Some movies that I have watched recently.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017): I loved every bit of this movie from start to finish. Vince Vaughn is great in the movie and I rarely see him pull off a serious role in something that is good. I love the gritty grindhouse feeling that this movie. This movie felt like it would have been written for Charles Bronson back in the 70s.

The movie is over 2 hours and not a single bit of this movie was boring. The pacing was perfect and it makes you wanting for more. I would highly recommend to check out this movie. It's also from the guy who directed Bone Tomahawk. S. Craig Zahler has a good career so far with two solid movies under his belt. Rating: 8.5/10

Have a Nice Day (2018): This was a solid animated film from China. It has a very good mature story for adults that has not scared to pull punches. It's also not super violent which is rare to see in a serious adult animated movie. The art style is very good too in my opinion. The animation style reminds me of a mix of Heavy Metal, China IL and Tekkonkinkreet. I just love how gritty this movie felt and I enjoy all of the characters. It's worth checking out in my opinion. I do like how directors still make animated movies outside of Japan that are out of the ordinary similar to A Scanner Darkly. I give it an 8/10

Sorry To Bother You (2018): I personally really enjoy it and the whole movie took me by surprise. I'm glad that I went into the movie knowing nothing about it. The movie was very funny while having you feeling emotionally investment with all of the characters. The movie will make you feel sad and angry while giving you a great laugh similar to how Blindspotting did (Another similar type of movie that came out this year).

I don't think the movie will be my #1 favorite movie of 2018, but I can see it being in my top 5 when the year is over. There are other movies from 2018 that I need to catch up on soon. Movies recently like Moonlight, Blindspotting, Sorry To Bother You, Black Panther, Selma, BlacKkKlansman (Plan to rent it soon), and Get Out really help to give us whole new perspectives on lives so vastly different from our owns. I highly recommended this movie. Rating: 8.5/10

Saw Monty Python And The Holy Grail again.

Finished Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi and am waiting on Episode IX to ship in the mail.

Currently watching

Da Vinci Code III Infirno
Hotel Transylvainia 2
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2
Jason Bourne 1 - 3
Jumanji Trilogy
The Karate Kid Part III
Pirates III At World's End
Spy Kids 2 The Island Of Lost Dreams
Spy Kids 3 Game Over
Spy Kids 4 All The Time In The World

Have yet to watch

FF8 The Fate Of The Furious
Hotel Transylvainia 3 Monster Vacation
Jurassic V Fallen Kingdom
Bumblebee
Fantastic Beasts II
Solo A Star Wars Story
Wreck It Ralph 2 Ralph Breaks The Internet

Watched M:I VI Fallout on DVD

Delayed

Kung Fu Panda 3 till I can get the first 2.

Caught up Transformers V The Last Night a few years ago on Hulu as well as the 13th total Star Trek. 3rd for the Kelvin movies.

Watching movies in cinemas and discussing them together afterward had been a big part of my regular entertainment, and I sorely missed that during quarantine. Fortunately, a friend spontaneously asked me to organize a weekly viewing schedule + phone discussion, and it's been a blast. In a way, it's also a blessing in disguise, as we got to see more obscure old films and finally made a progress on our film bucket list.

The latest film on the schedule was The Housemaid, a Korean movie from 1960 and an influence to Bong Joon-ho's Parasite. It's absolutely bonkers; (unintentionally) hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time (available in YouTube if anyone's interested, with Eng sub and all).

I don't think I can link my Letterboxd page because it may be against the rules (advertising). I haven't posted in this thread in over a year, so there's so much to catch up on.

Recently, I did watch Cure (1997) and it was a solid mystery horror thriller. You also have the actor that played Dr. Anton in Kyuranger in it.

Watching

Pirates 2 Dead Man's Chest
Pirates 3 At World's End

On DVD at present having seen Pirates 1 years ago. Also watched Pirates 4 On Stranger Tides and Pirates 5 Dead Men Tell No Tales on DVD having gotten them from Amazon.

The Wind Rises; just a lovely and grounded anime film, probably among my Ghibli favorites.

I've watched this some years ago but can't remember what it's all about except that it's pretty cool atmospheric mindfuckery thing. Might get around to watch it again sometime.

Watch List Update

Ben 10 - Secrets Of The Omnitrix
Bourne Identity
Bourne Supremicy
Bourne Ultimatum
Bourne 5 Bourne Legacy
Da Vinci Code III Infirno
Despicable Me 3
Ice Age 5 Collision Course
The Karate Kid PART III
Karate Kid (2010)
Land Before Time IX
Land Before Time X
Land Before Time XI
Land Before Time XII
Land Before Time XIII
Land Before Time XIV
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy 3 Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
Red Dwarf - The Promised Land
The Smurfs
The Smurfs 2
The Smurfs 3 The Lost Village
Spy Kids 2 The Island Of Lost Dreams
Spy Kids 3 Game Over
Spy Kids 4 All The Time In The World

Delayed

How To Train Your Dragon 2
How To Train Your Dragon 3
Despicable Me 3
Rio
Rio 2
Toy Story 4

I've been rewatching the OG Star Wars Trilogy in Japanese as Language practice.

I just finished watching all the MCU movies with my youngest daughter, over the last year+ (we usually only watch 30-45-ish mins at a time).

It was great fun.

Last night we started watching Fellowship of the Ring Extended. What a fantastic movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPit-LFyXi0
The 3D animation they did for this was impressive. Works great as a standalone film as well. For those disappointed with the live acton movie that had Shun Oguri as Lupin, Gou Ayano who was Sawada/Spider Orphnoch from Faiz as Goemon, and Tetsuji Tamayama who was Tsukumaro/Gao Silver from Gaoranger as Daisuke I think will like this. Villain was voiced by Tatsuya Fujiwara who most of us know as Shuya from Battle Royale, Makoto Shishioh from the Rurouni Kenshin live-action films, Light Yagami in live-action Death Note films, and Kaiji in the live-action Kaiji films.

Currently watching

Spider Man 6 Homecoming
Spider Man 7 Far From Home

After Spider Man 8 Spidy may no longer be part of MCU. Due to Sony as Disney owns Marvel.

Watch list update

Bumblebee
FF8 Fate Of The Furious
Hotel Transylvania 3
Ice Age 1 - 5
Kung Fu Panda 1 - 3
The Land Before Time IX - XIV
Wreck It Ralph
Ralph 2 Ralph Breaks The Internet

Finished Bring It On 6 World Wide Cheer Smack and Fallen Kingdom

I finished watching Tenet and I kinda like it. It was not bad, but I didn't love it as most people do. The time travel gimmick was pretty neat and the movie had great production values. My biggest issue with the movie is the pacing and the weak characters. I didn't like the main characters that much to be honest. I still prefer it over The Dark Knight Rises, and Batman Begins in my opinion.

I give it a 6.5/10

Watched Wonder Woman 1984. Ehhhhhhh, kinda dull. More interesting villain Cheetah sidelined for some rich suit. His defeat was also pretty dull. Action was okay, but the story was definitely lacking.

Also watched New Mutants. All the time spent due to delays and reshoots definitely didn't work. From what I heard, it wasn't initially a horror film, but the horror themed trailer proved popular enough to warrant reshoots to make it more horror oriented.
Unfortunately, suffers from the same problem every PG-13 horror film suffers. I'm not saying all horror movies need to be crazy gory, but if you're not bringing the psychological shit or atmosphere, then you need to bring the blood. Otherwise, you're just a lame jumpscare film.
Lockheed was cute, though.

I've been in a Hong Kong martial arts mood lately, so I'm watching the 36th Chamber of Shaolin. This movie was NOT meant to be watched in HD :lol the wigs and effects are really bad.

I saw the Monster Hunter movie and I like it for what it was. I never played any of the games other than playing a demo of the first game at EBGames (Now Gamestop) on a PS2 kiosk. I knew the movie was going to be stupid and that's what I got. I got a fun dumb movie with cool monsters. They should have got rid of the stupid military characters and only focus on the fantasy-oriented characters. Tony Jaa as Hunter should have been the main character.

The special effects are awesome and I was surprised how great the monsters look. I recommend giving it a rental. Rating: 6.5/10

That was a great movie.

I recently rewatched The Five Venoms and The Five Elements Ninjas, and those are also great, and fun.
Then I watched Enter The Dragon for the first time, which was great, but didn't have the same fun to it that the other two did.

Just got done rewatching Spider-Man 1, and man, know that if I ever one day dislike this movie, then I have officially lost my mind. Every time I watch this film I find something new and wonderful to appreciate about it. Like this time it was something I couldn't believe I never noticed before. It's that eyes being a window to the soul is a huge overarching theme in this movie. There's so much jam packed into this 2 hours that man, I never feel bad returning to this movie every few years. It's still my favorite superhero movie, and I doubt that'll ever change. 6/6.

Finished rewatching the extended cut of Spider-Man 2. Even to this day, many say this movie is the golden standard of what a superhero movie should be, and it's easy to see why. Great action, wonderful effects(especially for the time), a really engrossing atmosphere, and most importantly, fantastically written characters who all have fully realized arcs. While I like the first movie slightly more, this one is still a movie that I really love, and I really don't think I could ever bring myself to fully separate the two. 6/6.

Next up in my Spidey Marathon leading up to No Way Home is the Editor's Cut of Spider-Man 3. If you're gonna watch Spider-Man 3, make it the Editor's Cut. It is an overall improvement in almost every way. Is it perfect? Does it take a bad movie and make it good? No, there's still alot of problems. The pacing, while better, is still pretty bad. The entire thing still feels like three separate movies cut and pasted together. And even though it's clear that everyone involved was doing the best they could under the circumstances of the film's' production, they just didn't have a ton of substance to work with. But heck, if I'm grading on a curve, in comparison to every Spider-Man movie we've gotten since SM3's' initial release? It's still leagues better than what's come after. So with that in mind, I'm willing to give it a pass. And hey, if nothing else, the score/soundtrack is still good. 4/6.

Now for Amazing Spider-Man 1. I didn't like this movie back when it first aired and I still don't like it now! The primary reason being that Andrew Garfield's' Peter/Spidey starts off a huge douchebag and stays a huge douchebag; There's no real arc here. The romance is forced and has zero chemistry, the action scenes are lame, and the plots about Peter finding himself and hunting for Uncle Ben's' killer is just immediately dropped without a second thought. It also features what is probably my most hated Spider Suit in the entire franchise. Not alot for me to like here!

But, to give some credit, there are some scenes that do work in a vacuum, and when comparing it to its sequel and especially to the MCU movies, it doesn't have nearly as many of the amount of things that annoy me that those movies do. I could see how some might like it, even if I don't. Again, grading on a curve here, but I'm gonna be nice and go 3/6. Without that curve though? Bump it down a point. ASM-2 will be next week, and then... No Way Home.

Which physical release is likely to have the "Editor's Cut"?

As far as I am aware, it's only available as a part of the "Spider-Man Trilogy Limited Edition Collection" on blu-ray.

I watched Shang Chi for the first time, and it was alright. The cast was fantastic, and the action was exciting, but the story was average. However, it's good to see more Asian representation from Hollywood. Not a bad movie, but I don't see myself watching it again anytime soon.

I haven't always been the biggest film watcher but since March 2020 I have probably started watching more films and listening to more albums (except from all time and different countries of course)! My most recently completed film was Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2 from 2010 (the version of those teamups that was in Heartcatch), if I never see another Precure movie then that was a good enough one to have seen I suppose and I don't watch anime films that often!

I think the strictly 2021 only movies I've seen have just been toku, but I have watched Sonic the Hedgehog and Bill and Ted Face the Music just by getting them on DVD, of which I particularly liked the Bill and Ted one!

Amazing Spider-Man 2 is done and... man, I got alot more out of seeing this again after seven years than I thought I would.

The movie has a reputation of being one of, if not the worst Spider-Man movie for alot of reasons. Poor pacing, being four different movies glued together, lack of character development, being very much an advertisement for a Sinister Six movie... all of these criticisms are valid, and very true.

But the thing is... I kinda found some weird, new found respect for the film? There are alot of scenes that work really well in a vacuum, and many of the actors are clearly trying their best to sell what little screen time that they all have. Ontop of that, this movie fixed alot of the things I hated about the first ASM movie; The ugly as sin suit from the first film was replaced, Peter can now talk in coherent sentences, and there's a much bigger attempt to keep everything under a thematic core. Plus, the musical score and the action scenes got a very notable bump in quality.

Is it a good movie? No, but given it very much feels like the creators originally had four movies planned out, only for Sony to tell them to combine them all into one so they could get to a Sinister Six movie ASAP? There's a surprising amount to like here. The movie has plenty of good ideas, just really poor execution due to all being one film instead of a set of them. And I would sooner be far more excited to rewatch this than any of the MCU Spider-Man films. 3/6.

I just got back from seeing No Way Home.

And, surprisingly, I found it to be a huge step in the right direction for MCU Spider-Man.

I saw

Bill And Ted 3 Bill And Ted Face The Music
Bring It On VI World Wide Cheer Smack
Jumanji 2 Welcome To The Jungle
Jumanji 3 The Next Level
Jurassic IV Jurassic World
Jurassic V Fallen Kingdom
The Fast And The Furious 9
Justice League
Space Jam 2 A New Legacy

I have Netflix DVD Rentals active

New Movies Due Up

Avengers III
Avengers IV
Black Widow
Bat Man Vs TMNT
Final Fantasy XV Kingsglave
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2
Into The Spider-Verse
Scoob!
Spider-Man VIII No Way Home (3rd in the Homecoming Trilogy)
TMNT VI Out Of The Shadows
Tekken
Tekken 2 Kazuya's Revenge
Tekken Blood Vengeance
Tomb Raider (2018 Movie)
X9 Logan (3rd in the Wolverine series)
X10 Dark Phoenix

New Movies owned Due Up

Aquaman
Wonder Woman

Due to COVID 19 I watch movies on DVD and refuse to go to the theater.

I watch the "More Fun Stuff Edition" of Now Way Home a few nights ago with a good friend of mine.

And all I gotta say is, I can see why most of those scenes ended up getting cut in the first place. Most of the extra bits are during the first half of the film, and they serve to make a bunch of the pre-existing scenes twice as long which in turn makes them seriously drag. And from what I've looked up, apparently this cut doesn't even restore all of the scenes that got cut out.

The film opens with a fun bit of interactions between the actors of the three Spider-Men over a Zoom call though, and the scene of the Peters talking on the Statue of Liberty is extended too, and it's made even better than in the original theatrical cut.

But yeah, unless you're a super diehard fan of Tom Holland's' Peter, I wouldn't recommend actively seeking the extended cut out.

I watched Uncharted (adapted from the PS3 / PS4 game series) which was how Nathan Drake became a thief.

Also Sailor Moon Eternal Parts 1 and 2 and Rise Of The TMNT The Movie

Due Up

Trans Formers The Movie (1986) which I'll see this after G I Series II.


John Wick 1 - 3
The Matrix 1 - 4
Jurassic VI Dominion (DVD)
Spider-Man 9 No Way Home (DVD)

I saw all 5 Jurassic movies and bought the new Matrix movie as well as John Wick 1 - 3. Currently watching The Batman on DVD