you compliment anything about the movie itself - the story, or plot, or acting. Everything you complimented are things I would list as minor components to a movie; at least, certainly not as important as story, plot and acting.

Story, plot and acting were all top notch too.

war of the planet of the apes

a liitle slow... but some great moments

i enjoyed it

3.5/5

kpowers said:

DC started it with BATMAN (1989) but then ran that into the ground after Keaton and Burton departed. MARVEL picked it up with Spider Man (Tobey MacGuire) but also had the FOX properties (pieces of shit) X-MEN films... it's a remarkable achievement that LOGAN turned out to be such a great film.

No. For the modern age of motion pictures it was Superman (1978) that started it, with the 3 following sequels spanning all the way until the late 80's (plus the Supergirl movie). And yes the last 2 Superman movies sucked especially part 3.

Thanks, kp. You're dead on.

Superman: The Movie (1978) was, and remains, the Rosetta Stone for comic book blockbusters -- prestige cast, detailed origin story, great writing and special effects. The Salkinds got cheaper and cheaper with the budgets, fell out with Richard Donner, and as a result, III and IV were awful.

I think that killed momentum for superhero movies until Batman came along, and true to form, terrible sequels and cast changes killed that promising franchise.

war for the planet of the apes 4.5/5 i guess i'm a bit of an outlier here, in that i feel that each film in this series has improved on the previous one. keeping in mind that this is a movie about talking chimps riding horses, i thought with was a remarkable & a genuinely touching, moving film. after it was over, i kept thinking of words like soulful and elegaic to describe it. as far as big budget large scale films go, i really think this is about as good as these things get.

[Edited 8/4/17 19:34pm]

damosuzuki said: